Asking for reviews is good, if we don't ask, we don't get, right? Asking is not good if there holding a fic hostage. Yeah its bad, although some are so desperate for reviews they do anything, which is sad really.

I'm on MediaMinor, I even uploaded one fic and never went back, there uploading process is a real pain. I remember it was awkward as it asked for so much. As Anime/Manga end they do get less popular. I think Naruto is still popular, its still talked about, I'm not a big fan of it myself.

12/11/2011 #31 Report

AFF has been so slow lately, the site used to be a lot neater and cleaner like ff.n. It's always a hassle now to find the storie section I want to read I don't get on much anymore, that and few updates :c I want to make an account but I have to finish my stories here first and the accounts I have on mediaminer, don't get me started. their all back from 1999 and 2000 lol those stories I have to completely revamp it's just sad.

The ratings here have taken so many changes, I can't keep up. They used to have NC-17 here but too many kids were reading those stories and it got banned. I remember X and so on and so forth. I don't see the difference of M being better, it's the same to me. Mature, NC-17, X-rated. All the same technically. Not for kids eyes, but whatever. It's a shame some people just make things more difficult with complaing about content. It's called if you don't like it why are you reading it under those ratings, go back to selecting PG-13 and under stories, durrr.

Congrats Danyealle on getting published! All my original stories have yet to even get more then three chapters out lol it's just easier right now for my to use characters that have all ready been created then make my own :c I always get stuck with the personalities. I have a few friends who are published and I myself got laughed at by a publisher when I shows my... well lack there of, portfolio.

A lot of people here can't stand beta readers but being published means you *normally* have an editor or sometimes more then one depending. Manga's normally have entire teams of editors and such.

Any tips for someone who can't get passed writers block lol cause I need all the help I can get :c I figured trying to complete my stories on here I could move on and continue my original works but still zip zilch nadda lol I'm a sad soul.

Beywriter, unfortunately, Microsoft is NOTHING like being a writer. Not even close.

Microsoft with-holds those products to make more money and they can.

Many authors don't make money off of writing. Think about the fact that J.K. Rowling is rich because she had that ONE BIG HIT, the first book was so popular the movies were in contract and productions before the second book even came out. It only takes one book to be big but the majority of authors will go there ENTIRE careers as authors and never have a best seller. That's why I know I have to have a job and let writing be a hobby for now because if you don't have that hit, you'll keep writing and only barely make it by. Sad but true.

If you start a series and just hold it out, your publishers will tell you go get another publisher. In this career it takes money to make money. They'd likely call you a brat and say if you don't write, then we won't employ you. It's your JOB to write as an author. you don't produce you make no money and people won't even bother picking up any books with your name on it knowing it's gonna be a waste of time, and by only giving out a little and withholding the rest, why would anyone by an incomplete series?

Here on FF.N that's fine, withhold it. I garantee it doesn't even give you much more reviews then you'd get by posting more chapters. A few here and their by angry readers maybe. A couple for every year it's discontinued, whereas a couple reviews per chapter even if it's a few months inbetween would grant you more. Think of the big picture.

12/11/2011 #33 Report

lol sorry I was writing to you and Danyealle, the length of a reply doesn't matter at all it's what said that does.

As for the microsoft thing, yeah, I got that you were trying to compare it, but I guess you didn't realize I was saying it can't work as a comparison since it's such a different thing and has nothing to do with writing. Theres no way to compare the two.

12/11/2011 #35 Report

I'll admit that when I see the little email from fanfiction telling me I have a review alert it will get me more excited then if I were to find a subscription or favorited story alert which honestly I get way more of then reviews -_- everyone loves reviews your right but review whores just...stop

1/2/2012 #37 Report

I disagree.

Okay now I've seen many MANY people review whoring and they would deny it this way. A lot of people will use these excuses but dears, there is no excuse.

"I like the feedback."

Okay, we like feedback but this is a non-profit site. We use fanfiction as a sourse for our OWN enjoyment. We have a specific genre we like and we read what WE would like to happen or we WRITE what we'd like to happen if no one has our specific idea's in mind.

It bugs me because when I look through almost any category, there is an overload of "OCxOC" or "NowhomosexualcharacterxAnotherturnedhomosexualcharacter". Fangirls, teenage girls, authoresses writing about how male leads who have no compassion for each other whatsoever magically fall in love. And there is a massive market for this - girls supporting each other, saying these stories are the "best thing ever" and "rly gud" and "original". 1, subjective, as always, but come on, how many of these OCxCanoncharacter stories do you read that are actually good. Fine, pull up a few. The majority are constant repeats. In the moment, it's frustrating. Second, original? Ha.

