WHY I DON'T REVIEW IN THE FANDOM.

[artemis_rex]

Someone asked me, very politely, to review their story a day or so ago. I had to say no. Funnily enough, a friend and I had been discussing my lack of reviews in the fandom earlier this week.

I don't review in the fandom, and some people may say, "Why not?" I have not reviewed anything in seven months and I haven't reviewed anything that an author

Comments

[fall_from_eden]

I would like to comment on one thing: "there's a reason that I didn't go into teaching -- I have no patience for stupidity, dramaz or entitlement."

Where the heck were you when I was studying to be a teacher, myself?!! You could have saved me countless hours of stress and emotional sickness by telling me I'd be dealing with all of that crap. Funny, how they don't cover that sort of stuff ... :)

[zevieblack]

Hee. Heeheeheehee.

No, I'm not giggling because I got a mention. Okay, maybe.

I'm not honest enough to say all this, but I'd wager that this is why most people don't review. I mean, you could copy and paste a "form review" or something, but then it's just as useful as no review at all.

I do believe in the "you review me, I'll review you" thing to some degree. Not as in, every review deserves a response, though - more in a backwards sense. If someone took the time to leave me a thoughtful, intelligent review, and especially if they do it consistently, I'm going to want to read their stuff, not because I feel I owe them necessarily, but because anyone who puts that much thought into something they've read will more likely have put that same thought and attention to detail into their own writing. Leaving a review IS like free advertisement - but in this case, all publicity is not good publicity lol. If someone leaves a shitty review, why would they expect that you'd want to read MORE of their writing?

[nittanylizard]

The subject of reviewing has been going through my head so much over the past couple of weeks. Minus the job, I've got the same thing going on with the husband and the kids and the original writing and the, you know, life. There are stories I really enjoy that I'm behind in reading, forget about reviewing, and that does make me feel guilty, even though I don't even notice if those same authors review my stuff. There's just not enough time in the day to write, review, and reply to everything. It almost makes me feel bad about posting stories, but it's either write and post, plus fit in what reading and reviewing I can, or stop writing fanfic altogether so I can spend all my time reading and reviewing