thinking about feedback
Dec. 15th, 2006 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321I meant to make a post about this later on but now that I have lost all the lovely comments that so many kind people have made so far on my fic 'Tao of Lust' (posted yesterday; I had at least 23 comments on there, some of which were my own replies) I need to post this straight away or I will forget what I wanted to say. It will be a bit chaotic in my head but I am desperately trying to remember everybody's kind and helpful and happy-making feedback comments and they have dissolved into the ether. Which is upsetting me so I will post this quickly before I get a chance to brood.
It is also a post about my more general attitude to feedback, philosophical and literary issues of reader-response and how a fic acts independently of its author.
Navel-gazish musings about my relationship to feedback
General musings about what feedback means for a fic
I lost not only feedback but also my own replies to the feedback. All this leads into or stems from musings about feedback I have been having recently, spurred by an interesting thread in Liviapenn's LJ and then by the metafandommed cornucopia of replies to my own post about response to feedback etiquette. It made me think beyond etiquette and politeness to what feedback means to me.
I realised with 'Tao of Lust' that I love feedback not only because I just get a tremendous confidence-boosting kick out of it but also because I learn such a lot from it. Feedback is very interesting because it does not always work according to what an author (in this case, me) expects of it. This is the beauty of posting. Once the fic is out there, in the public domain, it is no longer only in my own head. And the fic develops a life of its own. It does things to people that I wouldn't have expected it to do, and sometimes people will mention some of the responses they've had to a fic in their feedback, and sometimes these responses surprise me. I'm then in the strange position to be awed by my own fic. And by the reader's perspicuous comment. Often readers see things in a fic that I didn't see myself. This, to me, is one of the most wonderful aspects of feedback.
I was interested by the responses to my 'etiquette of feedback' post which described feedback as a kind of payment for fic. I realised that I, as author, don't have this relationship to feedback at all. To me, posting a fic is sharing and the giving of a gift. I always desperately hope for feedback and desperately fear I won't get any, but I never expect any. Each feedback is to me another gift; I tend to be overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of people reading and commenting. This is possibly because of low self-esteem and issues of the Big Black Dog in general but it is also because it is only through readers' comments that the fic becomes complete. Feedback, to me, is not payment if by payment is understood something adjunct to the actual object. Feedback is an indication of the absolute necessity of the reader for the work. Without a reader, there is no fic.
I am a Barthesian in this respect, totally. Roland Barthes (the late French literary and cultural critic and semiotician, also one of my theoretical heroes) wrote back in the 1960s / early 1970s about the 'Death of the Author' and how the reader is needed to complete a text. He was one of the people to shift meaning away from the Author ('and what did she intend to say here?') to the Reader ('how do we readers produce the text, and produce it each time anew, with each fresh reading?'). And although I found this whole reception theory thing intriguing before I discovered slash, it's really dealing with feedback that's brought it home to me. Because I am always reminded how my own (the Author's) interpretation is just one among many. And always stupefied anew how the fic is this thing separate from me and how there are elements of it that people see but that I did not consciously put in.
Yet they are in there. How did they get there? Did the muse put them in? This is the mystery. And this is where Barthes, and all those response structuralists and post-structuralists (even my beloved Gerard Genette) fall down, because they don't consider production enough. But that's grist for another post mill (if I don't accidentally delete it all again! O woe is me).
More specific musings about what I can learn from my feedback
This is why I am especially sad that I lost that post because I was, for this fic especially, really, really learning something from my kind feedbackers. So if this is going to seem self-indulgent, please scroll on by. It is intended as much as anything as a record for myself of the Feedback That I Lost, as I try to dredge some of it from my memory.
What people said about 'Tao of Lust':
• Quite a few feedbackers liked the prose style. One person said it 'suited her brain' which made me so happy. At least two others quoted a line back at me, the line that had the words 'Mandelbrot fractals' in it.
