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**Skydiver** · 26 July 2012, 06:21 PM

I write to write. I write for me. Reviews are a bonus. I don't ask for them, I don't beg for them, I won't lose sleep if I don't get them.

That said, i have binders full of reviews because I print them out or c/p them into word and keep them.

I've gotten a few flames. I find them amusing. If people dont like my fic, fine. Don't like it.

I don't expect them, they are a wonderful bonus and are gratefully accepted.

Do I always give feedback? No. Not always. It's gotta be really, really good. And thes not much of that around anymore.

**bailey1ak** · 26 July 2012, 08:08 PM

I don't like to see stories that beg for reviews, but I don't mind so much if there is just a quick, "please leave feedback" or "don't forget to review and let me know..." kind of thing in the author notes. I dislike the ones that beg and plead for it, but what is more annoying are the ones that state that they may not continue if reviews aren't left.

Being both a reader and a writer I tend to leave at least a small message of "liked it" at the very least if I can, just so they know that it wasn't hated.

I know that when I get reviews it does make me feel good and as if people are reading the story or even that I'm improving, which is a goal as well.

However, I write for me and usually finish all of the writing before I start posting... which is why I hate stories where the writer will basically hijack the rest of the story unless they get reviews with a "... once I get at least 5 reviews I'll post the next chapter..." type of thing. I typically stop reading a story when I see that.

The other annoying thing for me is to have a writer ask for reviews because if there isn't enough interest they won't bother writing the next chapter. I will typically stop reading those stories as well... no reason to start a story that may never be finished and that the writer isn't invested enough in to want to finish it at least for themselves.

When I first started writing I used to ask for feedback with a "don't forget to leave a review", but over time I have stopped asking for reviews at all. I really do write for me because I have fun doing so, reviews are fun and encouraging and I've met a lot of writer friends through reviews and such, but I hope a lack of them wouldn't deter me from enjoying the writing of it anyway.

**SF_and_Coffee** · 26 July 2012, 08:09 PM

I will be honest: I love reviews. I love them because they let me know that people are reading, and more importantly, that they are engaged enough with the story to ask me a question or make a comment. Feedback is such a wonderful thing to get, especially in longer projects.

I write for my own pleasure, yes. I also write to entertain others. I enjoy feedback and reviews, but I'm honestly not looking just for kudos and pats on the back and for people to tell me how much they enjoy my work. Some of my favorite reviews have come in the form of questions or even the observational type wherein readers point out how my particular view of the Gateverse may differ from theirs on this or that point. I love it when someone says, "You know, that's different from the way I see it and here's why... but at the same time I'm enjoying your story so much that it doesn't really matter."

And if I hit a sour note anywhere, I want to know about that too. Because I aspire to be a professionally-published author of original fiction, one of the major reasons I write fanfic is because it is an arena in which I can freely publish my work and obtain feedback, without the risks that would be inherent in publishing excerpts of my original, non-derivative works online. Any feedback I get on my fanfic becomes a learning experience that in turn affects how I write original stories. Fanfic is where I play with concepts and technique and the various elements of storytelling, and I get to entertain people at the same time. Original fiction is where I put what I've learned from fanfic to work in a "real world" environment.

**Hyndara71** · 27 July 2012, 01:05 AM

Thanks, guys, for your comments

.

Personally I see reviews mostly as a goody for me. I'm not writing because of reviews. I only ... okay, correct numbers: On the German-site I mostly use to publish my fanfics I've got 40 storys up, some Oneshots, true, mostly the fics are around 10,000 words, 4 - 7 chapters, two longer with 14 - 18 chapters. My review count is 18. On the other site I have a high viewer/reader count is about 5,000 too. As I've been (re) active there since only a couple of months I think the reader count is okay.
On the other side, when I'm checking out on my ff.net-account, I also don't have much reviews. Well, it's not really the playground for the most fanfic-writers I know and the German-sections are mostly nearly dead there. But at least I've *oh wonder!* much better numbers there, according to the time I'm member there.

You guys cannot believe how shocked I was after I've translated the first fic into English and got a review for it only a couple of hours after it was published!

Maybe I wasn't clear in the opening post. I'm writing my entire life, have published some original fiction some time ago but had to leave that alone *sniff* and burry my dream of becoming an author. I started writing fanfics seven years ago, and I mostly do this for me - well, and because sometimes I can use fanfics to try out things. The biggest part of my SG-fanfics are a couple of years old, mostly they were never published because I didn't knew where I should put them in.

Flames ... well, I've got my first three weeks ago, and I'm with Sky, I found that thing amusing and was a little sad when a mod deleted it. It was so clear that that thing was a payback and that the one who wrote it haven't even checked out the story, only clicked on the Review-button to sadden me.

To be correct I'm not stopping writing fanfics because I don't get reviews but I seriously thinking about not to publish them anymore. Why should I when there's no one out there interested in reading them? Those high viewer-numbers also could be from Google-search *shrugs*

**Skydiver** · 27 July 2012, 03:17 AM

The latest flame I got was a person that interpreted a story I'd written in a negative manner...left me an anonymous review telling me how horrible I was to have treated this character this way, then oddly enough on another archive a few days later i got another anonymous review telling me how horrible i was....coincidence? I think not. They wanna stalk me and hide behind anonymity, fine. Thing is the story's only on 2 archives that allow anonymous reviews so their own inability to stand behind their words hinders their ability to keep telling me how much I suck.

the first was odd, the second made it amusing....largely because the story already had a dozen other reviews from people that 'got' the story and enjoyed it.

I too am a 'it's done before it's posted' person. So I can't hold a story hostage. I won't.

