fellowshippers | (no subject)

Alright, so this is not a story but it was a lot to do with fanfiction in general.

A list I'm on posted a poll asking "Why don't you leave feedback on this list?" there were many options, such as "I send it privatly" "I'm embaressed to admit I read it" but my reason, which I suspect may be prevalent, was not on the list.

Basically, I don't want to get yelled at.

With the rise of sites like fanfiction.net,
writers are getting younger and bolder. With that
comes a lack of tolerance for constructive criticism.

Used to be that people asked for feedback because they
really wanted to make their stories BETTER and wanted
to know what people ACTUALLY THOUGHT.

These days, if you write something other than "That wuz gr8! Write
MORE!" it's considered FLAMING and suddenly you're
getting hate mail from the author and eighteen of her
enraged friends.

Personally I was always a little dissapointed to get
those "good job" reveiws. I suppose they're better than nothing and I'm certainly okay if the reader liked my story enough to not want to change anything about it, BUT
"write more!" does NOT tell me WHY they liked it.

I guess my pet peeve is that people shouldn't ask for
"feedback" if they don't really want it.

If you like something, tell the person WHY. If you didn't, you should be able to do the same thing with out fear of banning or hate mail.

If someone has other reasons why they don't personally give feedback, or completely disagrees with what I just said, I'd like to hear it!

~Squee

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I agree with you on that. Constructive critisism is ok as long as you aren't getting downright nasty and rude. I like to know what people think of my stories, but at the same time I don't want people going over the top about it.

I'm not even talking about rude or even "negative" comments here.

I'm talking "Wow. I really liked this. You captured Frodo's voice well and have a great eye for details. However - keep an eye on your verb teneses, because they slip once in a while."

Hoe-lee-crap have I gotten reamed for saying things like that.

Mmm.. it is interesting actually.
I'm subscribing to a few mailing lists, and I have noticed that often it is the trainwrecks that gets the most of the "Ooooh this was so great! Write more! Can't wait to read the next chapter"

I have never seen these "fics" get any constructive feedback whatsoever, nothing that says what to improve, or what was really good about it.
My reason for not giving feedback to this kind of stories is that it would be entirely too much work to go through the fic and try to write nicely about all the 'wrongs' in it. At the top of my list of things that the writer should improve would probably be: get yourself a decent beta! not just someone who reads it and says "oh this was great"

Another reason for not giving feedback is that I feel that it wouldn't be welcome. I'm not a squeeing fangirl, as I've moved past that age, and the feel on a lot of these mailing lists is that only mindless praise is allowed, just as you say.

And maybe I'm just getting old, but I do have a slight problem with the 14 year olds that say that they are into slash *sighs* I suspect that they wouldn't really do anything with any contructive criticism that was sent their way either...

/end rant...

I guess, like with most issues, I think there are a number of valid points on all sides of this issue. People post stories for a variety of reasons, come from a variety of cultures and therefore expectations of both readers and writers vary greatly, as do interpretations of words like "feedback" and "honest".*g*
I try to pay attention to people's stated wishes, in light of any information I have about them.
For example:
After reading your post, I'd probably never send you any feedback, because I'd have a vague memory that one of my typical "wow, thanks for posting, I enjoyed this" notes might cause offense.

Saying "thanks for posting" is different than saying "great. write more!" in my book, but hey...

I guess I would ask you why you tend to only write, as you put it, vauge responses.

If you really enjoyed something why not say why?

~Squee

[Saying "thanks for posting" is different than saying "great. write more!" in my book, but hey...]
I hope this is coming across as respectfully as I intend it; it sounded to me like you were saying you feel disappointed when you get brief, back-patting notes, instead of meatier commentaries. Did I misunderstand? Here I'm getting that you are aggravated by what sound like "work harder for my pleasure!" sorts of remarks in feedback. Understandable. *g*

[I guess I would ask you why you tend to only write, as you put it, vauge responses. ]
Actually, I said I'd have a vague *memory* of you mentioning something about not liking short praise notes.

My responses are typically short, and often express primarily my gratitude for a story or admiration for the writer's skill. Sometimes I say why, but usually I'm dashing off a quick response and what I want to communicate is my appreciation, out of the gamut of comments I can make in the short time I allott myself.