![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On criticism..
Recently, in one of the posts on my developing Concordant setting, I received an anonymous comment. It was, in its entirety, one sentence:
Will Blimps v2.0 be a less-obvious ripoff of Iain Banks's Dwellers?
No name, of course.
To the person who wrote this, fuck you. Have the balls to sign your messages, and try to be constructive. The reason I post these works in progress is to get feedback and ideas.
Now, as to the blimps and Mr. Banks. I will freely admit that I haven't read all his books, and since you didn't bother to point out where these "floaters" appear, I can't very well compare what I came up with on my own with what Mr. Banks wrote, yes?
For your information, the idea for the blimps occurred to me while driving. One of the advantages of my job is time to think, and I was thinking about aliens. The idea of an intelligent balloon appealed, and I started mentally sketching in details. Nothing was ripped off. Hell, I was probably drawing inspiration from David Brin and Larry Niven, both of whom have written gas-bag critters before (so, was Banks ripping them off?)
Don't assume that I've read every damn SF novel and short ever written. Some I haven't, and some I read decades ago and they just stick in my head. If I ever directly rip something from a published work, I will announce that fact (such as in the first draft of my setting where I had 2300AD's Kafers as the main alien menace.)
I'm a writer, in my own small way, and I can't do what i do without good, honest evaluations of my work. That is why I post things, so I can catch errors like the size of the blimps, and get feedback on what to call the main government and its ruler. So when I post, feel free to jump on me with both feet if I screw up, but do so honestly and with a better idea in hand.
And sign your damn name.
Will Blimps v2.0 be a less-obvious ripoff of Iain Banks's Dwellers?
No name, of course.
To the person who wrote this, fuck you. Have the balls to sign your messages, and try to be constructive. The reason I post these works in progress is to get feedback and ideas.
Now, as to the blimps and Mr. Banks. I will freely admit that I haven't read all his books, and since you didn't bother to point out where these "floaters" appear, I can't very well compare what I came up with on my own with what Mr. Banks wrote, yes?
For your information, the idea for the blimps occurred to me while driving. One of the advantages of my job is time to think, and I was thinking about aliens. The idea of an intelligent balloon appealed, and I started mentally sketching in details. Nothing was ripped off. Hell, I was probably drawing inspiration from David Brin and Larry Niven, both of whom have written gas-bag critters before (so, was Banks ripping them off?)
Don't assume that I've read every damn SF novel and short ever written. Some I haven't, and some I read decades ago and they just stick in my head. If I ever directly rip something from a published work, I will announce that fact (such as in the first draft of my setting where I had 2300AD's Kafers as the main alien menace.)
I'm a writer, in my own small way, and I can't do what i do without good, honest evaluations of my work. That is why I post things, so I can catch errors like the size of the blimps, and get feedback on what to call the main government and its ruler. So when I post, feel free to jump on me with both feet if I screw up, but do so honestly and with a better idea in hand.
And sign your damn name.
no subject
Ideas are not copyrightable. And if writers avoided writing a story with elements used by someone else, there wouldn't have been any new fiction in quite a long time!