Danger Will Robinson - what not to put in your fic (or art) notes

[karadinart]

I don't know where the story is going.

Give me ideas.

This took me 'x' amount of time to do.

I finished this story, but will post daily to get more comments.

I don't know anything about the (disorder, vocation, history) of what' I'm writing about.

This sucks, I don't like it, I don't think this is very good.

I didn't edit.

I suck at summaries (so there isn't one)

(all these notes tell me that you are approaching your work with an attitude of I don't care, so my response is, I'm not going to bother looking/reading, there is plenty of content online where authors and artists make their work accessible and of great quality)

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

What can I say but "well said"?

[zoemathemata.livejournal.com]

Oh my god! Thank you for this! I immediately don't click on 'summaries' with these notes. A summary tells me what happens in the story; what its about. Author notes are for comments!

If I can't tell what a story is about, I don't click!

[amarissia.livejournal.com]

I also especially like it when they say "I'm not posting more until I get however-many comments." *eyeroll*

[karadin.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's certainly up there.

[mildly-neurotic.livejournal.com]

I completely agree these are the wrong things to include in your posts, 100%.

I don't think they all mean the author doesn't care though. I read them as the author being very lacking in self-confidence (except for the comment blackmail one) and actually feel a little sympathy. :-)

[karadin.livejournal.com]

I mean it when I say the author doesn't care - they don't care about the craft of writing, it's very easy to distract a reader, fics full of typos, bad formatting including colours and small type, people will only stop on average for a few moments to read, and if you don't capture them, they click on somewhere else. It's better for them to not read because they don't care for your plot, your characterisation, your ship even, but not that you were sloppy.

[mildly-neurotic.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.