The Zero Reviews Case

[Little Wishling]

Picture this, if you will: some writer here posts up a potentially fascinating fan fic. The first post has a complete chapter, and it follows the every rule listed in the fan fiction rules. The writer, hoping for some constructive reviews, leaves for a while and comes back to find none. So he/she writes another chapter and posts it up. Still no reviews. Eventually, despite the writer's continuous chapter updates, the whole thread vanishes off the board with zero reviews and a very disappointed author wondering where the heck did he/she go wrong. Has this ever happened to you? Why do you think this could happen? Is it because there's a lack of reviewers or is it because the writer lacks acknowledgement and popularity? Let us discuss.

 

[Venomfrog]

Firstly, has this ever happened to me?

Well, Sea Cottage - my only fan fiction so far - received its first review after only the second chapter, from Yami Ryu, so I cannot say that it received zero reviews. There have, however, been times where it has not received a comment for a while.

Secondly, and more importantly, what causes the zero review case?

As a reviewer, I only read and review when:

1) The title of the fan fiction in question interests me.
2) I have the time to read a chapter or two.
3) I have the energy to read a chapter or two.

The chance of all three of these happening is not very high. I may only be one person, but if everyone who notices a fan fiction is not in the mood to read it - and a reviewer has to be in a somewhat decent mood to read a story - then it is perfectly possible for a story to go without any comments.

HOWEVER, this can be combatted by requests to members to read and leave a comment, whether a writer contacts someone from the Fic Reviewers thread or has built up enough friends to get some of them to agree to look over it. I got roughly five readers for my fan fiction because before I posted it I got to know some members who had an interest in reading.

My advice for those receiving no reviews: ask someone to read the story whenever they can, and leave comments. While a review can take up time and effort, it is still quite possible to get one from someone if you interest them with your title/plotline/sneak preview, etc.

If nobody replies to your requests, then consider slightly touching up the review-less chapters. Sometimes even just posting chapters through no reviews works. Eventually some random person begins reading the story and after that person gets to a certain point they are more comfortable commenting.

A classic example:

I have a friend who posts on both here and another forum, and received no reviews for his fantastic story after posting three chapters on Serebii.

So what did he do? He focused on his audience at the other forum, and has many faithful readers. If the writer in question receiving no reviews wants some, and only wants to post on one forum, then taking the initiative and seeking out some people who might review is a good idea. I personally would love to give every story on here a look, but I do not have the time or energy. If something is presented in front of my eyes, however, I will invest that time and energy sometime.

To sum up the wall of text above, writer's initiative is a good strategy. Another good strategy is for the writer to edit their first/second/third chapter until some readers have their interest caught.

 

[Phantom Kat]

Picture this, if you will: some writer here posts up a potentially fascinating fan fic. The first post has a complete chapter, and it follows the every rule listed in the fan fiction rules. The writer, hoping for some constructive reviews, leaves for a while and comes back to find none. So he/she writes another chapter and posts it up. Still no reviews. Eventually, despite the writer's continuous chapter updates, the whole thread vanishes off the board with zero reviews and a very disappointed author wondering where the heck did he/she go wrong. Has this ever happened to you? Why do you think this could happen? Is it because there's a lack of reviewers or is it because the writer lacks acknowledgement and popularity? Let us discuss.

Well, my story has had a total of one review for its five chapters, and one reader who stopped reading because he/she doesn't like Pokemon centric stories. I guess it's mostly because I'm not very well known and the fact that my story is well-written; reviewers jump at the chance to correct someone. Maybe if I post more around here, someone might read my fic. *shrugs*

Of course, I'm posting my fan fic in other places in hopes of gaining as many opinions as I can. If a writer stops posting or writing just because nobody reviews, they'll never have the chance to show people their work. I think people just need to see a familiar face to get them to click on that thread.

- Kat

 

[Akiyama]

I don't review stories here much, instead doing the required 25 books of reading at school, anyway some people are busy and writing a review can take longer than the reading. So nice when you do get a review though.

I think I'll try reading some fics on here for three minutes, and at the end of those three minutes I will ask myself if I want to read on, so far no fic has done it on this boring night yet. Three mintues for every fic, can't everyone do that? Not really, but if an opening grabs someone then they'll read it when they otherwise wouldn't have. (PS, Serebii is slow for me, while other sites zoom ahead.)

Time it, three minutes, if a fic grabs your attention in that time then it's got something to it . . . or it might not in the next chapter. Oh and this is a hard test for writers to pass, but it's just Step 1 in the reading. You might even tell the author that the fic didn't get your attention in three minutes, good, you might have found the first error in quickly reading a story's start.

 

[Diddy]

I try to review fics as often as I can, but I don't want to look in on a thread with 4 replies to see four chapters. That turns me off instantly and I stop then and there. Obviously if the chapters are visibly bad just from a skim, then I'll post to try and guide them in the right direction.

It's as Venomfrog said, people require time and energy to read and review fics, and if the fic has a boring, uninteresting title then most likely, all but those with all the time in the world will get around to reading it.

Even then, we have an issue where people don't review. They don't even leave a comment saying "hey, I'm not good at reviewing but I like your story and will follow it to see where it goes!"

Closet Readers cost lives people. It's a serious problem.

 

[Giratina!]

I cannot say that I have zero reviews, because two people did put in their input - however, one of them admitted that the only reason they reviewed was because I didn't receive very much. I'm no stranger to a lack of reviews (on a different forum, my first story didn't get any substantial reviews at all until chapter sixteen out of twenty), but it still ticks me off when I have completed all of the principles of getting reviews - be active in the community (I post on the Authors' Café all the time), put up other reviews (this I'm not so good at, but I do try) and so on and so forth - never seem to get me anywhere. And yeah, I know they're not surefire ways of getting reviews, but I don't enjoy going on people's profiles going "Hi, can you read my story and leave a review?" or anything unless I know them well. It looks very rude. (And even then, that's not really dependable either.)

