WIP challenge check-in: day 3!

[littlebutfierce]

I love all the cheerleading & commiserating going on in yesterday's check-in post! Yay! How's it going today?

Poll #6857 Day 3 May WIP challenge check-in!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

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All right, how's the fic feeling today?

View Answers

I AM A GENIUS
1 (6.7%)

Not bad!
10 (66.7%)

SHUT UP SHUT UP
1 (6.7%)

...
3 (20.0%)

And what did you do today, fic-wise?

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Write
10 (66.7%)

Edit
2 (13.3%)

Send to beta
0 (0.0%)

Research
1 (6.7%)

Procrastinate
7 (46.7%)

Something else I will describe in comments
1 (6.7%)

3 words or less to describe your fic today:

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And in keeping with the fanfic flamingo theme, let's talk about comments. The flamingo has a lot to say about comments.

I think I can identify with all of those images, heh. My favorite might be this one, though:



[Background — a six piece pie style colour split in three shades of pink. Foreground — the long neck and face of a pink flamingo.

Top text: POUR HEART AND SOUL INTO FEMMESLASH EPIC

Bottom text: 5 COMMENTS]

So! Comments! Do you find them a big motivator? Do you find yourself working more on stories that you anticipate will get a lot of comments? Or maybe you're in a tiny fandom or your OTP is really obscure/unpopular: do you find that this means you don't worry about getting comments (maybe it just makes you really, really want the one comment from the one person who'll get the story!)? Are they icing on the cake, but not something you think about while you're actually writing a story? Do you not care at all (or try not to)? Be honest!

&, importantly, do you leave comments yourself?

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

I wrote ~800 words while doing my 750 Words on what might be a new fic, or maybe something that will end up in another one. I dunno. It doesn't feel genius, but I was able to make myself write something instead of just throwing up my hands today, so that's all right.

Hoo boy, I love comments. Love love love them. I do mostly write in small fandoms, though, & also sometimes the unpopular/neglected pairings (femslash in a fandom that is all about the dudes, etc.), & I think if I geared my writing towards what I thought would get the most comments, well, I wouldn't generally be writing things that I wanted to write. I do feel sad when I work my ass off on a story & it hardly gets read or appreciated because the audience just isn't there. I don't think that tends to affect what I write, though. Or at least not consciously.

I do comment, possibly not as much as I should, but I do make a point to do it. Especially because if I do my part to encourage more of a culture of feedback, well, I might get some more feedback myself. ;)

[curuchamion]

Re comments: I do not comment. Much at all. *hangs head* This is particularly bad because I love getting comments. (Don't we all?)

I don't gear my writing toward comments, though, or think about comment-likelihood while I'm writing a story. My most popular stories have all been "what, people like that? ah, popular keywords in the title/summary", and my least popular are mostly "eh, it's in a tiny fandom. Two comments is all it'll get - but the other two fans are Great Writers, so if they like it, I'm happy."

(I write gen, so it's less imperative that I write to the kinks of my audience, and anyway 99% of my story inspirations are "hey, nobody's done this! why not?" Thus it's pretty hard to predict what anyone will like, so I just focus on making the best fic I can and hope it isn't utter dreck at the end of the day.)

I shall be back with remarks about my actual writing progress at midnight GMT, because I have that long to make my other 1110 words for today... O_O

[anehan]

I've written 2,150 words today already, but because my word count on day 1 was a big fat zero, I'm still 1,080 words from today's goal. But! The small hours of the night are waiting! I shall conquer this!

I'm really, really bad at commenting. Like, epic fail. But then again, I don't particularly care about whether people comment on my fics or not, either. I like comments, of course, but I don't fret about getting them. That said, I do treasure every comment I get. The thought that someone liked my fic enough to take time to comment makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

[charamei]

ONE AND A HALF PAGES TO GO.

(I stopped there because (a) bedtime and it's work tomorrow, (b) those 750 words will probably double when I edit*, and (c) I KILLED THE EVIL REWRITE OF EVIL.)

If I'm feeling particularly motivated, I might even get out of bed early to finish.

I also had a massive life-affirming 'hey, I just realised that I write publishable prose' epiphany moment a few hours ago, so I'm feeling pretty good all around, really.

*Happens at the end of every fic's writing stage. "So... close... can finish today... ah, whatever. Rush to the finish line! Fix it when you edit!"

Comments!
I like comments. I try to leave them on most things I finish reading - certainly I try to leave them for my circle. This isn't always successful... I hate leaving 'I liked this!' comments (love getting them, don't misunderstand me...!), so I try to leave a decent-length review. Which causes problems when I'm in a hurry. Inevitably I end up forgetting I meant to review at all.

