hope: Art of a woman writing from tour poster (ianto thumbs up)
puddingsmith ([personal profile] hope) wrote2010-01-28 10:14 pm

(no subject)

So, people like my story! Yay!

Though, my half-baked theory that the more plot = the less comments seems... pretty correct, actually. Hahaha...haaah... <-- somewhat exhausted laughter because I heart feedback but omg writing porn is GRUELLING.

ETA: okay, writing the above makes me SO PARANOID because it's this THING again where if you talk about what it's like to receive feedback then you are being precious. And yet that site of engagement is such a complex one that I wish wish WISH fandom as a whole was more open to meta'ing and being frank about it (I know, I have said this before, but then I get - hah - paranoid, and lose my nerve and delete after all). But I am trying to be brave, and not think about being silently judged. CAN WE PLEASE, AS A COMMUNITY, JUST TALK ABOUT IT?

Ahem.


Anyway. Speaking of writing stuff, I am going to re-do the Nerdy PSA into a v.2, seeing as lots of people are still using it and I think I could tidy it up a bit and integrate a bunch of stuff left in the comments. If you have anything to add/weigh in on wrt accessibility and casual coding that isn't covered there, drop me a comment/PM/pigeon?

omg productivity!

TEAL DEER HERE

[identity profile] 51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com 2010-01-28 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
This is true.

There are a billion factors which affect which thing gets comments and which doesn't.

Even when it comes to porn. I think in some cases, people are shy about their kinks, for example. There are probably stories which a LOT of people read but don't comment on because of this -- they don't want to air their kinks. I don't care if people know what I think is uber hot, but some others may. In some cases, readers may feel the comment would come months or years after the last comment, so maybe they think the author has moved on. (And a lot of readers don't write fic, so may not realize how much writers squee over a random "that was hot!" :) ) On the other hand, when there are TONS of comments on something, a reader figures commenting is the thing you do on this story. And some people have social anxiety about commenting at all on stories when they haven't interacted with the person in other ways.

It's like getting your hair styled and colored. You walk out of the salon and you feel FABULOUS. But you go to work and maybe nobody comments. Maybe they're preoccupied or didn't notice or they think it's inappropriate to compliment people's appearance because the last person they said something to took it weird. But that doesn't mean your hair looks awful.
In short, comment numbers do not indicate a story's "value" or how well it may be written. The bestselling books on the NYT list are not necessarily the most awesome books, but you know that. :D

Re: TEAL DEER HERE

[identity profile] 51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com 2010-01-30 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
There was a post circulating months ago with all of the reasons people didn't comment -- they download stuff and read it on paper or on their iPhone, they're at work and don't want to log in, etc. And they may not feel obligated, either, if the writer has never commented on their stories, if they write them. And I have sort of a theory about comment numbers affecting comments.


THEN there's the archive effect: Put something on Teaspoon or AO3 and it's like a static webpage to most people. They'll read it but rarely comment at all.

There are so many good writers who don't get comments and become discouraged, and there are sometimes mediocre writers who receive lots of comments. There are too many factors.

I work in a field in which we measure these things, so I'm interested in the dynamics of lurking versus participation in the abstract. :D