Does it piss you off that irritating stories/slash/HP/GW stories always end up with a minimum of 1,000 reviews while excellent stories like IP82's fic have only about 280?

I mean...shit. The typical hurt/comfort slash or Severitus fic will end up with anywhere between 1,000-1,50000000000 reviews in a matter of days.

On the other hand, good stories...well some of them, at least...go through eight months with a total of maybe 500 reviews.

Hell, fucking stained future had like 450-500 reviews for each of his stories, which just makes my point for me.

 

Reasonably often.
The remedy is to try not to care about the reviews. But really, the reason I have find it most annoying is that typical H/G stories don't need the ridiculous amount of feedback they get. For god's sake, they all follow the same bloody trackline!
Stories like IP82's need feedback because they are mostly original, they aren't following set tracks, and most of all - and while I'm writing this I'm wearing a big grin - in IP's story you can be bloody sure that he will never *Ever* have Ginny put her hands on her hips and start shouting at Harry about whatever the whiny git is angsting about right now.

The best you can do is just try not to bother about the reviews. Quite truthfully, I'd much rather have 280 good reviews than 2000 reviews telling me to 'update plz! harry/ginny forever!'

 

True, but it is somewhat insulting to know that some piece of shit story got a thousand more reviews than yours did just because it appeals to a certain sect of a particular fandom (H/G shippers).

Sure, my fic, posted like 2 days ago, is pulling in about 10-15 reviews a day, but these shitty cliche-filled ones get like 50 a day. I don't particularly care for the gushy one-liner reviews either, and i find that about 65% of mine are like this. Nasty business.

I've found that Severitus fans, H/G fans and slash (Harry/Nasty Slytherin) fans are avid reviewers. I mean it, too, they review without even finishing the chapter.

I checked the reviews of that Jonathoan Frost one, and there was one int ehre that said something to the tune of:

"OMG,OMG,OMG...i love you-i mean, it! I love it! Wow. I just read the first word, and the second syllable got me hooked! Can you please, please, please make it Harry/Draco/Sevvie(puke!)/Lucius/Voldemort/Sirius/Remus/James/Peter/Dumbeldore?
Please? I'm a five dolla hooker...me love you long time, baby!"

I mean, WTF, mate?

 

I don't mind it.

That's the way in all areas of culture and art. 90% of people are always listening to pop/r&b/dance and watching hollywood summer blockbusters...

I don't think there's anything strange with dark & independant stories being pushed aside, while comercial common pairing/teengirl fantasies stories are taking all the spotlight. There's nothing wrong being considered independant scene of fandom...

Besides, it's not like I gain sometwhing with bunch of pointless reviews - as long as there are 10-20 people reading, that's fine by me. I actually kinda like being in the independant/art underground of the FF world - much better than having to deal with bunch of idiot fangirls, like all the popular writers do.

 

True, true...good point.

What i meant to say, though, was the exact opposite. Why do they get that many reviews? It's the generic run-of-the-mill H/G fic, so why do overused plot devices and massive cliches deserve such intense scrutiny and applause?

 

Half of which were probably flames originating from our users.

 

Amen to that. I sometimes get raging headaches after reading some reviews.

That's easily answerable. There are a number of factors that determine how many reviews a story gets:

One is self-plugging. If you're a regular at sites such as this, more people will read your fic from these sites, some of which will review. Similarly reviewing other authors and writing "come R&R my fics" at the end means that the author will almost certainly read your fic then review it out of common courtesy, I know I (usually) do. An example of this is RossWrock.

Another reason is that your fic has an outstanding summary and a very good first chapter. I keep telling people this but a crappy summary is more important than anything else. A well written, attractive summary and good first chapter gets a hell of a lot of people reading, some of which will inevitably review. Honestly, a ridiculus number of fics never get read because the author is too lazy to write a good summary. No example for this off the top of my head.

Probably one of the biggest reasons is having an idea out at the right time. Just after OotP, Independent Harry was guarenteed a fuck load of reviews. Similarly, Draco/Harry fics have gone through the roof recently because Draco didn't have the balls to kill Dumbledore. Example of this is Roschart's Blot or Shezza. Both have a knack for bringing out fics at the right time, specially Shezza.

Another reason which you may not have thought about is that the fic is shocking. Shocking fics get tons of flames. then the other readers feel the need to defend the athor. Thus you get a hell of a lot of reviews from most people. An example of this would be that CocoaButterLove person or that RossWrock chapter where Harry and Neville kiss.