I think the one time I got really, really annoyed....i was posting a series, Mirror, Mirror. which ended up being 4 long stories that ventured into the AU and at the end of the first story, a character's fate was very much in jeopardy. Well members of that list were all upset because 'if you break him you MUST fix him'.....I'd posted teh story in chapters on the list but intact on my site, so they went to my site, read ahead, because they did that they didn't see the 'part 2 coming' and proceeded to jump my tush because they thought it was over.

annoyed me a bit.

So now while i may post in chapters, I won't put the whole thing up on my site until after the last chapter is posted.

I refuse to read anyone that holds a chapter hostage for review. of course, my experience tells me that authors that do that...well the quality of their writing usually isn't up where I want my fic to be anyway, so no big loss.

**fems** · 27 July 2012, 04:53 AM

I love reviews as well. They're like presents; you never know what you're gonna get until you open it.

However, that doesn't mean I hold my fics hostage until I've received a certain number of reviews to post the next chapter, or something like that. I mention in my header info (or last author's note on AO3) that I always appreciate it if people let me know why they (don't) like the story. That's as far as I'm going to go.

I write fics because I want to tell a story and if people enjoy said story that's a bonus. I'll admit that it does make me happy when I receive reviews (or kudos/comments on AO3) but overall I'm satisfied with my statistics.

Up until a few weeks ago I'd never received a flame and then suddenly I got two reviews after completing my then-WIP. If I recall correctly the first one kinda bothered me, but mostly because it was anonymous and I would have liked to discuss the things they mentioned. The second one was a bit weird, talking about it being cheap slush that would disgrace romance novels... even though there really wasn't all that much romance in it. So it kind of confused me and my reply might have been slightly sarcastic (the tone of the review was just asking for it), but of course said reviewer didn't respond to it. So I can't take it too seriously.

I'm not saying I've never had 'bad' reviews, saying that this or that is wrong or that something else seemed OOC, or another thing was OTT etc but those weren't flames. They were simply critiques and I usually find these very interesting and start a discussion with the reviewer - unless they're anonymous.

Another thing that bothers me sometimes about anonymous reviews is that people make comments/"suggestions" or ask questions in them that I can't answer because they're not signed in. And I'm not talking about rhetorical questions. But all in all that's not enough reason for me to ban anonymous reviews (or use that new 36-hour approval method FFnet introduced) or to start disliking reviews in general.

As for giving reviews to others... it depends. I'm not a big reviewer but that's mostly because I'm rather picky. So I either have to really like the story or see potential to review. Unfortunately there are too many badly written fics these days that the good ones are hard to find, and it's also difficult for me to say something nice about mediocre fic. So I usually just don't say anything and just stop reading.

**SF_and_Coffee** · 27 July 2012, 10:34 AM

Originally posted by Hyndara71 View Post

Maybe I wasn't clear in the opening post. I'm writing my entire life, have published some original fiction some time ago but had to leave that alone *sniff* and burry my dream of becoming an author.

Oh, don't give up! Hopefully you'll come up with more stories and be back to getting published again!

**Skydiver** · 28 July 2012, 03:51 AM

one that got me was 'i need to know if so and so end up together in the end, because if they don't then it's not worth my time to keep reading...and don't tell me to wait and ifnd out'

my response to her was along the lines of 'i'm not telling you the ending, if you don't want to keep reading, fine.'

**Skydiver** · 28 July 2012, 03:53 AM

I don't like postin WIP's and then almost letting the audience dictate the story. I read one years ago where the story started out with such promise, then as i saw the public feedback the story seemed to change from a team and sam/daniel friendship fic to a jack/daniel smarmfest oh yeah, that blond chick was involved too wasn't she???? and couldn't help but think 'yeah, the author had a good story going but seemed to have changed it to cater to some of her audience. too bad it didn't go out to its natural ending instead of the fan driven one.

**jdjunkie** · 28 July 2012, 04:37 AM

I can guarantee that if a story is posted with a begging rider I won't even read it, let alone leave comments.

I love receiving kudos and comments and I'm lucky that I've had plenty of them, but I would never hold a story hostage and have never actively sought to glean any feedback.

Feedback, good or bad, is a privilege and not a right, and it's earned. Passive-aggressively demanding it says more about the author than the story itself probably does.

It's a huge turn-off and often counter-productive (as is spamming archives with a dozen stories at a time, but that's another thing

).

**Falcon Horus** · 02 August 2012, 06:33 AM

Originally posted by SF_and_Coffee View Post

Spoiler:

Put the text in spoiler-space so people don't have to read it again if they don't want to... but second what SF_and_Coffee said earlier in the thread.

**mathpiglet** · 02 August 2012, 11:17 AM

I never beg for reviews. I write for myself. If others like it and want to comment, terrific. If not, no big deal.

When I read other's stories, I leave a comment when I feel like it. On the HLBB, I try to encourage new authors. But I rarely leave a comment on each and every section they post.

**Ikorni** · 11 August 2012, 08:29 AM

I used to write fanfic but don't do it anymore; attempting any Stargate fic is frankly, intimidating and I'm sort of cosy right now enjoying the glut of stories available in my little corner. When I wrote, I've always asked for people to drop a note if they like it but have never begged, nor have "held the readers hostage" for it. I usually find that authors who are more experienced writers or who are at least more secure in their writing (despite the reviews of lack thereof) tend to let their work speak for themselves anyway.

That being said, I remember how much reviews helped spur my writing; just knowing that there is someone out there waiting for the next installment can be quite a motivation but it gets a little harder when reviewers disappear, when real life creeps in or when the urge to write stops for a while. For stories which I really like, I would actually start a private conversation with the author as far as possible to let them know how much I've loved reading what they've done - just more personal for me this way!

**Falcon Horus** · 11 August 2012, 08:38 AM

Yup, knowing that at least someone out there's reading what you (so lovingly) wrote can be quite the motivator.

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