That’s not a compliment
So, I know theres been a big push about commenting on fic and art because well, its nice to know the void occasionally responds. And I know theres been lots of posts about what is generally not considered a helpful comment. Well I just got a comment a couple days ago I found rather upsetting.
Now, typical non-grata comments are things like “This sucks” or “This character would never do that” or “Update!” or “This fic would be better if it was about x ship instead of y” and honestly most of thats pretty obvious. Well, I had someone on anon leave a bunch of comments on some of my fics, which up until the last one I greatly appreciated. The last one read “/groans I love your stand-alones, really. But man is it disappointing to not find anything more on them. They're such great premises.”
That is not a compliment, it’s just not. I write one shots because I don’t have time to commit to a bunch of chapter fics and by the point I post them each of my stories feel complete. They end and a story has been told. So being told they would be better if they were longer is upsetting. Many of the endings were specific style choices, like the story the comment was on, a character is gravely injured by a comrade and it is unknown whether or not he lives. That was deliberate, that was suspense, horror, that feeling of you’ll never really know if the character lives. THAT WAS THE POINT. That was the point, that feeling was why the fic ended there. It was a stylistic choice, the story was done, it had reached a conclusion. So don’t tell me its only good as a premise.
TLDR: Telling someone their completed fics are only good as premises is a good way to piss off a writer and make them never want to continue any of those plots again. Cuz I had plans, but now I don’t want to. So please respect your writers stylistic choices.