Encouraging Feedback for Your Story
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| Title: | Encouraging Feedback for Your Story (title in table of contents), How to get feedback for your story (without begging for it) (title on essay itself) |
| Creator: | Jane |
| Date(s): | December 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | online here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Encouraging Feedback for Your Story is an essay posted to Citizens Against Bad Slash by Jane. For additional context, see Timeline of Concrit & Feedback Meta.
Excerpts
The author gives ten suggestions:
1. Post it to as many applicable lists as possible: This is what the Bad Fanfiction Terror Squad calls being a spam whore, but I don't think there's anything wrong with posting a story to as many applicable lists as possible. There are hundreds of slash lists at eGroups, many of them devoted to the same fandom or pairing. If you're really involved in your fandom, you're probably on a few of them. People are on those lists because they want to read fiction about those characters or topics. They might as well be reading your fiction. Each list likely has two or three people subscribing who do not frequent the other lists, so you can reach two or three new readers. (Just make sure the list you're posting to is geared toward the kind of fiction you're writing. You'd be amazed how quickly you'll get booted if it's not.)
2. Make it 1/1: This is not a general rule, nor is it always possible to express yourself in a single short story, but it's worth considering. Some people, like me, have a finite amount of time to read fic and are more likely to read a single short story to get their fix. Reading a series takes time, and following a series requires going back again and again to check for new installments. If I have 20 minutes a day to read fan fiction, I'm going to go for a self-contained one-shot deal. I think there are far too many series out there anyway, but that's another story.
3. Make your summary interesting: It's easy to get lazy about the story summary. You've written the fic, you've proofread it, you've worked hard. You just want to post the damn thing. But the summary is there for a reason - so people can decide if they want to read the story or not. You have one sentence, two at the most, to convince them that they need to read yours. Mention specific, attention-grabbing things, like in Matthew Haldeman-Time's "Torn Pages" - "Wherein JC is tired; Chris is Satan; and Joey tries out for the NFL (or was that the WWF?)." (Congratulations, Matthew. You're my newest teaching example for everything.) Which brings us to....
4. Include the pairing in the heading: If you make it "Joe/? - Joe meets a seedy individual," you're running the risk of the list subscribers not really caring who Joe meets. If you name the pairing up front, the people who are into that pairing have a reason to care. If I see a new story containing a pairing I like, I almost always read it. I also read stories for pairings that don't interest me as much, so you have a good chance of hitting everyone, but an excellent chance at reaching people who are really interested.
5. Make it concise: Make sure every word in your story needs to be there. Make sure you have suspense and an opening paragraph that grabs their attention. (See fan fic faux pas no. 2: tell-all opening paragraphs for my two cents regarding what not to do.) The best reason people have to read a story is that it's good and will take them for a ride. It's pretty easy to tell from the first few lines if a story is going to do that. So when you're writing, make sure the opening is catchy and you have enough tension and suspense to maintain interest through the whole thing. When I read a story all the way through, I almost always send feedback.
6. Specify in the header that you want feedback: Well, duh. Just don't beg for feedback. It's really annoying. Also, include your e-mail address in the header in case they got it from somewhere other than the mailing list.
7. Submit to archives: There are a lot of perfectly good fiction archives that are not attached to any mailing list. If you submit the story to a list with an archive, and say that it's OK to archive it, it'll probably be archived automatically. But if you want tons of people to read your story, it's a good idea to look around for other archives. (Check out the "links" page for your list at eGroups, look at the links page on another author's site, do a search on Google, etc.) When you get there, look for either the submission guidelines or a link that says "submit a story" and send away.
8. Give feedback as well as receive it: There's no better way to encourage feedback than to follow the golden rule - treat others like you want to be treated. If you read a story, drop the author a line and let him or her know. From that point on, the author will probably notice when you post something new and return the favor. Then you'll have a fun little mutual admiration society going. You get as much out of the fandom as you put into it. You can't ignore the list for weeks and then post a story and expect smashing results.
Also, when someone sends you feedback, respond to it, even if it's to say "thanks" with a little smiley face. I think you'll find a lot of feedback comes from people who have sent you feedback in the past and have continued to read your work. Acknowledging their kindness provides a better chance of them remembering you and coming back for more.
9. Start your own web site: Oh, don't panic. Making a web site is not as hard as newbies think. Web space providers like Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire are free and you don't even need HTML skills. They provide pulldown bars so you can select the colors, spaces where you can type in the header you want at the top of the page and all manner of neat tools that a monkey could use. About the biggest thing you'll need to know is to put <p> between the paragraphs so your story doesn't come out in one big line. Then you can offer to trade links with other authors, put your web site URL in the story heading, sign other people's guestbooks and do a lot of very simple things that will generate at least a little traffic.
10. Don't stress if you don't get any: You know, there are a lot of perfectly great stories that drift through unnoticed. There are a lot of great authors who go unrecognized, and a lot of crappy authors who everyone adores. Begging for feedback is not going to change this, nor is bitching about it. If you've written a story you're proud of and you've distributed it to the best of your ability, but you can still hear a pin drop, just know that sometimes people suck and you'll have better luck next time.