Commenting fanfiction is the easiest thing in the world once you start doing it. 

I leave a comment on every single fic I read. Sometimes when I read published books I go and leave a comment somewhere the author can find it. Granted, I literally majored in ‘leaving comments on fics’ (English Education), but once you start doing it it just becomes second nature. Now you’re gonna go to the Ozymandias school of leaving comments: 

Problem: I can’t leave kudos again.

Problem: I don’t know what to say :(

Problem: I’m embarrassed to leave a comment (what if I annoy the author?)

Problem: I don’t know how to express myself/my experience 

This? This is an amazing post. This is the Captain Awkward of commenting posts—it addresses all your fears directly and gives you actionable scripts for each one.

This is helping alot!

i’m going to say something that might make me seem ungrateful, but i think it’s true of many fic writers:

we want you to leave comments ON ao3.

we’re not angry or disappointed or anything like that when you leave qrts or lots of tags on our fic posts, not at all. we don’t NOT want you to message us to tell us how a fic touched you. but in addition to that, please consider just copying those words and posting them on ao3 as a comment.

why?

the reason is simple: leaving commentary in other places is ephemeral. story posts get pushed down. chats get pushed down in the list of chats, or worse, pushed up in lists of messages as the conversation continues. but comments on ao3 are easily accessible. and this is important because writers read and reread these comments regularly.

writing, especially writing longfics, is exhausting and drains your confidence over time. having a collection of people who enjoyed your past work at your fingertips is an excellent way to build yourself up when you’re feeling down. fic writers need this a lot.

i know over the past few years there’s this trend to be very descriptive with what is an “acceptable” comment. that’s all nonsense, as long as you’re not being an asshole, just say what’s on your heart.

but post it on ao3. please.

Also something I see a lot: people gushing to their friends in discord about a fic but not commenting on it to the author themselves. It's reassuring to find out secondhand that people gushed about your creation, but it's so much better when someone tells you directly! Reaching out directly on AO3 also helps to curb any lingering doubt of like... Is this something they'd only admit to in private but don't want their name connected to mine on AO3? Since there's a lot of weirdness around who someone associates with in fandom these days

I will say also that some of my FAVORITE comments I have EVER gotten were copy-and-paste Discord conversations, like that is PURE! JOY!!! If you ever find yourself gushing about a fic in a server and everyone else in the conversation is cool with it, PLEASE copy and past that into an AO3 comment, you will make an author's YEAR.

oh i've never had anyone copy-paste a discord chat but that sounds really lovely!! what a great thing to read!

current fan creation landscape is kinda like if you went to a party with a homemade cake and everyone takes a slice and silently thumbs up at you with no attempt to start a conversation except for occasionally some guy sits in the corner with a tape recorder critiquing the cake as though he was a restaurant critic and another guy is handing the cake to an uber driver like "yeah i need you to find a restaurant that makes cake like this so i can have more of it" and the only person that's talked to you in 30 minutes is a very sweet little guy who was like "hey i liked your cake" and then ran away apologizing for bothering you the moment you said thank you.

someone brought a cake analysis robot to feed the cake into to determine the exact ingredients and supposedly it can spit out the exact same cake. and if you're like dude. what. then they're like well if it bothers you you should have made more cake. i'm hungry and i deserve cake. and you're like dude we're at a party.

Three months later you find out that fifty people locked themselves in a room to discuss how much they loved your cake and how they wished you made more. None of them ever told you.

One of my favourite things when reading fanfiction is when you click with an author's style so much that you adore the fanfiction you're reading, and once it's over you need more. So you go to their page and hope that there's more for any fandom you might know- only there isn't any. They've written for other fandoms you aren't familiar with and never would've thought about before.

But you're down so bad for their style and talent that they got you wading in like:

when i forget to log into ao3 and i have to click proceed to see an adult fic, i actually get a kick out of it. like i am an old timey queen and my bard is apologetic: “gentle lady, dicks doth touch in this next ballad. would you prefer another?” and i give him a gesture of command like, “nay, you may proceed, minstrel. bring forth the tale of dicks”

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

I cannot stress enough how good it is for society when people allow themselves to leave barely coherent, screaming comments in smutty fanfiction

Them: you realize you've already written this trope countless times...

Me:

idk if this is controversial or not, but I really like when non-professional writing like fic has hints of author bleedthrough when it comes to like, what different people assume is common knowledge. Like sometimes I’ll be reading a fic and it’ll just be obvious that the person writing it is either obsessed with medicine or has been to medical school, because they’ll use terms that are just a shade too technical without explaining them. It’s never the super specific stuff that they’d know other people are unaware of, it’s always the things that once you’ve known it for a while you forget it’s niche knowledge. It’s fun because as a fanfic reader it reminds me of how this is a fun hobby community, where everyone has their own thing going on outside of fandom. Everyone’s got their own specialties and they can’t help but write that into their work sometimes

…well this post sure took off

new ask game; what do you think my hobby, skillset or knowledge or any other details of me based off my writing

at least they keep falling in love in every universe on ao3

Had to share this here because you're right and you should say it. It's incredible how many people came out of the woodwork as soon as AO3 was down and suddenly had no compunctions at all about screaming how much they love and need fanfic--on the AO3 twitter. Is it so much harder to do in the comment section?

At this point I don't care anymore if people call me entitled or think I'm out of line. If fanfic is so meaningful to you that you cannot go half an hour without, let alone 24h, then you can get over yourself long enough to write a fucking comment. No excuses.

