Comments on Comments & Commentors

[Misplaced]

Mistress E: Thank you. And I'm looking foward to your next updated of Equilateral.

ladyrainbow: I know what you mean... readers are a wonderful thing... and a terrible thing. LOL Unexpected Too created some serious heat when I first started posting it and at one point, I just wanted to throw in the towel. I totally get where you're at. And I personally thought that the floating poker game was a nice little insight into Hoshi. I think even the "good" girls (and boys) will have secrets that would shock the heck out of everyone else. Glad you're getting back on that fic.

And I'm SO glad we have this place. I know that not all of us see eye to eye on our interpretations of the characters, the show, etc all the time. But I appreciate that we can still support one another and even read each other's work without everything turning into a heated debate over the tiniest detail. Good grief... having a place like this was long overdue!

THANK YOU HONEYBEE & AQUARIUS!!

[Kathy Rose]

Ladyrainbow and Misplaced: I agree about readers being wonderful...and terrible. I crave feedback on my stories (don't we all?); there's nothing like a thoughtful review to make my day. But the reviews that drive me batty are the ones that ask me to write another story with their ship preference (different from in my story which they just read). Sort of like, "Oh, this was okay, but it would have been better with my ship."

That's why I like this place! To each his/her own shippiness!

Current projects: I'm involved in a multi-chapter R/S story. AU. I've gone 15 chapters now and I'm finally bringing in other characters. Sort of a stranded on a desert planet theme, but they are there for a reason, not because they're shipwrecked.

[Honeybee]

Thank you so much, Misplaced. And thanks for all the reviews of Falling Leaves (Misplaced gave one in all three places I posted ). I swore I wasn't going to archive that on TriS - but I wanted to post a short fic that showed short has value, drabble or not.

I think that a comment on comments thread would be fun! I'll meet all of you there!

[panyasan]

Ladyrainbow and Misplaced: I agree about readers being wonderful...and terrible. I crave feedback on my stories (don't we all?); there's nothing like a thoughtful review to make my day. But the reviews that drive me batty are the ones that ask me to write another story with their ship preference (different from in my story which they just read). Sort of like, "Oh, this was okay, but it would have been better with my ship."

Okay confession time. First of all, A bird in a cage by LR is a great, insightfull fic about Hoshi's youth. Secondly, comments really can have an impact on me. I just finished a chapter and didn't follow my gut feeling, because of some comments. But my beta's comments gave me a lot of inspiration for a rewrite. At one story some one kept commenting that she wanted more R/S (it was a TnT story with Malcolm and Hoshi not together) that I changed my mind about them and didn't want to pair them up any more and came up with some one else.

[Mr Smith]

Sort of like, "Oh, this was okay, but it would have been better with my ship."

Do people really do this? It boggles my mind. That sounds intensely disrespectful, why even bother reviewing if that's all you're going to say? If I got a comment like that, I'd have to give them a piece of my mind. It's one thing to offer constructive criticism about the way a relationship is heading or portrayed in a fic and quite another to push your own interests on someone else's work. Consider me baffled.

I'm presently putting everything on hold to finish the tricky devil my fic for the September-October word prompt turned into.

[ladyrainbow]

Sort of like, "Oh, this was okay, but it would have been better with my ship."

Do people really do this? It boggles my mind. That sounds intensely disrespectful, why even bother reviewing if that's all you're going to say? If I got a comment like that, I'd have to give them a piece of my mind. It's one thing to offer constructive criticism about the way a relationship is heading or portrayed in a fic and quite another to push your own interests on someone else's work. Consider me baffled.

Unfortunately, yes. I do get a lot of "I want Trip and Hoshi to get together. Malcolm could have T'Pol" comments. If those are your ships, fine, but I usually do R/S. *shrugs*

[EntAllat]

(I've edited this post after-the-fact because, when I reread it, it isn't at all what I wanted it to be: advice on how to type a negative comment that threatens to strangle your muse/depress you and hopefully forestall that from happening. So here's the new, heavily edited, version. I kept the original post if anybody wants it. -EA)

There seem to be two type of comments that really can make my fellow fic writers miserable:

(1) If a comment makes you feel miserable but you're not really sure if it's valid or not (or even what the heck the commenter is trying to say) - ask a friend, or someone you trust to be honest and impartial, to read the comment and give you their perspective on it.