I'm honestly not sure how much I'm motivated by comments. On the one hand, for a long fic, it's definitely a nice carrot to dangle ahead of myself. On the other, it's not the most common one: that's usually 'and then you can start the next thing!'. I certainly don't tailor what I'm writing to when I think will be popular. Couldn't if I wanted to, since I only write gen or ace romance :p

[jagnikjen]

I'm not sure how many words I actually wrote today. Over all, not that many. It was also more like heavy revising than actually banging out a lot of words. Now I've got to transition to the sex scene, which always stalls me out--performance anxiety I think. But I have to run an errand this evening so I'll probably piddle some more with it when I get home.

~*~

So! Comments! Do you find them a big motivator? No, not really. I mean, not in the "I want comments so I'm going to write a story." kind of way.

Do you find yourself working more on stories that you anticipate will get a lot of comments?

No, definitely not.

Or maybe you're in a tiny fandom or your OTP is really obscure/unpopular: do you find that this means you don't worry about getting comments (maybe it just makes you really, really want the one comment from the one person who'll get the story!)? Are they icing on the cake, but not something you think about while you're actually writing a story? Do you not care at all (or try not to)? Be honest!

My old/current fandom (BBC's Robin Hood) is pretty small, and my OTP while canon, seems not to be the preference of a large portion of the circles in which I float. But that's my ship of choice. *shrugs* That said, I do like to experiment with various pairings and it's interesting to see the reactions I get.

All that said, I do love comments. Moving on to my new/current fandom (Harry Potter) has been tough as all my online friends are from Robin Hood and only some read Harry Potter, so the comments are much scarcer.

Do you leave comments yourself? I'm trying to be more diligent about that, even if it's just "I love this." But I do admit that there's one author I never leave feedback for. Also, sometimes, the old adage, "If you can't say anything nice..." comes into play. :)

[chibifukurou]

I've written nothing but I did run a couple word sprints earlier for Manowrimo, and I'll head back to the chatroom later.

Comments: If I was dependent on comments I'd have given up writing a long time ago.I always find it funny when I ask for plot advice and people say. 'Well you could write that if you're not worried about people reading what you write.' See the following chart for evidence as to why I find this so amusing.

1st BB - 1 comment
2nd BB - 0 comments
3rd BB - 1 comment (a few months after it was posted)
4th BB - 1 comment from my artist
5th BB - (had to post 6 different places before I could find a beta)
600+ Comment fics - Average of 1 comment per 4 stories
14 Yuletide fics - average of 2 comments per fic unless I wrote in the 'fairytale' fandom

It's not that I don't want comments, I absolutely love feedback. I've just gotten to the point where I'm a bit selfish about what I write. I write borderline tragic epics with rare pairings/gen in tiny fandoms. They're the type of stories I love to read, and wish more people would write. So I keep writing them even though I know most people won't bother to read them. I'm always hopeful that someone out there wants the same kind of stories and someday, maybe years down the road, they'll find my fics.

[curuchamion]

So! No more progress on my fic, as I unexpectedly got taken away to vote and then go to church. I did, however, get to do some scribbling while waiting for my sisters to finish work (they were clerking at polling places), and figured out that the "two different stories" I thought I'd come up with were in fact a frame story and a flashback.

So apparently I'm writing, in fact, two stories about the same guys at different points in their lives? I'll worry about the linear structure later... right now, it seems I have an asexual male/male romance in the 1970s/'80s and a modern-day "kids visit small-town relatives, have summer fun" story to write. O_O

Thank goodness I like these guys. I'm apparently going to be seeing a lot of them. (But Mort, try to keep the potty-mouth to a minimum, huh?)

[jagnikjen]

Great job on the 800 words!! :)

[glitteryv]

Another 400 words today because I had to do some timeline research about cellphones, SD cards and a detailed My Chemical Romance's timeline from 2008 through 2010. *shows Post-It notes* Yay research?

Honestly, I don't write for comments at all. What's more, I think that ficwriters who work a fic thinking that comments will pop up all over the place once the fic is posted are going to lose in the long run. Because writing for the audience often turns into diminishing returns. People's tastes change, fandoms's popularity ebb and flow, etc. And so, the writers can end up feeling burned out (if the demand is big for their fics) or resentful (if there are little to no comments.)

Having said that, I'll admit that, like anyone who posts fic, I love getting comments. Who doesn't?

