Posted this to my LJ the other day, thought it might go well here

[cmwinters]

I hate, hate, hate-hate HATE! review whoring. I have stopped reading stories based on petulant comments by the author that went along the lines of "Review or I'll stop writing" (and sometimes in so many words

Comments

[lordhellebore]

I can fully understand your being anoyed with the review-whoring. It irritates me to a point where I stop reading an okay-written fanfic, just because I can't stand the nerve of the author. And yes, it's even so much worse when they wait for ages to post the next chapter just to get more reviews.

I think, however, that some of them don't know better and just have bad examples they follow. When I think of my early fanfic time, meaning the time when I only knew ff.net, I saw such behaviour - among other annoying stuff - frequently. People thus could come to think that it is common, and not realise how annoying it really is. Thankfully, I ventured into other territory quickly and understood the fanfic netiquette a bit better. Sometimes, a little education works wonders.

But say nothing against slow writers, I beg you ;) I take 1 - 6 months to finish a chapter. Shameful, but true... But it's not done deliberately.

[straussmonster]

I suppose it's a cliche in how reviewers behave, but this doesn't seem like it goes in this comm.

[vanityfair00]

A few seconds to type a review or hours upon hours of writing, rewriting, waiting for someone to beta read, watching as it goes through an approval queue...I really think the author wins on that one.

Not that I condone holding chapters hostage for reviews, but generally the types that try that aren't worth reading anyway.

[cmwinters]

Do authors really want tons of useless "z0mg yey!" reviews? Those don't really do anything for this author. I won't delete them but I don't get excited about them.

I really long concrit review that goes through every shade and nuance in the chapter, every plot twist and characterisation, for me, takes like, four hours to write. I can't do that for every story I read, and like, you know, eat and sleep and live.

And honestly, I see some of these people churning out two or three chapters a month in varying different stories. Now, it's great that they can do that, but I actually had several of them tell me I was worried to much about the details of my story. Granted, I was probably overly worried about some of what could, to the normal American reader, be considered fairly insignificant details, but to be told I should just not worry about it was not indicative of someone spending months and months on anything.

Feh. I'm cranky.

[vanityfair00]

I like both. I can hardly say otherwise since most of my reviews consist of basically the same message just spelled correctly. I read for enjoyment. I don't read to help the writer get better at their craft. Hopefully, they're already pretty good at it or I wouldn't be reading their stuff in the first place. I don't expect more out of my own reviewers. It's nice when I get a nice long review...but I get just as many pretentious crap reviews pretending to be concrit as ones that are truly helpful. The pit and other archives aren't meant to replace a writing group or a good editor.

And the excited squees of reviewers aren't always useless. They can mean you're doing something right. And the lack of them can mean the opposite (not always depending on what it is you're doing but if you're writing for entertainment value then they can be a good indicator.)

[djin7]

You are my new hero.

That is all.

[hanfastolfe]

I always thought it was a bit tasteless to demand reviews, so I've never done that myself. Instead I try to encourage people to review by insisting that I don't bite, throw fits, etc just because I get reviews that complain about an aspect of the story instead of just going "yay please update soon kthx". :)

Re authors demanding reviews. I just figure if they haven't figured it out, it's their loss as the dynamic between author and reviewer can be just as rewarding as writing the fic, so holding fics hostage for reviews really cheapens the process, in my view.

However, I don't get much hacked-off if I see authors doing so, I just ignore the demand for a review and evaluate the fic on its own merits. :)

[hanfastolfe]

Addendum.

I recently came across a fic which is really well-written and shows the marks of a technically competent author who knows what grammar, spelling and punctuation are. Unfortunately, she also, at the end of EVERY geedee chapter, makes a big production out of asking people to review.

:\

[cmwinters]

Yeah, I think I've read that story or one very much like it. Feh.