"writing comments is hard and scary" yeah well GUESS WHAT so is writing fanfics. fandom as a community is dying, because it is instead treated as a COMMODITY, a CONSUMER PRODUCT. We're not asking for much. We're asking for a CONNECTION. We don't want to sell, we want to share.

You've shown your hand. You've admitted you cannot live without us. Now ACT LIKE IT. Go write a fucking comment.

I was absolutely at a loss without AO3. I have been trying to comment more anyway because it's such an easy way for me to say thanks to the people who put their stuff out there, for free, daily. I read for at least 2 hours a day, probably even more at weekends or when I'm gripped by a new enthralling fic. The bare minimum I can do is take 2 minutes to comment. After that first kudos I try to respond to a new chapter with a comment so the writer knows that someone is paying attention, that there is an ongoing interest in their efforts. Fandom needs community. Community needs communication. Say thanks. Say it made you laugh or smile, or it distracted you from grim reality for a while.

Just don't do negative or selfish comments.

☝️☝️☝️ THIS ☝️☝️☝️

Worried about leaving a "bad" comment?

There are only two ways to leave a comment that will make the recipient of said comment ☹️😒😟 instead of 🥰🫠😁.

🚫 Don't do these things: 🚫

1. Criticize when critique has not been requested. Remember that the people who write fanfiction, record podfics, and draw fanart are people. How would you feel if you spent a lot of time and energy creating a free entertainment experience for others to enjoy, and someone came in and just told you how it sucked?

2. Place an order. This ain't Burger King. I am not a robot. I am not a trained seal. I worked hard on this story (which, once again, I have provided for your enjoyment at no cost to you). Do not come here and say, "Thank you, next." There is a big, big difference between a comment that says, "I loved x, y, and z about this story, and I would love to read more!" and one that says nothing but, "I want a sequel :(," "why haven't you updated?" or—my personal favorite—one that is nothing but an order for a completely different story unrelated to the one you have just read.

Just don't do those two things, and you can't go wrong.

"We don't want to sell, we want to share."

Come share with us.

To everyone in the comments saying "OP is being mean, this makes me not want to comment," take a moment to consider why OP is using this kind of tone.

I have been writing fanfiction for 20 years, and I remember in the 2000s and early 2010s, I would get tons of comments within a few days of posting a new fic or a new chapter. Now? I'm lucky to get 1 or 2 comments. Commenting has become so unpopular nowadays, and even popular fics that have a lot of hits have barely any comments to show for it. For example, my most-read fic currently has 26,520 hits. 38 comments, and half of them are my replies. So really around 20. That leaves 26,500 views with no engagement. Do you still think we're being unreasonable?

Fanfic authors have been BEGGING for YEARS for engagement. There have been many posts making the rounds on Tumblr encouraging people to not only reblog but to comment on fics (and art) and to talk to authors/artists about their works and to show them how much you appreciate them. But the fact that these kinds of posts are still being made is an indication that nothing has changed.

Fanfic authors and artists are still spending what little free time they have, sometimes for weeks or months, to share their creations with you, and most of y'all can't even take a few seconds to say "Thank you for sharing this" or "This is beautiful" or "Your fic has been a lifesaver and has gotten me through difficult times" (as so many of you are happy to say when AO3 goes down and you don't know what to do with yourselves). Even just a simple "❤️" would be greatly appreciated.

We aren't demanding that every single person who reads our fics leave a comment; we just encourage more people to do so.

Was OP's choice of language a bit harsh? Maybe. But we are TIRED.

We are tired of "creating for ourselves." If we were only creating for ourselves then we wouldn't bother to post our creations on the Internet (FOR FREE). If every fanfic author wrote only for themselves and kept it to themselves (or kept the idea in their brain), AO3 wouldn't exist. FF.net, Wattpad, LiveJournal, and other fanfic sites would not exist. There would be no fandom.

We are tired of the blood, sweat, and tears we pour into our creations, only to be met with radio silence. We are tired of the lack of engagement. We are tired of feeling like we're not good enough and that no one cares about what we have to say. And many of us just stop creating, because what's the point? No one told us they appreciated what we contributed to the fandom, so they won't miss us when we're gone.

That's how fandoms die, y'all. So, when a day comes and you notice that there have been no new fics created for your fandom, take a second to think about why that is, and then take a few more seconds to let your fandom creators know how much you value them (by commenting on their works, not just in a vague Tumblr post).

We create because we love it, but we share our creations with others so that they can find joy in them, too. We share our stories and art to build COMMUNITY, to form FRIENDSHIPS, to talk about the fandoms and characters we love with others. Friendly reminder that behind every fanfic/fanart is a human that created it (excluding that AI garbage), and we want to interact with other humans.

And to all of the people who DO leave comments, we are so grateful to you. You keep fandoms alive just as much as creators do, and just know that many of us have probably printed and framed your comments on our walls so we can re-read them when we feel like giving up and need a bit of a confidence boost.

Yes! All of this. Thank you, Tumblr user lucifers-legions, for that steaming hot and very delicious tea.

Reader: Love the story! When do you update?

Me: *crouched in the corner, rattling a cup* whenever the bones allow

sometimes instead of “why can’t they just be friends” i think it should be “why can’t they also be friends” because sometimes shipping feels much too much like forcing two pretty characters to kiss and be intimate without actually being interested in the dynamic the two people have. what about hanging out together. what about why they like being in each others company. what do they argue about. how do they patch things up. what do they laugh about.

best tag on this post