Once in the saddle I used to go gay
Sometimes it's more fun to track a meme or survey than to fill it out. damoyre posted a feedback survey and said she got it from stakebait, who it turns out got it from roseveare, who got it from taraljc, who got it from seemag, who actually started it. :) Now I'm curious to see if it'll turn up on my friendslist again through some other vector.
The questions that we didn't ask of authors and I now wish we had asked are the following:
How much feedback, in numerical terms, is enough? Would one note satisfy? Or does it have to be in the double or even triple digits?
I'm not sure how to define enough here. Some of my stories haven't received any feedback at all, and I haven't cried myself to sleep over that, but then, others have gotten a much better reception, so it kinda balances out. It really depends a lot on the fandom and the story, too; if I get a couple of notes on a story in a fandom where I'm not really participating much, or a very small fandom, I'll be pleasantly surprised, and if I post a story in a busily thriving fandom with many participants and don't hear anything at all from anyone, I'd probably feel a bit weird to think that no one else out of all those people shared my view of the characters enough to feel moved to respond.
When you started writing fanfic, were you aware of feedback?
Oh, yes. I started out in a community with a lot of open discussion of fanfic and WIPs. It was hard to miss. :)
Would you continue writing if you knew you'd never receive another piece of feedback ever?
I don't think I'll ever entirely stop writing, but. Hmmm. What's the definition of piece of feedback, here? Even with the stuff where I never got any hey, read it, liked it in the mail, there was usually a beta reader involved, a friend or two I could discuss the story with. I'm not sure I would write fanfic in a vacuum, not interacting with other fans; for me, writing fanfic is a way of participating in fandom, a way of discussing the characters. If I didn't feel that I was making any kind of connection with other people with my stories, I'm not sure I'd post them. I might find another way of participating in fandom, and/or channel all my writing energy into something different. But my definition of connection here is a bit broader than just a feedback email from someone.
Do you respond to your FB? If yes, then why? If not, why not?
Yes, I do. It's hard to make a connection if you don't connect back. :) Saying that, I know there's stuff I've missed replying to because I have more email accounts than is good for me, because I have off days and am sometimes pretty absent-minded and stuff slips through the cracks, and these days I also worry about accidentally deleting something because it looks like spam, since spammers are getting pretty inventive with their subject lines. But my intention is always to respond to everything.
Do you, as an author, want constructive criticism? Or is that something better left for the privacy of beta readers? And if you were to get constructive crit, would you want it to be private email or is the original posting location - ie mailing list, newsgroup, ff.net, message board - okay for review purposes?
There's a lot of stuff all at once here. First, I don't mind constructive criticism. Or non-constructive criticism, really. I have to admit that I might not be the most incredibly responsive person when it comes to constructive criticism, which is no doubt a character flaw; with stories that I've put a lot of work into, I usually did a and not b for a reason, and suggestions that I really should have done b or even c are likely to be met with the blank stare of I just edited that damn story for a month, I'm not touching it again, whereas stuff that was just written spur-of-the-moment, I'm not likely to be so deeply invested in that I'll feel like doing a serious rewrite of it. So, um. But critical comments are likely to be an influence, one way or another, on future writing, and I love critical comments about or analysis of stories if I'm not actually expected to do anything about them (or even respond intelligently to them *g*). So in that sense, reviews and critical discussions in public forums are more than just okay. I've often wished that I could feel motivated to write Sentinel just so I could get stuff discussed on Prospect-L, which is one of the coolest lists ever.
Long response short, comments are good, crit is good, discussion is good, public, private, whatever.
Do you, as an author, take time to FB other authors?
No. *g* That is, I don't really think I send feedback as an author; I do it as a reader. Cont'd below.
For readers, I'd want to know:
What is your experience when FBing authors? Do you find authors courteous in their response? Do authors respond at all?
I've never written to anyone who was rude in their response, that I can remember. Some people reply and some don't; more people reply than don't, but I don't keep lists or anything *g* so I don't exactly have statistics for that.
If an author asks for FB, are you more or less likely to give FB?
Depends on what is meant by "asks for." If people say they're open to all kinds of comments, good and bad, that's more likely to make me send nuanced fb, and if people say send me feedback or I won't post any more, I usually feel moved to find out if that's true. ;)
Does personal perception of an author - either positive or negative - affect whether you give FB or not?
Probably at times, yes. It's easier to send both a more flippant comment and a more critical response to someone I've had positive communication with earlier and whose response to either of those things I feel a bit more sure of than that of a complete stranger. Wait, that was about the type of feedback, not whether or not I send it. I'll still go with probably, though I can't think of any instances where I've sent feedback just because I like someone, as opposed to just liked the story, or haven't sent feedback just because I don't like someone, even though I liked the story. There may have been cases where I didn't send feedback because I felt a bit intimidated by someone, which is silly, but there you have it.
While thinking about perception, what factors go into forming an opinion of the authors in your fandom?
An opinion of them as authors, or as people? As authors, well, some people will turn up regularly in recs or conversation, some people's names I'll recognize in good ways from other fandoms, and that's likely to be some kind of starting point in my reading, but my opinion of them as writers in this particular fandom is just going to be based on whether or not I like their stuff in this particular fandom, period. As people... my current fandom is heavily livejournal-based, and depending on how much personal stuff people put in their livejournals, you can get to find out quite a lot about their personalities - more than in the mailing list days of yore, at least. But that goes for most other fans in the fandom, not just the ones who write.
