A Reader's Rant

[shakatany]

I feel there is in essence an agreement in fanfiction: a writer writes a fic, a reader reads and comments. When a writer breaks that agreement and stops writing that fic a reader is left with little recourse; after all we can't take back our egoboo. The power is with the writer and some writer's words can be so powerful that we readers leave ourselves open to possible heartache whenever we start to read one of their WIPs. It's the one drawback with fanfic as no professionally published work would be available to readers while unfinished.

When ladycat777 told me that she wouldn't be able to finish "Hunt Brother" I was despondent. Unlike other writers like Edibbea, Siege and Shara Nesu whose RL has become difficult, she is still writing more fics, many of which are also unfinished. I haven't flamed her with hatemail or anything like that. I still read her fics and often make nice comments but I no longer invest myself in them. When I rec "HB", which I do quite often as it's one of my favorite fics, I write like I did the other day "and finally there's my beloved "Hunt Brother" by ladycat777 at http://www.subtle-salvation.com/stories.htm#series which apparently will remain forever unfinished *sob*". "HB" is a great fic but I cannot in all fairness let others become hooked without warning them. Since I can't walk outside her house with a picket sign proclaiming, "Ladycat's unfair to readers" a *sob* is my only way to show my unhappiness.

Here comes the kerfluffle:
Yesterday someone, not Ladycat, took umbrage at what I wrote (see http://www.livejournal.com/community/bloodclaim/#item1217600). What realy upset me was that she did it in public and not in a private e-mail (my e-mail addy is in my user info and we are both members of 2 Yahoo groups). While I would accept a reprimand from Ladycat I won't accept it from a 3rd party except now Darkhavens has gotten into the act. Is what I wrote in my rec, a *sob*, inappropriate? After all I was reccing "HB" for effing's sake. Was I really out of line or did someone (someones) overreact? And in public too?

ETA: This is not my day. I found Entrenous' addy at m-mSlashaholics and inadvertently sent my e-mail not to her but to the group so our little kefluffle is out there too *wants to go back to bed and start the day over*

Comments

[lissabell.livejournal.com]

I was just reading this 'discussion' over on bloodclaim. I didn't think you were out of like with what you said. I remember reading that story a while back and being sad that it wasn't done/being updated. I hate getting involved in a story only to find it is an apparently never to be finished WIP. And I tend to give it that status if it has been over 6 months since an update.

Besides, you did say 'apparently', not something like 'and god told me...'. I prefer to be warned about fics that may not be completed so I can avoid the heartbreak. :)

And it's always tougher when the author is still actively writing, just not that fic! But plot bunnies die, sadly, so what are we poor readers to do?

[riani1.livejournal.com]

I share your grief at unupdated WIPs. I'm digging through Fiction Alley for yummy Harry/Draco stories, and so many of them are unfinished. That "fictis interruptus" feeling is the main thing to keep me going on stories I may get stalled on, because I like to think there are people out there yelling at the screen "Where's the next bit!"

BTW, "word" means "I completely agree but am too lazy to type all that out."

[othercat.livejournal.com]

You might feel differently about this if someone begged and pleaded with you to finish "Nessuno" off with a single chapter so you could go back to writing "Career Change." And even gave you a helpful outline so you could finish "Nessuno" faster.

Re:

[riani1.livejournal.com]

Well, since I did have that, I have to say I wasn't dismayed in the slightest. I thanked them for their appreciation of my work and begged them to have patience. It seems strange to me to be upset about someone taking the time to say, "Gosh, I really loved that story and I'm sad you aren't able to finish it."

[riani1.livejournal.com]

It definitely sounds like something between you and whomever and none of my business.

Re:

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

That's the irony of this whole kerfuffle--if "Hunt Brother" wasn't such a powerful and gripping story I and others wouldn't mind (as much). So many of the people I communicate with in Spander have told me that it's one of their favorite fics so I think my *sob* spoke for them all.

Shakatany

Re:

[riani1.livejournal.com]

There are some stories I've stopped working on--always swearing that "someday" I'll get back to them--and I can hear them crying in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet.

Stupid non-lottery-winning life.

Re:

[velvet-virago.livejournal.com]

Word.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining "word"--it's the first time I came across it (in that context). Also I love your phrase "fictis interruptus". There's a lot of it going around usually due to a writer's muse going AWOL. Somebody should invent a better muse trap *g*

Shakatany

[riani1.livejournal.com]

God, I'd sign up for that better muse trap. All I can think of is something like flypaper, which gets icky real fast.

[velvet-virago.livejournal.com]

heh... I actually posted my above monosyllabic response to what Riani said *before* scrolling down and seeing your comment!

Funny, and a little ironic.

Just like the sitch you find yourself in. Honey, I feel your pain- believe me.

[kristinholt.livejournal.com]

Sometimes people grow out of a certain fic.

If you don't like how it ended, finish it yourself.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

If you don't like how it ended, finish it yourself.

I'm a reader not a writer.

Shakatany

[kristinholt.livejournal.com]

Then I'd be forced to say sit back and enjoy the ride, or build a bridge and get over it.

