feeding you back
I've been thinking about feedback lately - what I get, what I give. It occurs to me that the advent of lj and the trend toward commenting as feedback, rather than emailed LOCs (which of course is not new - things have been this way for a while) is a double-edged sword, in that although the ease of posting a comment has generally led to more feedback, the public nature of lj comments has (I think) led to less mixed-critical feedback (by which I mean, feedback that is not entirely positive).
I know it's true for the feedback I give, anyway. I'm reluctant to publicly post mixed feedback unless it's for a story by someone I already have a strong lj-relationship with, and even then I am wary. If a story is posted on lj, unless the author's email address is right there, it takes too many clicks to discover where to send email, and unless there is something I am dying to tell the author, I just won't bother.
But, you know, I really do like getting feedback - even critical feedback. I've said this before, but I haven't said it in a long time: I am open to, and in fact really appreciate, polite, reasoned criticism on my stories, although I prefer it sent by email to isis [at] arithmancy.net (or by my form mail on my website). You can even send it anonymously by using my website form mail and not entering your email address, but I weigh all criticism by its source, so I will take it less seriously in that case than I will criticism by a writer I admire (or a non-writer whose recs I admire, or even a person whose general manner on lj I admire).
I also have said before that I view fandom very much as a community. Okay, a set of overlapping communities. And part of the feel of community is the give-and-take of interaction, which includes reading each other's stories and telling each other when we enjoyed them, just as we read each other's lj posts and comment when we have something to say. (And I guess I should add here that I have no problem with lurkers, either in my journal or on my stories.)
So here's the deal. If I am on your flist (you don't have to be on mine) or if I know you because you've commented on any of my stories recently, I invite you to rec me one or two of your stories for me to read and give you concrit-ish feedback on. (Two is to give me an option - give me pairing, rating, and maybe a little description so I can choose.) If your email address isn't on the story itself, give me your email address, spamtrapped if you like. If I have never read anything you've written, you get priority; next come the people I've never given feedback to; the last are those whose stories I've recced.
Fandoms I will read are due South, Wilby Wonderful, HCL, possibly other 6-degrees fandoms if I know them; SGA; Master and Commander; and heck, I'll throw Pirates of the Caribbean in there, too. I will read slash, het, or gen. I will read any length story, but the longer it is, the more I will have to like it to finish it.
I prefer my m/m slash explicit, my het and femslash not so explicit. I prefer non-PWP. I like plot. I like straightforward narrative. Most of the stories I like are in past tense and third person, but those are not requirements, just preferences. I like unusual pairings. I like the characters as adults rather than as teens. I have no OTP (other than perhaps Duck/Dan); my favorite characters (I hesitate to call them OTCs) are Ray K, Rodney McKay, and Stephen Maturin, and I'm more likely to enjoy stories with those characters. Um, not all at once. But! I love clever crossovers.
I promise to send you feedback on what I think of the story - what worked for me and what didn't, what I like and what I don't. This is necessarily going to be subjective, and what I personally like isn't necessarily what others like. And it's possible I will have to just say (as I did on one story the last time I did this) that it's technically a fine story but doesn't hold my interest - just not my type of thing, and I can't pinpoint why.
I know it's true for the feedback I give, anyway. I'm reluctant to publicly post mixed feedback unless it's for a story by someone I already have a strong lj-relationship with, and even then I am wary. If a story is posted on lj, unless the author's email address is right there, it takes too many clicks to discover where to send email, and unless there is something I am dying to tell the author, I just won't bother.
But, you know, I really do like getting feedback - even critical feedback. I've said this before, but I haven't said it in a long time: I am open to, and in fact really appreciate, polite, reasoned criticism on my stories, although I prefer it sent by email to isis [at] arithmancy.net (or by my form mail on my website). You can even send it anonymously by using my website form mail and not entering your email address, but I weigh all criticism by its source, so I will take it less seriously in that case than I will criticism by a writer I admire (or a non-writer whose recs I admire, or even a person whose general manner on lj I admire).
I also have said before that I view fandom very much as a community. Okay, a set of overlapping communities. And part of the feel of community is the give-and-take of interaction, which includes reading each other's stories and telling each other when we enjoyed them, just as we read each other's lj posts and comment when we have something to say. (And I guess I should add here that I have no problem with lurkers, either in my journal or on my stories.)
So here's the deal. If I am on your flist (you don't have to be on mine) or if I know you because you've commented on any of my stories recently, I invite you to rec me one or two of your stories for me to read and give you concrit-ish feedback on. (Two is to give me an option - give me pairing, rating, and maybe a little description so I can choose.) If your email address isn't on the story itself, give me your email address, spamtrapped if you like. If I have never read anything you've written, you get priority; next come the people I've never given feedback to; the last are those whose stories I've recced.
Fandoms I will read are due South, Wilby Wonderful, HCL, possibly other 6-degrees fandoms if I know them; SGA; Master and Commander; and heck, I'll throw Pirates of the Caribbean in there, too. I will read slash, het, or gen. I will read any length story, but the longer it is, the more I will have to like it to finish it.
I prefer my m/m slash explicit, my het and femslash not so explicit. I prefer non-PWP. I like plot. I like straightforward narrative. Most of the stories I like are in past tense and third person, but those are not requirements, just preferences. I like unusual pairings. I like the characters as adults rather than as teens. I have no OTP (other than perhaps Duck/Dan); my favorite characters (I hesitate to call them OTCs) are Ray K, Rodney McKay, and Stephen Maturin, and I'm more likely to enjoy stories with those characters. Um, not all at once. But! I love clever crossovers.
I promise to send you feedback on what I think of the story - what worked for me and what didn't, what I like and what I don't. This is necessarily going to be subjective, and what I personally like isn't necessarily what others like. And it's possible I will have to just say (as I did on one story the last time I did this) that it's technically a fine story but doesn't hold my interest - just not my type of thing, and I can't pinpoint why.