Confessions of a Glory Hound: On Fanfic and Feedback

[dashakay]

So, I've been meaning to write a big old thing about feedback for a while now and I'm finally getting to it. It seems particularly timely since there's been a lot of discussion, not always civil, in Big Bang Theory fandom lately.

Comments

[leiascully]

I agree: I write primarily for the purpose of telling and sharing the story. The fact that other people read it or want to read it is important to me, because I'm not telling the story in a vacuum - I want to know if other people feel the same way I do about a potential situation or some unexplored aspect of canon. For me, writing is a conversation. Feedback is nice evidence that someone is out there listening, but it's not the most important thing. I love it, of course, and I seek more of it, but it's more to broaden the conversation than to seek glory.

[dashakay]

I love "broaden the conversation" so much. Because when you really think about it, fanfic is just a creative way to talk about the show (or book or movie or whatever) you love.

[leiascully]

Even if you don't post it and you're just broadening your own conversation with the show, there's still an aspect of dialogue, or at least of evocation and response.

[coffeesuperhero]

AGREED. As usual, my wife and I say essentially the same thing without even knowing it. Lol.

[split_the_ocean]

So... yes. Just, yes. I can't really offer anything on top of what you said because, well, what you said pretty much summed up all my thoughts on the matter.
Obviously when I write something I'm doing it for myself, because I love to write and if I didn't I think my brain would explode from all the fic ideas banging around in there. But that doesn't mean that I don't get all excited when I see that I've gotten a new comment, call me a glory hound, but any type of feedback just makes my heart do weird little jumps up and down.

Huh, I guess I had more to say than just 'yes' after all. Anyways, the gist is that I agree with everything you said, and you said it better than I ever could.

THIS ALSO MAKES ME WANT TO GO COMMENT ON ALL OF YOUR FICS AND TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM, BUT I'LL JUST GIVE YOU GENERAL FEEDBACK RIGHT HERE: "OMG I LOVED IT. FANTASTIC. YOU ROCK" That's pretty much my response to all of your fics. For real. ♥

[dashakay]

GLORY HOUNDS, UNITE! Maybe we should get t-shirts or something? ♥

DAWWW. You've been kind enough, sweetheart. I'm just so glad you're active in BBT fandom. You're fantastic!

[split_the_ocean]

I want a t-shirt badly, I would wear it proudly everywhere I go.

♥ &hearts Everyone in the BBT fandom has been so great and welcoming to my lovely noobish self... YOU ARE ALL FANTASTIC BEYOND COMPARE.

totally OT but guess where I'm having dinner tonight? THAT'S RIGHT... IKEA BABY! MEATBALLS HERE I COME.

[dashakay]

PLEASE TO BE SENDING ME SOME OF THOSE MEATBALLS. AND MAYBE ONE OF THEIR CUTE LITTLE SHRIMP SANDWICHES.

WE ♥ YOU! If you run away to SPN fandom, it's ON.

[she_burns1]

This is a very well thought out piece and I pretty much agree with it on all points.

I write because it's a fun distraction from the every day, and because sometimes, when a story takes hold, I just want to tell it. Grant it, I tend to post too quickly and thus, often end up finding myself with incomplete WIPs.

But back to what you wrote - I jsut want to highlight my favorite bits:

It's the same thing with writing fic. I really and truly care about the stories that I write. It doesn't mean that they're perfect and the best stories ever in any given fandom. I'm well aware that there are tons of writers better than I am and that there are a lot of areas where I could stand improvement

[dashakay]

I'm sorry you've been sick! It sucks when it goes on and on and on.

Definitely the conversation is important. I didn't even get around to touching on the all the different ways leaving feedback on fic has affected my life. But virtually all of my close fandom friends, my beta readers, my co-writers, came directly from either giving them feedback or receiving it from them. I probably wouldn't be in BBT fandom today if I hadn't have left feedback for juniperlane, who responded so warmly and with a ton of links to fic by other writers for me to check out.

In other words, ♥.

[51stcenturyfox]

When I'm well and truly obsessed with a fandom and/or a pairing, I have stories that I need to tell. The fic somehow spontaneously generates in my brain and often the stories begin writing themselves long before I get anywhere near a keyboard or a pad of paper.That's the best feeling

[dashakay]

Yeah, I completely forgot about the entertaining people part. *headdesk* It's a really great feeling when a story I've written cheers someone up, or makes the laugh, or even makes them cry.

I'd probably share too even if there were no mechanism for feedback. But you're right, it does exist and yeah, I enjoy receiving it. No shame in that game.

[d_sieya]

Um, nothing to say but... this? Молодец, девушка. (Я всегда забываю, что ты тоже говоришь по-русски.)

This is EXACTLY how I feel about reviews. Or feedback. You're right, they're not really reviews, but as I started out on ffnet that's how I think of them.

When I first wrote my first ever story, I was like twelve years old and this was before I was introduced to the wonders of internet-publishing. It was an original story, about forty pages long, and really bad, but it had been turning over and over and over in my head until I finally pulled out word pad and got it all down. And then I closed it and never opened it again. So when I finally FOUND out the internet has whole sites dedicated to this, the reviews I got were like some sort of awesome bonus. (Even though the stories were still bad.)

But you're totally right. I primarily write because I think about stories all the time and they're interesting enough to me for me to want to write them and even get surprised by how they turn out. And I don't care if it's fanfic, my writing

[dashakay]

Большое спасибо, милая девушка!

Man, my Russian is just sad. :(

Thank you for such a thoughtful response. You should post that on your LJ!

Man, concrit. That's worthy of a series of ten essays itself. I'm open to receiving it on my own fic but I also know that not all writers are, so I'm very hesitant to leave it for anyone else. I wish there could be a way for BBT to have a conversation about it. I'm 100% sure that spanon isn't the place for it, though. Hmm...must think. Why is thinking so haaard?

[d_sieya]

Is spanon where this has all started? LOL that's why I was confused when you were like, "bbt fandom has been discussing this," because I was like, wheeeeere? Maybe on eclectic? I realize that's not a discussion community, but it's a place where a lot of fic is gathered and this is something that doesn't only concern Paradox as a community.

I think the thing about this fandom is that there's a lot of fluff (not criticizing that, since I'm primarily a fluff writer myself) and some of it--not all, but some--is hard to get really serious about. And there's a lot of new writers that you don't know well, so you don't want to scare them away and make them disappointed with criticism? And the people you know who are open to receiving it, you're hard-pressed to find something to criticize? Like I said, idek.

[dashakay]

Yeah, there's been a rather heated discussion on spanon. Or, rather, I think it's been 2 or 3 people arguing with everyone else. Although I'd love to have this discussion on Paradox. I wonder if the mods would approve it if I posted this there. I'd rather have it there than on paradox_ot because there aren't many members of the OT comm yet.

Well, I have no problem with fluff if it's well-written and has some thread of deeper meaning, but the stuff that some of the newer writers come up with can be cringe-worthy. I wish there were a good way to approach them and say, "Hey, I think you could be a good writer. Would you like a beta?" without coming off like an arrogant know-it-all.