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[FrickingKaos]

That last bit of what you said kinda hit home for me Mare. I tend to think about that stuff too much and it ends up demotivating me. I want to fix that, I just need to get back into a writing schedule. I would crank out chapters daily...then for some reason I stopped. Part of it is that I am my own worst critic.

[RokofAges75]

I read this article about R.L. Stine reviving the "Fear Street" series earlier today: http://www.thebigthrill.org/2014/01/special-to-the-big-thrill-r-l-stine-and-the-return-of-fear-street-by-dawn-ius/

In it, he gives the following advice to adult writers:

“Figure out your audience. Go into a bookstore and pinpoint where your book belongs, where it will fit on the shelf. It drives me crazy when authors talk about writing for themselves, or writing from the heart. I’ve never written a single word from my heart—why would I? I write to entertain people. To tell a great, scary story.”


He has a point - obviously, none of us write solely for ourselves, or we wouldn't post our work online for others to read.  But my question is, how much do you write for yourself, and how much do you write for other people?  When you're planning a story or writing a chapter, do you think about what your readers' reactions will be or how it will be received?  Do you care?  Does it ever influence your writing?

[mare]

That last bit of what you said kinda hit home for me Mare. I tend to think about that stuff too much and it ends up demotivating me. I want to fix that, I just need to get back into a writing schedule. I would crank out chapters daily...then for some reason I stopped. Part of it is that I am my own worst critic.

Yeah, I think we are all our own worst critics and sometimes focus too much on the negative. It's hard to change that thinking.

[mare]

Thank you Mr. Stine! I've always said that the "I write for myself" line is a big peeve of mine because like you said Julie, if we wrote only for ourselves we wouldn't be posting our stuff on the internet and then complaining when we think people don't read it. It drives me nuts when people say that!!

I write very little for myself and more for what I think would make my readers happy. What motivates me isn't the joy of writing but the joy of watching the reaction my writing will get. It's always what I think about when coming up with plot twists. Sometimes I will actually write something solely for the purpose of one person's reaction to it. That person tends to change from chapter to chapter or story to story but if I know someone is a devoted reader and thinks a story is going in one direction, I will sometimes change it just to make them say "I didn't see that coming!"

I actually give the people who never get reviews credit for continually posting their stories. I'm not sure I could do that. Maybe at the beginning of my fanfic writing career when you just are looking for that first bit of feedback and then when you get it, you squee! But I honestly can say I'm not sure if I would continue to post a story if I got zero reviews. I would if I knew at least one person was reading and reviewing but if I got nothing, I am pretty sure I wouldn't keep writing on it, which only shows I do it for the readers more than for me.

I guess that would be a good follow up question, what about you? If you continually got zero reviews for your story, I don't mean only one or two but where it says reviews there is a big, fat zero. Would you still continue to work on that story and continually update it? Or would you put it on the back burner and move on?

[julilly]

I would argue that we are more in a position of being able to say we are writing for ourselves because it's a hobby. For an author, whose lifestyle depends on book sales, says they don't write for an audience it's a bit of a stretch because let's face it, they write to make money. None of us are writing for anything more than reviews, and many people posts stories that have absolutely no reviews, so I don't think it's unreasonable to think maybe they didn't actually care what other people thought because they liked the idea.

I have a couple stories that have less than 10 reviews and that doesn't really bug me because it was more about the enjoyment of the process. That's why when I stop enjoying the process I have a hard time finishing stories because I'm not completely writing them for the reader, no matter how much they may want them finished.

[mare]

I think the reason I take issue with people who say that is because  it's usually after they complain about lack of reviews. They end with "Ah well...I just write for myself" which is clearly not true. lol

Out of curiosity, is there anyone who regularly posts on the forum that has a story with zero reviews? which isn't as one shot?

[julilly]

I have two novels that only have two reviews, but none with zero.

[RokofAges75]

All of my stories have at least 2 reviews, and all of my novels have at least 5.  I have posted chapters that got no reviews, but not whole stories, at least not on AC.

I think in the beginning, I did write more for myself because I thought it would be fun, not for anyone else.  I was so uncomfortable with the idea of anyone reading my work that it took a lot of guts for me to submit my first story to a website - but I eventually did, obviously, because there was a part of me that wanted to see what kind of reaction it would get.  It took a month for me to get any feedback, and I was so thrilled with that one email that it didn't matter if I got any others.  Now that I'm a more established writer in the fandom and am used to getting feedback, I do think it would bother me if I consistently posted updates with absolutely no feedback.

I still write because I think it's fun, but part of the fun does come from entertaining people.  I don't think I would quit writing a story if I was having fun with it, regardless of how much feedback it got - 00Carter is proof of that - but getting feedback does make it more fun, so I think there is some correlation between the two.

On the other hand, there are stories that I've gotten a good amount of feedback on but haven't enjoyed writing.  Guilty Roads is the most recent example to come to mind, but there have been others over the years.  In those cases, I'm torn between forcing myself to write out of obligation to my readers and stopping because I'm not having fun with it anymore.  I'm like Julilly in that sense.  It's a lot easier to finish something you're enjoying writing, regardless of who's reading it.

