Thoughts on feedback

[briarwood]

Probably the biggest difference betwen LJ and its clones as a place to post fiction and the older venues of websites and mailing list is the comments. I've always had some feedback for my fics; but the comment cuture is what makes LJ fandom what it is.

I've always said I write for me. I write the stories in my own head, I write the pairings I want to regardless of their popularity in fandom and if my characterisation isn't always the fanon one, it's because I write what I see in the characters.

But sharing what I write is important to me, and the feedback is a good motivator. Without the occasional comments, I might still be talking to myself on long walks, telling my stories to thin air instead of writing them down, the way I did when I was a teen and couldn't write anything down 'cause Sis would find it.

Today I realised something about my relationship with feedback since I started posting on LJ. It's not gonna move any mountains, but for me it's a major revelation. And it's this:

Every time I post a fic, I have a specific someone in mind as a reader. It's a different someone each time, and it's not like I've written the story for that person (I'm not including fics written for prompts or challenges where there is a specific recipient). It's just a little voice in the back of my head saying "I just know X will love this one..." or even "X will 'get' this story".

And it really hurts if that person then doesn't comment.

I love all feedback. I rarely get negative comments but I love even those: I'm happy just to know that my fics are being read. But I guess if I'm thinking of a particular person when I post, and then I get no response from them, it feels as if the story has failed in some way. Or that I've failed.

Does anyone else do this? Or am I just weird?

(NB: Please don't take this as a plea for comments or anything like that. It's a personal musing, nothing more.)

Comments

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do it too. Maybe we're just weird together. ;-) I enjoy feedback, I do. especially if I DID have a certain person in mind when I wrote it (which isn't always). OTOH, I've also written and posted plenty I didn't expect feedback for because they were so obscure... Just because it was something in my system that I had to get out. When I get feedback to those, it's always a treat.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

Maybe we're just weird together. ;-)

Yeah, maybe. I can live with that :-)

[raynedanser.livejournal.com]

Me too. :D

[snailbones.livejournal.com]

Aww no - I think we all need to know that we've done good, and if you've done something with somebody in particular in mind it must be horrible if they don't even seem to notice.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

and if you've done something with somebody in particular in mind it must be horrible if they don't even seem to notice.

Yeah, but...that person never knows I'm thinking of her when I post. Some people don't read every post, some people don't comment a lot. Hell, sometimes it's a person who doesn't even have me friended. It shouldn't bug me.

But it does.

[slipperieslope.livejournal.com]

As an old crone type, I would say do not be shy - let a person know if you wrote a story, or a scene with them in mind. Share that with them, too. It is too easy to miss a story posting or have your RL disrupt blogging time. I say tell them, tell them now. I know I would be intrigued, flattered and curious beyond the norm if an author would tell me and it would surely kill me on some different plane if I let a writer down and never knew. Share it with them. I think it is important to both of you.

[morgan32.livejournal.com]

It is too easy to miss a story posting or have your RL disrupt blogging time.

Well...okay. But the only place I'd be likely to let a person know is in the story post itself. So if you miss that, you'd miss the shout-out, too, wouldn't you?

Besides, it's not letting a writer down to fail to read or comment. It might be in a fic-exchange type of scenario, if someone's written a story specifically for you, but not the vague kind of thing I'm talking about.