Recently I’ve seen a number of posts on the subject of giving feedback to writers / artists / creators, and I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.
First a confession: For the longest time, I was really, really bad about leaving feedback. Not because I didn’t enjoy the stories (I did) or because I didn’t think the writers deserved some appreciation (they do!), but purely because as a reader, I really had no insight on what it’s like on the other side of the “Comment” button.
Now that I have started sending my own writing babes into the world, I have a very different perspective (and am now trying my best to leave feedback on everything I enjoyed). So I thought I’d make a little reference guide on “What I (the Reader) Believed Writers Think About Feedback” vs. “What I (the Writer) Now Know They Really Think”. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself somewhere in there, too…
Reader comments: I loved it 🙂
The Reader believed: Eh. Why are you bothering me? I have important writer things to do.
But the Writer knows: I am so happy to hear that, thank you for taking the time to tell me!
Reader comments: This was so funny / sad / hot!
The Reader believed: I know. That was the point. Why are you bothering me? I have important writer things to do.
But the Writer knows: I made you have a feeling! I made a thing and it touched you! YesYesYes! Thank you for taking the time to tell me that!
Reader leaves kudos / comment on a story that is older than two weeks
The Reader believed: Geez, that one’s ancient. Why are you bothering me? I have important writer things to do.
But the Writer knows: Someone is still reading and enjoying that story! That is so awesome! Thank you for taking the time to tell me that!
Reader leaves kudos on every story in the series / comments on every chapter in the story
The Reader believed: That’s a bit creepy. Please don’t be a stalker.
But the Writer knows: They read one thing and liked it so much they read the others, too, and they liked all of them! Thank you, lovely person, for making my day!
Reader writes long, burbling comment full of exclamation marks!!! and emoticons :-))))) because THEY LOVE IT SO MUCH
The Reader believed: What are you, three? If you expect me to take you seriously, try talking like an adult, please. Also why are you bothering me? I have important writer things to do.
But the Writer knows: YOU BEAUTIFUL TREASURE OF A PERSON I LOVE YOU AND I WANT TO TAKE YOU HOME AND FEED YOU CHOCOLATE FOREVER
(Okay, so I haven’t actually had that last one happen to me, but I imagine that is what my reaction would be. Except I probably wouldn’t be quite so restrained.)
Anyone else have that experience? Feel free to add your own 🙂
This is absolutely dead-on accurate. No comments mean you probably thought it was OK but not worth the effort to type something about the story. Kudos are wonderful, don’t get me wrong! But comments? There is nothing like hearing something you wrote touched someone enough that they felt compelled to write something back to you. Even if it’s “I really liked this.” or “This was cute.”
if i see your name a lot i might write for you, writers are so needy, we’ll take anything that isn’t go die in a fire as a massive compliment, and go die in a fire as a minor compliment
The reason I am mainly seeing to why people don’t believe she is a Solo is because they don’t understand why Han and Leia didn’t recognize Rey when they met her, so at the moment that’s the only point I’m directing.
My reply to this is always, they did.
They did recognize her.
This is the point where people go “No they didn’t??? And if they did, why didn’t they say something or act like it???”
But they did. You can see it in the way Han is amazed by how much she knows about the Millennium Falcon, or how he and Leia look at her when she isn’t paying attention. They look at her with unsure glances. How you would look at a high school friend that you hadn’t seen 10 years.
Or, how you would look at someone who you thought died years ago.
Yes, the reason they don’t recognize Rey or bring it up at all, is because they think she is dead.
Think about it, Han and Leia have two kids, and as we can see, they both have the force. It would only be logical for them to send both of them off to train with Luke, especially if the reason why they’re sending Ben off to train with Luke is because they’re scared that he has Vader in him. If Ben does, what if Rey does too? Might as well send her off as well just to be sure.
This theory also explains why Luke went into hiding.
Yes, sure. You could say that he went into hiding because he failed at training Ben. But. Get this.
