7.7 KiB
[D] Rationally Writing Ep. 43 - Reader Feedback
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Author: u/DaystarEld Pokémon Professor*
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Score: 30
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Created: 2018-06-27T10:15:59
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Comments:
u/Kuiper [+11] (17 hours later)
In this podcast, you assert that "all feedback should be encouraging or actionable," and this is something that I'm generally in agreement with, but it's important to note that not all comments are feedback (and that's okay!). Some people post comments mainly to communicate/discuss things with other readers, rather than the author, and the more commentors there are, the more likely it is that this will be the case.
If hundreds of people are reading the comments section of a Worth the Candle chapter, then fewer than 1% of readers are Alexander Wales, and there will understandably be a lot of people who write comments to the >99% of comment thread readers who are not Alexander Wales. Conversely, the less active a comments section is, the less likely the comments are to be read by people who aren't the author, so comments on stories without a large following are more likely to take the form of comments directed at the author specifically. Authors may see commentor behavior shift if discussion threads become more active over time; CGP Grey remarked that the comments section of his Youtube videos used to be a place where people went to talk to him, and now it's a place where people go to talk about him.
I think it often helps to frame negative non-constructive feedback in the "talking to, not about" way. When a person posts a generically negative comment that isn't constructive feedback, you can think of it less like a person walking up to you to say "I don't like your thing," and more like a person leaving a 1 or 2-star Amazon review for a product, either as a warning/courtesy to other potential customers, or to express their frustration over having spent their money (time) on a product (story) that they found lacking.
It's also worth noting that not all "negative" comments will necessarily discourage other readers, and in fact they can sometimes have the opposite effect. For example, it's entire possible that someone might post a comment saying, "I find it difficult to enjoy this story, as I don't like stories about anthropomorphized animals," and someone might read this comment and think, "Oh, sweet! A story about anthropomorphized animals! I'm going to move this to the top of my 'to-read' list!" Ditto for harem stuff -- it will be a turn-off for some readers, but there are some readers for whom it will be a draw, even if it's something they learn about from a comment that frames it negatively.
Positive feedback on specific things (even stuff that may not at first appear "actionable") is also really important, because it can help you avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If people only talk about the things that they dislike without ever stopping to mention the things that they do like, then you run the risk of removing the good elements in the process of editing to fix the bad elements. A writing approach that is focused solely on culling the things that people dislike (rather than cultivating the things that they do like) runs the risk of winding up just being inoffensively bland, and I would much rather read a story that inconsistently oscillates between being awesome and confusing/frustrating than one that is consistently mediocre as a result of the author just having removed any element that could potentially be polarizing.
On the subject of having polarizing elements, I think Brandon Sanderson said during his editing process that whenever he gets feedback on a specific thing that someone liked, it stays in the next draft, whereas when it comes to removing things, it requires consensus among several readers. A single person saying "I didn't like this" won't get that thing removed, but a single person saying "I liked this" nearly guarantees that it stays. I've found this to be helpful in my editing. I think this is partly because people tend to be general with their praise but specific with their criticism, so any time when someone praises a specific thing, it's something that really stands out.
u/DaystarEld [+3] Pokémon Professor (18 hours later)
Some people post comments mainly to communicate/discuss things with other readers, rather than the author, and the more commentors there are, the more likely it is that this will be the case.
Very true! There's a lot of added value that goes into indirect comments on stories, and I personally enjoy reading people's fan theories and discussions about my own quite a bit, and often indirectly get good feedback from it even if it's not intended as such.
It's also worth noting that not all "negative" comments will necessarily discourage other readers,
True, but most of the negative comments authors tend to take issue with are not of the "I don't like X" variety so much as the "This story sucks, there's almost no action" when there might actually be quite a bit of action in it, just not enough for that reader :) Comments that misrepresents an opinion as a fact, or just miss things, can be frustrating.
u/None [+3] (2 days later)
fewer than 1% of readers are Alexander Wales
Citation needed.
All rational fiction readers and writers are Alexander Wales until proven otherwise.
u/DaystarEld [+6] Pokémon Professor (a minute later)
Hey everyone! This episode we discuss reader feedback, and taking criticism constructively.
Also wanted to note that the two of us are guest starring in an upcoming Bayesian Conspiracy podcast episode, so keep an eye out for that!
Timestamps
2:02 Pareto Principle
6:30 Trends and Spikes
19:50 Typos vs Style
26:56 Continuity
29:30 Actionable
37:49 Deep Criticism
45:50 Spoilery feedback
u/tokol [+4] The Greater Good (13 hours later)
As someone who posts typo lists, it's nice to hear that it's appreciated.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (13 hours later)
Absolutely :)
u/Kerbal_NASA [+2] (16 hours later)
Yeah that felt nice. Also, sorry for the times I've posted typo corrections for things that weren't actually typos (though come on English, hoist is past tense? Really?).
u/alexanderwales [+4] Time flies like an arrow (16 hours later)
I tend to like those, since I often learn something new; it's reflected in my writing a bit that I love etymology, which is probably my favorite part of language, and sometimes a typo correction will lead me down a rabbit hole of looking through Google's n-gram viewer, across etymoloine, or into some corner of the internet to try to debug why my brain would pick out a particular phrase or word as correct when it's really not. It helps me think about language, how it's used, and, I think, helps me become a bit of a better writer because it's one of the relatively few times I'm getting down into the nitty-gritty of specific words.
And I do appreciate the more simple "you missed a word here" typo corrections, but they don't represent as much of a chance for something interesting to happen.
u/Kerbal_NASA [+1] (17 hours later)
Aww, that makes me feel better and I can really relate. There's been a lot of times where there's some trivial seeming detail I'm not 100% sure I understand and when I research it I end up completely changing my understanding of the topic.