OTOH, I remember reading some meta about ficwriting (including comments) in which the post's author said that for every person who posts a comment, there are AT LEAST ten people who don't. Whether this is because the non-commenters feel awkward about replying, feel that they don't have anything clever to say, think that the writer won't like getting a simple "I loved your story", don't have enough spoons that day (etc.), it's anyone's guess.

I'm always surprised by which fics get a higher number of comments vs. my own expectations as to the fics I think people will go crazy over.

FWIW, my fics get comments (not, you know, mountains of it.) I appreciate and reply to each one. Considering the majority of my fics are:

* usually not rated higher than PG-13;
* AUs (usually with a cracky premise);
* an even mix of popular pairings as well as rare ones;

it feels awesome when someone says anything about any of my fics (or gives me kudos over at AO3.)

Also, I do leave comments (filled with squee) to fics I really like. As it happens, I read a lot of fic. So, I feel that my enthusiasm for XYZ fic will come through in my comments if I'm really meaning it. Rather than leave a string of "YAYS!" for every fic I read that won't have any depth to them.

[dbskyler]

I'm always hopeful that someone out there wants the same kind of stories and someday, maybe years down the road, they'll find my fics.

I love this. I honestly can't think of a better reason for writing fic.

[glitteryv]

Woot for 800 words! BTW, I've tried doing 750words before but don't quite feel like I've got the groove of it. What do you like about it? What don't you like about it?

It's very hard when you work on a fic and then all you get is a couple of comments and then, nothing. But you can't force people to comment. Though I've read a couple of things on how the kudos feature on AO3 has led to people commenting more than before kudos was implemented.

[glitteryv]

anyway 99% of my story inspirations are "hey, nobody's done this! why not?"

Hee, that's totally me too! I've often said that I write primarily for myself (excluding auction fics, obvs.) Because there are times when you really want to read XYZ thing with AB pairing and no one has written it . . .and next thing you know, you're 1,000 words into writing that very story.

*cheers you on for late night progress*

[glitteryv]

Though I get the :( on having zero words for day one, I *do* have to give you props on writing over 2k words (so far) today. \o/

Oh, getting comments is the best, ain't it? :)

[glitteryv]

Yays to killing the EVIL REWRITE OF EVIL! *shakes maracas of happiness*

[glitteryv]

Now I've got to transition to the sex scene, which always stalls me out--performance anxiety I think.

Hee! I think every fic writer feels that at one point or the other (even the ones who write nothing BUT porn.)

Also, yeah, I rather not post a negative comment. I mean, what would be the point of that? I don't reply with any kind of concrit (that's what PMs are for.) In a way, the thought of leaving that kind of comment for an author (whether I know them or not) hits a quasi-embarasment squick of mine. Hmm.

[dbskyler]

I'm worse at leaving comments than I used to be. I want to leave comments on everything I like, but sometimes I'm not logged in at that moment, or in a hurry, or I can't think of anything to say, so I say nothing and hope to come back. Sometimes I do come back and review later, but sometimes I forget.

In terms of writing, I never write fics for the sake of the comments. Like everyone else, I love to get comments, but I'm never calculating how many comments I'll get while I'm writing. Although I do sometimes wonder if something is any good if I don't get many comments on it! But ultimately I write for myself, and I put it on the internet because I figure other people might like it too, regardless of whether they comment or not.

I loved the Flamingo sayings -- I definitely identified with several of those!

[glitteryv]

I don't know about most people not reading fics. To me, it seems like it's a case of most people not leaving comments. Example: I went to a fangirl con in early April and had the strange experience of having people I didn't know (because we didn't share a fandom or whatever) come up to me at different times and tell me that they like or loved this story or that story of mine. Not one of them had left any comments on the stories they mentioned--even though it was obvious that, for a few people, they'd really liked them as we had this conversation about the plot, etc.

I'm always hopeful that someone out there wants the same kind of stories and someday, maybe years down the road, they'll find my fics.

That's tremendously sweet. And you know what? You are TOTES right, Chibi. Because it's happened to me as a reader. I'll be over at AO3 thinking "dude, it'd be so cool if someone wrote a fluffy/gen/cracky fic in ABC fandom for XYZ pairing or characters". About half of the time, if I find the fic I'm looking for, it's a (relatively) old story.

[glitteryv]

You go for writing 700 words! :)

[soc_puppet]

I wrote, uh. About a page's worth? I usually write my first drafts by hand, so it's hard to estimate wordcount. Still, I'm almost done with the important backstory, so yay!

I'm planning to move the chaptered fic pages into my Productivity Folder soon so I can at least look at them to try and get myself going. We'll see how that goes.


