melannen | GIP

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GIP

Our internet connection at home has been down pretty much all week, so I've been getting some reading and writing (and even a little bit of art and homework) done. Getting stuff done on the train, too, yay.I'd talk about what I've been writing about, but the new icon pretty much sums it up for me, so you probably don't want to know. (Scary-prolific though, for me: over 3,000 words in thirty-six hours, just on one story!).

In flist catch-up news,

dduane is going to write her next wizard-cats novel as an online serial. Basically, under the ff.net model. (Okay, she's actually basing it on the way Lawrence Watt-Evans did it, but still.) I've been saying for ten years that the internet is *made* for serials, with online comics, blogs, and fanfic WIPs to prove my point, and the idea that professional serial novels may be coming back through the internet is filling me with *glee*. (So is the prospect of another cat-wizards novel, of course.)

I wonder why it's considered perfectly acceptable for these pro-SF writers to say 'this much money in the tip jar or I won't write the next chapter!', and not for fic-writers (and to some extent webcomics authors) to say 'I'm not posting the next installment unless I get this much feedback!'. After all, it's basically the way that *all* professional serials work, back to the days when Rennaissance philosophers would try to get people to subscribe to their Great Works In Progress, and have to go back to shilling for the nobility if subscriptions dwindled off. Is it because demanding feedback comes uncomfortably close to the fic-taboo of asking for payment? Is it just a general conception that we should be writing for *love*, darn it? Is it because, somehow, only *real* writers and artists are allowed to to that? Is it that we the readers have such a sense of entitlement that we're offended at the mere idea that we owe something to the writers? Or is it just because the people who demand feedback are usually highly annoying people in a variety of other ways?

I've never really objected to writers asking for feedback, or even saying they won't finish a story without it. Me, my relationship with feedback is such that one effusively complimentary review can cause me to hide from all publicity for weeks, but it makes sense that writers would want to write the stuff that people are actually reading, and in many cases, feedback levels are the only way to tell. Leaving aside the fact that feedback makes authors happy, it ought to be good for the readers, too. A writer's time is limited, and if it's a choice between finishing the epic that nobody cares about or starting something else, and maybe better ... why should she be expected to finish just so that she doesn't look like a feedback whore? Why do we even want her to finish?

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I had to think about it. And I decided that this behavior is acceptable for both pro and fanfic writers - choosing not to finish writing something unless they get "enough" response, where response may equal feedback or dollars. But explicitly telling people that they are doing this, in both cases, pings me as rude and blackmaily. I'm not sure why.

I would suspect that for most people the difference is that someone like Diane Duane does this for a living and she's providing a professional product. So for her to ask for money for each installment makes perfect sense; it's how she pays her bills. If she were publishing this the old fashioned way, people would have to pay to read it.

With fanfic and fandom in general, there's a very serious anti-entitlement sentiment going on. And nothing smacks more of entitlement than "tell me how good this is or I won't write more." Further more it's seen as being a juvenile thing to do; the archetypal teenie writer is the girl who writes a horribly written fic about the Mary Sue, American transfer student to Hogawarts and then insists she won't write more if she doesn't get some feedback. I think that stereotype is common enough in fandom that people fear to be lumped in with writers like that.

For me it just seems rude and I can't do it. Of course I love feedback as much as anyone else, but if I demand it, it feels to much like me firing off an email to my girlfriend and telling her she needs to buy flowers for me on her way home from work. Which of course sort of negates the whole sweet nature of a spontaneous romantic gesture. If I were to do more than say feedback is appreciated, it would feel like I was being way too demanding to my readers and I would wonder if anything that was said was genuine. After all there are plenty of WIPs I read because I'm a voracious reader who is willing to to read mediocre fic to get her fix but that I don't like enough to leave feedback on.

I suppose in the end it boils down to how important feedback is. I write to share my stories and I've been in fandom long enough to know that for every piece of feedback I get, a ton of other people are reading without saying anything. And I'm fine with that.

Really? I'd prefer to know that the author has a "payment target" so that I can help them meet it and then get more story, rather than waiting futiley(sp?) for an update. (Or so I can wait until it's finished and avoid the potential heartbreak. Either one.)
I think that one of the reasons I object to it is because it's fanfic, and the shared love of the source text is a really important part of fandom. With the "enough response" model, it's devaluing that fannish glee. (And some people are just here for the porn, rolling their eyes at the fans. Which is so annoying, since they can get porn elsewhere, but fannishness is harder to find.)

PS.

Some of us were discussing this and another point came up. If a fan writer does play the "I need ten pieces of feedback before you get another chapter" then she's pretty much obligated to write more when she gets that feedback. For many of us, writing is a hobby and if we feel pressured it becomes a lot less enjoyable. One of the things about fanfic writing is that, if we like, we can be a lot lazier than professional writers. I'm not saying everyone in fanfic is lazy, but it's an option and once we are obligated to write, then it's just another job.

Heh. I never read WsIP, so no heartbreak there. Although - what if JKR said she wasn't going to finish HP unless she got "enough" sales?

