The practical side of feedback

[gwyn]

Over the years I've heard plenty of arguments about feedback, reccing, and linking -- you probably have, too: people suck and never give it, some authors are drowning in it so they don't need any more to feed their Texas-sized egos, pouty babies use the blackmail of not writing to get more strokes, blah blah ad nauseum. There's an argument about nearly everything having to do with this (and while I consider things like reccing and linking and archiving requests part of the process, as well as concrit, I'm going to use the umbrella term feedback because it's just easier), and sides for every argument. It's emotionally charged, and no two people agree on much, but one thing I never see discussed in all the foamy, shark-drawing, stirring of bloody water are the practical reasons for some form of feedback.

I had two experiences recently that made me realize no one ever talks about feedback from this angle. The first was getting email from two friends, separately, inquiring about whether I might remaster a couple of vids they were interested in (different vids from different fandoms, made on VCRs). Another was a conversation with a friend who's never read any of my fanfic as far as I knew, who wistfully mentioned how much she loved a Miami Vice story I wrote and realized that I would probably never write in it again, but it would be so nice if I did. I'm not trying to passively aggressively single out my friends as bad people or lame feedbackers or whatever -- in all cases, I was glad to know they enjoyed something and it was really nice to know they were interested. The reason I'm using them as examples was because it made me realize -- I had absolutely no idea that anyone had liked the vids in question as no one had said anything to me. I had no idea, as well, that my friend had read anything I'd written outside real-world stuff, let alone that story. Without that knowledge, without any kind of information, I made my natural assumption: no one is interested.

It's a natural tendency of a lot of artists (and I'm using this in an overarching manner, too, to include writers, vidders, visual artists, etc.) to use their art to connect to an audience, to communicate what they like or see in their heads, or what have you. I think a lot of artists tend to also judge themselves against audience reaction. We might equate silence with disinterest or our own lameness or something else entirely. My own tendency is to assume that 1) no one is interested in what I do, 2) I suck, and 3) people would say something if they enjoyed it, so they must not have because I suck. In the case of the vids, I just figured all these years that no one really enjoyed them, and they certainly weren't worth resurrecting as digitally remastered vids... I'd already remastered a vid, my first one on computer, to whistling-tumbleweeds in a ghost-town disinterest, and I'm currently remastering another (though really, I don't know why, other than sheer boredom, because it's so irritating I could go postal within the week and shoot my computer in some vidding Elvis frenzy), so neither vid really made me think the frustrating effort was worth it. Without a sense of an audience or people to connect to, I will often go elsewhere, do other things, and judging by the huge response I got to a post earlier this year about how if I have no sense of participation with other people, I will play in another jungle gym or leave altogether, other people share that feeling. A lot.

It isn't that my friends owed me feedback, or that they were obligated to say something just because I created a piece and sent it out into the world. But I had never really thought before that with all the slings and arrows we throw out every time feedback is discussed, the Sturm und Drang every single BNF and feedback and concrit discussion engenders, that the practical aspect is completely ignored. Fandom really only has one currency -- in the real world, in the places I've been published, you can find out about hits, you can get paid by the word, you can find out how many copies sold, etc. There are statistics to give you a general sense of audience interest. Sometimes money changes hands for your art. But in fandom, where we do this for love of the game, audience interest can be judged only by reviews or recs or links or that dread pirate feedback. Without it, we can continue on our merry way, righteous in our conviction that No One Cares and so why should I bother writing more in this fandom/remastering a vid/creating a new Photoshop piece with heds pastede on yay? We end up with a very skewed reality.

And we all have differing reactions to this, but the bottom-line practical one is that without some form of input (and few people are maybe lucky enough to attend a con and hear clapping for their vid, or find the LJ pages reccing their story if they're not appearing on your flist), we may assume disinterest and never do more. And this is the One True Thing about fandom: we want More. We seek more of our characters doing things through fanfic, we seek more of subtextual relationships, we want more visual interpretations so we watch and make vids, we want to see our actors so we go to cons and stand in line for autographs... whatever your poison, it's all about having More. This is what fans are here for, yet, oddly, we may not realize that by taking in the fannish creations without any form of payment (through feedback, recs, crit, reviews, what have you), we could be shooting ourselves in the foot by not encouraging more from someone whose work we enjoy.

