Folks, listen to what Vince and Grayson are saying on this. These are
two of the best C&Cers on the list, and they know what they're talking
about when they tell you how you can increase the C&C you get.

I just want to add a few tips of my own, some of which overlap with
what's already been said.

1) Do more C&C yourself. Not only does this serve the self-interest of
C&Cers, who are generally other writers depending on feedback from the
list for their own stories, but when you take the time to do a critical
analysis of a story (meaning basically any C&C more insightful than
"That was great! When's the next one coming out?") it shows that you're
serious about writing.

2) Don't post a lot of spam. The people most annoyed by spam are
probably those most likely to give you good C&C. Especially don't post
the most annoying kinds of spam, like questions that you could obviously
answer yourself with a little work, messages directed at one or two
people only, or off-topic rants that are likely to blow up into huge
arguments. If you aren't sure whether a post is appropriate for the
list, ask the moderators before you post. Or ask your humble FAQ
maintainers; we aren't an official part of list management, but we have
been on the list for quite a while and can offer an informed opinion.

3) Format properly. Use ascii characters only, wrap at 70-80 characters
per line, and do a decent enough job with the grammar and spelling that
your work is comprehensible.

4) Reply to C&C that you get. This, more than anything else you can do,
shows a C&Cer that he's not wasting his time. Don't grumble or flame if
you get negative feedback. Don't put little snipes in your author's
notes about how these C&Cers are snobs who hate you; that's a good way
to get all your future fics autodeleted. Just learn whatever you can
from what they say, and even if you disagree completely at least
appreciate their effort.

5) This one may just be personal preference on my part, but.... If
you're a new writer, start out by doing something of moderate length. I
don't mean a spamfic, but rather something that can be complete in, say,
under 200 Kb.

Why? Because if I don't know who you are, I don't know whether you're
reliable enough to finish a fifty-part series. For all I know, the work
might get abandoned after part 5, forever leaving me as a reader
hanging. Of course, there are writers on the list who've started out
writing long fics and wrote so well that they got attention anyhow, but
that's going about it the difficult way. For most of us, starting small
and working up to the big epics is probably the best way to go.

Just my 2 yen here... hope this is helpful.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html