December 31st, 2018 - FTNY, Year in Review

Dear TNY,

Well, we did it.  One year.  Forty-nine story reviews.  Here’s what I can say.

Wait, I have to go shit.  I’ll be right back.

Okay, I’m back.  That was really satisfying. More satisfying than a year of reading your stories. 

And, really, I don’t have very many other good things to say.  I put together an obviously subjective rating system and reread all my letters over the past year.  A couple of learning points bubbled up.  One, I need to keep better data driven metrics at the time I read the story.  This project did evolve, and trying to record that evolution at year’s end was difficult.  Two, ratings are hard.  But, here’s what I have come up with as a rating system (for now):

1 – Absolute shit, does not need to exist

2 – Slightly better than the above because of one or two small things (e.g. killer title)

3 – I have forgotten this story as I was not moved by it, but it was not infuriating

4 – I enjoyed reading this story and it did not feel like it was a waste of time

4.* - I am using “4 point such and such” as a way to rank the best stories of the year because I wanted to differentiate the best story of the year from each other as there were no fives.

5 – Epically good.  The last story I remember being this good that you printed was “Tenth of December” by George Saunders.  This type of story is one that I will push on friends like hard drugs.  It’s a story that breaks me, in a deep deep way.  These are the select few gems that make me want to keep reading and writing.

So, if the above rating system is utilized, the following are your results. 

Oh wait, I should first discuss a binary rating I did. I tracked whether I finished reading a story or not.  It’s important that we include that information so that you can see what kind of job you are doing. 

The above super expensive, heavily rendered graphic displays that I did not finish reading 29% of the 49 stories that you published this year.  You might be saying to yourself, “Well, fucko, if your goal was to review all of the stories that we did in a year, you couldn’t have because you did not finish them.”  As far as I can tell, my mission is to evaluate your job as a publisher that purports to be on the forefront of the literary conversation.  So, if you can’t get me to finish a little more than a quarter of the stories, you are fucking terrible at your job. 

Rating wise, that 29% I didn’t finish received 1 as a rating.  I think that should be apparent.  Of the 71% I did read all the way through, the following are the quantity per rating:

1 – 16

2 – 9

3 – 7

4 – 2

4.1 – 1

The data shows that even the stories that I read all the way through had minimal redeeming factors, if any.  So…like, fuck dude. What the shit are you doing?

In addition to this rating system, I kept loose anecdotal data on what the major and minor issues were with each story.  Sure, there are flaws with this kind of subjectivity, but whatever.  I think that almost anyone with a background in the craft of storytelling and an appreciative eye toward a well-told story would agree with a lot of these issues.  Each of the following quantities have to do with total number of stories, including the ones I did not read.  Additionally, I created a two-slot remark rating.  For example, a story will likely have a major issue (Nothing Fucking Happens) and a minor issue (Too Long/Needs to be Cut).  So the cumulative numbers are what I am telling you here, both major and minor numbers combined (highest possible score being a 98, natch).  I find this shows what your worst sins are as a cumulative.

Everything was wrong – 35 (This number is saying that every motherfucking thing was wrong with the story and I noted that 35 fucking times.  Jesus fucking Christ, bruh.  Seriously.)

Nothing Fucking Happens – 11 (This means that I watched some meandering dogshit life in which no transcendence occurred, either on or off the page.)

Agenda – 7 (This means the quality of the story was sacrificed to ensure that a lesser-known voice (social agenda) was represented.  More precisely, this means the art was sacrificed for political correctness.)

Too Long / Needs to be Cut & Excessive Summary – 4 (Both of these scored the same at 4 each.  TL/NTBC doesn’t mean I don’t like long stories; it means the story would have been better had the editor done their goddamn job and cut all the fat.  Excessive Summary means the story was block text and fucking terrible because scene is what works in storytelling, or balance, not just block-ass lazy fucking writing.)

Too Many Characters & Dialog – 3 (Both scored the same.  Too Many Characters is self explanatory.  Dialog, though, is not.  This could mean excessive use of italics or believability or exclamation points or etc.)

The above metrics blew me away.  Because I expected to see more agenda stories.  There likely were, but I didn’t call it out as much.  Again, something to change would be calling out all issues post reading. Side note, another thing to change is that I should have kept track of the stories that were about writers writing or about upper middle-class fuckfaces in New York, or a combo of the two.  But I think the thing you should really heed is how many fucking times I thought EVERYTHING was wrong with the story and how many stories you published where NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED (also, almost all of the Everythings include Nothing Fucking Happened).

So, yeah.  I’m disappointed.  You seem to be leading the industry deeper into the fucking dark ages and you don’t care at all.  To that end, I’m going to keep doing this.  I don’t know how long.  Because if someone doesn’t stand up for what they believe in, then they are party to the desecration of their beliefs.  So, fuck you buddy.  I’m here to stay.  Here are some things that will change:

-                I’m going to do better ratings of each story at the time I read them, and evolve those ratings such that the next year end has richer data.

-                I’m going to change the mission statement of the webpage to say that I’m doing this until further notice.

-                This next one is a big one.  I’m going to send each week’s letter to the editor until you change or murder me. I have been thinking about this a lot. You don’t come to FTNY. You don’t read this. You also don’t read these letters when I do send them. So why not? Maybe a little Shawshank Redemption library fundraising tactic is in order here. Who knows what you listen to other than the gurgling of your intestines that you hear with your head up your ass?

Now for the good.  Ben Marcus’ “Stay Down and Take It” was the clear winner this year.  Fucking banner story.  And I emailed him to say so.  And he was gracious and wonderful and I want to thank you for that, TNY.  That was pretty fucking good.

Here’s to 2019.  I know you’ll disappointment me.  But someone has to fight the Nazis. That means you in case that isn’t clear; as you roll your tanks over the borders of art and try to establish a new kingdom of banality and mediocrity, I’ll be the resistance waiting for you with a dinky notebook filled with shitty drawings and a website that no one reads. And profanity. And acres of heart.

Nick