What exactly is the deal with authors and asking for comments? 

So recently I've been noticing that a lot of readers seemed to have gone silent on AFF, and as a result of that, the amount of commenting has decreased by a fair amount. 

I know a very, very common argument for people is that "if authors write, it should be for themselves not readers, or they shouldn't be writing in the first place" (or something along those lines). And while I also believe that people should be first and foremost writing for themselves, people also need to understand that commenting does play a pretty crucial role in not only motivation of authors but as actual feedback—about the plot, about the character, pacing, development. There's a reason people post their stories online; if they're solely writing for themselves, then there would be absolutely no point for them to upload it onto a social website like AFF. From that, you can probably deduce the simplest reason: authors post stories on social platforms for comments/feedback. 

Readers are here to read. It's self explanatory. And as a reader myself (even though I haven't been able to do that a lot the past couple of months), it's very nice to find a good fic, sit down and read and enjoy. I do this too, but it's also extremely easy to exit out of the tab and completely ignore the comment box. 

Sometimes it's stressful to type out comments, especially if you don't want to come off as something, whether it be annoying, dumb (again, this happens, especially whe parts of the plot are hard to comprehend, so people chose to leave it at that instead of asking even though many people might have the same question), or maybe approaching the author is scary. All of these are perfectly logical, but firsthand, I'd rather a comment that asks me questions about a plot or even something in full caps than nothing at all. 

Lack of reader feedback, as you can see, will (probably) inevitably lead to less author motivation, and less author motivation would mean less updates, possibly a grouchy author and maybe a disappointed reader because of the fact updates are decreasing. Said author might post a note about comments threatening to withhold an update, and it's never pleasant to be threatened, so readers might be irritated by that. In the end, it's lose-lose. Unhappy author, unhappy reader. Author feels neglected and unmotivated, reader feels and kind of is threatened and even more disappointed because the story no longer gets updates and maybe even is discontinued. 

A huge reason for lack of updates and lack of feedback is most likely how busy everyone is. Last year, Korey hosted the mirror-mirror challenge for commenting and authors replying to comments, which I've done a pretty terrible job at this year since I've been busy. And while replying to comments and maybe commenting itself may be taxing, if you can spend 10-15 minutes reading a chapter, I do believe you can spare another minute or two typing up a comment. It doesn't have to be fancy. It doens't have to be five or six paragraphs long. A sentence or two about content of the chapter, something funny you liked, or something interesting you noticed is only a couple of things (If the story is so drab you have absolutely nothing to say, then maybe it's best to drop it, lol)—that's only a couple of things that you could say. And those couple of sentences could make a huge difference to an author. And contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, there are little authors who would disregard a comment as annoying unless it's one asking about updates or spam, especially when it comments on content of the chapter.

TL;DR: Authors are motivated by comments, and by taking a couple of minutes from your day, if you're just a little less busy, to drop a couple of sentences can make a huge difference. 

If authors are unmotivated by the lack of comments and readers hesitant to comment, what are possible solutions? 

1) Like Korey's blogpost I linked, the mirror-mirror challenge encourages authors to reply to comments and for readers to comment. Getting a reply to a comment is definitely nice; for readers, make it your goal to comment on a set amount of fics per day, and for authors, make it your goal to reply. The more you reply and the more you engage with readers, the more willing they will be to talk to you again. 

2) Instead of withholding updates, maybe start increasing them. 

This doesn't exactly work if you don't have a set updating schedule because updates are going to be sporadic anyway (but I do encourage that—setting a specific day of the week/month to update, if you're not too busy to dish out that many updates, actually reduces "update soon" comments and people will know when to check for your updates), but if you do, instead of saying "if I don't get ________ comments, I won't update", maybe start with "if I get ______ comments, I'll update early." It's a win-win situation for both sides—by getting more comments, the author will feel more motivated, and by commenting and sharing their thoughts, the author will update more often. Instead of one side being bitter about the lack of feedback the other angry about updates being held at ransom, both can actually get something better out of it.  

TL;DR: Commenting is nice, getting a reply is nice too. Instead of threatening to take something away, offer to give something in exchange for something else, and both sides will be happier. 

As I said, everyone's busy. Maybe you won't have the time to have an extra update. Maybe you're reading on your phone on the bus and you can't type a comment. But in the long run, if both authors and readers think win-win instead, maybe commenting can increase, along with updates. 

If you've read this far, congrats to listening to me ramble so much. Feel free to repost if you agree to anything!