There are tons of good and bad excuses for why people don't provide some kind of feedback to artists. And there are tons of fights waiting to happen, and that have happened, over the years about the subject. But I never see people address the fact that without information, we can't reach accurate conclusions about the value of our work, and therefore, the audience could lose out on the thing it wants most. No one seemed interested in the Vice story, including the people I wrote it for, for the longest time; it wasn't till about a year after I did it that I heard from two friends whose writing I love that they'd read it and liked it. So I drew a conclusion, maybe erroneous, but that was all I had to go on before my friends wrote, that there was no interest in the fandom or pairing or what have you, or no interest in me as a writer. I wasn't likely to do the extra work to come up with a new story, flesh out a plot, edit and edit and edit, for no audience -- it was much easier to play where there were other enthusiastic fans to talk to, and any stories I had would keep well in the Tupperware of my brain. No one held out their porridge bowl asking for More, so I went where people did hold out porridge bowls because at least there appeared to be some discussion and involvement about the whole porridge world there. I found out others share this tendency of mine, that their interest often withers and dies without participation and communication.

And there are always, always people who will gripe about "I loved this, I hope you write more" not being enough, or the ones who complain that art is a gift and they don't owe nobody no stinkin' feedback, and everything in between, but if you look at it pragmatically, solely as a mechanism, it's a way to hit the More button in a world where we really have no other method of getting More. Communication and interest and sharing and linking and commenting and all the other forms of participation are the only tickets we can provide to the artists for getting on the clue bus and understanding that we want more from them. I kept thinking about the two vids and the story and weighing what I sensed to be disinterest for the original reception of them, what the new information meant -- and I don't know if I've reached any conclusions, but it did at least let me realize that this goes beyond just emotional reactions to the feedback topic. It does have a practical side, even if people still don't want to send it. I would never have even put those vids on a list of possibilities for remastering; I'm not sure I would now, but I'm thinking about it.

I hear lots of excuses why people never send feedback, why concrit has largely disappeared, and usually I just roll my eyes and say "whatever" to myself. And I've seen normally sensible people hammer on others for wanting feedback, as if they've gone through Delta force training and think anyone who wants feedback is some mewling pussy who couldn't climb a rope or do a single push-up. Personally, I don't think either side is right, but more importantly, I think they're missing a bigger picture. If we don't say we want more, if we don't communicate the information that something is valued, then the artist may assume silence = disinterest, and we will never see the more we desire from them. This topic will always be about the emotions and the accusations and the rancor to most fans, I think, but I wish more people would be pragmatic about it and see that there's a Spockian, unemotional, just the facts ma'am, logical reason for fans to say something, some way, somehow: We want More, and we're letting you know.

Demand could lead to supply.

Comments

[cofax7]

Excellent point.

I've taken to running my pseud through LJseek, feedster, and blogpulse periodically: I inevitably find a recommendation or a mention out there somewhere from someone I didn't know even read the fandom, much less liked my story.

... of course, yesterday I found someone had archived one of my stories on their blog without even mentioning it to me, so.

But yeah, it's good to know if people are even seeing what you're doing.

[callherblondie.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of fanfic readers, especially recently with all the discussion about wanting/needing more concrit, have been led (perhaps erroneously) to think that if they don't give detailed, constructive feedback, they might as well not bother because writers/vidders/fanartists aren't going to get anything out of a comment such as 'I did read/watch/look at this, thanks.' I find those comments helpful in and of themselves because, as you so eruditely pointed out, it does serve a practical purpose which is to inform me that someone is paying attention. Are such comments particularly helpful? Perhaps not in a concrit-type sense but they do serve their own important purpose which is to let fanfic writers/vidders/fan artists know that they are not creating into a black hole. So I always encourage and am thankful for one-line comments telling me that my work has been read. Otherwise, I have no way of knowing whether I should continue (unless my own self-sustained need to continue a story is so overwhelming that I can't not continue a story) to write.