Kristin

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

I don't know you but I'm guessing you're not a writer? Because if you were you'd realise a few salient facts.

No one starts a story intending to leave it hanging unfinished. No one. Sometimes, not often, it happens and trust me, the person most upset about that is usually the author herself.

Until the day comes that fanfic is something you can buy (which would be never) an author owes a reader nothing, zip, sero. Common politeness and sincere gratitude makes me reply to feedback but I don't _have_ to and I don't have to write to order unless I've signed up for a ficathon, which isn't the case here.

Ladycat is NOT being unfair to her readers and that implies that she's choosing not to finish a story out of malice. Sometimes the impetus to write a fic goes away. It's beyond an author's control and that's all there is to it. If it was a book you'd been paid to write I guess you could grit your teeth and hammer out something but this is fanfic we're talking about. Fic we write because we love doing it.

You seriously expect someone to ruin a fic by tacking on a sub-standard ending? Or to spend hours staring at the screen trying to write when they've got to the point of feeling depressed every time they open the file (I'm talking about me now, btw, and not in any way for Ladycat)?

Sometimes, sad though it is, you just have to shrug, admit you're never going to be in the right head space to work on a fic, and move the hell on. The reader should too.

Nagging, whining and castigating an author for that decision is counter-productive, ungrateful and insensitive.

You've got part of a fic you say you love; enjoy it for what it is; a piece of well-written fiction you got to read for free.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Since I am indeed not a writer I must accept you know what you are talking about. But I do think a writer owes a reader something. So many times I have come across writers pleading for feedback so it does appear that many writers need us, that they are not posting stories simply to be read only by themselves otherwise they should all friendslock their journals and keep their writings to themselves sharing them with no one.

As I said in a previous reply the irony is that "Hunt Brother" is an unforgettable story by one of the finest fan writers out there. If it wasn't no one would care. There are a lot of WIPs that I don't give a darn if they are ever finished.

Shakatany

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

I don't plead for feedback and much though I love it, I'd write if I wasn't getting any because I love writing more. Seriously addicted in fact ;-)

Feedback is sweet but no one worth their salt writes _for_ feedback or tailors fics to get more of it. It's a pleasant side effect of an already pleasant activity.

A fic needs a reader to be complete? Maybe. But it's got one; the author. First reader, often the harshest critic, closest to it.

Just because you've chosen one fic to be deemed good enough that is omg has to be finished, doesn't mean a thing if the author's gone cold on it. You cannot write to order. You can't force it. If you tried it'd be unreadable anyway.

You start a fic, any fic, that has a question mark in the number of parts, or where the author hasn't specifically stated in the notes that the fic is complete, ready, and she's going to post daily or whatever, and you're taking a chance that it might never be finished. It's why some people never start WIPs; they can't stand the thought of never having an ending, or waiting to see a cliffhanger resolved.

No one has the right to dictate what another person should do in their spare time.

[ponders-life.livejournal.com]

For the record, I'm a reader, not a writer. I saw your comments in the bloodclaim thread, came to your LJ to find out whether you are a writer, and found this post.

I feel there is in essence an agreement in fanfiction: a writer writes a fic, a reader reads and comments.

I strongly disagree. Fanfic writer aren't obligated to finish anything. We readers are lucky to be able to read so much good fiction, for free. Reader comments -- which usually take only a few minutes to compose and post -- are lovely, and writers value them, but they're nowhere near adequate compensation for the writer's output, which probably took many hours of a writer's time (and often hours of a beta's time, too).

Readers have no right to demand or attempt to guilt-trip a writer into finishing a story if the writer doesn't want to finish it.

NO ONE has the right to dictate what another person should do in their spare time.

Put yourself in the writer's shoes. Writing is something they do as a hobby, for FUN, in their precious free time. They don't get paid.

Have you ever started something but not finished it? Sometimes writers start stories that they have every intention of finishing, but find out later that it isn't working, or they've lost interest in it, or whatever. When that happens, the joy of writing it disappears, and it becomes drudgery. Why on earth should they continue to work on it if it's not fun anymore? That would be masochistic.

How would you feel if someone tried to tell you what you should be doing in your spare time? ("No, don't read that; read this instead!") You wouldn't like it, would you? I respectfully suggest that you stop doing it to others.

Re: No one has the right to dictate what another person should do in their spare time.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm trying to dictate. All I ask is that I be allowed to express my feelings with a *sob* without having a ton of bricks fall on me.

Shakatany

Re: No one has the right to dictate what another person should do in their spare time.

[ponders-life.livejournal.com]

You're allowed to express your disappointment when a WIP isn't finished. Criticizing writers for not finishing the WIP, however, is going too far. It's just plain rude.

[itsabigrock.livejournal.com]

As a writer that has several unfinished WIPs as well, I have to take umbrage here. There are a lot of stories that pop into a writer's head and *must* be written, right then, no pausing, no time for working it out ahead of time, they just must be put down before they are gone. The crux of this is that sometimes that story has to pre-empt another as it were, and when one returns to the first story it feels dated, or the direction has been lost. Sometimes it's possible to resume working on that story, and sometimes it isn't.