Well, I'd probably be pissed off enough that I would boycott her, I guess. Although at this point it would be ludicrous.

I agree with expecting fanfic to be written by people who love the source. But of course, isn't profic written by people who are so in love with the world they are creating that they want to share it with the world? (At least, that's my impression from my profic writer friends.)

I write a newspaper column, and I get paid...well, not very much. I love getting email about it (my email address is in each column), and I get totally giddy when I meet people and they say, "oh, I know you! you write that column..."

I told the paper I wouldn't write it for free. But, you know...I probably would. Because I love my subject, and I love even the small amount of recognition I get.

Hmm, I'm meandering a bit. I guess what I'm trying to say is that writing is always best when it's a labor of love, whether or not it is for money as well.

here via metafandom

I wonder why it's considered perfectly acceptable for these pro-SF writers to say 'this much money in the tip jar or I won't write the next chapter!', and not for fic-writers (and to some extent webcomics authors) to say 'I'm not posting the next installment unless I get this much feedback!'.

Personally, I think that it's a double standard. I suspect mine is not a very popular opinion, but there you go. In much the way that teachers and social workers are supposed to be willing to accept long hours and low pay because they're in it "for the love and joy of teaching/helping", because it's an avocation, etc., I think that it's expected that fanfic writers should be writing and posting for the sheer love of their source text. Doing it for LoCs--or even raising the issue of "remuneration"--is perceived to be crass. With pro writers, the economic relationship is explicit and the justifications for that payment (i.e. "they've got to pay the bills") are more palatable.

If JKR stopped writing, I suspect that she'd have to enter a witness protection program... *g*

I know what you mean about pro writers - and I love going to the websites of authors whose books I've adored and seeing them squeeing about writing. Given how much authors get paid, it really is a labour of love.

I have another idea about why it's frowned upon, but I can't get it to come out right on paper. :(

My own problem with it isn't that they're asking for feedback: if they got the requested amount of very critical feedback, do you think they would accept that and write as promised? Maybe some of them would; I can't know that. But my gut feeling is always that they're looking for praise, and more praise than people would be willing to give them on their own merit. After all, liking something and wanting to read more of it doesn't equal to not having critical thoughts about it, or serious objections to part of it.

Money is much less fraught that way. ;-)

I wonder why it's considered perfectly acceptable for these pro-SF writers to say 'this much money in the tip jar or I won't write the next chapter!', and not for fic-writers (and to some extent webcomics authors) to say 'I'm not posting the next installment unless I get this much feedback!'.

When a pro-writer demands money to continue a serial, they are doing their job, and if they won't get money writing their serial, they need to go back to writing a novel that a traditional publisher will publish and send them royalty checksf or. It's not a question of, "Should I write fanfiction or should I watch television, both of which are fun activities I enjoy?" it's a question of, "Should I busk on the street or should I go to the restaurant and wait tables in order that I might pay the rent next month?" A pro-writer requiring money in the tip jar is saying, "This is the minimum wage for which I am willing to work, and if you won't pay that wage, I will work elsewhere."

When a fan writer says they won't write unless they get more feedback, they are saying that they are entitled to feedback as part of the fanwriter-reader relationship. If they are entitled to receive feedback, then I, as a fan, am obligated to give them feedback as part of my participation in fandom, and I am hella resistant to that interpretation of my duties as a member of fandom. Not least because I do read fanfiction which I consider bad or mediocre (sometimes because I want to know how or why about the mediocreness, sometimes because there is some element other than the writing or storytelling which I enjoy) and I don't want to be forced to heap praise on an object which doesn't deserve it. And somehow, I don't see people accepting negative feedback as part of their feedback hostage payment plan.

My problem with demands for feedback 'or else' is when they are given in the first few chapters of the fic during the 'set up' and absolutely nothing has actually *happened* to comment on, good or bad, in the first place except maybe a few spelling or grammer mistakes. And some people take *way* to long setting up their plot- like this one HP/BtVS crossover I was reading a while back: eight chapters and *nothing* has happened! The only type of feedback that *can* be given in that case is 'are you ever going to start the story?'
Also, I do agree that there is a lot of negative feeling towards people who demand a certain amount of feedback because it *is* a very Mary-Sue-writer thing to do. Generally, anyone who writes good fics will get feedback without demands.

Here via metafandom (and late to the party, but hey).

Or is it just because the people who demand feedback are usually highly annoying people in a variety of other ways?

Yes.

In my experience, the people who beg for or demand feedback are the ones who don't give it. And to me there's something very rude about asking for something that you won't take the time to do yourself. It's like asking someone to get you a birthday present when you didn't get them one. Just rude. I'm also not a fan of chapter by chapter posting in general. My memory isn't good enough to keep the flow of a story over the course of the months or years and having the author basically constantly threatening to no continue makes me feel as though it's not worth reading.

But all of this is really more based on experience, not the theory of it. In theory, I don't have a problem with it, it's just that in practice, I find it to be, in most cases, rude.

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GIP

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here from metafandom

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here via metafandom, I think

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