Feedback is great but it's up to you to write the story. Feedback doesn't write the story, we do and if we all get such little feedback, which most do, then no stories would be written.

My theory is that the stories that appeal to a common formula get the most feedback. In other words, if you don't write porn, yaoi, or romance, or happen to be related or connected to a multitude of people, you're pretty much screwed here. I've seen some lengthy novellas written here, some got their due, a lot of others... they've been on here for YEARS and got less than 10 reviews. Try to go into any category today and tell me you don't find 6 stories that are small, unoriginal, possess a Mary Sue, or are held up as an "author's first" (ha, get it?) that end up with a huge number of reviews from random people or actual users. Alright, there's a line between "cheering the author up" and "inspiring them to become a better writer" but I've been horribly jaded to believe that this balance has slipped into the negative, ugly head of simply promoting the production of lackadaisical fanfiction.

"It helps me improve as a writer."

I could say that if I got any.

That would be great! If only it were true. It only takes one comment to tell you what you can do to improve. They can tell you it all in one comment and come on... let's be truthful here. Most comments host sayings like, "OMG GREAT!", "MORE SOON!", "LGJLRSFGMJ UPDATE!" "YOU ARE THE BEST, THIS STORY IS THE BEST HERE! UPDATE!" yeah, where in those comments did you hear something that makes you improve?

You understand one of my older dilemmas: When I used to torment myself wondering why I couldn't get these outstanding acknowledgements, I too realized that these were hollow, ego-inflating comments. At the risk of credibility, this was an arrow to my knee that made me hate the Fanfiction community for a little why. Sure, I just wanted to have my ego fluffed, but then again... that means that not every story with 1,000+ reviews is actually well-written. It could mean that one fanatic decided to review each chapter less sproadically than most, and that they could just be saying "wow, this is great!". This is part of my "review whoring" problem as well I suppose. I hate the general populace of what I suspect to be teenage girls glomping the review section.

... yeah, didn't think so. Those comments did one thing and that was make us feel good. In the real world you get good comments but ALWAYS with critism or you get MEAN comments that tell us all the bad it has. Oh and most the good comments are just summaries of what the story has to offer. Yeah, this is a fansite after all. You really have no right to let your ego go when all the comments given have no acual relevance to the work.

That doesn't represent all of us.

See, I'd welcome constructive criticism. I'm not a complete ass, I'd actually like for someone to be very honest with me.

How often do I get that? How often does anyone get that? From what I've seen, which may be very little in the entirety of this site, very few of us. I once saw a Haruhi Suzumiya fic that was discontinued NOT because the author wasn't GETTING reviews. He stopped because he was tired of GETTING shitty reviews like the ones you mentioned.

When I first heard this, I was PISSED. I wanted to wring this guy's neck, the writer of Kyon: Big Damn Hero, for being such an arrogant ass. He had the number of reviews I LUSTED FOR. I wanted that attention, I deserved all of that attention! But no. He gets it, and throws it away.

That was the moment I came to the same conclusion you did, and I accepted that the author was right. Those reviews were completely meaningless. Just ego-patting, unhelpful reviews.

But on the same hand, that also made me turn on the community. I think the community itself is lazy. But it's fanfiction, so the concept in of itself is a story inspired by someone else's work or franchise. There's really no way for me to argue this saying that there's unbridled amounts of originality that go into fanfiction or something stupid like that.

I simply dislike the lack of constructive criticism I see or get, and after running through Plans A-Z on how to get some form of following or honest review, I'm temporarily disillusioned. Yes, that's melodramatic, but really, when's the last time you got a decent review of something? The proper response to this thread is to simply bow your head and applaud the fact that it is an addiction, but that's not the problem we're all sharing. I'm sick of writing things out for lazy people, people who can't even tell me if I'm doing a terrible job. I can always improve, we can always improve, but when you've written a 10,000 word story that has three reviews, and only about 10 people have read the latest chapter, how else would you feel?

It's like being in the Olympics and getting 1st place, but getting 5 minutes of screen times while 2nd and 3rd place get cash rewards, convertibles, and press conferences. Why did you spend all that time training and getting better to bring home the gold when the people you beat are the ones getting national media coverage? It's a crappy feeling. It's like no matter how hard you work at something, the girl next to you who spent 5 minutes writing her story, doesn't know what Spellcheck is, and is obsessed with Batman falling in love with the Joker will get twice as many reviews as you, filled with "this story is amazing" and "update more plz!". Really, you have less than 24 hours to get your story noticed before it gets bumped down by stories that just happen to update almost at the exact same time you did. Be they continuations of an epic story or a 16-year old who wanted to write what they felt would happen should Male A not have a god complex and Male B not be a neurotic freak and if they were lovers. Or maybe shotas. Pure lemons. Etc. It's so. damn. annoying.

