Begging for Feedback
| Meta | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Begging for Feedback |
| Creator: | Jane |
| Date(s): | December 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | online here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Begging for Feedback is an essay posted to Citizens Against Bad Slash by Jane.
It has the summary: "Give her feedback, everyone! We wouldn't want her to stop writing!"
For additional context, see Timeline of Concrit & Feedback Meta.
Excerpts
Somehow, in the evolution of slash, it has become a common belief that the more desperate you sound for feedback, the more you'll get. Pleas like "pleeeez send feedback, it's the only reason I write" are getting so common that one day I expect to read "Send feedback or I'll slit my wrists and die on the bathroom floor in a pool of my own blood. You have two hours."I have no specific examples, which is only because I'm lazy because God knows about one in 10 stories have a desperate-sounding plea for feedback. Some of them are original, like a guy I saw on a recent NSync list who said "Send feedback or I'll turn to booze." Others are annoying, like one I read on a Buffy list that said "Look, there's no point in me continuing this story if no one is going to send me feedback."
There are no hard and fast statistics to support the idea that the more hard up you sound, the less feedback you'll receive. I can tell you that as a reader of slash fiction on too many mailing lists to mention, seeing someone trying to force me to send feedback does not inspire me to send it. It has the opposite effect.
I guess it all boils down to why you write. Do you write for enjoyment, or do you write to be read? There's nothing wrong with writing to be read, but you can't force people to read it, and you definitely can't force people to send you nice comments. The harder you try, the more of an annoyance you become.
So to everyone who begs for feedback, please stop making a scene. And please stop threatening to abandon the story if you don't receive feedback. The next time I read a message from someone saying "If I don't get feedback, I won't continue this story," I'm going to reply "Then don't." Something you can abandon that easily isn't something I'm willing to spend my time reading anyway.