Serious question to the 60+ followers on this account:

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

Why are you here?

It baffles me a little because there seems to be a fair few of you here - and presumably here because you want to read my fic, because nothing unrelated to that is posted on this community - but I can only pick out a handful of you who have ever bothered commenting. Only a fraction of the hits on each story (some numbering into several hundred) every leave their thoughts.

Why exactly is that? Are you afraid to comment or in some way intimidated? Don't you think I want to know what you thought?

I'm interested in what you all have to say, whether you liked something about the fic or not. I'm not begging you for reviews, but I'm just confused as to what stops you from sharing your views on something you obviously have an interest in one way or another, or you wouldn't be following the community.

As a writer in a fanfiction-centred fandom, feedback is the only thing you gain from the time you spend working on stories - whether it's positive or negative (and admittedly, some writers take the negative with less grace than others) - so I would encourage everyone reading this to take the time to tell any author what they think of a story when they're done. Especially if the writer isn't particularly well-known, or doesn't receive many regular reviews, because they need the most encouragement. You may need to choose your words carefully if you're going to go with some constructive criticism, but the points you make could help a writer with some potential improve their skill and eventually become a genuinely good author. Don't weigh in and slate a poor writer (and I grant you, sometimes there really is nothing good to say about a fic, but those times are rare) but give them your views, particularly when they're positive.

If someone was handing out free cupcakes that they'd taken the time to bake, you'd say thank you, wouldn't you? Take the time to extend the same courtesy to the fic writers you read and who I know bring a lot of you hours of enjoyment, because most of them will truly appreciate it; especially if you highlight the parts you particularly liked or think could be elaborated upon.


In keeping with the theme of the post I'm going to make a few recs of authors I think you should check out. They are mostly my friends and many of them act as betas for me, because we move in the same small corner of fandom, but I know they would all appreciate your thoughts on their work. Each of them is very deserving of your time.

untelling. If you can find them in her journal (she usually keeps them unjustifiably hidden away from the world!), untelling's stories are wonderfully characterised, intelligent and always sweet (even when angsty). She is currently working on a bandombigbang Patroh fic, which is going to be incredible and wrote several shorts for likethepaint's Patroh fic meme.

likethepaint. A really insightful writer, mostly focusing on Joe/Patrick but did some of her best work on a gen-ish Pete/Patrick piece for the 2007 Fic War, written when she was just 16 years old. Is currently working on a sporadic "Familyverse" in which her OTP are raising two children. All her work can be found catalogued here at paintedfiction.

heyginger. Hands down one of my favourite writers ever. Her Patroh fic BDSM is easily one of the best one-shots in the fandom (and she is currently working on a sequel). heyginger has a brilliant sense of humour, a knack for excellent characterisation (especially when writing Joe) and an extremely active imagination. Primarily writes Pete/Patrick.

mickety_split. Fairly new to the fandom and writing one of the few chaptered Patroh fics in existence, mickety_split doesn't give herself quite the credit she deserves and I suspect has a lot more work hidden away unseen. Extraordinary Things was one of those pieces, but turned out to be a lovely, well-characterised one-shot, focusing on the relationships that fail before Joe and Patrick finally figure things out.

I really hope you'll all check out these writers and give them your thoughts on their work, because they are all wonderful. That said, I would also encourage you all to be truthful about your thoughts and not blindly praise a writer who hasn't necessarily nailed the characterisation or put much work into the plausibility or depth of the plot in a story which would have benefitted from it.

There are some genuinely brilliant writers in this fandom who are mostly overlooked or feel ignored or that their work must be deemed poor, because they receive maybe two or three reviews per fic. I've known really good writers give up because they didn't think anyone cared about their work. I'd hate to see that keep happening - especially at a time when Bandom in particular seems to be winding down.

It only takes a minute or two of your time to leave a comment - try to spare a moment for each fic.

