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Dec. 21st, 2018 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terrie01After reading more posts than I want to count about hits vs. kudos and kudos vs. hits, I recently realized something. There actually is a formula for how successful we feel a story is. It's just that none of it is easily measured. The formula is effort vs. engagement.
Effort is not just how long a story takes to write. It's about the time and energy you put into laying the groundwork before you even start writing. That commute time you spent laying out the major points of the plot, how the relationships between the characters. The hours on Google and Wikipedia trying to figure out if Steve would have had access to a shower or only a bathtub as a child in 1920s Brooklyn. All those prep activities. It's also about how easily the words flow once you get started. Three hundred words in three hours is a very different experience than three thousand. Writing: Where more results might actually be less effort!
Likewise, engagement is not just hits, kudos or comments, though all are part of it. It's about seeing people recommend your story on tumblr or rec groups on pillowfort or dreamwidth. About people making fanart, requesting to do a podfic version, or asking you questions about a specific line or scene. About the sheer amount of squeaky noises you can make someone produce. About the person who tells you "I totally had a dream about this story."
This explains why the stories you slave over, the ones that you post feeling so darn good about them, because you KNOW they're the best they can be, are the ones that seem to get no response, while the one you scratched off on the back of a used napkin during your lunch break seem to your most popular fic ever.
If you were to have me point to my most successful story, I'd point to Though I May Drown. And it did get a good response. I got some very enthusiastic comments, someone actually did a wonderful podfic of it, and people who would have loved more (though were also very understanding as to why it was a one shot). But by the numbers? It got a good response, not a great one. I have plenty of other stories with more hits, more kudos, more comments, more reblogs, more everything. But writing it was effortless. It was cranked it out and proofed it in under two hours, world building and all. It was like the AU sprung into being fully formed. I could tell you a hundred things about it that never made it into the story. It was the kind of writing experience you always want. So measure against that, each response seems huge. Meanwhile, stories that have required lots of polishing and work, each response seems so small, even when there are twice as many.
Effort is not just how long a story takes to write. It's about the time and energy you put into laying the groundwork before you even start writing. That commute time you spent laying out the major points of the plot, how the relationships between the characters. The hours on Google and Wikipedia trying to figure out if Steve would have had access to a shower or only a bathtub as a child in 1920s Brooklyn. All those prep activities. It's also about how easily the words flow once you get started. Three hundred words in three hours is a very different experience than three thousand. Writing: Where more results might actually be less effort!
Likewise, engagement is not just hits, kudos or comments, though all are part of it. It's about seeing people recommend your story on tumblr or rec groups on pillowfort or dreamwidth. About people making fanart, requesting to do a podfic version, or asking you questions about a specific line or scene. About the sheer amount of squeaky noises you can make someone produce. About the person who tells you "I totally had a dream about this story."
This explains why the stories you slave over, the ones that you post feeling so darn good about them, because you KNOW they're the best they can be, are the ones that seem to get no response, while the one you scratched off on the back of a used napkin during your lunch break seem to your most popular fic ever.
If you were to have me point to my most successful story, I'd point to Though I May Drown. And it did get a good response. I got some very enthusiastic comments, someone actually did a wonderful podfic of it, and people who would have loved more (though were also very understanding as to why it was a one shot). But by the numbers? It got a good response, not a great one. I have plenty of other stories with more hits, more kudos, more comments, more reblogs, more everything. But writing it was effortless. It was cranked it out and proofed it in under two hours, world building and all. It was like the AU sprung into being fully formed. I could tell you a hundred things about it that never made it into the story. It was the kind of writing experience you always want. So measure against that, each response seems huge. Meanwhile, stories that have required lots of polishing and work, each response seems so small, even when there are twice as many.
