Before I begin, let me make it clear that this is not directed at anyone in particular. This is a topic that pops up all the time, and every time it has appeared on AFF, I’ve wanted to write a blog about it. That’s all this is - no instigating event, no beef with any of my readers, nada. Just me wanting to share my perspective on various issues/misunderstandings I’ve encountered, so here it is.

Something that’s astounded me since I made my first foray into the fanfiction realm is just how much ownership many readers feel they have over the fics they read. “Baseless claims of ownership” is one (nicer) way to put it; “entitled” is another word that’s cropped up in my conversations with other authors.

Anyway, here are some questions I've seen many an argument start over.

Question the First: What’s wrong with “update soon” comments?

On my old fanfiction account (on a different site), I had readers spam me with “update soon” comments every day, even if I had just updated earlier that day. At first, I thought it was nice to see them - I had just started posting my writing online, and this way I at least knew somebody was reading.

The problem was soon, I started feeling harassed. Writing is something I’m happy to do of my own free will - I enjoy it, and I like sharing it. But “update soon” comments make the writing experience unnecessarily stressful.

Here’s a theoretical situation that, to me, illustrates the issue: say you like to bake cakes. You don’t get paid to bake, and you have to pay for the ingredients on your own. It takes valuable time out of your day to bake - maybe you’re a student or you work. But because you’re proud of your cakes and you want feedback on how they taste, you start giving out slices of your cake on the street outside your house.

At first, you’re happy. People eat your cake, and they tell you to bake again soon. Maybe somebody even says it tastes good. But the longer you do this, the more you realize that baking cake takes time and effort, and no one is telling you if your cake is good or not. All they do is tell you to bake more cake soon.

Then before you know it, baking becomes a source of stress. If you don’t bake a cake every day and give it out for free, then people hammer on your door and tell you to get baking. They don’t give any feedback on the taste of your cake, of course - just “bake more cake soon.” When you complain that they’re taking your cake for free and not saying anything, they respond that it’s your own fault for giving your cake out for free in the first place, and hey - at least they’re saying something about your cake!

In this kind of situation, you start hating baking. Maybe you even get a restraining order on the “bake again soon” people or move to a different neighborhood where you don’t have to deal with rude, cake-demanding people bothering you all the time. Most likely, you don’t want to bake anymore. If you do, you definitely won’t be sharing it for free with people on the streets.

And this sad story, folks, is how the world ends up with a severe lack of delicious cake and talented bakers. (I hope this metaphor made sense, or else I just wasted far too much time writing about cake).

Question the Second: Why can’t readers request more romance or faster relationship development in the stories they support?

This one is sometimes more innocuous. It can be hard for readers to understand why authors get angry when they suggest moving the romance along faster - it’s just a comment, after all. They’re only expressing their opinion on the story. Many people see it as offering constructive criticism. And a lot of the time, the author is fine with it too.

The problem comes when readers have not been reading carefully, have completely misconstrued something in a potentially offensive manner, or have made unreasonable demands.

For one, tooth-rotting, happily ever after romance is not the end goal of every fanfiction. Do we fans write a lot of that? Hell yeah. It’s part of being a fan - we fantasize, and quite a few fantasies are happy. But happy endings aren’t always authors’ intentions, and having readers bug authors about why two characters aren’t getting together when there is literally no supporting evidence in the text to support a romantic relationship is incredibly frustrating. From an author’s perspective, it feels like the reader isn’t really reading any of the stuff you poured your heart and soul into - the reader is just skimming for romantic fluff. Maybe you’re even trying to make a point about how unhealthy a relationship is, but the point gets lost in the horde of romance-hunting readers.

(If we revive the cake comparison, this is like spending hours baking a cake with delectable fillings and layers, only to have someone scrape the frosting off and toss the rest of your cake in the trash. Or maybe they complain that you don’t have enough frosting, even though they literally only ate the frosting and ignored the careful thought that went into crafting the perfect balance of cake sponge, filling, and frosting. Not cool.)

Question the Third: If authors can ask for comments, why can’t readers ask for updates?

Oof. This one requires an understanding that the author-reader relationship is inherently unequal. The author has the goods. The reader has no goods or currency to exchange for the goods, but they do have feedback. This is not a situation in which supplier and demander are of equal standing.

Let’s go back to cake. If I have a cake and you have no money, in a normal market, I would walk off to find someone who does have money for my cake, and you would go home sad and cakeless. Like I said, an unequal situation.

The fanfiction market, though, is different. Maybe I give you my cake, knowing you have no money. You eat it. If you walk off without a word, having consumed my cake that I worked so hard on, then hell no I’m not giving you any more of my cake next time. If you eat my cake and tell me you loved the frosting but thought some raspberries on top would have been nice, then maybe I’d be happy to bake more cake. That, however, does not mean you can demand I bring you more cake. It doesn’t work like that - I have the goods, not you, therefore I get to set the terms of our trade agreement.

Now if you’re still reading, you probably think I like cake a little too much and that the cake market is not exactly the same as the writing market, to both of which I’d have to respond “guilty as charged.” The principle of the matter, however, still stands, and I think many readers would do well to think on it.

TL;DR: Cake is good. Bakers are good. Be nice and don’t act entitled unless you want to live in a world without good cake, which would be a very sad world indeed.

(Also, I might write more on this topic. Not sure yet. Would be glad to hear thoughts on cake and fanfic in the comments below.)