On Fri, 23 Aug 1996, Don Wang wrote:
Slashtooth@EVnet.com wrote:
There was a letter in my mailbox this day, that stated, bluntly, that
unless everybody knew your works, or you were an excellent author right
from the bat, that your stories would get no C&C.
That's me! I'm kind of in a bad mood when I wrote that, but I won't
back off from my arguments. Personally, I'm really tired of the fact
that I've received more request for other chapters of Chrono Trigger 1/2
than the actual C & C. What's even more annoying, from past experience
I'm beginning to get the idea that those who requested my story never
wrote back. I remember a long time ago when I received 4 replies on my
early fanfic submission, only to realize that they're all about how my
attached file was unreadable. When I did it the correct way, I was
hardpressed to get even one C & C.
Well, I'm a graduate student, and I don't have time to comment on every
story, so yes, this does mean I tend to play favorites. Most of the
people on this list never post, and even those who do don't have time to
read every story. Sometimes this list is nothing but spam, but often
there will be a LOT of stories out there, and it takes TIME to offer any
kind of good C & C.
For that matter, when I was starting out, I wrote 6 chapters of a story
before I ever even got a "That's nice" mail acknowleging that ANYONE was
reading anything I wrote. IT takes a while to build up enough of a
fanbase to have anyone who will make meaningful comments on your work.
Heck, I have my own personal mailing list for my work, with over fifty
people, and only about five of them ever say much more than "Nice Story",
and only about five more even say Nice story...And they all volunteered
for this job :)
(And boy do I appreciate the ones who do the hard work of commenting on
my messes! Especially Jeff, who I ought to be paying a salary for all
the work he's done for me.)
Let's face it. Most of the people on this list have limited time, and
most of the people on this list never say one word of praise or
condemnation. It would be nice if every story got full C&C, but it's not
gonna happen unless White Wolf becomes a billionaire and puts us all on
full time C and C retainer (Hint, hint :)
The same question goes for me as well. I can't say that I've not
benefited from the FFML, but most of the help comes only from a few
individuals who are willing to read my story. This is not what I had in
mind in the beginning. When I first joined, I thought that given there
are 300+ users in this list I should be looking at, say, at least 10+ C
& C. Surely someone out there will read my story! Soon, however, I
realize that wasn't the case.
They'll READ it! A crapload of people will read it. They just won't SAY
anything. For every active commenter, there are ten people who will read
the story, but don't have the time to make meaningful comments. I've
done it myself a load of times.
After watching the C & C for a while, I've reached the conclusion that
C & C doesn't really amount to much in FFML. So, unless there is
tremendous amount of private C & C going on, I really don't think the
FFML is giving its fair share of C & C. From what I've observed, it
appears that it is always the same people doing the C & C: Sabestien,
Richard, Zen, and a few others. Most of the time, a subject may read C
& C and has multiple posts to it, but when you looked at it carefully it
usually is just a conversation between the two people or a lot of
unnecessary trival details. From what I've observed as C & C from the
FFML, it just doesn't figure.
Actually, a lot of commentary is done privately. Half the replies I get
from the FFML are to me personally, not the list itself.
problem, I think, is that if people don't like the story they don't
write back about it. I personally do that a lot, and I can see how this
This is also common. It doesn't help when people periodically get flamed
for daring to make negative commentary...
I do not want to start another thread of spam based on this, I just
want an answer. Is this ML truly for all authors, or just the few that
are very well known?
Same goes for me. I've asked this question a long time ago, and I'll
ask again. What do one have to get response on his story? Richard
Keep writing. Pure and simple. If I had gone by the response to my
early work, I'd have never written another story. My first story,
Putting Your Heart in the Right Place was 15 chapters long. I got at
most maybe 20 or so responses in the 8 months it took to write and post
it all.
But I kept plugging away, and now I've risen to glory :) Or something :)
The most important thing is to KEEP writing.
John Walter Biles : MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu bailesu@komodo.hacks.arizona.edu
http://www.hacks.arizona.edu/~bailesu/falcon.html
http://www.dhp.com/~wraven/john/index.html
"It's good to kill the King." "I still think the Saxons should have
put a higher price on our heads. I'm more valuable than 25 librum."
--Frequent quotes from our PENDRAGON sessions.