On reviews.

[icarus]

These days I'm not very good about reviewing stories I read. I have a tendency to just stick them on a rec-list and make my contribution that way.

Should One Reply To Reviews?
When I reviewed my first story, the author graciously got back to me about a week later. (I think it was keelywolfe but don't quote me on that.)

I was surprised because I hadn't expected a reply. I figured emailing the author was like sending a letter to the editor: into the Abyss, but at least you expressed your feelings. I wrote detailed reviews in the early days, several paragraphs (sometimes pages) of con-crit - and always sent a direct email as I wasn't about to critique a story publicly.

One author updated her abandoned fic with two or three chapters in response. Reviews really do have an impact.

It was so gratifying to hear from the author that I resolved to reply to every review I received, especially when I learned that not everyone did. It seemed... mannerly. I also found that once someone replied to my review I felt warmly about them and their stories.

Yes, I'm definitely in the camp that feels it's best to reply.

Must One Reply To Reviews?
Here's where I grow a little uncomfortable with the "respond to reviews or else" camp, people who feel not replying is the height of rudeness and deserving of punitive action up to ten years suspension of review privileges with internment in little cages where the author is required to produce fic on bread and water.

The division of labor between writer and reviewer is a tad disproportionate.

Writer:

30 minutes-to-an-hour to plot story
3-5 hours writing rough draft
45 minutes begging for betas
2-3 hours of rewrites on drafts
30 minutes of coding for website
Provide story free of charge, with maybe 10% leaving any sort of feedback

Total: 6.5 - 10 hours of writing time.

Reviewer:

30 minutes to read and enjoy story
5 minutes to reply and review
(Bearing in mind I used to spend upwards of an hour on my con-crit reviews)

Being angry that the writer "didn't do enough" by not replying strikes me as unreasonable.

I'm reminded of myself in high school when my parents drove me an hour and a half to a school event after working full 8-hour days -- and I blew my stack because I couldn't go to my friends' party afterward. Pretty darned selfish, but I took my parents for granted and expected to be catered to.

Now most of us are more mature than I was at 15, and can see the inequity.

Strategies To Get Replies To Reviews
If it is important to you to have people reply to your reviews, then I believe in being pro-active. There are strategies to *poke* the author into replying.

Personal emails.
The truth is, especially with Big Important Authors, the personal touch counts. Take the extra few seconds to look up their email instead of simply clicking reply in an archive. That way they're getting the review from you and not fanfiction.net. There's a reason salespeople introduce themselves. People connect with a name.

Shotgun reviews.
Nothing says "I'm a devoted fan" like five reviews from the same person in a single afternoon. Very few people do this, but repetition works. The downside is that the author will often reply to several reviews in one email, but they will remember your name. (Hi Mathilda!) Yes, there's that name thing again.

Size matters.
Authors eagerly open their reviews and while a one-liner is appreciated, there's nothing like a satisfying paragraph or two. The shortest review I ever received was:

:). (I think I replied with: ;))

Interestingly, if your review is very long and loaded with valuable insights you can expect a delayed response as the author thinks about it. Then you're in danger of being consigned to the Drafts Folder -- (Icarus dodges food and things thrown by writers) -- but it's not that I want to discourage Mega-reviews. Hell no! It's just a hazard.

Depth matters.
A layered response comparing the author's story to Dante's Inferno and Ursula K. LeGuin, puzzling about the socio-political structure implied, will make an author think. It leaves an actual opening for conversation. Compare that to the next review that says, "Hee hee! I liked it. You hit all my kinks." That's a conversation killer. Imagine yourself at a party and someone says that. Wh-what can you say? A pat, "Gosh, I'm glad you liked it." Meanwhile, the person who mentioned LeGuin has left a door open. Whose email gets the faster reply?

