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hmpfI openly, and even with some pride, admit that one of my purposes in life is making people uncomfortable and/or sad by writing fic that's heavy on the angst, and occasionally outright disturbing. So, after having a bit of a conversation today about that, I decided to have a look at my collected feedback (yes, folks, you read that right. I collect my feedback. It helps when the writing neurosis rears its head; nurturing an inflated sense of my own talent is one of the things that *sort of* helps against the neurosis, at least for a while, until someone or something takes me down a few pegs again.)
So here's an overview of feedback telling me how I succeeded at this purpose of mine (anonymised, naturally, and heavily abridged):
Sometimes We Believe:
I quite enjoyed it. Okay..."enjoyed" is probably the wrong word for a story where the protagonist dies at the end, but it was a very good story.
Together:
actually makes me cry.
Wah :(. Angst. So good. No words.
It was a hard read (...) I had to pause and leave the room to calm myself down.
At the end I was smiling and trying to hold back tears.
Normal:
And I so wanted them to have that conversation and here you wrote it in its raw pain and beauty.
That... was the good ache.
elegantly spare and cuts to the bone
Why is it so many fanfic writers want to make me cry?
What a depressing story.
Paint it black, like Mick said. And I love black.
You've given us a look into the heart of darkness that John carries within him now
makes you ache sharply
I will admit that I was crying by the end.
Endure:
Well, that's a very dark look at what the end of the game could be.
I am putting it on my favorites, as it both frightens and thrills me to read
No slash, and not a "nice" story - rather a disturbing one *g* (...)
It's dark, bleak and seriously atmospheric, set in a dystopic future and everything from the formatting to the language works to put the reader squarely inside the world of the story.
That was...chilling.
This is, hands down, one of the most creatively structured fics I've read, as well as one of the darkest.
(...) extraordinary, frightening, one hell of a piece of writing.
Starving on the Jump Down:
Very bitter.
(...) so simple and so wrenching.
It reads angry.
(...) very hard-hitting, quite a bit of strong emotion wrapped up into a small space. Disturbingly beautiful.
gut-wrenchingly evocative
dark and soul-destroying
(You may imagine my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek when I wrote the first sentence of this entry.)
So here's an overview of feedback telling me how I succeeded at this purpose of mine (anonymised, naturally, and heavily abridged):
Sometimes We Believe:
I quite enjoyed it. Okay..."enjoyed" is probably the wrong word for a story where the protagonist dies at the end, but it was a very good story.
Together:
actually makes me cry.
Wah :(. Angst. So good. No words.
It was a hard read (...) I had to pause and leave the room to calm myself down.
At the end I was smiling and trying to hold back tears.
Normal:
And I so wanted them to have that conversation and here you wrote it in its raw pain and beauty.
That... was the good ache.
elegantly spare and cuts to the bone
Why is it so many fanfic writers want to make me cry?
What a depressing story.
Paint it black, like Mick said. And I love black.
You've given us a look into the heart of darkness that John carries within him now
makes you ache sharply
I will admit that I was crying by the end.
Endure:
Well, that's a very dark look at what the end of the game could be.
I am putting it on my favorites, as it both frightens and thrills me to read
No slash, and not a "nice" story - rather a disturbing one *g* (...)
It's dark, bleak and seriously atmospheric, set in a dystopic future and everything from the formatting to the language works to put the reader squarely inside the world of the story.
That was...chilling.
This is, hands down, one of the most creatively structured fics I've read, as well as one of the darkest.
(...) extraordinary, frightening, one hell of a piece of writing.
Starving on the Jump Down:
Very bitter.
(...) so simple and so wrenching.
It reads angry.
(...) very hard-hitting, quite a bit of strong emotion wrapped up into a small space. Disturbingly beautiful.
gut-wrenchingly evocative
dark and soul-destroying
(You may imagine my tongue lodged firmly in my cheek when I wrote the first sentence of this entry.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 01:49 am (UTC)I don't collect my feedback. In my most neurotic moments I do go back and reread stories and then pore over the comments.
I LOVE it when I get "hee!" or "yay!' or keyboard smashing. I love getting "this made me teary" or "this made me laugh". I love the feedback.
But I don't write for the feedback anymore. And I think that's why I'm growing to be less neurotic about it all. In the beginning, when I was more about the reaction, I was also more about the late, late nights trying to figure out how to get the reaction. Now I'm about the late, late nights trying to craft the story the way I want it to go.
