quihi

To anyone who’s not in the harry get some sleep discord server, I don’t think there’s much context needed beyond being aware of discourse on appropriate comments on fanfiction, but this is spun off primarily from discussion there.

So, I wanted to post this off discord for a few reasons. It got long. It’s partially venting. It’s influenced by things I’ve read on tumblr and elsewhere and not purely on arguments that have been made within the hgss server. I don’t want to stir up drama on discord. I don’t want to put it in a context where there’s pressure for people to reply. (Anon comments should be enabled, for those of you without DW accounts, and I mean, I’ll still be on discord if you do comment there. No promises that I’ll engage with comments.) I wanted space to write out my full thing. I might edit later.

I periodically see people say that you should never write critical comments on fanfiction. There may be exceptions for people who explicitly consent. It’s written as a hobby, given to you freely, and what right have you to hurt the authors’ feelings.

I disagree.

Definitions

First, people aren’t usually particular about defining criticism. Which means I have to avoid anything that could be interpreted as critical, which is nearly anything interesting. Since people (including myself) who argue in favor of leaving criticism usually mean polite constructive criticism, specifically, so I’ll focus on that. Any comment containing “this fic is bad” does not qualify, because that’s neither polite nor constructive. Any comment that contains any sort of insult to the writer doesn’t qualify for the same reason. Those are flames.

According to Merriam-Webster, there’s a few definitions of criticism:

1a: the act of criticizing usually unfavorably
1b: a critical observation or remark
1c: critique
2: the art of evaluating or analyzing works of art or literature, also, writings expressing such evaluation or analysis
3: the scientific investigation of literary documents (such as the Bible) in regard to such matters as origin, text, composition, or history

I don’t think (3) is relevant, and all of (1) involves looking deeper to get more definitions. Definitions 1c and 1d of “critical” don’t include anything negative, focusing more along the lines of critical thinking, and “critique” focuses on 1c of “critical”, and (2) includes “analysis”.

If I’m to avoid any sort of analysis, discussing the characters or themes or prose or whatever, that leaves very little to say. I’m not trying to interpret the “no criticism!” argument in bad faith, because presumably there are people who really do like the comments consisting purely of hearts more than anything I would say. But I don’t think that’s the majority of fanwriters. And presumably some of the people really have a more specific definition of criticism in mind that they’re not saying, but I can’t read minds.

What I Do

I’ve had people say they like my comments. Thank you, I appreciate that. I put a lot of work into them. I like making people feel good and I want to get excited over fic! It’s a lot of the fun of fanfiction for me, and makes the hobby a little more social since I’m not really involved in social media outside of harry get some sleep and another discord server or two and some individual interactions. I’ve gotten some author replies that were quite meaningful to me, that I think about and sometimes reread, though I never expect them, to be clear: my comments are set free in the world, and if I hear back from them, it’s a nice surprise, whether it’s been an hour or a year or more.

But I would say that some of those comments were critical, in some sense. They’re typically on the longer side and involve more thought than “<3 this is perfect,” so. That’s almost automatically critical, depending on how you define critical, or they have the chance to be, if it turns out the author didn’t intend how I felt and I’m telling them they conveyed the wrong thing, or the line I thought worked well was intended as a throwaway and I didn’t even notice the heartfelt climax.

I like saying what parts were my favorite, and I like talking about my emotional response, and those are things that I’ve seen recommended to say in comments. But I can’t know exactly what the author intended. Comments like that, collectively, tell me when I receive them, “Okay, this worked but that didn’t.” That’s okay, it’s good feedback! Even if I wish my favorite line was a hit and I’m a little sad if it goes unmentioned. I’d still rather get the feedback and learn, and I’m of course thrilled to hear when something—whether my favorite part or not—went over well, or was meaningful, or made someone laugh. The ideal of never hurting a writer’s feelings is nice, but it’s inherently a risk in any social interaction. Even without saying anything actually negative, something might hit the wrong emotional note, or an author might be disappointed by a short comment. That’s part of life. And if someone’s telling everyone to subscribe to their fic collection, or something similar not directly about the fic, I might suggest they use a series, because I’d want to know, and I’ve learned a lot about how AO3 functions.

I have also left concrit that was more specifically negative or about things I would change. It’s hard to think of examples, since I’ve cut down my commenting lately, and particularly cut down leaving comments like that, since I do try to respect what I’m told is the prevailing culture. I definitely have, in the past, left comments saying that I’d have liked to see more detail or description about a certain part of a fic. Recently, on a fic where the author explicitly opted into any kind of comment over no comment, I wrote about how I didn’t feel the events formed a clearly connected chain from the primary point of divergence, and I would have liked to see more cause and effect, and I thought that it could be improved by editing at both a structural and sentence level. I try to focus on being constructive. That example is probably about as harsh as I get, when I talk about leaving criticism. (These days, I rarely leave the more negative feedback unless the author opts in. I try to be respectful, even if I refuse to give up on critical thinking entirely.)

Why I Argue

I feel distrusted when told never to leave any criticism—not just flames or unconstructive or un-sandwiched criticism or to be mindful this was done as a hobby, but any criticism—which potentially includes all of what I’ve mentioned. I consider myself a decently polite and considerate person. I have been commenting on fanfiction for over ten years. I’ve spent hours reading other people’s comments and every article or blog post I see about how to comment better. I’ve posted a little fanfiction and received comments. I sometimes spend substantial time figuring out what to say and how to say it. Commenting is a skill you can study and practice, and I’ve done that. I’m still doing that. (I read these suggestions for leaving feedback on podfic a few days ago, when I saw them linked in my most recently bookmarked podfic, that I rec to anyone interested in a silly MCU epic poem. I don’t really have the experience to leave concrit on podfic, and I had nothing bad to say, so I did my best to leave a nice, positive comment there.) I’ve learned not to criticize the fundamental premise of a fic under the principle of Don’t Like, Don’t Read. There’s no certifications or competitions for commenting on fanfiction, but I’ve broadly gotten positive responses from authors. I consider myself good at leaving feedback, on the occasions I put in some effort, and average when I leave quick notes, with a few years-old exceptions that I regret.

Telling people to never work on leaving longer, more detailed comments is like… telling someone they should never practice passing juggling clubs because they might hurt the other person. It’s possible that someone will be hurt, and hopefully it’ll be someone who opted in to that possibility, but it’s worth the risk in order to learn, and most of the practice will be fun for all people involved.

I also know that concrit being unwelcome is not universal, since I have seen multiple people, myself included, say that they'd prefer longer to “nicer”, and they do want to improve their writing. I've seen things like "no author wants concrit" which I know isn't true, if only because I like concrit ~~even if it hurts a little and I might take a break from the computer before spending time studying it~~. I don't like other people to speak for what I, a writer, want.

I’m here as a fan. I want to have fun. I know the writers are here for the same reasons, writing as a labor of love to share with other fans—so are the commenters. I am fully supportive of any efforts towards, well, constructive criticism that gives advice on how to leave better comments. I feel disrespected by the equivalent of flames, general statements saying no one should ever leave any criticism and that I was violating some rule that I should have known, even though it’s a subculture-specific rule—not even all of fandom, but a subset of fandom, which has evolved over time—that no one ever told me about. (Until about a year and a half ago, when hgss had that first awful debate. I’ve come across relevant discussion more since then.)