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Same Work, Different Archive, Different Response?

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Re: Same Work, Different Archive, Different Response?

Postby entkayjay » Sun Nov 25, 2012 7:17 am

I'll chime in and say that any comment is good. I don't post to ff.net but that's because the signal-to-noise ratio for both stories and comments is a bit too high for me. But everywhere else, just a quick "good stuff!" is enough to boost my motivation.

Example: I posted an Early Edition story up on AO3 just for the heck of it, one that I wrote for Yuletide many years ago. It's languished there for several months, and suddenly I got a kudos and review out of nowhere. Someone reading that fandom (rare) who cared enough about my story to do more than just click the backbutton when they were done. "What a unique fic. Fantastic. Really fantastic." Short, eight words, but with substance. It absolutely made my week.

Looking at number of reads vs. zero reviews can be disheartening. Saying something, even eight words, can matter.
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Re: Same Work, Different Archive, Different Response?

Postby Glory1863 » Mon Nov 26, 2012 10:44 am

mareel wrote:
Kylah618 wrote
I would much rather have fewer comments with substance than a quick "loved it."


Of course, it's always a plus to have 'substance' in a comment - but I'm a bit worried that people might feel they have to say something profound or say nothing. This couldn't be further from the truth for me. I'd much much rather see a quick 'nice story' or 'I really liked this' than see no comments at all.

It's a bit like the AO3 kudos system. To me, both mean seeing that people have enjoyed a story even if they didn't have time or inclination to say too much about it. And I like that a lot. It's a welcome connection with the readers.


I'm pretty much grateful for any sort of positive comment, too. Love the kudos system at AO3. Have I mentioned how glad I am that you introduced me to that site, Mareel? Well I am. Lots of fandoms to check out. Not quite so overwhelming as ff.net. Nice people. I've gotten energized to write again. Thank you! And I do feel bad, Mareel, because when I comment on your stories I do keep saying the same thing.

When somebody asks for "constructive comments to help improve my writing" (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that request), what I hear is "tell me technical stuff to do better." I'm not qualified to do that. Yes, I have a BA and I had a teaching certificate, but not in English, not in creative writing and not in literary criticism. If there is something particularly striking about your story, I can tell you that I like it; or that it wouldn't have occurred to me to do it, but now that I've read it, it really works; or that I've never seen this done before and it's cool. Does that make you a better writer? I don't know.

Many times, "That's nice. Write more." is exactly how I feel, though with AO3, I just hit kudos. It's a genre/style I like. I've read lots like it before. I'll probably read lots like it again. It's nice, period, check, end of dictation. It's like empty calories in the snack food you love.

I don't know about anyone else, but I tend to check out anyone who has left a review or kudos. Do they write? Is there something else of theirs that looks interesting? What else did they like? Does anything there look interesting? Where are they from? How old are they?

One of the things I've noticed at ff.net is that a lot of the members seem to be young as in junior high/high school age. I'm not sure that expecting deep literary criticism from them is realistic, but their "Like it. Write more." is as honest and as good as anybody else's.
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Re: Same Work, Different Archive, Different Response?

Postby panyasan » Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:01 pm

I post my work on three different archive and the response for my work have been very differently. At one archive I always got very positive reviews, but my last story got a lot of comments like "I didn't like the choices you made in some of the details of the story."
Strange enough, on a more general archive, this story gets a lot of compliments and attention.
The same is for one story I wrote in a specific format. This story got the most reviews and praises on one site, while the other site hated the format.
You sure learn a lot by comparing those different reviews.
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