hi! 15, 17, and 19 for the fanfic writer asks :)
15. at what point in writing a fic, do you decide to quit?
i never decide to quit; i kind of one day realize that i’ve already quit? like i just stop thinking about it then all of a sudden it’s been months then years and the time has passed. i’ve been good about finishing fics now (narcissus is finished, and vale and ikwwn are both in progress with pretty regular updates), but i have a few from 2017 and before that i will definitely never revisit. the ones that come to mind are a bellarke post-season 4 called shelter, a jily triwizard tournament au, and a clxa hunters of artemis au. i actually have been thinking about the jily one recently so maybe i’ll start playing around with that one sometime soon but i don’t really know. my writing style has changed a lot since and i feel like if i don’t think about them anymore and not a lot of people were like counting on an update then i shouldn’t finish them just to finish them, not when i could be working on things that still excite me like my current wips.
17. what is the most supportive comment you have gotten?
recently @swainlake left a comment on valē that has stayed with me for a long time, and i really appreciated it. i love all comments, but especially comments that let me know where the fic’s strengths are and what’s working so i can keep doing that.
18. what is the most negative comment you have gotten?
i honestly don’t really get negative comments! i think i’m also in a place where i do enough “serious” writing that i think i would disregard a negative comment if it wasn’t coming from someone whom i knew was experienced. in creative writing workshops, criticism has to assume certain things and accept the work for what it is to a certain degree. the critic has to have a level of understanding of how to deliver constructive criticism, or else it will come across as negative, rude, and coming from someone who isn’t very experienced. while thinking about this question, i remembered that i once got a comment on the hunters of artemis clxa au and while it may have seemed constructive to the person who left it, it wasn’t in reality because i would have had to re-write the entire fic from start to finish and change fundamental aspects of it in order to do what they were telling me to do. and in workshops you aren’t supposed to give criticism like that; it’s just not how it’s done. for this reason i also refrain from leaving constructive comments unless i’ve been asked by the writer to do so, like in a beta reader situation.