I was so surprised and pleased by this. It occurred to me that I must have learned something through all those writing experiments and exercises in style that I did earlier this year. The thing is writing 'Tao of Lust' was a tightrope walk. Buoyed up by enthusiasm over the episode 3x14, I plunged straight into the fic, even as the end credits were still playing on the screen. I didn't know where I was heading or how to get there; I made my way sentence by sentence, only pausing now and again to delete a phrase that somehow didn't 'fit'. I surfed with speed through the internet, collecting words - the dendrites and deaf Beethovens and fractals of the fic. It is a thing I tend towards when left to my own devices: writing metaphorically. What I learned through this fic (and I really only realised I had learned it through the feedback!) was that metaphors don't have to be flowery or shmoopy but can be sharp and precise, and that comes from taking them from a sharp and precise, pre-defined ideolect, in this case, science (chaos theory and neurobiology).
I've done this once before, much more self-consciously, when I used insects, spiders and crabs for my 'Arthropods' series. I wallowed in the vocab of entomologists (thorax! spinneret! exoskeleton!). I love writing through words; words can really hold up a sentence and hold together a fic. 'Arthropods' is very self-conscious and threw me into a writing crisis. This is why the feedback for 'Tao of Lust' was such an eye-opener for me; it showed me that in this fic at least I seem to have pulled the scientific metaphors off successfully. Because I never know if my metaphors aren't too over-the-top or plain absurd, and I know they can be a bit stilted and self-indulgent and pressed into the service of experimenting with prose. I also know that I have quite an unusual way of using metaphor, and often unusual things are unusual because they don't go down well with readers. They may give pleasure to the author but little to the readers (because perhaps they are more about working out and producing something than about communicating something).
• Which is why the handful of comments that said they found the fic hot delighted me especially.
People weren't precise about what they found hot but they certainly didn't seem put off by the metaphors. Which I fear can sometimes happen with my writing: the prose becomes an end in itself and swoonsomeness is left by the wayside. Well, I guess that's not a bad thing; sometimes it's good to do a non-swoonsome fic but it's very nice to know that I've still got the old swoonsome in me, or at least, the old 'teh hot'.
• Then some people commented on the disjointedness of the dialogue.
This was actually something I was aware of while writing. And in a way it suited the tightrope walk experience of writing the fic. The whole fic was like taking a risk, pushing forward into the unknown, and the characters veered back and forth much as I was veering back and forth. I'm not sure I have anything more to say about it at this point but it's something I wanted to think about in the future and I need to record it here so I won't forget. I suspect it may become important for my future fic-writing. I was so happy that readers picked this up; it reinforced me in continuing to pay attention to dialogue in this way.
• And the rest is lost. I cannot remember what else people said. :-(
How 'Tao of Lust' relates to 'Lift the Burden'.
It's the feedback that made me write another fic so hot on the foot of the earlier one. Thank God I haven't deleted this second fic but it only had a handful of comments on it this morning so in a way it would have been better had I deleted that one and not the other.... (Argh, *tries very hard not to get overly maudlin*)
What is interesting to me is how quickly 'Tao of Lust' built up a feedback bank. This may be because of time of day posted or because of non-fic-related issues, such as popularity of pairing. The latter doesn't hold water as the pairing of 'Tao of Lust' (Rodney/Radek) is less popular than the pairing of 'Lift the Burden' (John/Rodney). Although it is true that sometimes a niche market can be very enthusiastic, *g* (and this is another important thing for me to remember and learn, because I write a lot of rare pairings and always fear that readers will be put off).
I can't say anything about time posted and the second fic may well yet build up some more feedback but I can say something about my own relationship to the fics and to their feedback (again, highly self-indulgently so do please feel free to 'scroll on by', as Dusty Springfield would say).