Comments

[fififolle]

I must still be here in the hope there will be Stackhouse/Markham again one day *g*

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

Haha - someone else was begging me to finish Night Lights and Strands, recently, too. I'm sorry for spamming you with Fall Out Boy in the interrim.

I do miss the boys... maybe when I get a chance to finish up the fics I'm working on in bandom I'll go back to those. Writing bandom fic is getting a bit too close to home for me, lately, anyway.

I'm glad you stuck around, though. It's nice to know that people are still waiting.

[fififolle]

It's a shame it's kind of mostly over. I don't think I'll ever write much of my old main pairing, but oddly I still read and write a lot of Kavanagh fic LOL. With Lorne, mostly *g* It would be nice to see a bit of S/M again, though... *hopes*
Best wishes, fi

[nexusofcrisis.livejournal.com]

What you said. Only a LOT. Even tried to bribe her with dollars. Just too good a story to leave undone like that.

(Whimper)

Then again, this long bandom thing has been fun as hell to read.

[anjak-j.livejournal.com]

I came here for the SGA...though I admit I've not gotten around to reading much of it...

[lady-erzulie.livejournal.com]

i'm here because i love joe/patrick. i love them so much that i kind of skip over pete/patrick now, but since i can't write worth a damn, i read fic and comment as much as i can.

and thanks for the recs! i'll be sure to read them!

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! I love switching people on to pairings and authors. I'm glad you're so taken with the boys. They deserve more love.

[untelling.livejournal.com]

Awww. You make me blush like a wee schoolgirl. :P

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

Well, stop being awesome, then! :P

[(Anonymous)]

In terms of why I rarely comment, well, sometimes I comment under several different journal names because I've forgotten to log in under my fannish journal, or I'm anonymous because I can't risk my work's net nanny getting access, even just my username, to my journals. Other times, well, I'm exhausted and can barely keep my eyes open long enough to read (yes, I've fallen asleep reading before).

But okay. Over all, I think your writing is very good, and I enjoy it very much. I usually really like your characterization and dialogue, and find it consistently well-written.

But I do have a bone to pick. When you write Pete, for some reason, you have a writing quirk I find, to be honest, really fucking bizarre (and if it weren't something you did constantly, I could just ignore it). It's the only thing I can find in your work that I don't like at all.

It seems like almost every sentence that comes out of your Pete's mouth ends with the term "kind of". Why do you do that? Because I have no fucking clue. A good 95% of the time, it isn't even something that could grammatically go there and make sense, and yet, for some reason, it's not only there, but it flourishes. You could go through your Word docs, do a Find and Replace and, one by one, get rid of every non-necessary "...kind of" in a couple of hours, and your work would be so much better than it's presenting as now. Its inclusion in your fic completely detracts from your wonderful characters and storylines. I was actually talking with a friend from college and the subject swung around to FOB slash writers and she couldn't remember your pen name. Instead, she referenced you as "that writer who always says "...kind of" after every sentence (and what's worse, I knew exactly who she meant!). This is not how people should be referring to you!

I actually started counting them when I was reading one chaptered story, and in one chapter I got all the way up to 20 "...kind of"s and hadn't gotten halfway through the chapter yet. This is something your beta reader should be haranguing you about, because it isn't grammatically correct, it isn't a cute little foible of yours, and it should never become someone's trademark. It doesn't just distract the reader, it bodily picks them up and hurls them out of the (otherwise wonderful) story.

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your feedback. I do that because if you listen to the way Pete speaks, he has a verbal tic of adding vague "kind ofs" to the end of his sentences, the way Joe uses "like" all the time and Patrick says, "Y'know."

I think it's such a part of the way Pete speaks and it sounds so natural when he says it, that people don't notice. But trust me, he does.

It's just a quirk of the character, really. To take it out would stop it being Pete, for me.

[rosiedoes.livejournal.com]

(In terms of why Pete does it, it usually sounds like a question, so perhaps is his way of saying, 'Do you follow me?')