[merricatk.livejournal.com]

I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful I think this is. Thank you for writing it.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that technology was available. Will you email me and tell me how I can harness it for my own uses?

(emily.mlyn at gmail dot com)

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

I read this and liked it. ;)

Seriously, I hope people do see this, and maybe it sparks a change. (Yeah, right.) You know me; I'm the eternal optimist.

[cofax7]

No need to email.

LJseek. Also, Feedster and Blogpulse. You enter in your pseud, or your site URL, and it generates a list of citations. Some are to LJ entries (none of them are good about respecting the no-index option on LJ), other cites may be to outside blogs/fora. I found one yesterday on some AOL-hosted journals I'd never heard of before.

Then, of course, there's Google and GoogleBlog, both of which will search by pseud or by URL. Useful stuff!

Yes, I'm a fb ho. It's really kind of amazing how many people do not fb, but then go off and rec. OTOH, I've found myself doing that occasionally, too, so I can't really point fingers.

[cofax7]

Oh, and technorati, of course! Works the same as the others.

[klia.livejournal.com]

Because I started vidding in an era when there was very little opportunity for feedback (TS and I considered ourselves lucky if we could convince anyone we knew to sit down and watch our vids!), any feedback I get is still sort of a shock. It's not something I bank on, because if I did, I would've quit vidding long ago.

Right before VVC, Keiko and I received feedback for vids we made in, like, 1997, so it was quite a shock, but a really lovely one. I didn't resent the person who gave it for not giving it 8 years ago, not by any means! I was thrilled to get it at all. So, I guess, to me, the whole feedback issue is akin to leading a horse to water, and that's just the way it'll always be. Feeling resentful or angry won't change anything, it'll just make me feel worse.

[sisabet.livejournal.com]

Oh! Cool! I noticed I was getting comments on a BSG vid kind of out of the blue a few weeks ago and now I can find the original rec.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Cool, thank you. I'm like you; I rec things or read things and don't go back and tell the author. I've been forcing myself to do better at just emailing feedback.

One thing I've been meaning to do is feedback a lot of people for their Vividcon vids, but I hardly know anyone's contact info. Hrmph.

[maubast.livejournal.com]

I'm heading to bed in a moment, to rest, but wanted to comment real quick, and will come back later and comment more if I can think of something else to say that won't sound of teh lame...

My own tendency is to assume that 1) no one is interested in what I do, 2) I suck, and 3) people would say something if they enjoyed it, so they must not have because I suck.

Ditto. I totally feel that way.

You see, I recently posted a note on one of my older websites, asking people if they still visited (I had no webstats on that particular site) to drop me a note. I uploaded it, and waited... and waited... and got echoing silence. So, therefore, no one must be reading, right? I took the site down, and now I get emails from people asking me to send me stories. WTF. It fills me with a rage - they want something for nothing.

Now, had I gotten just a few notes, saying, 'heck yeah, I still visit the site.', I would have left it up. I wasn't even asking for praise, just an acknowledgement that, you know, there were *people* out there.

Um. Sorry to rant. *g*

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

We might equate silence with disinterest or our own lameness or something else entirely. My own tendency is to assume that 1) no one is interested in what I do, 2) I suck, and 3) people would say something if they enjoyed it, so they must not have because I suck.


WORD.


I love getting useful concrit, but even a simple "I liked this" boosts my spirits, sometimes at a much-needed time. Scant or no feedback is discouraging, and it's a short step from discouraged to raging writer's block, for me anyhow.

Here via metafandom

[parallactic.livejournal.com]

I'm an erratic feedbacker, so I haven't got a leg to stand on. But I agree with this. There isn't a way to tell if anyone's reading if no one feedbacks. I have no perspective on my own work, so my feelings vascillate bewtween work of genius to unredeemable trash.

Interestingly enough, I was thinking of pulling a WIP that I'd a)abandoned, b) had many flaws, and c) was fueled by crack bunnies, d) I wanted to disassociate myself from it, and e) unoriginal--when I got feedback today from someone who thought it was the funniest thing. And now I'm wondering if the fic is salvageable. It's going to be more about completing something, and less about quality, and it's not a popular fic, but now the fic has gained some value. It's gone from unredeemable trash to a status of not bad, and now I'm remembering how much I laughed over writing some of the scenes.