Finally, maybe the fic is actually very good. Almost all the great fics have a staggering number of reviews, it does follow on sometimes! Take Kateydidnt, Shezza or Sera. All have a high number of reviews because their fics are good!

Oh and regular updates really get the review count ticking. Having your fic top of the search list is never a bad thing. Shezza the example again here.

IP's story is very good and while it doesn't have a huge amount of reviews on ff.net, it's one of the most popular library threads on this entire site! Hence he knows that his fic is good. To all you who grumble about your favourite stories no getting a lot of reviews, why don't you contribute? If every annoyed person reviewed every fic they liked, then maybe the good fics would get the amount of reviews they desevre. If the slash-followers are doing what they can to big up their favourite genre, why don't you?

/rallying of troops

 

true, true. like he said shezza get's alot of flamers because of his writing style. the first time i read it i was shocked because it was soo refreshing. when i read the reviewers well there is no point in explaining that.

 

You can be disappointed or pleasantly surprised by response to fics. But a lot of times a fic done right, particularly a WIP, leaves you with very little to reply to. I could make up ruminations about where IP82's fic will be going, but more than likely any questions will be answered by future chapters. Spelling, grammar errors, things that peeve you also give you something to comment on. But "I liked it. More please." probably a vast majority of readers would agree with and know saying so wouldn't help the author. Perhaps knowing they agree with that might be nice for IP82, but only for confidence or morale really.

If something pisses you off, or stirs an emotion, then you've got something to say. I've read a lot of really good fic, that I had very little to comment on. But it's those fics that could be good and go bad that I feel forced to respond to.

And really, you get a better idea about fic response not by the total number but by average per chapter, if its a WIP with semi-regular updates. For only 6 chapters and 250+ reviews, IP's doing pretty good. (I think Shezza's Future Remapped was like 55 chapters and 1700 reviews... lower average than IP's though his last few chapters probably got a far higher than average amount.) It's a good sign when you get the most reviews for your latest chapters. Means your original readers are still reading, and new readers are reading now too.

 

No, that's probably coz I haven't updated in 2+ months

 

Potter's Resistance 1: Breaking Ties is a brillent story. i stopped reading it around 2 or 3 chapters. i wanted to wait until 20 chapters. i do hope you start updating soon but it's up to you. so meh!

 

It bothered me alot especially when a certain fic that was posted here was nearly unreadable garbage, and it netted tons and tons of positive reviews, while mine was getting alot of love, but from a very small group.

I figured out to not care about opinions, but it still bothered me enough to give up writing on it for awhile at the time

 

And for that some of us are still crying.... :cry:

 

The stories like that get so many reviews because they have something which fascinates the online community:

Sex. And lots of it.

Considering the majority of HP-verse Fanfic Fans are between 10 and 25, this isn't suprsing... Especially when you consider that for the majority of those years there is a readily apparent obsession with sex and lots of it.

The authors are giving the majority of their fan base exactly what it wants SEX... AND LOTS OF IT!!!

 

Yeah it annoys the hell out of me. So many authors write these short badly written slash stories, yet get like 30reviews for a chapter. Or even worse they write something that doesn' even resemble an actual story, just alot of heir own characters being ultra sue's yet still theyre swamped in reviews.

Eh... you might make a good point about the summary leading to reviews though.. I've never been able to make a good one and when I was updating without specifically emailing people who reviewed previously asking them to look again, got maybe 3 or so.

 

I review EVERYTHING I read, even if a story is so bad that i stop reading it I leave a review and tell them it needs improvement…So I guess you can put me in that group of people who has helped shitty stories get lots of reviews…sorry….

 

Yeh gotta say that it gave me the shits at first when pathetic shit like slash and H/Slut get more then the worthwhile fics, but hey when you've been around awhile it kinda doesn't effect you nearly as much.

 

Which fic?

 

I tend to find that good stories with less reviews actually are good and encouaging, or are helpful critisizm.

crappy stories with 2000 reviews often have idiots say "ThIS RuLEz!" Posted 20 times by the same person.

 

you know what i first started going on fanfiction i just pick something that seems interesting. you guys ever heard of the author 'Barb'. anyway those are one of the first stories i've ever read. everytime i read a chapter i get so damn excited. then as time came by i didn't like them as much any more or any at all.

so who ever writing those reviews they are either just little kids that started going on ff.net who likes to review alot or....that's all i can think of.