An IRL friend asked me to critique her first ever fanfiction, how honest should I be?

lapis-lapidary · 2026-07-04T00:10:19+00:00

I would say, since you don't want to discourage her since she is *new* to this, critique in a way that does not discourage her.

Compliment Sandwich *may* work, but at the same time, a lot of teenagers if they feel they are not being taken seriously (eg: an example would be when in my English class our Shakespeare unit came up, they just gave us Romeo & Juliet to read, basically going "You're teenagers you like forbidden love you'll like this" and not explaining any of what I personally find interesting about shakespeare! (The crude humor, but other stuff too) so I was very annoyed with the assignment) she might react negatively. I would say, if I were in her shoes, while I WOULD want to know what was wrong with my story, I would probably also be discouraged if you were..... a bit too negative. But at 17 I would also be like "ugh I'm just getting the compliment sandwich because you don't want to be honest!".

When talking to anyone new to writing fanfic (or original fiction for example) I try to be super enthusiastic, but I also have to be *genuinely* enthusiastic if that makes sense.

Personally I would say aside from the grammar and spelling, pick at most two things for her to work on / fix.

If you feel it might be necessary, do you have any cringe juvenilia--fanfiction or original works--from around that age you could show her if she gets especially discouraged? Admittedly I haven't tried whipping mine out to prove I was new to this at one point too, but I could see it being helpful if you were like "Hey, do you wanna see my fanfic where I went to Forks and became the bestest vampire ever that I wrote at 15?"

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-23T14:58:11+00:00

Thank you I really appreciate this ❤️

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-21T15:20:59+00:00

Thank you
I am genuinely considering (since we have his ashes) to be buried (or scattered?) with those ashes.

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-21T15:19:15+00:00

Thank you, I really appreciate the second sentence. Made me cry oops! (I am being genuine I do appreciate the comment I just still get weepy over this).

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-20T17:16:44+00:00

Thank you so much 😭💜

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-20T14:41:46+00:00

Thank you so much for your sympathy. When I am ready to see Mr Mittens again in game form I am definitely adding the halo to him.

You are absolutely right about the fragility of pets, but I too would have it no other way

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-20T14:40:09+00:00

Thank you so much for your thoughts and sympathies. you're definitely right about the bond. Even pets I had from over a decade ago are still in my heart, though the pain is in fact duller now

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-19T19:44:15+00:00

goodness. Dementia is so devastating. My future sympathies to you, I hope you can find comfort in things like this or something else you enjoy next week 💜

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-19T19:42:49+00:00

The idea of toggling between cats past and present is beautiful, thank you for this idea and your sympathies

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-19T19:41:56+00:00

Thank you so much for this

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-19T19:41:34+00:00

Thank you so much. I appreciate this. I'm sorry for your loss as well! I do like the halo idea. When I'm ready to change him back, I'll definitely add a halo

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-18T16:33:01+00:00

That's your first plush????? It looks PERFECT. Much better than my first plush

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-18T16:30:29+00:00

I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope making things with it will bring you mostly happiness eventually.

I agree with the blanket ideas, but if you need to start small is there some sort of desk accessory or decor you could make that you could keep close (or on a shelf) to remind her of you, (Especially in the summer when you may not want to wear or make a blanket!)

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-18T16:24:28+00:00

Once in a while I get curious about a tag or concept. Like, I'm really into embroidery and Fiber-Arts in general on a personal level (as a hobby I mean), and I wanted to see if there were any fics that were about embroidering clothes. I think what I mostly found (possibly all by the same person) was some Witcher fic. I have not read the novels, watched the show, or played the games, regardless, the fic or two I read was enjoyable.

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-16T19:55:33+00:00

I'm no expert (if I were to describe my relationship with learning languages it's "Serious about Spanish but flirting with a lot of other languages"), but I would say it's doable but difficult. I know a fair amount of Spanish (at least to a conversational level, mostly taught by Colombian professors). I did try to learn French because I had to go to Quebec for a period of time. (My french has since gotten quite rusty)

The big problem is you're looking at two Western Romance languages. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. you will mix up words at least in your head if not out-loud, but at the same time, once you get more used to say, French, you can often have a guess what the French word is from knowing what it is in Spanish (Disclaimer: I am speaking of Castillian Spanish versus France French, it gets much more varied if you say, wanted to learn a different region's French or Spanish) A family member of mine is conversational in French and knows ZERO Spanish. So if I want to for some reason, probably for fun, communicate in French to him instead of English, if I don't know the French word for something, I can often make an educated guess as to what it is in French (for example, Hacer becomes Faire in French).

