Concrit: my eyes glazeth over

I'm sure everyone's sick of talking about concrit now (shut up and go do something productive! I tell myself as I type), but I'm gonna add one little thing to the discussion.

Concrit is all wonderful and important, yadda yadda yadda, but I wonder if we should be harping on it so much. It's such a heavy term, and when you discuss it over and over the effect is something like OMG CONSTRUCTIVE! CRITICISM! MUST BE INSIGHTFUL AND NOT LAME! NO PRESSURE THO GUYS! I get the feeling that most people (including me) don't feel very confident in their ability to give good concrit. And even if we could, the fact is that everyone is too busy/lazy to give it on a regular basis (except aiwritingfic, but she's criminally insane). What's worse, even if people do take the time to give concrit it doesn't mean that authors are going to act on the feedback they receive. I mean, Ai gave me feedback on my first blind_go fic a year and a half ago and I still haven't made changes to the fic. And I specifically asked her for comments! I'm a terrible person, I know, and not everyone is as lazy as me...but I think this kind of thing is bound to happen.

I think concrit is...inefficient. When an author posts a fic, they've probably already thought hard on it, ironed out the prose, made it all nice and pretty and (hopefully) spell-checked. Having someone tell you "I think you need to cut this entire scene" after you've already invested so much time on it--that's pretty heart-wrenching (almost as heart-wrenching as LJ eating a long post, but I digress). I think it make more sense to give lots of suggestions to the author at the idea-generation and draft stages, rather than after a fic is finished (I'm assuming here that people actually do drafts). I guess that's called beta-reading, huh? Or editing, if you want to be old school.

I know that some people have beta readers, but not everyone does. I certainly don't. And yes, beta-ing and concrit are different things, with different consequences. I'm just saying that maybe we should stop worrying so much about the latter and worry more about the former. They're both time-consuming. They're both rather unlikely to happen if they aren't happening already. But I think people are more willing to make changes to a fic at the beta stage, rather than the I'm-done-the-fic-just-let-it-die-stage.

I'm not suggesting we all start pairing off with beta readers and having orgasmic literary experiences in our own little corners of the internets (not that there's anything wrong with that). What I'm saying is, let's have literary orgies instead! As in, toko's idea to create an all-purpose anon community for Hikago might be kind of cool. A low-pressure space where people can gain experience and confidence in giving useful feedback. Or just get out of the habit of only saying positive things. Or just flail a lot. IN ALL CAPS. I'm sure the whole thing is going to be rife with drama because anon things always are, but maybe it'll be fun and useful too. Social experimentation GO! Er, provided the comm actually happens.