commenting dilemmas

[ratcreature]

Okay, so this probably has happened to many of us, that you read a story, that intersects with your life or experiences in some way. When that happens to me and I start writing a comment, my own experience is then what's in my head as reaction, and basically I recount whatever episode or life experience resonated with that story. Only then at the end of this, I come to the realization that my comment on the story doesn't actually talk about the story as such at all, but just about me. Then I feel really awkward, and more often than not I don't post that comment, and just click the kudo button instead.

However, most authors seem to like comments better than kudos. Does this still hold true for comments that don't actually talk about your story as such but are more or less (over)sharing of personal experiences a story resonated with?

Like okay, say you wrote a roadtrip fic where your characters look at a giant ball of rubber bands or whatever, and then you get a comment that is along the line of "here's my roadtrip experience of looking at a giant rubber band ball". It's not totally unrelated to your story, but not about praising your great characterization, awesome writerly skill or perfect timing either. And of course often it's not about a rubber band ball but some more personal resonance.

What do you think about such comments? Awkward? Still better than kudos? Better not posted because you don't really want to hear random strangers' anecdotes?

Comments

[musesfool]

I'd suggest prefacing it with some actual feedback for the story. "I really enjoyed this! I love road trip fic and this reminded me of the time..." etc. Because if you just include the anecdote, my first reaction as an author is "that's nice, but did you like my story?"

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I totally get that. The problem is in these instances my actual feedback type thoughts usually end at being really generic, like the kudo sentence kind. And I mean, if I do end up posting my outpouring, I usually remember to start with the "I really enjoyed your story" type of sentence, and then launch into that kind of tangent.

If I was a more considerate feedbacker I would translate my memory/reaction thing into words about why the story resonated with me or what caused the emotions or such, but that part is kind of a lot of work? Putting in more thought and self-awareness of what actually went on inside me as I read. And I'm usually too lazy to disentangle things.

[musesfool]

Well, I personally leave very generic feedback all the time and have always liked getting it. I don't need three paragraphs, an "I enjoyed this! It made me [laugh/cry/whatever]!" is good as gold to me, so I'd rather get the generic sentence than a kudos. *hands*

[ratcreature]

My dilemma is not really about whether kudos or generic sentences are equivalent. It's more: do I awkwardly dump something personal on an author because their story touched me because of that personal thing, and afterward I kind of feel the need to express that, but I am not articulate enough to distance it and transform it into literary feedback, or don't I do that, and give just generic "I liked it" feedback that keeps all personal stuff out of it.

Like, to give another example, the last comment on a story that I deleted rather than posted was Check Please coming out story, the author also had preface author notes about why they wrote that kind of coming out story differently from much of the fandom etc. so there was some meta-dialog built in, and after reading I started writing a comment that was basically two paragraphs about my own experiences with (not) coming out to parents and stuff, and I deleted that in the end and just went with clicking the kudo button.

[musesfool]

Right, I get that. I'm saying the generic preface of "I liked this!" and then the anecdote is fine. The author may or may not engage with the anecdote itself (if they reply to comments at all), depending on their own experiences, but they'll probably be glad to hear it resonated for you on that level.

[vorpalgirl]

I agree. Just knowing you enjoyed the story and it resonated with you would make me very happy as an author!

Mind you as someone with ADHD who tends to have EXACTLY that kind of reaction sometimes to things, I empathize because there's totally been times I have or have been tempted to do the same. That probably helps XD

So long as you definitely say "I really liked this! It reminded me of this one time..."? It'd still be a great comment to receive :) Because it shows you're thinking about the story, that it resonated with you, that you liked the story, and that you liked it enough to take the time to comment.