[FrickingKaos]

I partially write for myself but like some of you said, I like to entertain people. I don't have any stories with 0 reviews. If I didn't get a single one, honestly I probably would stop posting all together. It really bothers me when I see people give up on mine cause I don't update all the time. I feel terrible about it and then overthink it. I do plan on finishing. just right now there is no motivation to do it.

[RokofAges75]

I'm in what I consider a "no pressure" situation when it comes to writing right now.  I haven't posted anything in so long that I know no one is really expecting an update from me, which takes the pressure off and [some of] the guilt away and frees me up to write what I want, when I want.  The problem with that is that, without any pressure on me, I end up being lazy and writing a whole lot of nothing LOL.  Going back to what Mare said in her post about what she's learned about herself, I have never been one to give myself deadlines, but I do tend to work better under pressure, when I know people are waiting on me.  That said, I don't want to make promises I can't keep and start posting stuff, only to get too busy when class starts again and fall behind on writing and updating.

What about the rest of you?  Do you write better under pressure or when the pressure's off?

[FrickingKaos]

I write better under pressure. If I know people are waiting it motivates me more to get things done. Not just in writing but in general.

[usako]

I haven't been around here much lately so I'm behind with a lot of questions.

What's your current status as far as fanfic goes?  Are you reading anything?  Writing anything?  Thinking about writing anything?

I've had a little bit of block, something that happens a lot to me because I tend to have a lot of ideas and I end up not writing because I don't know what to write. I guess that I needed that break because it made me miss writing so now I'm full inspired. I've posted a chapter of a story that was supposed to be a birthday gift... in summer. lol I'm bad, I know.
As for reading, in the BSB fandom I'm not reading much because, sadly, there isn't really much interesting to me. But that's so me, right? Loving a pairing a character and a genre that no one, aside me write about. So I'm reading a lot in the Sherlock fandom and, sometimes, I change the characters and I picture Brian and Nick while I'm reading. That's sad, I know. lol

Now that the year is coming to an end (Thank the lord Jesus) What are some things you learned about yourself this year that you maybe didn't realize before? Obviously this doesn't have to be totally fanfic writing or reading related but maybe try to include at least one fanfic related thing if you can.

I learned a lot last year. I really feel like I'm a totally different person, guess that losing 20 kilos does that to a person. lol Most of all, and it can be fanfiction related, I've learned that I can beat any obstacle if I set my mind on a goal. I've wanted to change and be better and I've done it, even if there had been a lot of times when I wanted to give up. And something like that happened with writing: before last year, I've thought that I would never be able to write in English, not at least at the level that I wanted. But I've tried and I think I've succed, even if I'm still really insecure about it.
Another thing is that I really really pretend too much from myself. And if it doesn't come out as I wanted (a story, a cake, whatever), I feel bad and kinda discouraged so I kinda want to leave whatever I'm doing because I think that I can't do it. This is something that I really need to work on and it's the main reason why I don't update too much or why a lot of my ideas linger in my mind because I think that they suck.

But my question is, how much do you write for yourself, and how much do you write for other people?  When you're planning a story or writing a chapter, do you think about what your readers' reactions will be or how it will be received?  Do you care?  Does it ever influence your writing?

Obviously, I can't say that I don't care if other people read or not my stories. lol But I write first for myself. Writing is my sanity, writing is really a sort of therapy so, even if I don't post anything online, that doesn't mean I don't write. I'm always writing.
I write because I want to tell a story and, in a way, I want to entertain those crazy minds that would read my story. lol I don't particulary write thinking about what one person would react and I've noticed that if I try to please readers and try to write something that I don't like, I find myself totally demotivated and blocked.
I know that slash isn't something that a lot of people would read and it had happened that I would totally change a story so that people would read it. But I'm not able to write about Brian and Nick without the slash part (and that's the reason why I can't go on on "Battle Born"), I love, love writing them in that particulary light  and I've long decided that I don't really care if only two people will read my stories.

[RokofAges75]

I've had a little bit of block, something that happens a lot to me because I tend to have a lot of ideas and I end up not writing because I don't know what to write.

This is my problem too!  Too many ideas and not enough focus on any one of them.

[usako]

The weirdest thing is that all those ideas are written and completed in my head. lol it's only when I start to write them that I end up blocked because I don't really know how to write it as I imagined them. So I keep jumping from one to another and, in the end, just wasting time because I don't write really anything. lol

[RokofAges75]

That is exactly how I am too.  I usually have stories outlined in my head, if not on paper, and can envision whole scenes playing out in my mind, but when it comes time to actually write them down, I get stuck.

I don't think it's true writer's block as much as it is me either overthinking things or just losing focus, because once I put my mind to it and get into a groove, I can hammer out a whole scene without stopping.  It just takes me a long time to get to that place.  I just finished writing a scene that I've had playing in my head all week, and it turned out more or less like I imagined it, but it took me literally all day to get to a point where I could write it.  I had to get all my usual distractions - TV, music, social media, excessive research, and the internet in general - out of my system first, and then I was able to write just fine.  But even that only works with stories I really want to write.

My other problem is that lately, even if I like my ideas, I don't like actually writing any of my stories.  I just want to have that one story that I'm obsessed with writing, and I haven't really had that in a couple of years, so I keep flitting from one idea to another, hoping to find that one that's going to keep me inspired.