Pissing the author off.
If you don't care about quality and just want a reaction, a nasty shot of accurate con-crit (emphasis on the crit) seasoned with just enough positive feedback to not be classified a troll will very often provoke a swift reply. Be sure to spell everything accurately, use punctuation that would make your English teacher smile, and ten-dollar words also help. You might get a response so fast scorch-marks are left on your couch. I don't recommend it, I hate negative reviews, but if you don't care about rewarding and encouraging the author and replies are your only goal, this is your best bet.

And that's the real question, isn't it? Why review?

Is the goal to get a reply, or is it to encourage the author? If it's primarily the latter, why be angry and punitive when you don't get that response?

A Final Word Of Caution
If someone doesn't reply to your review, don't assume you know why. There could have been a death in the family. They could have had a computer crash and had Outlook wiped. Your review might've just gotten buried in their in-box. Or a reply is sitting in their drafts folder and the author is feeling a little silly because it's been there for three months.

You can count on the fact that all reviews are read. And they are appreciated. That's a given.

Comments

[furiosity.livejournal.com]

Here via H_T.

You can count on the fact that all reviews are read. And they are appreciated. That's a given.
Pretty much. Which is why I don't consider it a waste of my time or a difficulty to at least say "thank you" to every reviewer, whether they say ":)" or leave me five paragraphs of concrit. Obviously, the concrit will get more than a mere "thank you" and take longer.

The thing is, fanfic as a two-way street. Despite the fact that the writers provide the fic "free of charge" and spend so much time on it -- well, we do it for fun, right? It's enjoyable time spent, not a chore or a bother, so why should the time spent on a fic be somehow more valuable than time spent on reading it? Sure, I've received one-word reviews to novel-length fics, and it's a little off-putting but at the end of the day, even a "YAY" (from someone who's just spent a lot longer than 30 minutes reading, if we're talking upwards of 50K words of prose) is better than nothing at all.

I don't write for reviews, and I rarely expect people to actually be interested in reading (unless it's labelled PWP and/or NC-17 >.>) so whenever someone responds to a story I wrote, it's pleasant, and nice, and I want to let the reviewer know *personally* that I appreciate that they even took the time to type up some kind of response and let me know what they thought. Then again, I generally dislike the stance that seems to exist in fandom wherein the writer is a Writer and somehow Special because they Create shiny things for the fandom. If it weren't for the people who want to read such shiny things, we'd all be writing in a vacuum, yo.

I don't think being angry and punitive with authors who don't respond to reviews is a good thing, but I also don't think it's difficult to say "thank you", ever. I don't think authors should be expected to respond to every review immediately and without fail -- we're all human, after all, but it is a two-way street. If you (general you, not you personally) ignore your readers, why should they bother with you in turn?

[quasi-hayley.livejournal.com]

Here, here.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

from someone who's just spent a lot longer than 30 minutes reading, if we're talking upwards of 50K words of prose

*coughs* I can't help but tease you here: I don't know how fast you write, but it took me a lot longer than ten hours to write 50K words of prose. 50K words is easily six weeks worth of work, miniumum, and can be read in... a few hours?

I generally dislike the stance that seems to exist in fandom wherein the writer is a Writer and somehow Special because they Create shiny things for the fandom.

There's a difference between putting a writer on a pedastal (did I spell that right?) and putting all the effort in fandom relationships in the writer's lap.

Now let's be clear: my fics are my favorite topic. Ask me about Beg Me For It and -- well, someone did once, and she was desperately trying to change the subject after half an hour. So I like replying to reviews.

But I recently ran across some anger and retaliation over not responding to reviews. It made me think of a period not to long ago where I had story ideas hitting like a meteor shower, was working part-time, going to school full-time, and barely an opportunity to write. It was maddening.

So at every opportunity, I laid down another story.

These stories got reviews.

Then I'd get half a minute, and I'd lay down another story -- not even beta'd.

That story got reviews, while the prior story was still being reviewed.

I kept doing this, and reached what can only be described as a ten-car pile-up. I had a mountain of reviews, hardly any time to write let alone reply to everyone... I decided, "okay, probably people would prefer that I write if I have to choose." So I wrote more stories and piled them even higher.