Imagine, you’re Luke. Your sister sends to you her son, and her younger daughter. Most likely explaining that they were worried for Ben. So he trains them and the new ‘batch’ of Jedi, up until the point of the massacre.
Now, I believe that Kylo is just as strong and skilled as a lot of people do, but to kill all the training Jedi knights and younglings, is a bit of a stretch to me.
We’ve already been informed of this ‘Knights of Ren’ thing, but not what it is.
My theory is that he did the logical thing, and got a bunch of the Jedi to join him. Rightfully naming them, the Knights of Ren. Even if that is wrong, and they were just a bunch of people under Snoke, my theory still stands.
Anyways. Ben (now known as Kylo) kills all the Jedi. All but one. Rey. Because of course, how could he kill his sister? It’s even seen in her vision. She is lying there (as old her, but we can assume that it was really young her in the flashback) and one of the Knights of Ren, swings to kill her. When he is stabbed and she is saved, by a red lightsaber. Kylo’s lightsaber. Kylo.
He can’t kill her. She is his little sister. At this point, he isn’t strong enough in his hate or ‘darkness’. With roughly 10 years of training to be ‘evil’, he still killed his father with regret, how the heck could he kill his own little sister?
So he doesn’t. He convinces the other KoR either not to tell, or that he will kill her, and he goes off and secretly sets her on Jakku. He erases her memory and possibly gives her fake memories of her ‘parents’ leaving her on Jakku. That way he is assured that 1) She will ever be harmed. and 2) She will never be a problem.
No one knows of this but him. Luke, Leia, Han, even Snoke, all think that she is dead. And that is what pushes Luke over the edge.
Because of him, his sister lost two of the most, if not the most, important people in her life. Because he could not help Ben, his sisters kids are both gone. It makes more sense to me that he would run away because he is ashamed that he let this happen. That Leia will never be okay again. It is shame that drives him to be a hermit, not pain. We’ve seen Luke look straight into the eyes of pain. It’s not always an easy fight, but it would be easier than fighting off shame.
So when Han and Leia see Rey, it only makes sense why Han is so quick to take her under his wing. He see’s her, and he see’s the daughter he could of had if he hadn’t lost her. It explains why he looks at her with that “I know you. I swear, you are just like my daughter… But my daughter is dead.”
Not only that, but why they never bring her up. If your own daughter was murdered at the hand of your son, would you ever want to remember that? It also explains why they only talk about Ben oh so much (then again, killing a bunch of jedi usually does that)
It explains why Kylo screams “what girl?” when he hears that BB-8 escaped with a girl from Jakku, and why he is softer around her.
Another thing that came to mind when I was thinking of this, is what other people have been saying about how the lightsaber called to her. And it made me think of what Kylo says when they are about to fight. What starts the battle between Kylo and Finn.
He sees the lightsaber, and he screams “that lightsaber belongs to me”. After thinking about it, I realized something. That lightsaber is Anakin’s. Not Darth Vader. Anakin’s.
As J.J. Abrams says.
“Kylo Ren idolizes Darth Vader, not Anakin Skywalker. He idolizes what Vader represents and what Vader was trying to do.”
If he idolizes Darth Vader, and not Anakin, why the heck would he care so much for Anakin’s lightsaber?
Yes, you could say that it was because Darth Vader’s was destroyed or missing or whatever generally happened to it, so Anakin’s was the next best thing. But that just doesn’t make sense to me.
What does make sense, is that when they were training, Rey was given Luke’s (Anakin) lightsaber, because Luke decided that it was fit for her.
Now if you look at it through Ben’s point of view, he already feels angry and unloved from his parents, but now he isn’t even given the family lightsaber? He was the first born, shouldn’t that be his?
That theory also explains why when Rey touches it, she get’s her vision of that fateful night. (And why Kylo decided to make his own lightsaber.)
So when he is screaming “that lightsaber belongs to me!” he means it because he actually believes that it should be his.
In conclusion, I’m pretty dead set on Rey being a Solo.
eirenical17 