Silvershadow1711 - Crux Of What?

It bothers me that we never got the name of the continent that Fates takes place on!

Yes. You have no idea how much every single comment means to a writer. I cannot tell you how disheartening it is to see a fanfic with dozens, if not hundreds of comments, and then look at my paltry reviews. The only fics I've even gotten reviews on are my 32 chapter, 44k+ word epic (and almost half of them were complaints), and my sexy yandere oneshot. When I realized the only thing people deem worth their time to comment on are hastily written smut fics, it makes me want to just throw my hands in the air and quit. Guess what- if I didn't want feedback, I wouldn't post this stuff online.

The only real feedback I ever got was people complaining, and I even appreciated that (not when it was annoymous, tho, because that made it hard to respond) because it let me gauge what the readers thought. When no one says anything (or gives a one sentence review like "this is good"), I have no fucking clue what to think. Do they like it? Hate it? Was there some characterization that wasn't clear? Is anyone even READING this, or did they just stop in, read one paragraph, then say fuck this shit? Another thing is, lots of readers of fanfiction tend to gravitate towards the stories with the most reviews, because if so many people are leaving comments, it MUST be good. If you like something someone writes, leave some reviews so other people can notice it to.

I started posting fanfiction dreaming I could be like my favorite authors, with people leaving insightful, uplifting reviews every chapter and dying to know what happens next. Now, posting chapters is just another tedious chore for me, like waking up. I have so little drive and motivation now that if I didn't have a backlog of completed chapters, I'd just stop posting all together. And on ao3, kudos are okay, but comments mean much, MUCH more. If you could take the time to read something from begining to end, surely you could take a few more seconds to tell the author if you enjoyed it or not.

Why Commenting On FanFiction Is Important

Alright kids, Boo here with a hopefully non-arrogant PSA.

I’m a writer of FanFiction because I like it and it’s my preferred genre (also a great way to receive feedback on writing that I can use on originals, bref). But like with most artistic work posted online, I have very little feedback.

When I was in a slightly writing rut, I cranked one shots left and right, nothing out of the ordinary. But instead of people commenting with their thoughts and good feedback, they just gave me requests.

I don’t think I could ever put into words what that felt like, but I’ll try (the irony of being a writer). It suddenly felt tiring, being a writer, and very quickly I stopped writing altogether. I only ever showed my friend what I wrote and left it at that. I haven’t published anything for a while after. It felt like people were treating me like a mule wanting me to do work for them, and I just wasn’t up for that. I lost my will to write, and then I began to think, “If I post something else other than what was requested, will people even read it?”

Then you get the infamous comments, “You haven’t forgotten about my request right??? Here’s another.”

That just adds anxiety and guilt. I’m purposely ignoring the comments to save my own uncreative ass, at least that’s what it feels like.

After weeks of convincing myself that my stories are worth sharing no matter how many people read them, I started writing and publishing again while working on some longer pieces. Slowly it got better.

Now this week, I remembered I joined another fanfiction platform, and realized I had never published anything on it. I had an idea, and so I started writing. It didn’t come out as I imagined it would, but I was so proud? Like, I started feeling happy about what I created again. Like genuine happiness that I haven’t felt in months since my last published work.

A few hours later, I get this comment:

I cranked out three 3k stories after reading this.

In four days.

It never happened before, and I don’t know how many times it will happen again. It was one comment, but it gave me so much fighting spirit that I think I’m on my way to regaining my initial writer mindset.

Fanfiction writers depend on feedback as a validation that their stories matter to people. If you’re wondering why your favourite author hasn’t updated/posted in a while, ask yourself, “Did I do everything that would convince them to continue writing this?”

The worst thing is, his Sacred Stones art had SOOOOO much more character. Like, when I look at that art, I swoon. This? This is just another generic, plastic, baby-faced bishonen. He looks JUST like this horrible, awful character from Cinderella Contract (Cyrill, I think his name was?), and I loathe that...

But it's Seth, so I don't give a damn.

I'm just browsing through old posts on DC Douglas' blog for shits and giggles. The fact that Gunther thinks Berkut is "huggable" makes me smile. Someone do fanart of that, cuz I'm too lazy to.

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

2: What scene did you first put down?

3: What's your favorite line of narration?

4: What's your favorite line of dialogue?

5: What part was hardest to write?

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

7: Where did the title come from?

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

11: What do you like best about this fic?

12: What do you like least about this fic?

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn't listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?