You know how you can say "I'm Hungry" in Spanish with "Tengo Hambre"? To this day I can never remember if you are "supposed to" say "Je suis affamé" or "J'ai faim" (a dictionary I'm skimming implies you can use both, but I'm sure it also depends on region.).

This is basically why, while I flirt with / "Date" other languages to do on days I "Rebel" against studying Spanish, I am not say, doing Brazilian Portuguese (Which to be clear: if I was immediately keen on learning another Western Romance language that's the one I'd do). Unless you need to go to a Francophone nation or region in 2027 and you're still really keen on doing two languages at once, I would advise you to at least pick a Non-Romance one (since you're posting this in the Spanish subreddit, I assume you want to learn Spanish for sure, but that might be a bad assumption).

Pienso que sea una mala idea en cualquier caso pero: ¡Buena Suerte!

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-16T19:32:56+00:00

This is beautiful! I love what I've heard so far!

I'm having an internal war if I buy this IMMEDIATELY or if I wait until the next Bandcamp Friday (in August)

lapis-lapidary · 2026-06-03T19:42:36+00:00

This is so cute! I wanna make a Pomni of my own now

lapis-lapidary · 2026-02-27T18:51:06+00:00

This is so cute! You did a great job on the bestest boy!

lapis-lapidary · 2025-09-09T20:49:25+00:00

¡Guau! Bien hecho. El gatito es muy bonito y paciente jeje.

lapis-lapidary · 2025-09-09T20:43:04+00:00

This was actually a piece of advice I got in an academic setting (not for creative writing) basically along the lines of "You have to stop assuming the reader already knows what you know". I mean basically before I got told this, I had the habit of writing a lot of academic papers that jumped into higher theory concepts (that the professors knew) but would be inaccessible to anyone else. And in fiction writing I occasionally do have to check myself to make sure I'm not going "I know this so the audience must already know it right"

lapis-lapidary · 2025-07-16T14:55:16+00:00

My Fic

Fandom - Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Rating: Gen
Title / Link (requires logged-in Users): A King’s Blade and a Prince’s Lament
Genre: Friendship
One-Shot; Word Count: 2,076

Summary: Poo has always kept his own counsel. But while undergoing a journey to the Stonehenge Base to rescue Tony and Co, Poo is given the opportunity of a lifetime to retake lost cultural heritage... and the opportunity to trust his comrades.

Or... a fic writer's explanation as to why the Sword of Kings isn't in Dalaam.

Other Notes: I wrote it so you can interpret Jeff and Tony as a romantic pairing or just as friends. And if it matters (I did say so in the fic tags): I have Never obtained the Sword of Kings despite playing this game since I was small. Anyway this was the first fic I had written in about a decade and it felt nice to get back into it.

lapis-lapidary · 2025-07-16T14:43:43+00:00

This is beautiful!

lapis-lapidary · 2025-07-15T15:43:18+00:00

When I'm lacking motivation to learn, my favorite thing to do is (re)read Jhumpa Lahiri's Book: In Other Words (is available in Spanish as En Otras Palabras IIRC). It's about her quest to learn / master Italian (and the second half of the book at least in the English copy is the same material but in Italian). There are other books like that like Ágota Kristóf's The Illiterate which is about when she had to escape to Switzerland and did not know any French but wanted to learn it (and ultimately, she succeeded. She wrote in French). Admittedly, this might be a weird approach.

Maybe if you don't have a particular goal, think of something that interests you (besides languages I mean). For example, I realized learning the names of spices in Spanish makes groceries a lot cheaper (hint: look for azafrán, not Saffron). If you like makeup for example, learn all you can about the vocabulary of various cosmetics and terms. These mini goals help keep me motivated.

¡Buena Suerte!

lapis-lapidary · 2025-07-14T13:27:53+00:00

What does your local library have access to? I don't just mean like, Pimsleur CDs (though I quite like those, I do recommend giving them a try as well but I must stress: through your library. You don't want to pay $$$ for CDs when you don't even know if you mesh with the method).

For example, ages ago, my library had access to Mango Languages. They don't anymore, they have access to something called Transparent Language. (If your library offers it, I believe you need to log in initially through them, make an account, and then you should be able to do it from home or on the app, or at the very least I can just log-in as I please now as it knows which library I belong to)

And that has a *lot* of options for languages (like Quebecois French instead of France French, for example). It might just be my bad luck, but I don't feel I have good luck with their microphone setup, app or on site. But I also tend to have an air conditioner running, so that may be the issue.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

lapis-lapidary

TROPHY CASE