I am currently in the process of porting a lot of my older fanfic onto AO3, because I want it all in one place/don’t want it to be lost/want to revise it to be a little more in-line with my current standards of both quality and language use. It’s so quick and easy! I can’t remember why I didn’t do this before!
…oh, right, she says, as the hit counter goes higher without the comments, or even the kudos, to match. Because I feel like I’m screaming into the void.
I come from very comment-heavy fic environments, and like most fanfic authors I have known, I am a little twitchy about “what if this is awful what if I am awful what if nobody likes my shit at all.” So when I have 50 hits and one kudo, I actually feel pretty rotten, which makes me less eager to do the job of cleaning and posting.
This is hence a plea on behalf of all fanfic authors: remember that the people who write the stories you enjoy are not getting paid for their time in anything other than “you did good, have a cookie” comments from people. Please consider commenting if you liked a story. Please consider leaving a kudo if you read all the way to the end. There are stories that are qualitatively bad that I’ve left kudos on, because hey, I read them, they gave me an hour of enjoyment, they deserve a cookie.
We have infinite cookies to give. We should share them freely, because wow, does it suck when fanfic makes fanfic writers sad.
That’s all.
This feels particularly relevant to a lot of chatter I’m seeing cross my dash.
Writing is hard. Writing is scary. Writing takes time and effort and care and love love love. Which is true of any fanwork of course, but fanfiction also requires a significant investment from its audience before it can even begin to be seen. With art or gifsets or any other visual medium, the work can be consumed, appreciated, and commented/reblogged/whatever within seconds. It takes longer than that just to read the description on a work of fanfiction.
But in the same vein, your fanfic writers give you hours of entertainment in return. Whether it’s a smile or a sob delivered in ten minute ficlets or 100k monsters you’re still reading at 3 am, fanfiction will give you a level of immersion unique to the fandom experience. With fanfiction, the characters live forever and the story never ends.
Still, that commitment from the audience means we’re already looking at a sliver of the same attention, without hope of the same scale of interaction and response. That makes what we DO get so very critical.
If you read something, take a moment to click those kudos or likes or whatever. If you liked it, leave a comment, If you loved it, love your fanfic author back and tell them. TELL THEM EVERYTHING I PROMISE YOU WE WANT TO HEAR
Remember that the only thing that nourishes fandom creators are your responses. Your fanfic writers are timid, starving creatures. Feed them. Love them. I said the characters live forever and the story never ends, but that’s only true if the storytellers keep telling stories. To do that, they need an audience. Make sure they know they have one.
Think of your fan creators as skittish, timid forest creatures. If you speak in a kind voice and leave scraps of food around, chances are, they’ll keep visiting the yard of your fandom. Yell at them, ignore them, or make your fandom yard an unpleasant place to be, and they disappear, leaving you wondering why your yard is so empty and boring.
I’ve made so many friends in the comments section as well. So you know, if you’re sitting there thinking “Oh man, there’s no fic out there!” Comment! Say something nice! If it’s a long fic post a theory and see how the writer responds! I don’t know about others but sometimes I’ve read a theory so good I’ve ended up including it in my fic! Get chatting! Make friends and together you can
rule the galaxycreate new works to spread the love!Leaving Kudos doesn’t take much time at all, a comment of “Great Fic!” can mean SO MUCH like I LOVE getting those notifications from my email, they really brighten my day!
As someone who writes for a Rare Pair, it can really get disheartening when you don’t get any feedback at all. You see the hits but they don’t reflect what people are saying. So if you want to show your love and get more fic out there for your rare pairs: COMMENT! KUDOS! BOOKMARK! Do all these things and you’ll soon discover the tag is getting a heck of a lot fuller!
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