Fic Nr 2, the one whose comments were not lost and which is called 'Lift the Burden', is the one I found easier to write. It took less time; it flowed more; it didn't feel like a tightrope but like a warm bath to swim through. I knew the end in a vague way, and the risk seemed less. (In 'Tao of Lust', I wasn't even sure they were actually going to have sex for the longest time!) I knew the conflict of 'not thinking/thinking about a forbidden topic'. I am still trying to figure out why this greater ease of 'Lift the Burden' was exactly. A large part of it was no doubt because I had just limbered up my posting muscles through Fic Nr 1. It was also because the pairing came more easily to me, as did the Sheppard voice. Within seconds of starting the fic, I hit upon the device of putting his first-person stream-of-consciousness thoughts into parentheses and after that, everything was easy and lovely. Unlike Fic Nr. 1, which felt scary to write, Fic Nr. 2 was pure fun. It didn't have the metaphors in it; it felt mellower; I was more 'inside' the people; I had them figured out while with Fic Nr.1 I did the figuring-out as I went along and never really quite got there. (It was the readers who figured out characterisation for me, *g*. I just remembered one kindly feedback that told me that Radek was bold and Rodney unsure and cornered; alas, this person put it much better than me.)
• (Lesson to be learned, perhaps: It's not necessary for the author to have figured out every nuance of character. The reader will do it for you.)
But here is the interesting thing: if (and only if) this fic proves less popular than Fic Nr.1 or the feedback proves less thought-provoking for me, that throws up the interesting question of how delight in writing relates to delight in reading. Sometimes an author (in this case, me) has a particular cathected relationship to a fic that is simply not shared with the audience. In such cases, I get very disappointed about lack of feedback (this happened to me with 'Tibet' which to me was rather an important fic but not to anybody else, *g*). In the case of 'Tao of Lust', I was worried about the quality of the fic so every feedback seemed an unlooked-for blessing. In the case of 'Lift the Burden', I find this fic 'better' than 'Tao of Lust' and so am wondering more why people aren't 'noticing'.
But quality is very knotty and very difficult to think about. Quality does not, of course, reside in quantity of feedback, or even in quality of feedback. But I do respect readers and I do think that feedback can, with all caveats attached, be used as a measure of quality. At any rate, it can be used as a measure of quality of communication (with the readers). It also shows that readers respond to the final product and not to the process while for authors (I venture to hazard) the process will always colour the way they see their final product. I remember the tightrope rollercoaster experience of writing 'Tao of Lust' and the flowing warm bath of 'Lift the Burden', and so can't help thinking that this experience will somehow be reflected in the final product. But I do not think that this is actually the case. Something hurled into the ether in five minutes flat can seem polished to its readers(although my Protestant work ethic baulks!), and then, for all intents and purposes, it is polished. Something that an author laboured over for months and years can seem uninteresting and cobbled-together to its readers. And authors (well, I, anyway) often don't see the wood for the trees. That's why we need our readers. Or that's why I need mine.
Feedback shows me the way. It's then up to me to choose to take that way or to go along a different one. :-)
Links to everything mentioned herein:
My Fic Nr.1: Tao of Lust (repost without comments, *weeps*)
My Fic Nr.2: Lift the Burden
The metafandommed feedback etiquette post
Arthropods series
One of my writing experiments from earlier this year (John Sheppard opens a door)
Another writing experiment from spring (Fic: Essence of Kerosene, Rodney/Eldon)
FIC: Tibet
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liviapenn's feedback thread
Here I gushed over Gerard Genette
A thing I said about Roland Barthes
Walk on By, sung, in fact, by Dionne Warwick (and not Dusty Springfield, *g*)
It is also a post about my more general attitude to feedback, philosophical and literary issues of reader-response and how a fic acts independently of its author.
Navel-gazish musings about my relationship to feedback
General musings about what feedback means for a fic
I lost not only feedback but also my own replies to the feedback. All this leads into or stems from musings about feedback I have been having recently, spurred by an interesting thread in Liviapenn's LJ and then by the metafandommed cornucopia of replies to my own post about response to feedback etiquette. It made me think beyond etiquette and politeness to what feedback means to me.