The reaction is awesome because it confirms or denies what I thought of the story. And gives me a nice ego boost.
(Re: Starving on the Jump Down - "very bitter" was mine, wasn't it? :D)
I'm not writing for the feedback. I do treasure the feedback that I get, though.
Date: 2007-05-17 02:09 am (UTC)If I wrote for the feedback, I never would have gotten to the point where I am today; I would have given up years ago. The first few years of writing fanfic were very nearly feedback-less for me; my 'success' (in terms of feedback') only started about three years ago. I've been writing for seven.
Add to the feedback-less years the extremely long time it takes me to finish anything (two years, three years, four years...), during which, of course, there is no feedback at all, and I think it's safe to say that I have a lot of intrinsic motivation for writing. ;-)
>But I don't write for the feedback anymore. And I think that's why I'm growing to be less neurotic about it all.
As I said, I never wrote *for* the feedback. However, *getting* some feedback (and especially, getting *perceptive* feedback that told me *why* something worked, and getting good feedback from authors I admire) definitely helped *me* to become less neurotic. I'd always had some belief in myself, or I wouldn't have been able to keep going for so long with little to no outside affirmation, and I did see improvement in my writing over the years, but when there were finally signs that other people saw those improvements, too, and thought I was a decent writer - well, that helped immensely. You need an incredibly strong belief in yourself to keep on believing even in the constant absence of confirmation, and I found it hard, sometimes.
>In the beginning, when I was more about the reaction, I was also more about the late, late nights trying to figure out how to get the reaction. Now I'm about the late, late nights trying to craft the story the way I want it to go.
Heh. See, I was always about the crafting of the story. Still am, always will be (I hope).
>The reaction is awesome because it confirms or denies what I thought of the story.
Yeah, exactly. That's what I 'need' feedback for - to see if the story 'works' the way I intended it to work.
>(Re: Starving on the Jump Down - "very bitter" was mine, wasn't it?
Nope. Actually, you didn't give me feedback on "Starving..." (except for the quick beta-thing - 'No language problems at all. But you're very mean.' Okay, I guess that *is* feedback, of sorts. *g* Maybe I should add the 'you're very mean' to the post above.)
Oh! I wasn't suggesting you did!
Date: 2007-05-17 02:15 am (UTC)Are you sure? I feel positive I told you that it was very bitter. Hahaha. Maybe I just thought it. It is, you know. Very bitter. Brilliant. But cruel. I rather love it for those reasons.
Oh, okay.
Date: 2007-05-17 02:39 am (UTC)>writing used to be a way of getting people to like me.
Hehe. I guess I gave up on the idea of people liking me in seventh grade. As you can see from my recent career in LOM fandom, I'm now making something of an art of not being liked. *g*
>Whereas now it has far surpassed that and turned into something I want to be good at, just for the sake of being good.
And I have always wanted to be a writer. Always, since even before I could write - since kindergarten. Unfortunately I'm not exactly madly talented, so it took me until 27 to get even remotely good at it - and now I'm nearly 31 and still have loads to learn before I can even think about going pro.
(Of course, the situation is additionally complicated by my switching writing languages at age 23. Before I started writing fanfiction I used to write in German. Oddly enough, I only began to feel like I was coming into my own after the switch to English. Which is why I intend to stick with it.)
I do think I may be able to reach a level where I *can* think about going pro. It's just going to take me a lot longer than it would take a more talented writer. I keep telling myself that people like E. Annie Proulx and Louis Begley published their first novels in their late fifties, so it's okay to be a late bloomer as a writer... *g*
>Are you sure? I feel positive I told you that it was very bitter. Hahaha. Maybe I just thought it. It is, you know. Very bitter. Brilliant. But cruel. I rather love it for those reasons.
Well, thanks. It *is* bitter, yes. I funnelled all my post-2.08 bitterness in there.
BTW, I rather liked the 'you're very mean' comment, too. Like Reg Cole, I'm embracing the role of being a villain in this fandom now... ;-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-17 04:56 pm (UTC)Not in any particularly good order but that's because I'm pathologically disorganised not because I don't *want* to keep it lovingly in order.
Hehe...
Date: 2007-05-18 11:27 pm (UTC)