Forgive me, this is pretentious and arrogant.

I just recently had a "Vegeta" moment here so when I found this thread I was compelled to add my two cents.

What annoys me the most is that in about 24 hours I'll be back at the grapevine trying to write more unworthy crap that gets pushed down by other stuff. I recently saw a story that shared the same concept as my own that had more reviews than my did, and I started it about two months earlier, and it had about 3 reviews.

I think reviews are like candy. You don't want to share, you want good ones, you don't take them from strangers or creepy old men, and we all want them when we're kids.

2/12/2012 . Edited 2/12/2012 #39 Report

And for those of you who do enjoy receiving reviews, regardless of their content, let me show you how to interpret short, pointless reviews so you can continue to stroke your egos.

Example Review 1: Update soon please

Each word actually represents an entire paragraph. The reviewer is simply knowledgeable in the shorthand of fan fiction and presumes the author is as well.

"Update" is equivalent to "I thoroughly enjoyed your story so far and cannot wait to read the further chapters of your story. Your characterization and your plot are far more plausible than any of the drivel I have put together and published here, which is one of the many reasons I read your amazing, though incomplete, works."

"Soon" is equivalent to "Your stories are my drugs of choice. I cannot see, I cannot breathe, I cannot live vicariously through your characters in my dreams unless you publish more of the story. It is so good, in fact, that the author of the original works should be sending you royalty payments for doing such a superb job of writing better than he/she did when they wrote the original story, nevermind the fact that neither you nor I could conceive of the original characterizations, which the original author stole/paralleled from an early anime/pulp fiction/F&SF story. Also, please know my attention span and powers of recollection are poor, however, so please post a new chapter, even if it is only 300 words long."

"Please" is equivalent to "I beg of you! Don't let it be like the original "Battlestar Galactica" and end 8 too many episodes after your ideas ran out and you started rehashing episodes of "Emergency" or "Star Trek". Keep the idea fresh and let us swim in the illuminated, bright world you provide for us. Even now I can feel the air in my basement corner where I masturb... er... read your stories becoming stale. I am suffocating from the lack of available fan fiction and need YOUR story to survive the onslaught of my Prozac crash. Update Soon Please!"

2/27/2012 #41 Report

Hi I totally agree to you EkaSwede. I wont judge. I really loved the original Pokémon series. So yeah I get what your saying and agree. I've seen stories in my fandom where they ask for the exact same thing. Its quite a problem.

2/27/2012 #43 Report

Hi DLRP. Yeah they pretty much are. I agree, its good to have a Beta reader. Thats actually a really good rule you have going there. I guess its successful. I take a look at the stats alot myself. Mostly I look at the hits. It seems to me and forgive me if I've already said this but its almost like faving is the reviewing of the future for some. This drives people to review whoring. Some probably consider faving without reviewing selfish. I've always had anonymous reviewings added. Belive me it hasn't helped one bit. I like to give everyone a chance.

2/27/2012 #45 Report

All authors love any kind of feedback, the ones that are well thought out are the best. you know the ones, where they compliment your writing skills on grammar, attention to detail and description, character development, plot development among others things like when they can mention something that happened in your story that they particularly liked. Those reviews, are the best but this section, GW/SM hardly any one reviews and it's very discouraging to the writers.

With so little feedback, the authors have a hard time writing and fewer stories are being updated and even fewer are being made which makes for a section with a dwindling number of readers, let alone reviewers.

That is why as authors, we need to start picking up the slack. You want feedback? Then GIVE feedback. Don't just expect to get it if you can't support your fellow authors. Read and review THEIR stories, and make sure you update, and stay an active member with writing.

In any section I've seen, those who update frequently get more feedback because that is what the readers and reviewers enjoy the most. Also, we have to edit our chapters, work on our writing skills because simply updating quickly isn't enough to draw in their attention.

As long as a story is updated at least once a month, I personally see a big difference. Still less then three years ago, but more then if I didn't update. We as the authors need to start supporting each other, making new stories, revising and finishing our current ones and reading and reviewing our fellow authors if we are EVER going to bring this section back to life.

If we can do that, more readers will flock to GW/SM and then the busier this place gets, I garantee more people will review but now it's up to us, because if we the authors don't do anything, this place will probably die and it's not like it's not enjoyable. As an author I LOVE writing! I ALSO would love to read more stories, so it's worth it, I came to ff.n because reading made me happy, and soon I wanted to write stories that I wanted to read but weren't made and writing then too, made me happy.

So far this section as already been more lively, but we need more people updating and making stories, and it's up to us authors to help support each other.

So right now, I encourage everyone here to write. Follow these steps.