I personally have a WIP that I haven't worked on in more than a year, and another that's been a good 5 or 6 months, it doesn't mean I've abandoned them forever, the desire to go back is still there, yet everytime I open those files and try to move the stories forward nothing comes. Even though I have *tried* a dozen times over not one word has been added in months and months. It may be time to call them dead, I just don't have ladycat777's courage to do that, instead I torture my readers with this hope that someday I may return to them, and I can't imagine how that is the lesser of two evils.

On a side note, very few readers have been invited into their favorite writer's lives, LJ may be a public forum and the fiction posted on the internet may indeed become a sort of public domain, but no one has the right to presume they know what is going on in a writer's life outside of fandom enough to judge how they should be spending their writing energies and free time. While the disappointment of being unable to see a fic play out is valid, the invalid assumption that a writer has nothing better to do than satisfy their readers at the expense of their own free will is inexcusible.

I truly hope you will make a public apology and in future think before you pass judgment on someone you only know as part of the reader-writer relationship, and not as a true friend with full knowledge of their situation and writerly motivations.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

This all began when I wrote a rec for "Hunt Brother": "and finally there's my beloved "Hunt Brother" by ladycat777 at http://www.subtle-salvation.com/stories.htm#series which apparently will remain forever unfinished *sob*". Someone came down on me like a ton of bricks for adding that *sob*. I didn't think it was an appropriate thing to do in public like that. I made a dreadful mistake at m-m clicking on the wrong button and airing my grievance in public like that but it was a mistake and I apologized. Never having done anything like that before I didn't know it could be deleted until you told me. Am I passing judgement? What judgement? I can't tell.

Shakatany

[itsabigrock.livejournal.com]

It's the implication within the rant that writers have an obligation to finish a story even if the momentum leaves them, and again that Ladycat has no real life problems that would interfere with her finishing a story. That statement alone clearly shows you know nothing of her situation, which is why you are in the middle of a mini-kerfufle. Like it or not you have hurt someone with your statements after the original rec, and again you've hurt every other writer who may have abandoned a fic that no longer came easily by implying that we are somehow indebted to the readers when we receive nothing in return but a few comments here and there. Feedback is nice, but that isn't what keeps writers going, what keeps us going is the need to write, and when something like this happens it makes it very easy to say 'whatever, any desire I had is now gone because the fun has been taken away and now it feels like a job'. Fandom isn't a job, it's a retreat, and when people start making fandom stressful by crossing that line between reader and cattle prod, it ceases being fun.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Sorry part of the above reply was meant for a different comment. This brouhaha makes me so confused *crawls into bed and pulls the covers over*

Shakatany

[darkhavens.livejournal.com]

I was just about to reply to your email, but as you've posted this, I'll say my small piece here.

While I would accept a reprimand from Ladycat I won't accept it from a 3rd party except now Darkhavens has gotten into the act.

I 'got into the act' as I am the moderator at bloodclaim. I hate seeing kerfuffles there and try whenever possible to nip them in the bud. Perhaps asking both of you to take the discussion to email would have been a better solution than just saying 'Please consider your opinion(s) to be voiced and move on to happier things. Thanks!, but my main aim was to a halt to the thread at BC, not to encourage you both to go butt heads elsewhere.

Thankfully, BC is a relatively kerfuffle-free zone, though that means I'm still unused to having to crack the mod-whip. I try to be polite and non-judgemental while keeping tempers from boiling over.

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

Funny thing -- the initial exchange between us at bloodclaim was very minor. It hardly constituted a conflict, never mind a kerfuffle. I made a suggestion about how authors in general might receive remarks like the one you made (because I thought that as a reader, you might rather wish to encourage authors than inadverdently leave a comment that would cause them to feel disheartened). You disagreed (so now I understand that this was not the case). Finaly, the moderator asked us both to leave aside the issue on that forum.

All minor stuff, an exchange between two people featuring a civil disagreement that the moderator just happened to see and forestall before it became more involved.

However, you've certainly upped the ante by sending a public messge to me via m-mslashaholics, and by posting this rant which replicates the email. Those actions, in addition to your judgements here about (among other things) which authors are allowed to take time away from their stories and which are not, is what is fueling the discussion now taking place.

I probably don't need to point out to you the irony that your email took issue with the fact that my suggestion came to you in a public forum (an entry in all likelihood seen only by the small number of members who chose to click the initial fic search) when your email to me went out automatically to the nearly 700 members of m-mslahsaholics. But in case I do, there it is.

Incidentally, you may find it helpful to know that not everyone gets mailings from Yahoo groups of which they are members. I have many of my groups (including m-m slash) set to "no mail" and check messages only on occasion at the website. So really, your message would not have reached me at all (particularly as you did not send it to me individually at any point), had not several people who got your publically-sent email pointed out that you addressed me and this issue on list.

Though I now know you're not amenable to suggestions in these cases, I'll suggest nonetheless that you contact the moderator of m-mslashaholics and request the removal of both your initial email msg and your ensuing apology to the entire list.

[entrenous88.livejournal.com]

I see from refreshing the m-mslashaholics messages page that the messages have indeed been removed. Glad to know that's been taken care of.