I realised with 'Tao of Lust' that I love feedback not only because I just get a tremendous confidence-boosting kick out of it but also because I learn such a lot from it. Feedback is very interesting because it does not always work according to what an author (in this case, me) expects of it. This is the beauty of posting. Once the fic is out there, in the public domain, it is no longer only in my own head. And the fic develops a life of its own. It does things to people that I wouldn't have expected it to do, and sometimes people will mention some of the responses they've had to a fic in their feedback, and sometimes these responses surprise me. I'm then in the strange position to be awed by my own fic. And by the reader's perspicuous comment. Often readers see things in a fic that I didn't see myself. This, to me, is one of the most wonderful aspects of feedback.
I was interested by the responses to my 'etiquette of feedback' post which described feedback as a kind of payment for fic. I realised that I, as author, don't have this relationship to feedback at all. To me, posting a fic is sharing and the giving of a gift. I always desperately hope for feedback and desperately fear I won't get any, but I never expect any. Each feedback is to me another gift; I tend to be overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of people reading and commenting. This is possibly because of low self-esteem and issues of the Big Black Dog in general but it is also because it is only through readers' comments that the fic becomes complete. Feedback, to me, is not payment if by payment is understood something adjunct to the actual object. Feedback is an indication of the absolute necessity of the reader for the work. Without a reader, there is no fic.
I am a Barthesian in this respect, totally. Roland Barthes (the late French literary and cultural critic and semiotician, also one of my theoretical heroes) wrote back in the 1960s / early 1970s about the 'Death of the Author' and how the reader is needed to complete a text. He was one of the people to shift meaning away from the Author ('and what did she intend to say here?') to the Reader ('how do we readers produce the text, and produce it each time anew, with each fresh reading?'). And although I found this whole reception theory thing intriguing before I discovered slash, it's really dealing with feedback that's brought it home to me. Because I am always reminded how my own (the Author's) interpretation is just one among many. And always stupefied anew how the fic is this thing separate from me and how there are elements of it that people see but that I did not consciously put in.
Yet they are in there. How did they get there? Did the muse put them in? This is the mystery. And this is where Barthes, and all those response structuralists and post-structuralists (even my beloved Gerard Genette) fall down, because they don't consider production enough. But that's grist for another post mill (if I don't accidentally delete it all again! O woe is me).
More specific musings about what I can learn from my feedback
This is why I am especially sad that I lost that post because I was, for this fic especially, really, really learning something from my kind feedbackers. So if this is going to seem self-indulgent, please scroll on by. It is intended as much as anything as a record for myself of the Feedback That I Lost, as I try to dredge some of it from my memory.
What people said about 'Tao of Lust':
• Quite a few feedbackers liked the prose style. One person said it 'suited her brain' which made me so happy. At least two others quoted a line back at me, the line that had the words 'Mandelbrot fractals' in it.
I was so surprised and pleased by this. It occurred to me that I must have learned something through all those writing experiments and exercises in style that I did earlier this year. The thing is writing 'Tao of Lust' was a tightrope walk. Buoyed up by enthusiasm over the episode 3x14, I plunged straight into the fic, even as the end credits were still playing on the screen. I didn't know where I was heading or how to get there; I made my way sentence by sentence, only pausing now and again to delete a phrase that somehow didn't 'fit'. I surfed with speed through the internet, collecting words - the dendrites and deaf Beethovens and fractals of the fic. It is a thing I tend towards when left to my own devices: writing metaphorically. What I learned through this fic (and I really only realised I had learned it through the feedback!) was that metaphors don't have to be flowery or shmoopy but can be sharp and precise, and that comes from taking them from a sharp and precise, pre-defined ideolect, in this case, science (chaos theory and neurobiology).
