Natasha Romanov, Black Widow

Feedback culture is dead, long live feedback culture!

AO3, fanfiction, and comments: the system isn’t working. 

Fic authors have a problem with feedback – or rather, with the lack of it. Fanfiction has a notoriously low ratio of comments to hits, and many of us have expressed our frustration that we can get a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, even a thousand views on our stories, but only a handful of readers will leave kudos, let alone comments.   

Unfortunately, this only gets worse for long, multi-chapter stories (aka, the longfics we know, love, and would sell our souls in a second if it meant an update), which also happen to be the stories that authors need the most support to continue and complete. Law of diminishing returns, y’all, and it sucks. 

We’re not here to guilt you into leaving comments. We want to address the problem by changing the format, and we need your help to do it. 

The goal is to increase the amount of feedback authors get from readers, especially on stories with multiple chapters, and to make it easier for everyone to show how much we love fics. We’re opening a discussion with ao3 to figure out how/if any of these options can be implemented, but first we need options to present! 

Some of our current ideas: 

Ability to leave a form of kudos on every chapter, instead of only once on the entire story: this lets authors know that you’re here and you’re reading their updates, so their hard work isn’t getting tossed into the internet void. 

Comment templates: suggested comments that can be customized or posted as-is. Many of us draw a blank or get nervous when we try to think of a comment, so having pre-made options will both increase the total level of feedback and serve as practice, making it easier to leave more in-depth comments in the future. 

Upvoting/leaving kudos on comments themselves: positive reinforcement makes giving feedback more fun and rewarding, and it lets the author know that readers are present and agreeing with other comments, even if they don’t leave one themselves. 

We’ll contact AO3 to discuss the possibility of adding any of these as native features, and if that won’t work, we’re looking into creating and sharing a user script. 

 What you can do to help: 

 As a reader, what would you like to have? What would you be most likely to use? New ideas, opinions on ideas that are listed here, they’re all good. 

As a creator, how would you feel about each of these options? Can you think of other ways of receiving or encouraging feedback? 

Pros and cons of these (note: our thoughts on this are discussed in this google doc) 

GET THE WORD OUT! Reblog this post, send it to your friends, link to it from your stories. We need as much input and support as possible to get this off the ground. 

Feedback makes for happy authors. Happy authors make for more stories. Let’s keep this part of fandom alive! 

More details about our thoughts, discussions, and ideas can be found in this google doc.

Red Avadat, Red Munia or strawberry finch. 🐦🍓

You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.

Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (via relatablepoetryandquotes)

Topical Legstagram I did last month and never posted. For some reason I find it really soothing to make fake chats!

Gandalf has had the gc on mute for a year.

“I’ll take my leave of you, Kassandra.”

It would’ve been a lie to say that those words didn’t cause her shoulders to drop.

Kassandra had gotten used to Brasidas’ presence during their days in Arkadia that she’d almost forgot he wouldn’t be accompanying her to Boeotia, returning to Sparta along with her mother instead. She watched as he did a small bow as a parting gesture, like the gentleman he ever was, and tried not to let her disappointment show.

But then Brasidas glanced up at her—those soft, gentle honey eyes she would never have expected to find in a battle-hardened Spartan man before—sending her a certain look. And just like that, she understood the unspoken words behind them, and found herself returning his smile with one of her own.

I’ll be waiting for you back at home.

Because Brasidas bowing to Kassandra before they part ways in Arkadia always makes me soft.

Okay folks. I didn’t want to directly tie the book to this account because this is my fan account, but you know what? Screw that. I’m not ashamed of writing fanfiction. I’ve read more excellent fanfiction than I could list here. I regularly rant about how great fanfic and fic writers are on here. I would proudly brag about fic in public. I will keep writing fanfiction even if a miracle happens and the series gets optioned by HBO. So to hell with a veneer of separation. My real person account is @caitymschmidt

I’m very unemployed right now, because I work in themed entertainment, and every client is either slashing their budgets or cancelling their projects. I’m not asking for donations, but I am asking for help. My second novel comes out in a couple of days, and its through a little indie publisher. I don’t have a team spending thousands to promote it. Its mostly just me.

I have a mind-meltingly huge number of readers on my fanworks. Thousands of bookmarks. Thousands of subscriptions. Thousands of comments. Tens of thousands of kudos. I hoard them all like a dragon. But apparently I’m doing something that works for y’all.

The only thing I change about my writing when I’m doing original works is that I pause to explain the universe and characters a bit more. Otherwise? Same style. I’ll give you characters that you want to beat to death with a shovel exactly as much as you want to hug them. And, yes, I will scoop the heart out of your chest so you can watch it beat.

The first book is on sale on Amazon right now as a 99 cent download. I totally understand if you can’t afford that; we’re in a global crisis. If you can? I’d appreciate it. But you know what’s even more valuable? Comments. Reviews. Posts. Reblogs from @caitymschmidt Posts on other sites. Have you ever push-started a 747? Because that’s what this feels like. If it could get the thing going, I could probably pull this off and fly, but right now it’s just a big-ass plane that doesn’t want to move that is very much on the ground. Right now, every extra moment of help makes it a little easier. So, thanks, for whatever you can do.

From my private meme collection. Since I also work as an editor I often have to remind myself there aren’t actually any rules in writing. I’m happiest when I let myself follow my obsessions, my interests, my fancies and caprices–even if that means it doesn’t “make sense,” or the results are weird, or I never finish it, or no one ever wants to read it or publish it, or it’s 5 words long, or it’s written on toilet paper, or whatever. Sharing for whoever needs to hear this today <3

Do you want to hear my story?

I know Steve is really talented with his shield and is like an expert with it 

but just imagine him smacking it in his face 

or tripping over it

or waking up in the middle of the night and he shuffles off to the bathroom only to step on the edge of the shield and it smacks him in the shin and he curses loudly enough to wake up the other Howling Commandos who just sit up and start laughing at the way Steve is holding onto his leg and swearing