The questions that we didn't ask of authors and I now wish we had asked are the following:
How much feedback, in numerical terms, is enough? Would one note satisfy? Or does it have to be in the double or even triple digits?
I'm not sure how to define enough here. Some of my stories haven't received any feedback at all, and I haven't cried myself to sleep over that, but then, others have gotten a much better reception, so it kinda balances out. It really depends a lot on the fandom and the story, too; if I get a couple of notes on a story in a fandom where I'm not really participating much, or a very small fandom, I'll be pleasantly surprised, and if I post a story in a busily thriving fandom with many participants and don't hear anything at all from anyone, I'd probably feel a bit weird to think that no one else out of all those people shared my view of the characters enough to feel moved to respond.
When you started writing fanfic, were you aware of feedback?
Oh, yes. I started out in a community with a lot of open discussion of fanfic and WIPs. It was hard to miss. :)
Would you continue writing if you knew you'd never receive another piece of feedback ever?
I don't think I'll ever entirely stop writing, but. Hmmm. What's the definition of piece of feedback, here? Even with the stuff where I never got any hey, read it, liked it in the mail, there was usually a beta reader involved, a friend or two I could discuss the story with. I'm not sure I would write fanfic in a vacuum, not interacting with other fans; for me, writing fanfic is a way of participating in fandom, a way of discussing the characters. If I didn't feel that I was making any kind of connection with other people with my stories, I'm not sure I'd post them. I might find another way of participating in fandom, and/or channel all my writing energy into something different. But my definition of connection here is a bit broader than just a feedback email from someone.
Do you respond to your FB? If yes, then why? If not, why not?
Yes, I do. It's hard to make a connection if you don't connect back. :) Saying that, I know there's stuff I've missed replying to because I have more email accounts than is good for me, because I have off days and am sometimes pretty absent-minded and stuff slips through the cracks, and these days I also worry about accidentally deleting something because it looks like spam, since spammers are getting pretty inventive with their subject lines. But my intention is always to respond to everything.
Do you, as an author, want constructive criticism? Or is that something better left for the privacy of beta readers? And if you were to get constructive crit, would you want it to be private email or is the original posting location - ie mailing list, newsgroup, ff.net, message board - okay for review purposes?
There's a lot of stuff all at once here. First, I don't mind constructive criticism. Or non-constructive criticism, really. I have to admit that I might not be the most incredibly responsive person when it comes to constructive criticism, which is no doubt a character flaw; with stories that I've put a lot of work into, I usually did a and not b for a reason, and suggestions that I really should have done b or even c are likely to be met with the blank stare of I just edited that damn story for a month, I'm not touching it again, whereas stuff that was just written spur-of-the-moment, I'm not likely to be so deeply invested in that I'll feel like doing a serious rewrite of it. So, um. But critical comments are likely to be an influence, one way or another, on future writing, and I love critical comments about or analysis of stories if I'm not actually expected to do anything about them (or even respond intelligently to them *g*). So in that sense, reviews and critical discussions in public forums are more than just okay. I've often wished that I could feel motivated to write Sentinel just so I could get stuff discussed on Prospect-L, which is one of the coolest lists ever.
Long response short, comments are good, crit is good, discussion is good, public, private, whatever.
Do you, as an author, take time to FB other authors?
No. *g* That is, I don't really think I send feedback as an author; I do it as a reader. Cont'd below.
For readers, I'd want to know:
What is your experience when FBing authors? Do you find authors courteous in their response? Do authors respond at all?
I've never written to anyone who was rude in their response, that I can remember. Some people reply and some don't; more people reply than don't, but I don't keep lists or anything *g* so I don't exactly have statistics for that.
If an author asks for FB, are you more or less likely to give FB?
Depends on what is meant by "asks for." If people say they're open to all kinds of comments, good and bad, that's more likely to make me send nuanced fb, and if people say send me feedback or I won't post any more, I usually feel moved to find out if that's true. ;)
Does personal perception of an author - either positive or negative - affect whether you give FB or not?
Probably at times, yes. It's easier to send both a more flippant comment and a more critical response to someone I've had positive communication with earlier and whose response to either of those things I feel a bit more sure of than that of a complete stranger. Wait, that was about the type of feedback, not whether or not I send it. I'll still go with probably, though I can't think of any instances where I've sent feedback just because I like someone, as opposed to just liked the story, or haven't sent feedback just because I don't like someone, even though I liked the story. There may have been cases where I didn't send feedback because I felt a bit intimidated by someone, which is silly, but there you have it.
While thinking about perception, what factors go into forming an opinion of the authors in your fandom?
An opinion of them as authors, or as people? As authors, well, some people will turn up regularly in recs or conversation, some people's names I'll recognize in good ways from other fandoms, and that's likely to be some kind of starting point in my reading, but my opinion of them as writers in this particular fandom is just going to be based on whether or not I like their stuff in this particular fandom, period. As people... my current fandom is heavily livejournal-based, and depending on how much personal stuff people put in their livejournals, you can get to find out quite a lot about their personalities - more than in the mailing list days of yore, at least. But that goes for most other fans in the fandom, not just the ones who write.