And now I should send feedback to some authors whose stories I enjoyed.

[delurker.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly!

[mgsmurf.livejournal.com]

Without a doubt, no feedback for something you like may well equal no more of those types of stories or stories from that author. This would be why I like to give feedback, like to give some details on what I liked as I don't have time to concrit fanfic as a reader. I've tried to read things from authors I like and give feedback, even if a fandom or ship may not be my thing. Some with a fanfic story I think was unique or well done, I like to show I liked it.

If I couldn't read to the end of a bad stor I won't feedback. Although, if I know it's a beginner and like some things they do, I'll look over the beginner mistakes and give feedback if only because I can see the better writer they can be if they keep at it, and the best way to motivate them to do so is feedback.

[permetaform]

dude, this is why I wish that LJ would integrate a "props" system like xanga does, so that at least there was a way to leave a note that you were there and that you liked it, or something.

but yeah, ditto to what you've said. =)

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

My own tendency is to assume that 1) no one is interested in what I do, 2) I suck, and 3) people would say something if they enjoyed it, so they must not have because I suck.

Yep, that's the one. And if no one liked it, what on earth is the point with writing any more of it?

[(Anonymous)]

Here from metafandom and no lj!

I assume if I don't get any/much feedback that people aren't interested in my stories. I've still been posting them, on ff.net, in case there are a few lurkers out there who doesn't want to review. Also, as the stories have been finished, and I have been reasonably pleased with how they turned out - why not post?

ff.net logs hits now even if you don't pay for extras. I have been astounded to find my current WIP gets 2 or 3 reviews per chapter and yet comfortably over 110 hits per chapter. Prior to knowing the hits figures, I would have assumed perhaps ten people were reading a story with that number of reviews.

Not only that, I recently found, by accident, one of my stories has been *very* enthusiastically recced in two different places, and yet I had no idea the people making the recs had even read any of my work.

I have been tempted in the past just to send new stories direct to people I know might appreciate them, but it seems I do actually have an audience - an audience that has been totally hidden from me for a long time previously.

So, I'll keep posting. :-)


GGG

[semielliptical]

Great post!

If we don't say we want more, if we don't communicate the information that something is valued, then the artist may assume silence = disinterest, and we will never see the more we desire from them.

This is so true! I can think of several stories that I never would have been able to read and/or that might never have been posted if I hadn't sent an author feedback on an earlier story.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear! As an 'invisible' writer, though not by choice, I loved this essay! I'm pretty sure more people are reading my stuff than are commenting, and it drives me batty, because I have no idea what they're thinking. If no one reads the fanfic, why should I write it?

Do you mind if I link this in my lj?

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Feel free! I'm glad you got something out of it. There are a lot of reasons to get emotional about the subject, but disspassionately, all it really comes down to is supply and demand.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That's actually good to know that there are some real-world examples you know of where demand has fueled supply. It's nice to have backup on my theories. ;-)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

That's good that you've found a way to get a sense of what's being read. I think the problem is that a lot lot lot of people don't use ff.net, and they have no real way of knowing. I have a hit counter on my main page, but I don't have a way of really finding out which individual stories are being hit, so I'm in the dark unless I get some kind of response from readers. I can get a general sense based on referrer stats to the main page, but it's bupkus on the others. Without a sense of demand, for a lot of us, the supply becomes less worth the effort.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

Heh, very true. Now, if only people applied that...

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I am too lazy to look up the earlier post I wrote this year about how participation is the watchword for me... but that was one of my main points, why bother? And boy oh boy, did I get a huge response from people. It turns out there are a lot more of us out there than others realize... and so without a sense of audience or participation, we'll go clean the oven or knit tea cozies or something. It's not blackmail, it's just a simple fact of time management and interest -- I still might love the fandom and have ideas, but going to the work when there isn't a group to share with... eh, life's too short. I'll do something else.