I replied to some reviews, but it was really hit or miss for a while there. By the time I hit the end of that busy period the impetus to write was gone (I have the outlines for 20 more stories still in my notes), and I had reviews that were months old. I replied to a lot of them, but people were probably thinking, "who is this and what story are they talking about?"

Sometimes RL is just like that. I guess what I mean is I doubt there are a lot of people out there with personal philosophies against replying to reviews. But if someone doesn't get back to you, it probably isn't personal.

Icarus

[furiosity.livejournal.com]

I wrote 40K in a week just this December. >.> Of course, I then spent four weeks being pointed and laughed at by my betas. I do see what you mean but I still don't think the case should be argued from the point of view of "time spent writing" versus "time spent reading". Because to me, that necessarily carries an implication -- that the writer and their contribution to fandom is more important than the reader and their contribution. What about the voracious reader who spends five-six hours of their day just to read fic (by various authors)? Is their time negligible because the sum total of the authors' effort had taken more time? I suppose I see the writer/reader relationship in fandom as symbiotic; if someone doesn't see it that way then I'll expect their outlook to be quite different from mine.

I do agree that the effort in fandom relationships should not be all on the writer, nor do I think that the writers in fandom owe it to anyone to do anything -- update regularly, respond to reviews, etc. But while I personally might not think so, there are quite a number of people who do, from what I've noticed. I don't agree, but I can certainly see where they're coming from. People notice if someone never replies to reviews, and the most often-drawn conclusion that I've seen is "she thinks she's better than everyone else". And there really is nothing else the average person can conclude, not with fandom being what it is and how it is, YKWIM?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

You're seeing a value judgment that's just not here. Amount of time spent does not equal value to the fandom.

What my headings say are "should you?" Yes. "Must you?" No.

When it comes to expecting and getting resentful over non-replies... c'mon guys. Yes, I think it's best everyone replies, it's an opportunity for the writer to talk about their stories, it creates a nice bond between writer and reader -- but looking at the numbers, aren't you expecting an awful lot already?

"Division of labor" I said. That assumes that writer and reader are in a team relationship. (Not to mention that most readers are writers in fandom.)

Going back to my example from when I was a teenager... all the other kids got to go to the party because for their parents it was local. They could go home for a few hours and then it was just a ten-minute drive to pick up the kid.

But I lived an hour and a half away. For my parents, well, they would have had to find something to do for a few hours in the area.

The way I saw it was "Everyone gets to go but me -- you're mean!" Without thinking about it, I assumed the circumstances were equal between the parents. It was self-centered of me to assume that "unfairness!" was their motive.

Which brings me to--

And there really is nothing else the average person can conclude, not with fandom being what it is and how it is, YKWIM?

You can assume all sorts of things. I never assume someone is arrogant. I generally figure they're either swamped or RL is getting in the way.

To automatically assume that you're being snubbed is to assume that everyone's life in fandom is completely the same.

Icarus

[furiosity.livejournal.com]

You're seeing a value judgment that's just not here.
Fair enough, but it's difficult to not see a value judgement when you begin comparing the time the writer puts into writing and the time the reader spends reading. IMO it's not a question of amount of effort or even division of labour. I have at times received reviews whose length was on par with the fic itself because a drabble I popped off in ten minutes struck a personal chord and the reader wanted to share. Should I feel compelled to respond to such a review because the reviewer clearly spent more time on it than I did on the drabble? I don't think so, for the same reasons you draw a line between 'should' and 'must' above. I just don't think it's fair to do it "by the numbers" ab ovo.

To automatically assume that you're being snubbed is to assume that everyone's life in fandom is completely the same.
I personally agree with that, as I said above, and I don't ever assume I'm being snubbed, but I know other people do, especially once there's a trend of never responding to reviews. All I'm saying is I can understand where they're coming from when they do assume so. Plus my experience in fandoms (and with people in general) has shown me time and time again that people tend to see what they want to see rather than what's actually there, if you will.