Why I don’t like being told to update
“Great fic! Post more soon!”
“I LOVED this last chapter! Please please pleeease update!”
“This is the best ever. When are you going to post more?”
Creators of narrative fanworks (fanfic, fancomics, podfic, etc.) often receive these types of comments. While the commenter is usually well-meaning, this kind of feedback can be unintentionally hurtful.
1. Fanwork is work, and work takes time.
As a reader, the amount of work that has gone into what you’re reading may not be clear. By the time a piece of content makes it to the public, the creator(s) may have spent hours, days, or more on it. It may need beta reading, revision, or editing, which can also take hours, days, or more.
You wouldn’t want to read the fanworks you’d get if “Update now!” actually made creators post their WIPs – they’d be incomplete, riddled with typos, and full of plot holes. If the work has a visual or audio component, it might not even be drawn or recorded yet.
2. Fanwork is a hobby.
Unless you support a creator financially (ex: Patreon), you are getting content for $0. This is not because we are inherently masochists or workaholics, but because we find writing and sharing our fanwork fun.
People have different levels of time and interest that they can devote to their hobbies. Being told, “Do your hobby this way!” isn’t fun. In fact, it’s disheartening.
3. Fanwork creators have lives.
When I’m not making fanwork, I might be doing my job, celebrating a holiday, taking care of myself mentally/spiritually/physically, spending time with my loved ones, or a host of other things. I can’t devote all my time – or even a plurality of my time – to fanwork.
If an absence is longer than expected, it’s probably because life is messy and the creator doesn’t rate “finishing that one fanwork” at the top of their priorities. Maybe they had to work. Maybe they or someone they care about got sick. Maybe they just couldn’t find the time to write.
(Heck, maybe they were working on a different fanwork.)
tl;dr Fanwork creators are people, and fanworks take time and energy. Please be respectful of these things by not telling us to do what we do faster.
Addendum:
4. Fanwork creators are not infinite content machines.
Not every fanwork is going to be completed in a way that suits your preference. Sometimes a concept runs out of steam or the creator loses interest, and the fanwork is abandoned. This happens in "normal" creative media, too, it's just that a professional author's five half-finished novel attempts typically won't be published online chapter by chapter.
Or, well... sometimes it is completed, just not to your particular liking, because you wish there was more of it or what is there differs from your expectations somehow.
If a creator has said that a fanwork is completed or abandoned, then it is. They may change this at a later time, but that is their decision, not yours, and they have no obligation to do so.
If you leave "update!" comments on completed/abandoned fanworks, that comes across as valuing your own desire for more content above the boundaries of the creator. For me, it feels like I'm being seen as a vending machine.