Watch the anime, subtitled. Gundam Wing and Sailor Moon.

Watch AMVS on youtube.

Read the manga on mangafox or mangastyle.

Go on Deviantart and browse.

Reread your FAVORITE Sailor Moon/Gundam Wing stories.

Get inspired!

If you have your own story, reread it, edit it if you need to and UPDATE!

Write down all your ideas! Make a plan, map it out and WRITE!

It's very simple. We can either bitch about how we get no feedback, or not the kind we like, or we can keep writing and show the READERS and REVIEWERS that we WILL update so they'll WANT to read these stories. We give them the hope that we WON'T be discontinueing or keeping our stories on hold, and they'll REVIEW but we, WE have to do it because the readers and reviewers are disappointed in us because of lack of updates, how long they have to wait they end up forgetting the story because they figure it's taken so long, the author must have given up so the readers give up too.

Reviews are our reward for writing, for updating. We shouldn't EVER expect to get them, or feel like their OWED to us. NO, reviews are our REWARD for writing, for updating and enjoying it and hoping that others do too.

I hope to see some of you writing, get to it. Be proactive, because simply complainging isn't helping. Not updating in hopes for more reviews is not helping, so maybe, just MAYBE if we actually give the people what they want (more story variety, new stories, updates) then they'll actually care again. One way to find out, so let's do it.

4/27/2012 #47 Report

Someone may have already said this, but I adore reviews... ANY reviews for that matter... because it tells me that my story is simply being READ. That's all I care about. Yeah, they make me feel good, but they also make me feel like I'm not wasting my damned time. I have plenty of little short stories in notebooks, written in longhand, that I wrote simply for the pleasure of writing them. But the ONE that I've written on ff.net and bothered to post, I posted because I thought it was good and that others would enjoy it. And btw, Jessica, thank you again for getting me off my lazy ass. Thursday!! I promise!

4/28/2012 #49 Report

Don't get me wrong. I, too, adore reviews. For me, however, someone adding my story to their favourites is a review saying, "I liked your story enough to add it to my favourites so that others can have an opportunity to read the stories I enjoy." For someone to write a review of more than 10 words, or even better, someone who writes a review or PM with constructive criticism is the ultimate compliment. Those, to me, say, "I am enjoying your story so much and the only thing you could do to make it even better would be..." If your donkey or burro is slothful, for what reason would you continue to ride it until Thursday?

4/29/2012 #51 Report

Just an observation from the past and what i see working in the archive... there does seem to be something called review karma. That means the more reviews you leave, the more apt you'll be to get them in return. When people see that you're willing to take the time to review them and are consistent at that, they seem to take that as encouragement and do so in return. There is something that has helped on other sites as well. Most set up something like a review association. You do so many a month for those that either have none at all or are seriously under-reviewed and leave them a good, honest review, be in concrit or not. That also seems to ungum the gears! It also seems to give things a good poke the right direction in fandoms that are older or don't get the love them deserve.

LOL and to the one that asked me for tips (sorry, I've been so busy that my backside is barely catching up to me most days), shoot me a site PM with what you need and will help all i can. Don't count on much though!

4/29/2012 #53 Report

Something happened to me this morning which I think is related. I woke up and checked my emails. 19, a little surprised so I logged in and found 19 fave without reviews! 19! Isn't that the kind of stuff that can send someone to start review whoring if someone adds stories like friends to facebook for a competition of who has the most faved stories? I'm not going to say who did it but I have promptly blocked them. I have a rule that if 3 or more are faved without a review I block them.

5/2/2012 #55 Report

My fault in one way, should have made it clear that the user faved 19 different stories. That probably clears it up, if not I'm not sure what I can say. I'm just a little sad I lost out on 19 reviews but oh well. Yeah that sure is alot of text! You could probably write a book with those things you said. It took me a few mins to skim read but I think I got the general point of what your saying. I too do not care for that site. I don't even have an account but I know of the popularity with friends that go on there. Used to be on Myspace. I figured I should share my latest experience and maybe we could coin a new phrase? Favewhoring? how does that sound? Okay that's a little off topic I know. Its not the first time this has happened to me, thankfully its only the second. I Wish I knew what was going through the users mind at the time.

Yeah your probably write, a fan I guess but...sigh...I spent hours...days working on those fics the person faved, she couldn't spend a moment to share a comment, like I said I wish I could know what's going on in there minds.

When people fave my work I like to go on there stories and see if they have asked for reviews. Sometimes they do ask but they do not give? It puzzles me but I don't think too much of it because it would be a simple waste of my time.

5/2/2012 #57 Report

I've done that in the past but I sort of think its a little wrong to do that somehow. I think it only worked once although I only did that twice I think.

5/2/2012 #59 Report