ratcreature | question about feedback etiquette for WIPs

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question about feedback etiquette for WIPs

I've just read this HP WIP (no the one with the "ma'am" all over the place btw), which hasn't been updated since October or so. Something I knew when I started reading. I really have no problem with reading WIPs, even ones with infrequent updates, those not likely to be ever finished, or abandoned ones. As those who've seen one of my (frequently lengthy) list posts on this subject on FCA-L or elsewhere probably already know. I like reading WIPs, and whether or not they get finished, as long as like what's posted I'm okay with having read whatever is shared. I usually remember enough to follow a story even if installments are months apart (I blame that on following infrequently published indie comics for years *g*), unless it's written in odd chunks with rewrites of previous sections and stuff being posted out of order. Though if the installments are posted too far apart I might forget about having followed a particular WIP, unless it's posted to my flist or I'm on an update list. Which is not to say that I don't like stories better if they're finished eventually, but the finished/unfinished status just isn't that crucial to me.

That said, I liked this WIP quite a lot (in case you're interested, it was "The Mirror of Maybe" by Midnight Blue), and considered sending feedback to the author. My first impulse was to write back that I liked it, point out a couple of the things that I enjoyed in particular, and then ask whether it's still active, because then I'd check the story from time to time. Then I remembered seeing posts how some authors find it obnoxious behavior to be asked whether they are still working on a WIP, especially if they're stalled and/or abandoned it. So I wondered whether I should maybe rather omit the part asking about future installments, or maybe not write at all. Considering that there apparently is a list for this story with over 4100 subscribers (and just how large is HP fandom anyway?) the author probably already gets enough emails nagging her about when (if?) the next installment is going to be posted. I could just join the other 1050 people on the update announcement list (the larger list is aparently for discussion too), and assume that the fact that the update list is still open implies that the WIP has not been abandoned (I assume that authors would close lists dedicated to WIPs if they truly abandon them), so that it's actually worth joining an update list.

So when you write feedback to a WIP that hasn't been updated in a while, but is not visibly abandoned, is it better to avoid the topic of potential future installments (and the related areas in feedback, like what you think will happen based on the story so far etc.) entirely? Or is it only obnoxious if the feedback doesn't just ask about it, but makes the kind of rude writing demands to continue that you sometimes see?

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I have the sneaking suspicion that MoM is not ever gonna be finished, b/c I think it hadn't been updated except for a very brief in between scene in a year when I read it last summer...

Then again, if you look at the list, people have been making their own fun, writing fic in the verse and stuff...

Not being a writer I'd be the last person to say anything on the subject except that asking for when an update may occur or suggesting that one might like to see the story continued seems to be as controversial as anything else about feedback...personally, with this particular fic, i'd probably not mention it, b/c i'm sure a lot of those thousands (and yes, HP *is* huge LOL) *have* been asking...

so, what other fun fic have you been reading? have you read telanu's tea series (http://www.amplexus.org/~telanu/shop.html) yet?

so, what other fun fic have you been reading? have you read telanu's tea series yet?

I really read very little HP fic. Basically every once in a while I'm in the mood for a story and read something, but all in all I haven't read a lot. I think I've checked out the Tea series because it's been recced a lot, sometime last year, when I read HP fanfic for he first time, but I never finished even the first story. So I guess I didn't like it? I don't actually remember anything specific about it.

I have read

jacquez's HP fic, the H/D

mamadeb posted recently, something with "Magical Innovations" in its title, I forgot by whom that was (I think you might have recced that one?), the one by Mairead Triste and Aristide that everybody linked to a while ago, "Brave New World" (this time I forgot the author), some kind of AU, future fic with a very nice Dursley (Clipped Wings? I think?), I think I've read one by

yahtzee63, it might have been "Inhabited by Winter", one in which iirc Harry had sex with Snape while he was a snake, and I think a couple of others.

yeah, i've recced

kaiz's "Contemporary Magical Innovations, by H. Granger" before, b/c i really liked the new use of magic...same for resonant's transfigurations. Clipped wings was great...very different in a good way. you read any h/d?

loved the snape as snake one :-) there is so much good stuff out there (and so much crap LOL); it seems even harder than in most fandoms to wade through...

too bad you didn't enjoy the tea series..i think it's in my top 5 (with olympia's "tale of the shining prince" probably being all the way up on top :-)...the first couple of parts are not really representative of the long "A Wizard's Song," but if the chan bothered you...that's there all around...

Besides snippets the one I mentioned by

mamadeb is the only H/D I've read. It's not really a pairing I like, though as usual there are exceptions I'll make it it appeals for another reason. I've never heard of this "tale of the shining prince" story. Like I said, I read very little HP. And I'm not really into any of the pairings, I'd like to read some good mostly gen action adventure stuff that highlights the characters without being all about romance, but as with most fandoms the majority seems to be into pairing fic.

I have no problem with chan as such, unless the term is used to mean sex with prepubescent children, not underage teenagers, and generally I'm not exactly interested in reading about kids between 13-15 having sex either, except as part of coming of age stories or something when it's handled well. In that age range I don't want to see sexual relationships with adults either, unless they are really fucked up in some way. Like, I don't want to read about bonds or whatever (in general I think TPM scarred me for bonds between adults and kids that are supposed to be or to become sexual later, because honestly, if I never see a story again in which an adult recognizes his "lifemate" in a toddler, which then eventually progresses towards sex once the kid is a teenager, it will be too soon. Ick. Just. Ick.)