I've done this once before, much more self-consciously, when I used insects, spiders and crabs for my 'Arthropods' series. I wallowed in the vocab of entomologists (thorax! spinneret! exoskeleton!). I love writing through words; words can really hold up a sentence and hold together a fic. 'Arthropods' is very self-conscious and threw me into a writing crisis. This is why the feedback for 'Tao of Lust' was such an eye-opener for me; it showed me that in this fic at least I seem to have pulled the scientific metaphors off successfully. Because I never know if my metaphors aren't too over-the-top or plain absurd, and I know they can be a bit stilted and self-indulgent and pressed into the service of experimenting with prose. I also know that I have quite an unusual way of using metaphor, and often unusual things are unusual because they don't go down well with readers. They may give pleasure to the author but little to the readers (because perhaps they are more about working out and producing something than about communicating something).
• Which is why the handful of comments that said they found the fic hot delighted me especially.
People weren't precise about what they found hot but they certainly didn't seem put off by the metaphors. Which I fear can sometimes happen with my writing: the prose becomes an end in itself and swoonsomeness is left by the wayside. Well, I guess that's not a bad thing; sometimes it's good to do a non-swoonsome fic but it's very nice to know that I've still got the old swoonsome in me, or at least, the old 'teh hot'.
• Then some people commented on the disjointedness of the dialogue.
This was actually something I was aware of while writing. And in a way it suited the tightrope walk experience of writing the fic. The whole fic was like taking a risk, pushing forward into the unknown, and the characters veered back and forth much as I was veering back and forth. I'm not sure I have anything more to say about it at this point but it's something I wanted to think about in the future and I need to record it here so I won't forget. I suspect it may become important for my future fic-writing. I was so happy that readers picked this up; it reinforced me in continuing to pay attention to dialogue in this way.
• And the rest is lost. I cannot remember what else people said. :-(
How 'Tao of Lust' relates to 'Lift the Burden'.
It's the feedback that made me write another fic so hot on the foot of the earlier one. Thank God I haven't deleted this second fic but it only had a handful of comments on it this morning so in a way it would have been better had I deleted that one and not the other.... (Argh, *tries very hard not to get overly maudlin*)
What is interesting to me is how quickly 'Tao of Lust' built up a feedback bank. This may be because of time of day posted or because of non-fic-related issues, such as popularity of pairing. The latter doesn't hold water as the pairing of 'Tao of Lust' (Rodney/Radek) is less popular than the pairing of 'Lift the Burden' (John/Rodney). Although it is true that sometimes a niche market can be very enthusiastic, *g* (and this is another important thing for me to remember and learn, because I write a lot of rare pairings and always fear that readers will be put off).
I can't say anything about time posted and the second fic may well yet build up some more feedback but I can say something about my own relationship to the fics and to their feedback (again, highly self-indulgently so do please feel free to 'scroll on by', as Dusty Springfield would say).
Fic Nr 2, the one whose comments were not lost and which is called 'Lift the Burden', is the one I found easier to write. It took less time; it flowed more; it didn't feel like a tightrope but like a warm bath to swim through. I knew the end in a vague way, and the risk seemed less. (In 'Tao of Lust', I wasn't even sure they were actually going to have sex for the longest time!) I knew the conflict of 'not thinking/thinking about a forbidden topic'. I am still trying to figure out why this greater ease of 'Lift the Burden' was exactly. A large part of it was no doubt because I had just limbered up my posting muscles through Fic Nr 1. It was also because the pairing came more easily to me, as did the Sheppard voice. Within seconds of starting the fic, I hit upon the device of putting his first-person stream-of-consciousness thoughts into parentheses and after that, everything was easy and lovely. Unlike Fic Nr. 1, which felt scary to write, Fic Nr. 2 was pure fun. It didn't have the metaphors in it; it felt mellower; I was more 'inside' the people; I had them figured out while with Fic Nr.1 I did the figuring-out as I went along and never really quite got there. (It was the readers who figured out characterisation for me, *g*. I just remembered one kindly feedback that told me that Radek was bold and Rodney unsure and cornered; alas, this person put it much better than me.)
