Fic Talk > General Discussion
Peer Pressure
Mellz Bellz:
Ooh great topic Mare! This is a toughie!
Do you ever let peer pressure effect your writing?
For the most part no... In most stories if I have an end in sight or a certain plot curve I'm probably not going to change it unless I decide to take a different direction. I know that I have wrote things that piss off my readers. Unfortunately, in being a Nick romance writer most readers want happy endings, positive characters, and hot sex LOL. When I fail to deliver, BOY do I hear about it. God forbid my female lead is not this incredibly super confident, tough chick who lives just to please Nick... So in that sense I definitely stick to my guns there. I have dropped a few bombs that I think alienated some readers like not having a happy ending to UMS which a lot of readers of course blamed on my female character for not "being enough for Nick" even though Nick cheated on her. (Ha Nick romance readers can really be pretty screwed up . ) Another example would be having them lose the baby in A Little Taste of Sin. Readers kind of complained how it got pretty depressing near the end, but I felt like it would they needed some sort of karma like "punishment" just so they didn't completely get away scot free from having an affair.
On the other hand sometimes I do feel pressured because I don't want to be thought of as one of those crazy Nick romance fan fic writers. I do strive to have a little respect in the fan fic community as crazy as it might sound. I have a specific fan base and I don't want to alienate them, but I also don't want to find myself changing my style of writing to please them. I think that's something I have done in the past and reading through some of my older stuff it just sounds unnatural and not really "me." I also sometimes listen to some of the more experienced writers on this forum talk about how much they hate the romance genre and I know that I fall victim to a lot of the cliches. Sometimes i feel like maybe I should write a different genre just to earn creditibility. So yea... i think coming from the genre I write in there is perhaps a bit more pressure than certain other genres.
Also, how does your feedback influence what you write if at all? (Changing a genre to fit with the popularity of what people seem to want to read, or lack of feedback = lack of updates)
I usually do not change what will happen in my story just to please readers. I do however vale you their feedback and as someone else stated I have gotten ideas from things they have suggested or inspiration from their perceptions of characters. I think feedback is really important for a writer and it helps thenm as they write in so many ways.
How thin or thick skinned are you when it comes to what other people say reguarding your writing or even talking about your genre in general? do you feel like you can handle it or does it make you stray from writing?
I think that whenever you put something out into the world for others to appreciate you need to be open to criticism , so you kind of have to have a thick skin. That being said sometimes I can take things very personal about my writing. Constrctive critiscism doesn't bother me so much but when people start to say negative things about my characters that weren't intended to be negative flaws it's hard not to take it personally especially since these are characters i've created. Comments about which genre a person chooses to write in can also be frustrating and sometimes i have to remindf myself that what i like may not appeal to everyone, but it does appeal to someone. I'll admit though that after a while it got a little draining and that's one of the reasons (outside of being insanely busy) why I took such a long break. Even now getting back into it is really scary to me for some reason! I think in the end I am my own worst enemy when it comes to putting pressure on myself.
Mellz Bellz:
--- Quote from: DelphinaCarter on July 12, 2011, 08:14:15 AM ---I never do what the readers want me to do, because the readers will never be satisfied with the outcome. As for the feedback thing...it diacourages me a little when a chapter I am excited about gets none....not gonna lie.
--- End quote ---
I think that no matter if you get 12 reviews a chapter or 1 review a chapter or 20 reviews a chapter if you always get the same average number of reviews and for some reason one chapter gets a little less than normal it's pretty easy to get yourself psyched out and think OMG did they not like what I wrote? Especially if it's a major chapter that you are proud of. It can be a blow to your confidence even if it was just that people may have been busy and just hadn't read it yet.
Carter-Orange:
--- Quote from: Mellz Bellz on July 12, 2011, 01:13:57 PM ---I think that no matter if you get 12 reviews a chapter or 1 review a chapter or 20 reviews a chapter if you always get the same average number of reviews and for some reason one chapter gets a little less than normal it's pretty easy to get yourself psyched out and think OMG did they not like what I wrote? Especially if it's a major chapter that you are proud of. It can be a blow to your confidence even if it was just that people may have been busy and just hadn't read it yet.
--- End quote ---
Or it could be that the person is reading a few chapters in one go and reviews when they get to the end of the updates. I know sometimes I might not notice an update and then have a couple of read :)
mare:
^ I tend to do that as well, especially if it's an older story and am catching up on it. Sometimes I miss updates altogether depending on how quickly the story manages to disappear from the most recent page.
Carter-Orange:
Yeah, when it's a busy day on AC I sometimes miss the updates. I don't always check my emails either, so it might be a couple of days later when I notice my favourites are updated.
If I'm reading an older completed story, I don't usually review every single chapter, but every few chapters. It doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.
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