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Wodehouse is one of my favourite authors, and his golfing stories are my favourite of all he wrote, even though I've never played in my life (pitch and putt doesn't count does it? Thought not.).In the foreword to 'The Heart of a Goof', he has this to say about the critics who slammed his first book of golf stories,
A far more serious grievance which I have against my critics is that many of them confessed to the possession of but the slightest knowledge of the game, and one actually stated in cold print that he did not know what a niblick was. A writer on golf is certainly entitled to be judged by his peers - which, in my own case, means men who do one good drive in six, four reasonable approaches in an eighteen-hole round, and average three putts per green: and I think I am justified in asking of editors that they instruct critics of this book to append their handicaps in brackets at the end of their remarks. By this means the public will be enabled to form a fair estimate of the worth of the volume, and the sting in such critiques as, 'We laughed heartily when reading these stories -once- at a misprint' will be sensibly diminished by the figures (36) at the bottom of the paragraph. While my elation will be all the greater should the words, 'A genuine masterpiece' be followed by a simple (scr.)
I like this. My peers. Not necessarily writers, no, not at all, but tell me my Giles is out of character and I'll give it more weight if you've seen every episode he's in at least once. Confess to having caught a brief glimpse of him sideways on in a Spuffy vid, when you're done telling me I got him all wrong in Fic X, and I can nod politely and then fall to the floor laughing when you walk away feeling smug.
Because it's an odd week where I don't watch at least four episodes of Buffy/Angel (not as if there's anything else on I want to watch...) and you might not like what I do with it, but I know the canon. I've done my research.
I came to Buffy from a fandom where I knew the canon (in that case books) inside out. I'm used to defending my interpretation in friendly debates and raging flame wars and backing it up with quotations. I'm quite prepared to do the same here, though it's a different medium.
You think I'm writing OOC? Don't slap that label on me and expect it to stick, you lazy git. Glue it on with detail; give me counter arguments, give me text. Give me blink by blink analysis of a look or a voice tone to back yourself up.
You might convince me that way; it happened often enough in that other fandom; you never will by screaming 'OOC' and stopping after the 'C'. Anyone can do that. It's easy. It's not enough.
And who knows? Might end up having fun.
Or is that not allowed any more?
A far more serious grievance which I have against my critics is that many of them confessed to the possession of but the slightest knowledge of the game, and one actually stated in cold print that he did not know what a niblick was. A writer on golf is certainly entitled to be judged by his peers - which, in my own case, means men who do one good drive in six, four reasonable approaches in an eighteen-hole round, and average three putts per green: and I think I am justified in asking of editors that they instruct critics of this book to append their handicaps in brackets at the end of their remarks. By this means the public will be enabled to form a fair estimate of the worth of the volume, and the sting in such critiques as, 'We laughed heartily when reading these stories -once- at a misprint' will be sensibly diminished by the figures (36) at the bottom of the paragraph. While my elation will be all the greater should the words, 'A genuine masterpiece' be followed by a simple (scr.)
I like this. My peers. Not necessarily writers, no, not at all, but tell me my Giles is out of character and I'll give it more weight if you've seen every episode he's in at least once. Confess to having caught a brief glimpse of him sideways on in a Spuffy vid, when you're done telling me I got him all wrong in Fic X, and I can nod politely and then fall to the floor laughing when you walk away feeling smug.
Because it's an odd week where I don't watch at least four episodes of Buffy/Angel (not as if there's anything else on I want to watch...) and you might not like what I do with it, but I know the canon. I've done my research.
I came to Buffy from a fandom where I knew the canon (in that case books) inside out. I'm used to defending my interpretation in friendly debates and raging flame wars and backing it up with quotations. I'm quite prepared to do the same here, though it's a different medium.
You think I'm writing OOC? Don't slap that label on me and expect it to stick, you lazy git. Glue it on with detail; give me counter arguments, give me text. Give me blink by blink analysis of a look or a voice tone to back yourself up.
You might convince me that way; it happened often enough in that other fandom; you never will by screaming 'OOC' and stopping after the 'C'. Anyone can do that. It's easy. It's not enough.
And who knows? Might end up having fun.
Or is that not allowed any more?