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

[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.