A lack of reviews has occurred on all of the sites I put my stories on, but I don't often bawl about it. I guess I'm just too used to lack of feedback or something.

 

[IJuggler]

I must say, it's harder to review a good fic than it is to review a bad fic. Bad fics have obvious problems with easy solutions; I don't need to think when writing a response. Good fics, though, aren't even reviewed the same way. I feel really odd complimenting a story multiple times, so I may not even post on a good story unless I have something to actually help with.

It could also be that there are comparitively less people reading these stories. I can say that I've seen maybe ~10 different reviewers who like to give long, helpful reviews, compared to the larger amount who'll just post 'i liked it please write more'.

Honestly, if I were to post a story here, I wouldn't expect much feedback until I got deep in the story. Because I, as a reader, know that early on is the most common place for a story to die (maybe 25% of posted stories here die after first chapter alone). Besides, writing just for an audience probably won't get an author far anyway.

 

[Venomfrog]

Closet Readers cost lives people. It's a serious problem.

That should be one of the first lines Serebii members should read when they come to the Fan Fiction section.

While sometimes zero reviews can be the writer's problem, the readers have a role as well. There was some member named MIISIM who made his first and only post so far to comment on my story.

So, closet readers, try to leave a comment, or even send a PM or VM with an opinion. That might get other members noticing it and leaving an opinion.

 

[Venia Silente]

I'm in pretty much a similar situation to Phantom Kat. Two fics, one of them a one-shot. I brought them both from another forum where I posted them first. The first was my entry for a contest and ungloriously sank here to page 8 or so. I only received one review, granted albeit short it was a valuable one because it was that member's first review given. For the other I tried something new in terms of story, plot and narrative, and took care to register in the Fic Catalog and the such, and on its original forum only one people commented somewhat regularly.

To be truthful pretty much the only times I receive a review was when I poked people around or explicitly begged. Heck, pretty much the very second review I got was only because I didn't know who Valentine was and decided to stalk and poke her until I got a review...

The facts that I'm not very active, not a casual speaking (writing) person, and only move around some of the subforums (Fanfiction and Technical, of all things) doesn't help very much. I try to lurk around some other subforums to promote my work sometimes, but since I'm in the "don't reply to a thread unless you have something valuable to say" mindset, it gets somewhat difficult to not to look as a shameless selfpromoter when combining the above. Maybe as a consequence of that, I only stick to two or three fics that I like (or more precisely, that keep me lured) and review them regularly, but that still is two threads out of two hundred and subject to when there's actually something to review. In those terms, IJuggler explains it nicely:

I must say, it's harder to review a good fic than it is to review a bad fic. Bad fics have obvious problems with easy solutions; I don't need to think when writing a response. Good fics, though, aren't even reviewed the same way. I feel really odd complimenting a story multiple times, so I may not even post on a good story unless I have something to actually help with.

I'm going to take Venomfrog's advice: making myself useful. There are several stories that I've liked, I've just not ever commented on them, haven't let the authors know that they give me a good time. Other than that, try to make more time for myself. More time = more writing, and from what I read in several advice threads that is the very basic way to get reviews.

 

[Chozo]

I think the fundamental disconnect is between why reviewers review and what writers actually want reviews for.

IJuggler kind of touched on this, but writing a good, useful review is actually pretty hard. It's pretty easy to tell whether you like or dislike something based on your gut reaction: being able to say why you like or dislike something and then being able to explain your rationale to someone else takes a surprising amount of work. More importantly, if you are going to provide a significant amount of critique you want to feel like your effort is justified: I've read plenty of bad fics that I haven't commented on because I didn't feel like the effort involved would be reciprocated by the writer (or because I wasn't able to garner up enough enthusiasm to be a snarky jackass as is my usual method). Similarly, I haven't commented on good fics because I felt like I couldn't really add something constructive to the conversation or mention things that someone else hadn't. In the aggregate a bare fraction of the people who will read your fic will ever comment on it.

The elephant in the room, however, is that for most of us writers all of that is pretty much secondary. We want reviews less for their content and more for the fact that their existence provides validation.

If you're a published writer, it's easy to tell if your work is worth something. Are you on the NYT bestseller list? Is Oprah showing off your book to her soccer mom sycophants? Can you pay your electric bill? These are all tangible measures of success that fanfiction writers really don't have. Our closest equivalents are thread views/hits, which aren't worth **** in the grand scheme of things (checking your own thread to read the new posts counts as a hit, for instance). A dedicated site like fanfiction.net can offer up better statistical tracking, but it's really hard to get excited over the fact that chapter 2 got 100 hits or that you got a unique visit from a dude in Dubai.

That's pretty much why we want reviews in the first place: because they tell us that the person reading 1)(usually) liked our story enough to comment on it and 2)the hit they provided was a hit from a person who was actually interested in reading the story and not someone trolling for an AAML fic to jerk themselves off to. More important still, reviews provide a bandwagon effect of sorts: people are more likely to check out a story with a lot of posts/reviews than one that's barely struggling to get enough posts to reach page 2. We all want our egos stroked to varying degrees, whether we admit it or not.

In short, people who tend to write reviews tend to be the more hardcore fanfic nerds who are interested more in critique than ego-stroking, while fanfic writers tend to value reviews for the opposite reason. This isn't 100% accurate, but I think it's a fairly good explanation for why fanfics are a dime a dozen and reviews are not.