Ahahaha, comments. Oh boy. I think it is time to share a story I've really been wanting to share for a while now. It's probably way arrogant, but it amuses me, so here goes:

So, once upon a time, like seven years ago or something, I was a much younger fan and had daydreams of being a BNF, as I imagine many of us did at some time (and some of us still probably do). It was a pretty small fandom (still kinda is), and I wasn't a terrible writer, so it seemed possible! And then I hit on this idea that I thought was really fantastic, that had the potential to make me a BNF. And of course I just loved the idea for its own sake and had to write it anyway.

I didn't end up getting a mess of comments, of course. I'd estimate that I got probably a middling number for the fandom and exposure and such. And yeah, I was a little disappointed at first, but you gotta live with what you get, so that's what I learned to do: I kept updating and writing, and became okay with what I was getting.

Eventually I realized that I was pretty okay with not being a BNF; that it was a lot of responsibility and pressure anyway, and that I'd formed a lot of good relationships in the fandom on my own, and being a big name really didn't mean much to me. Eventually, I really slacked off on the fic and the fandom in general, but it was still percolating on the backburner of my mind. I ended up updating maybe once a year or so.

Then, on one of those updates, expecting the same modest number of comments I usually got - I ended up getting about five times that number. At least half of them were along the lines of: "Where the hell has this fic been hiding and how have I not read it before?" And I just - the irony, it got to me. Long after I'd stopped caring how much attention the fic got, it finally got something like the amount I was originally aiming for.

And that's the story of the chaptered fic I'm working on right now, lolsob. I really want to make it to the end, mostly for myself and this one random person who recced the fic back in the day (prior to my popularity explosion), and just. The number of other people who are now invested in it amuses me, I guess. Maybe I should try getting back in touch with the part of myself that was writing for them; it might help with the whole jump-starting process.


As for me, I don't really comment a lot. Especially when I can't think of anything "original" to say or contribute. I know it's absurd, and that everyone likes comments, even a simple "I liked it!", but it's just something I'm a little stuck on. I might get over it someday, and I might not; who knows.

[littlebutfierce]

I think a lot of people are in the "love comments, don't leave them much" camp, hehehe.

It's interesting that mostly nobody so far seems to have admitted to being swayed, topic/pairing-wise, by the likelihood of comments--I remember reading some meta posts a while ago where it seemed quite the thing to admit (in the posts or the comments to the posts) that you'd done so. Heh!

I write both smut & gen, but it is... trying... sometimes, how much more difficult it can be to find an audience for the latter.

[littlebutfierce]

How did it go in the end, then? Did you get the extra 1k back? Still, writing over 2k in a day is pretty awesome--& if you're still the 1k behind, well, if you write an extra 250 words over the next 4 days, or get a burst of inspiration one night, you'll make it up!

I wish I cared less about getting comments, hehehehe.

[bay_alexison]

I didn't get any writing done as planned for today because of my mom wanting me to run a few errands after I got back from work, watched Glee, kept getting distracted by my parents, and did reviews for a couple fics I promised I would be doing (I give detail reviews to offer some advice on how to make their writing better). So yeah, pretty distracted all over the place today. ^^; I'm determined tomorrow to get a lot of writing done because I have no work, woot!

At a forum I go to, someone asked that question about comments. Yes, I love comments over the good and bad things I did on my stories so that I know what I did fine and what I need to improve on.However, if I don't get many comments, then that's cool. I do get slightly jealous if someone has more reviews/comments than me, but that happens to everyone. I find myself working more on stories that I would like to see more of because of the saying, "If you don't find a story you want to read, write it." :P

[dragovianknight]

Today, I wrote unrelated drabbles. But! This was planned into my writing schedule, because I know me.

As for the fanfic flamingo...I love comments. Comments will make me attempt to write more of whatever got me comments. Alas, because I write tiny fandoms or obscure pairings or whatever, I am much more likely to get crickets chirping when I post. The crickets only upset me when I'm in a fandom where I have one or two friends, and I figure at least they could let me know they realize I'm still alive.

I do try to leave comments, even if it's the dreaded "I liked this!" See above re: crickets. (And I've noticed that sometimes, something will go without comments for days, and then I'll comment, and just the existence of a comment seems to draw other comments out of the woodwork. Funny, dat.)

[anehan]

That's one of the reasons why I started to write fanfic in the first place. I wanted to tell the kind of stories that I wanted to read and that no one else was writing for me.

[anehan]

The final word count for the day was 3,334. Frankly, I'm amazed at myself.