 Hi, I'm Dr. Sumerian and let's talk about how you shouldn't seek critique. So I'm going to preface this just as I did the last time around. Nothing in this log, not the guy's name, which I've edited to be something else, not the content of the draft, or any links whatsoever are available for you to identify who this is. And it's like that for a reason, don't go looking for this guy, if you figure out who it is, keep it to yourself. The person who it is will probably know that I'm talking about them. And they can consider this to be my reply to them. So this conversation started with them asking me how to set up a sandbox. I explained to them that all I had to do was go to the sandbox site, start up and use it as long as they were registered on wikidot, they'd be fine. And that was that. Then a little bit later, hi, I need something, sure, what's up, linked me a draft, need help fleshing out my draft, and here's the thing about this draft. It was about five sentences long, and there was pretty much nothing there. So I said, right, what do you need help with exactly? And the answer was just making it better. If you don't actually have anything to critique, you're not asking for help making it better, you're asking for help to make it. And that's not the point of critique, that's not what I'm here for, if I wanted to write something I would write something myself. Anyway, so I say, well, I mean, given how little there is here in the first place, perhaps it would be better to just tell me what your idea is, because at this point with five sentences in, it's just an idea. Yeah, okay, so it's a fire god. I don't want to alienate this person, they're only emulating the stuff that they've read and that they've enjoyed, so I'm not going to hold that against them yet. Okay, that's what it is, but not what the story is. What's your idea? I don't have one yet. This is a thing. A fire god is not an idea. A fire god is a thing. That's like saying your idea is an apple. That's not an idea. That's an object. Anyway, they don't have an idea. So I say, okay, so I probably can't help you then, but I'm going to give you some general advice on how to develop your ideas. Think of the story you want to tell. A lot of new SCP writers, seeing 173 or 682 or 343, will think that the point of an SCP article is to create a person or a thing with certain abilities. The thing is, okay, that isn't how SCPs are written anymore, because we have enough 173s and 682s and 343s already, which are all basically just things. The details of what an SCP is are secondary to the story you want to tell the audience, so let's go back to the apple since that's what I seem to be stuck on right now. If I say, I've got an apple, and if you touch that apple, you turn into apples. That's a dangerous object, okay. But your story lies in what the object facilitates, okay? An apple that turns you into apples if you touch it. Who or what created it, why did they create it, and what did they want? And probably most importantly, how does the apple facilitate them getting what they want? Of course, there doesn't have to be a creator. Sometimes the apple itself can be the story. Say the apple was found by, I don't know, somebody at a grocery store picked it up with a glove so they didn't turn into apples and they put it on display, and now when customers come in, they touch it and they turn into apples, and now they have more apples to sell. How does this dude's story go? What's the story of that supermarket? When you walk into that supermarket, what else is going on there? What are the cashiers in that store doing? What are the people in the back rooms doing? What are they stocking elsewhere? See now you can develop your story from there. That's developing an idea. You have an apple? That's just an object. You have an apple that turns people into apples. That's an object with some potential. You have a grocery store that has anomalous objects for sale of various types. You have frozen dinners that actually, honest to God, come from the ice age. You have a freezer that opens up to a mammoth hunter's ice age food cache, and you can pull out pieces of mammoth and saber-tooth tiger if you want. The toiletry aisle has endless toilet paper, or at least it did before they discontinued the product because no one was coming back to buy toilet paper after that. Seriously, I'm just spit-malling here as I'm recording, so this is how I tend to start with ideas. I usually start with some outlandish concept and then just build on it from there. If I find something more interesting along the way, like I'm going to be honest with you while I was talking about this, the ice age freezer idea actually sounds like it's got a lot of potential for story. So I might drop the apple entirely, or I might keep it, I might drop the grocery store or keep it. All depends on how it serves the story I want to tell, but that's the thing. It's not the apple. That's not the important part. The important part is the story you're going to tell. Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent, but just this is an idea. This is how you develop ideas. So after all that said and done, I decide to give them an example. Let me give you an example, and I link them one of my SCPs. In fact, it's probably one of the simplest base idea SCPs. It's just an immortal dude. We'll go down the log a little bit here. Read that real quick. Let me know when you're done. You still there? Yes. You still reading the thing? Not anymore? Okay. So the base object there. It's just an immortal dude, right? Yep. While the core of the story revolves around it, that's not the point of the story. Okay. How do you think you could apply such storytelling to your own ideas? IDK. It's at this point that I have lost all patience with this individual. I was actually willing to help them try and develop an idea here, but the IDK response, no, that lost me entirely, so I just stopped the conversation there. Okay. It was nice talking to you. Okay. See ya. And lord, I would love it if it ended there, but it did not. A few days later? Hi. Sorry for bothering you. What's up? I have another draft. And there came a link. Right. The thing at the bottom. Yep. See, I decided at this point I was going to be very clear about what the problem was, because last time around it just seemed like they didn't quite get that I was telling them they didn't have anything for me to help them with. So I decided to be very explicit. You realize that your draft is only four sentences long. Yes? What was it that you were hoping I could help you with? Uh. That is to say, what are you seeking in the realm of feedback? Help. What specifically would you like help with? I don't know. And I've lost my patience again. Cool. Well, if you don't know, then I suppose I don't have any baseline as to how to help you here. It was nice talking to you. Okay, bye. So I just want to say here, if you come at me with a draft, please have something with substance or else I'm not going to help you. Like I don't have time to write your SCP for you. I know there's some people that probably think to themselves, ooh, I know how to get an SCP written. I'll just go to somebody who has already written SCPs and I'll basically pick their brain and get them to help me with it. But I've got stuff to do. I have a YouTube channel where I try to post at least two videos a week. I'm trying to at least get two articles out a month on the wiki. And I'm trying to help people write. Also, I have a life outside of the internet. Don't come at me with nothing. Don't expect me to write your SCP or your tale for you. I will not tolerate that bullcrap. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal, I guess. But seriously, this is behavior. Don't repeat this behavior to other people. I mean, not just about SCPs, about anything. Jesus. You don't have anything to start with. Don't go to people and expect them to give it to you. You know, ideas are easy to come by. They still take some time to come up with. Anyway, that's it. Thank you very much for watching. Please subscribe, share this video on social media. And I'll see you in the next video.