Sometimes you just the need for an affirming opinion - "No, you're not nuts - this was out of line" or "Uh, yeah. I had a WTF reaction to that too." Sometimes a second opinion can clear up an odd comment. Either way, the second opinion can be enough to keep your motivation from getting squashed by the comment.

(2) If a comment is openly negative, then check first if it falls into one of these categories. If it does, it's probably more about something else and not your story, your style or your skill at telling the story. If you can keep that in mind, it tends not to linger as long and be less of a threat to your continued motivation.

a) Different agenda. The reader simply has an opposing a personal or political perspective from the one that you used.

b) Different OTP. The reader may actually like your work but react badly to the pairing your chose or want their own favorite to be included.

c) Nit-pickienss. Purely negative comments pointing out mistakes (valid or not) can drive us nuts. Just try and remember that these are usually about minor details and not necessarily (unless they say so and then they're just kind of an ass) an indication of the commenter's impression of your story as a whole.

d) Venting. The reader may be venting about something completely unrelated to your fiction - maybe a debate from elsewhere has spilled over into the way they saw your fic.

e) Trolling. Unlike the other four, I can't find anything possibly positive about this one. Use what works for you to get it out of your system: talk to friends, go write something else, get away from it. Just try not to engage them since it'll almost never help the situation as far as your own motivation and creativity goes.

What it comes down to is this: If the comment makes you feel depressed, tired and uninspired rather than thoughtful or inspired to make changes, then it's not useful and probably was never intended to be so. Comments that are in bad faith - meant merely to bash an author, a style a perspective, etc - do happen, but rarely is ever actually about your fiction. It's someone who sought an opportunity to to vent about something, cry on your shoulder, or maybe bully you. Try and discover their motivations and it may just help you retain yours.

[Honeybee]

Okay, I'm combining to threads here (which I wish we could do but we can't so I'm doing it manually.)

I wrote:

One of the things that's so much fun about fanfic is getting feedback. My writing has improved tenfold thanks to thoughtful, honest comments I've gotten.

Praise also has its place. Sometimes, a story I think is just "cute" turns out to get gushing praise. Sometimes chapters I think are brilliant arrive to chilling silence. Sometimes the lack of comments speaks louder than anything.

But I've also had some very odd comments, and on places like ff.net - I like to respond. Sometimes I'm thrown.

Case in point. On ff.net, I got a gushing comment about Lizzie Tucker giving up her virginity to Archer and what it meant and how beautiful the chapter was and that they were now bonded forever. Scratchy, scratchy Now, I didn't think she was doing that - though I never said outright that she wasn't a virgin, I did mention previous boyfriends - but I didn't want to rain on a reader's parade. I just said "thank you" - but I was really amazed at the completely different interpretation of my own story. Which is fine. I resisted the impulse to correct.

[Honeybee]

LadyRainbow wrote:

Here's one of the comments that nearly scuttled the AU Switcheroo series...a backhanded compliment, if you will. No names.

All I have to say is that if these are the results of 'challenging your creativity and gently tearing you to pieces for any failed attempts at improving' I proudly admit it and will cheerfuly continue as long as you decide you want me to do it. :-p Because really this is truly wonderful work. Then again I don't think I would have spent so much time ripping you to shreds if I didn't believe you could do it.

Ripping it so shreds is a good thing?? WTH?

Then, I responded:


In other words, I've been a total a-hole - but it's for your own good.

Honestly, when I give potentially negative feedback on a story - often it doesn't feel negative (or like I'm ripping) because usually I'm offering a solution. I have no illusions that some writers may not want to hear my solution - but if I really wanted to rip a fic to shreds - I'd do it as a beta (I have done that) and/or taken it to PM.

[entkayjay]

This is one reason (among many) that I don't post or read at ff.net. I can honestly say I've never had any issues with ENT fen anywhere else. We all tend to band together for the sake of the show, not for our ships.

That's not to say there aren't undercurrents of ship wars, they just tend to not be a big enough deal to risk alienating a fellow fan over.

When the whole of Trek is a-gin' us, we have to stay family!