But you know that I read lots of Batfic, right? It's not like you don't have your pick of underage characters there.

duh...of course you have lots of underage where you play :-) LOL i just commented on my issues with bonding fics some place else...and yes, TPM can definitely scar you on that one!!!

re Tale: i wrote a tiny little bit about it in my postmodern virgule post : Olympia M.'s Tale of the Shining Prince (http://seacouver.slashcity.net/illuferret/prince.html) is a brilliant story that completely questions and subverts the general moral outlook of the Potterverse. Without making the Malfoys nice or changing their ideological stance one bit, it *explains* them by showing their pov; it alters our Muggle-centric outlook. It also intersperses the narrative with arbitrary lists and rewritten fairy tales that somehow comment on the narrative and the characters.

Both eliade and seperis have some interesting comments on TSP from a non-HP reader's pov here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/eliade/201844.html) and here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/seperis/108109.html).

not sure how much you like the metastuff, but i adored

pogrebin's walking shadow (http://pogrebin.arithmancy.net/WS.htm) (and here my take: the fic is much more complicated and complex with a juxtaposition of different voices/styles/etc. The central ethical problem is clearly related to writing and the writing of history--a historiographic project, so to speak. Hermione has been put on trial for letting muggles know of their existence, b/c she found it morally objectionable that muggles killed in the war were erased from everyone's memory. At the same time, the story questions Harry's position as the boy who lived, as central hero in a story that may or may not have been consciously constructed. Both ideas are about memory and storytelling as world creation.)

eh...shutting up now *g*

I'm afraid recs that stress how postmodern and cutting edge a fic is actually make me less inclined to check those out...

oh...*small embarrassed grin* OK :-) i'll stop then. LOL!

For instance, real life troubles, more interesting (to the author) stories, or writer's block, in which case asking for more would likely be unwelcome.

I think the politic way is just to mention how much you liked the part that's written and ask for more, pretty-please-if-it-won't-inconvenience-the-author.

But you might get flamed--if the author has been asked a hundreds of times "When are you going to write more?!", anyone might get testy. And in the HP fandom, it could well be hundreds.

About MoM, from the group's FAQ, which seems a pointed way of asking readers not to nag the author:

When will the new chapter of MoM come out?
It'll come out when Midnight Blue is done writing it, all we can do is wait and see :). We at this ML are generally very protective of Midnight Blue, and if some members feel another is pushing her to hurry up, it could get nasty...

Yeah, it's probably best not to mention any future parts. The thing is, I really don't care that much whether fanfic gets abandoned, that I ask for more or faster writing, it's more curiosity about the actual state of the WIP, than applying "pressure" through feedback. I mean, I followed WIPs in TS which I loved far more than any HP story, and it made sadder that the authors removed the abandoned WIPs from their sites because they didn't want to be asked anymore about them, than the fact that they were abandoned. I don't tend to ask for more parts or nag, it's more like, when I write feedback for WIPs (unless I angst about it and walk on eggshells like now) the matter of the state of the WIP comes up as a natural part of the casual type of conversation like feedback I tend to write, as just the thing that's most obvious to mention when someone shows unfinished things. Like when someone updates very regularly, I might mention that, or that an update came very fast, otoh if there wasn't any updates for some time, just a note that it's not abandoned, but *that note* has been there for like six months or so, I wonder whether it's still true and not just a matter of not updating the website at all.

The thing is, I really don't care that much whether fanfic gets abandoned, that I ask for more or faster writing, it's more curiosity about the actual state of the WIP

Yes, it would be nice to know if the WIP might one day be finished (or if the author at least has hopes it will be), or if the author as definitely moved on.

I get sucked into WIPs (and there seem to be many in the HP fandom, you know?), and at times I get disappointed when I realize something I've been enjoying isn't likely to be finished. But I don't avoid WIPs, so I guess I haven't been traumatized unduly. And the surprise of a new part can be enough to get me to re-read the story again, so no hardship there.

My favorite Smallville WIPs (

liviapenn's "Altville" series

box_of_serial and

rageprufrock's "String Theory" (http://ling.anifics.com/stringtheory.html))don't seem likely to be updated for a long time. I hate to give up on them, though. *hopes*

I think the longest I've waited for a new part in a WIP and actually got one was well over two years or so for a TS WIP. Which was in the end even more crushing, because after the long hiatus (during which I had mostly given up on it) then there were posted three or four chapters in more or less regular intervals (like every couple of weeks), only for the WIP to be abandoned near the end after all, and pulled from the net. Actually I think I've waited even longer for another TS WIP, but there the update was only a little part. IIRC that WIP had been already abandoned for some time when I joined the fandom in early 1998 and I've seen an update in late 2000.

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question about feedback etiquette for WIPs

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if the WIP is stalled, there's probably more than one reason

Re: if the WIP is stalled, there's probably more than one reason

Re: if the WIP is stalled, there's probably more than one reason

Re: if the WIP is stalled, there's probably more than one reason