• (Lesson to be learned, perhaps: It's not necessary for the author to have figured out every nuance of character. The reader will do it for you.)
But here is the interesting thing: if (and only if) this fic proves less popular than Fic Nr.1 or the feedback proves less thought-provoking for me, that throws up the interesting question of how delight in writing relates to delight in reading. Sometimes an author (in this case, me) has a particular cathected relationship to a fic that is simply not shared with the audience. In such cases, I get very disappointed about lack of feedback (this happened to me with 'Tibet' which to me was rather an important fic but not to anybody else, *g*). In the case of 'Tao of Lust', I was worried about the quality of the fic so every feedback seemed an unlooked-for blessing. In the case of 'Lift the Burden', I find this fic 'better' than 'Tao of Lust' and so am wondering more why people aren't 'noticing'.
But quality is very knotty and very difficult to think about. Quality does not, of course, reside in quantity of feedback, or even in quality of feedback. But I do respect readers and I do think that feedback can, with all caveats attached, be used as a measure of quality. At any rate, it can be used as a measure of quality of communication (with the readers). It also shows that readers respond to the final product and not to the process while for authors (I venture to hazard) the process will always colour the way they see their final product. I remember the tightrope rollercoaster experience of writing 'Tao of Lust' and the flowing warm bath of 'Lift the Burden', and so can't help thinking that this experience will somehow be reflected in the final product. But I do not think that this is actually the case. Something hurled into the ether in five minutes flat can seem polished to its readers(although my Protestant work ethic baulks!), and then, for all intents and purposes, it is polished. Something that an author laboured over for months and years can seem uninteresting and cobbled-together to its readers. And authors (well, I, anyway) often don't see the wood for the trees. That's why we need our readers. Or that's why I need mine.
Feedback shows me the way. It's then up to me to choose to take that way or to go along a different one. :-)
Links to everything mentioned herein:
My Fic Nr.1: Tao of Lust (repost without comments, *weeps*)
My Fic Nr.2: Lift the Burden
The metafandommed feedback etiquette post
Arthropods series
One of my writing experiments from earlier this year (John Sheppard opens a door)
Another writing experiment from spring (Fic: Essence of Kerosene, Rodney/Eldon)
FIC: Tibet
liviapenn's feedback threadHere I gushed over Gerard Genette
A thing I said about Roland Barthes
Walk on By, sung, in fact, by Dionne Warwick (and not Dusty Springfield, *g*)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 02:48 pm (UTC)And the rest of it. All of it. Word. Yes. Whatever the kids say today. *Rodney point pointing*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 07:34 pm (UTC)Okay, this fic does exist; I have written it; it sits in handwritten form in my A5 notepad. Badger me enough and I will get my arse into gear and transfer it to the keyboard! *g*
*squees at you*
McKay! Ronaldo!
Date: 2006-12-16 06:02 pm (UTC)I think my intelligent reply was along the lines of how I treat my fic like children. I want them to do well, but it makes me feel oogy when I accept praise meant for them while they are, proverbially, standing right there. So while I have no objections to the model of fic-feedback as fandom currency, I end up pimping my babies hard... and then freaking out if someone compliments me by myself. Which does not impress well, I fear, when I'm in the minority in clinging to feedback-as-primarily-engagement.
(By the way, somehow I managed to be AFK when you posted The Wraith of Mordor! Bad me. I am planning a noticeboard rec post with various
crackgoodies, may I include it?)Re: McKay! Ronaldo!
Date: 2006-12-16 06:14 pm (UTC)I'm afraid my brain has been killed by excess manlust today and I could not understand what you meant by your view of fic as children and feeling oogy (is oogy good or bad?) and the bit about 'primarily engagement' and the bit about 'impress well'. Could you rephrase? *feels really dumb*
Re: McKay! Ronaldo!
