It's probably has happened to everyone, more than once too, at that. Somebody close to you has written something, and it's not really that great. In fact, it's actually rather horrible. Not just from your subjective point of view, it's objectively a piece of excrement.
How do you break it to your friend? You have to be honest, because you should be honest to friends when it comes to things like this, and it's better if you break the news to them, rather than say a publisher who will laugh at their face. But at the same time, you have to be careful and not hurt their feelings because a) they're your friend, doofus, and b) it might dissuade them from writing any further, if even their friends hate their work.
Neil Gaiman recently answered such a question in his blog, and as with most things Gaiman does, I find myself agreeing completely. You can find his answer here (scroll down a bit), my favorite part would be the following:
"And if you do decide to tell them what's wrong with their book then you don't have to tell them everything that's wrong with it."
This is great, because while you are still telling the truth, naming every single thing you hated is probably not going to win you any more points with your friend. Not to mention you'll probably look like a douche.
TL;DR version:
I don't know about you, but instead of writing, I'm now going to see Dirk Nowitzki play basketball. And after that I'm also seeing the Greek national team. Le woot!
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3 comments:
So a real friend tells another friend when something they do sucks? Huh, I must not be a good friend to you, then.
Only joking! Ha! I'm funny!
On an unrelated note, have you checked out Dead Zone? Or Dead Space? Or Space Death Place Evil Ship Thingy? I can't remember the name because it's so generic but they're still spending millions and millions of dollars to make it. The kicker? The enemies are called "necromorphs." Necromorphs! Seriously, what the fuck? This is why technical people shouldn't be given creative control over shit like this - no offense to technical people, of course.
I mean, honestly, decades of games have been consistently crappy because that wonderful confluence of technical ability occurs so rarely. You would think that now that the industry is mainstream technically savvy developers would actively seek out creative types to help inject their products with some desperately needed originality.
Of course, when you have a society that, unlike a good friend, praises everything you wind up with a generation that thinks their shit dost smell like thine sweetest roses. I mean, how the fuck else did Silicon Knights think that their "dude, it's like technology makes them gods because it's just so advanced" concept was original?
Then you've got a games media that basically exists to fellate the industry in order to get access to early exclusives and you end up with shit like the G4 E3 coverage. I'm sorry, but watching yet another game where some dark gothic hero kills demons or whatevers in a gory fashion or some grungy soldier anti-hero blows some shit up is not "revolutionizing" anything other then Jack and shit - and Jack left town.
And the best is when the games media types talk to developers about sequels. Games media whore: "Hey, where did you come up with such an innovate idea?" Developer: "Well, we figured that people liked the first game, so we added a '2' to the title." Games media whore: "Oh my fucking god that's genius! That's just so... oh god.... oh god..... oh... I just came a little."
I mean, "necromorphs?" Seriously? Those guys need better friends.
Oh, and the fourth paragraph should include the words "and creativity" in the following context: "I mean, honestly, decades of games have been consistently crappy because that wonderful confluence of technical ability and creativity occurs so etc. etc.
Dead Space is the game, yep. God-awful name, too. It looked so generic to me, that when I tried to learn what's it about, my mind switched off as a precautionary mechanism.
So, necro... morphs? That definitely reminds me of the Vampirz of Alone in the Dark.
Honestly, such games really need an editor or ten. Hell, I'd volunteer for such a place, totally for free. Somebody needs to tell these people that some of their ideas suck.
Good luck trying to tell Silicon Knights their idea of a technology being so advanced that it turns people into gods (an idea that was mentioned in a Thor comic decades ago, mind you) isn't that novel. They're so convinced of the opposite it's kind of scary. That said, I want to check out the Too Human demo, hopefully it's not just a hack n' slash in 3D with a pretentious story.
What saddens me is that, as with other media, most genuinely unique and interesting ideas are simply overlooked. Everyone, journalist or otherwise, complains that most shooters are utterly generic these days, and most RPG's are filled to the brim with angsty teen characters bitching about everything.
Yet unique games like say, Insecticide (my recent favorite), Elite Beat Agents, Between Good and Evil, or even Rez and Grim Fandango are ignored when they come out, only to come back as "cult favorites" a few years later, after rotting at the bargain bin.
Less necromorphvampires, more noir games about cockroach detectives and the land of the dead with trippy graphics and dance music please.
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