Apropos of nothing at all

[mad_jaks]

I wonder what it's like to have enough comments to a piece of fiction that they run to more than one page?

I'm not soliciting a commentfest to get me there you understand and I totally accept that while I'm not posting to comms in a major way it's not likely to happen to me (or even if I was really...)

BUT

That's got to feel good, right?

Comments

[jadesfire]

I actually dropped in to say your postcard arrived. Thanks!

More than one page of comments is very, very cool, but for me, it's always been on the silly Jack/Ianto stuff I sort of tossed out there. Unless you're a really extraordinary writer (and we have a few in TW, a few more in SGA) most gen-type pieces only get a few comments. Which is why I focus on writing for my own entertainment and learning. Especially considering only about 1 in 20 or so people who read will comment, you just can't go on the sheer numbers.

[mad_jaks]

OH good, my mum's arrived today as well :D

most gen-type pieces only get a few comments
Yep, I know how that feels and gen drabbles tend to get even fewer.

you just can't go on the sheer numbers.
In my first fandom us authors relied on email feedback. I'd be cahtting to kethni in MSN and she'd be telling me how much so-and-so had liked something I had written and it would be total news to me because though they'd told her they hadn't mailed me :(

[fajrdrako]

My impression is that drabbles are getting fewer and fewer comments than ever. I wonder why.

[itsarift_thing]

Now then there's a question.

There's a train of thought with some people that drabble writers are out for all the attention they can get so that the quality of the writing will, necessarily, be crap.

[fajrdrako]

I know some people who don't read drabbles because they are short - they don't like short fiction, and they think something so short can't be substantial.

I used to think that. Learned otherwise.

And I've certainly read some very long fics with no substance at all!

But I suspect the real reason is more complex than that; I just don't know what it is.

[itsarift_thing]

Best comment I have EVER had for one of my drabbles was from Rusty about Supplicant (the 'Jack's seen too many battlefields' thing)

I wouldn't have expected to use the word "epic" to describe a drabble, but I really think it fits here

It still gives me a warm fuzzy

[fajrdrako]

Yes, excellent, and it proves that it isn't the length that counts, it's the substance.

[aeron_lanart]

I think that a good drabble is much more difficult to write than a 1000 word fic. And when I say drabble, I mean drabble; 100 words, no more, no less (unless it be marked as a double drabble or a drabble and half or even a baker's drabble). It really really bugs me when someone says they've written a drabble and the damn thing is over 300 words long (another sort of fic I won't read).

I love drabbles and short fic in general as it allows you to have a quick fanfic fix when you're short on time. Also if you aren't that familiar with a fandom (like me and SGA or NCIS) a drabble or a short fic can give you a feel for it without there being a massive plot that demands that you know all about character X and Character Y. I still haven't seen SGA or NCIS but I like what I've read so far (and I almost have all of the SGA eps now). Fanfic, and often drabbles and short fic, has been responsible for getting me interested in 4 fandoms that I hadn't been previously, and writing in 1 of them myself!

And I'm still rambling aren't I?

[mad_jaks]

Yes but it's a good ramble...

I am very particular about the term drabble - to the extent I somtimes want to call something *I've* written a one hundred word snippet rather than 'drabble'!

Quick fanfic fixes are good - and I know what you mean about introductions. I'd read a fair bit of SGA before it ever reached Britain. OTOH Supernatural fic blindsided me completely, simply because I had no idea - at first - that they were brothers and I really don't *do* incest.

[fajrdrako]

Yes, a drabble has to be spot-on at 100 words or its a ficlet, and they're just not the same. It's missing the point.

I wonder if you'll like SGA? I never took to it, but most do.