Date: 2006-12-16 07:16 pm (UTC)That's an excellent question. And probably why I reverted to onomatopoeia. *g* I suppose it's mostly discomfort. After I write my stories, it's very much a matter of kicking them out to do their own thing in the world. So I'm in a weird position, personally, when I know the other person merely wants to praise me and my work, but they're not talking about the work? Like, saying I am a good writer, which I know so many writers would love to hear -- to me that's different from saying "You do good work" or "this worked for me this time."
And it's a purely personal thing, in many ways, because I have had experience after experience of people telling me "you are a good ____" and then not talking about the work itself (which I want to improve) or treating me (using me) like my only worth is in being a ____. So I'm in this uncomfortable social position, of liking it better when someone can only bear to leave a "♥" as opposed to someone spending a lot of time singing my praises as a fic writer.
I would kill for a fic rec even if they don't spell my name right. It thrills me when I am talked about as a writer of porn; it sends me into incoherent paroxyms of joy when someone talks about the porn.
Does that make sense? If I'm in a fandom where the majority of the writers treat feedback like social currency, the feedbackers are well in their rights thinking they are leaving me a wonderful gift in comments -- and they *are* and I do love them for it -- but what I really want is their engagement with the *fic*, not with *me*. I have plenty of other outlets to engage with me, the Shu-person.
It's like someone baked Rodney a lemon meringue pie from scratch. Only Rodney might be forgiven for that reaction.
Or, for me, like someone watched a football game with my child in it and said "You are a wonderful sports mother!" when all I did was drive her to the game and she is standing right there having done all the work. It's -- oogy. Sticky. Not good, but not bad either. And I've more than once sounded ungracious to some of my faithful readers when I get that kind of feedback.
(On another note, I have found it is best to ship first, and thus brainwash new shippers. *g*)
Re: McKay! Ronaldo!
Date: 2006-12-17 09:38 am (UTC)Re: McKay! Ronaldo!
Date: 2006-12-22 03:59 am (UTC)And they are! I am so very particular about it, it's awful, really. I know certain compliments towards me are for the fic, and I take those as such. It's when the compliments turn to hyperbole and start getting specifically about *me*. Like, I say I'm not satisfied with an element in the fic, and then I get comments back of the nature of "You are so wonderful! Don't worry, you're a wonderful writer!"
And I just... it's an overreaction, but wow, I was talking about the element, not throwing a pity party. (I am the sort to be very specific about throwing those! *g*) I consider not mentioning it at all, but I said something about it in the first place because I might re-release the fic.
Strangely, I am less concerned with commenters coming on to me. *g* Possibly because this is normal in my original fandom subculture.
Huh, this says a lot about the sort of feedback one can expect of me.
Re: McKay! Ronaldo!
Date: 2006-12-16 06:15 pm (UTC)Also, who are these intriguing Rodnaldo shippers...?? Not
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-18 02:23 am (UTC)I used to be really assiduous about giving feedback, being a reader and not a writer. And I know a few times I've sounded pretty dumb, having missed the point entirely. But I've had many wonderful reading experiences and have tried to communicate my pleasure early and often. So, I understand completely why you are distressed by the loss of your comments and responses. I save all the responses I get because the fics/icons made an impression and what their creators had to say did too.
I am oozing over from SGA to House and have noticed a number of interesting behavior differences, but this is the one relevant to your comment. My perception is that the House creative souls are less likely respond to comments. Not a uniform practice certainly, but I've seen it more there than in SGA, where there are BNFs who acknowledge every single one of the 150 comments on their six paragraph ficlet.
Confession time: I really like to have my feedback ack'd, even if it is only to hear from the author, "You didn't get it." Even if it's just "Thanks for reading." I can understand why an author might think, "Gee whiz, I already wrote the fic, why should there be something else I have to do." And I guess there isn't, really. But if I write a substantial comment (not just a "Great fic!") or a comment the includes a question, I admit that I am disappointed when I don't hear back. Do you think my expectations are unreasonable?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-18 02:31 am (UTC)