coaltide | Coalway to Hell

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2020

Coalway to Hell

Yuletide Weather Forecast:

Temperatures are estimated to fluctuate between active panic and total apathy into the next weekend. Main assignments will have a minimum temperature of regret and a complete climate change once editing is complete. Expect treat writing to continue at all free hours unless the dangerous front of procrastination cropping up in the Northeast successful moves into the area, effectively killing the treat storm conditions for the season.

Yuletide Discord for Hippos. Google Group for PHs. F_F wiki for history.

yulefairy for treats you can't find a recip for.

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As per the the mod post. Does it actually affect how you read your gift if the author says it isn't beta read or they struggled with your prompts or they're going to finish their story later?

Not beta read: indifferent if basic SPAG is respected, annoyed if not
Struggled: pleased that they tried, even if I don't end up liking jt much
Finish later: fuck RIGHT off, why didn't they default!!

Not beta read: makes me more likely to notice errors
Struggled with prompt: really depends on wording, but most of the time, even if it implies they didn't like my prompts or resented having to consume canon or whatever, I don't care

I've never received a "there will be more!" and I'm not sure how I'd feel. If the first part was mediocre, I wouldn't be enthusiastic about more, and most of the time when I've seen it in the wild, it's a excuse rather than a promise. "Please don't be mad that this sucks, here's an IOU."

In general (not specific to YT/exchanges) I'm really put off by fic where the author says in the author's note "sorry this isn't my best" or "I don't even know what this is, I wrote it late at night and I was tired" or something. We've all felt those things and sometimes it's hard to resist pre-emptively cutting off someone's criticism by explaining YOU KNOW it's not your best work, but ugggggh. It makes me back-button a lot unless I REALLY want to read the fic.

Re: "there will be more": don't do it on a main gift. Just dont.

I've both done it and recieved it on a treat. It's fine - especially for a tiny fandom with literally no other fic, an WIP treat is better than no fic - but it's still kind of gauche, I assume you will never update, and it's probably better kept for nyr. If you do, post it to Madness or you will get rude commenters threatening to report you for defaulting no matter how clearly you mark it as a treat.

I usually don't notice/read author's notes until after I finish the fic. (And as a writer, I put my ANs at the end.)

Not beta-read doesn't bother me and I actually love reading ANs about what parts the author struggled with, because I love shop talk.

I don't mind notes or tags saying a fic isn't beta read, or oven that they struggled with my prompt, as long as they end up saying that despite the struggle, they're proud of the fic or something. Or that the struggle was due to real life stuff, not due to me.

(Unfinished stories are a different beast, because those are against the rules.)

Yes, author's notes do bother me.

I'm of 'The Author is Dead' school, and although fandom is a very different culture than pro-fic, I still don't want to know if this chapter was really hard to write, or if your cat died, or if this character reminds you of your cousin. I'm not interested in hearing your apology for why this chapter of the story (written 7 years ago) was posted two days late because you spent Christmas with your sister.

I most especially don't want to hear if you think this story sucks, and I don't think I've ever read anything that had an author's note to that effect.

I appreciate end notes that share meta, research, author's thought on world-building, announcements that this WIP is abandoned, things like that. But I am not here to listen to your insecurities.

/rant

If you were really of the death of the author school, then author's notes shouldn't have any effect on you at all because the author is dead to you and has no bearing on the story. The story is separate from the author completely.

+ 1 it should have the same effect as if you were reading comments aka just some random's opinion with no influence on the story.

+1 lol not to be mean but this mistake combined with the "fanfic is different from ~pro fic~~~~" makes the cyrt sound like they're trying to sound smart without actually knowing anything smart lmfao.

Only A/Ns I really mind are ones that are intensely self-deprecating, to the point where they kind of beg sympathy. Or actually, there was one A/N I got on a gift actually that complained about the fact that my letter was left incomplete in a really passive-aggressive way. It bothered me a lot because I totally didn't realize I'd left it incomplete and wished they'd written to the mods to let me know if they felt strongly about it (I've done this before for a recip and it was no big deal). Having them complain about it publicly in the A/N I felt kind of hung out to dry.

I'm only bugged by the super self-deprecating ones like another coalie mentioned above, and the kink disclaimers that feel the need to go on about how the kink I like (that the fic contains) is awful and bad and problematic.

Oh man coalie, I've never seen a note like that but that sucks.

The only one of those that doesn't bother me is when they said they struggled with writing the fic, except for when it implies that they struggled because they hated my prompts or that it's somehow my fault.

The author announcing that the fic isn't betaed makes me think that they're a dick who somehow thinks not caring about SPAG is something to boast about. You have no beta? No problem. You just proof-read it yourself, run five spellchecks and let Grammarly have a look. It's just nothing your recip or your readers need to know.

"I'm going to finish this later" will make me insta reject and tell the mods. Either gift a finished fic or default.

The only author's notes I'm interested in are the ones that directly engage with the story-- like the ones about worldbuilding, what parts of prompts they got their ideas from, etc

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Coalway to Hell

Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?

Re: Do author's notes ever bother you?