Several of my stories died because of no feedback. I'm still trying to continue Bound in Blood, however. The thing is, that, in the first place, you write that story, that next exciting chapter for yourself. You may be the writer, but you are also the first to review your story.

There is some writer with a weird name that I didn't remember, and he said:

"I never thought that my book would be published, I wrote it because I enjoyed writing it."

What I'm trying to say with this is that if you enjoy writing, then write. Feedback is good, but it isn't that important.

Feedback is vital.

It's the life blood of our stories. I have seen so many writers fall to the side and vanish due to lack of feedback. DeltaFox, you said it yourself, several stories died due to lack of feedback. 

However we have to ask a questin here. 

What feedback are we looking for?

This depends on a multitude of reasons.

I cannot fathom or harf guess some of the members reasons so I invite you all to say here as to what your reasons are for writing and what feedback you would like. 

Help me to help you. Tell me what you want and what you are after.

As for me? You all know I write Union of the Wolf. There are times when I get just a few likes and no comments but we need to look to why I write it. I write my story to read to my wife Aela. And I read to her near every night. She is all I need to keep writing. While she enjoys UOTW then I will keep writing it. I've still got over a hundred chapters to post and over a thousand to write...

What are your reasons for writing? What feedback would you like?

Tell me....

Caladran, I hear you with this....

There's a few ways we can arange something to help with positive feedback. 

One way is that we could have a discussion here in TSC where we can add links to our stories posted in the workshop, drawing attention to them from the TSC group.

Another way is maybe have a discussion here where we can link a chapter or story and invite members to conscructivly crit it. Tearing it apart sentence by sentence and providing better wording, new techniques to ecxplain settings ect. 

Each week we could have a new chapter or story. It would be a sort of workshop based around a single chapter or story each week rather than a collection of posts from different people. 

Would either of these methods help?

As to somewhere where we can all get together and discuss stories, plots and our writing abilities, we have this discussion. Everyone is welcome to ask for help with their stories, discuss plots and characters. Anything to do with writing can be brought here and talked about. All we have to do is use it. 

Okay, let's see what's buzzing in this forum. *browses*

Stories without feedback. Yeah I encountered this a lot in fanfic sites, but there are only a few that were shut down because of it. Just because it doesn't have any feedback, doesn't mean it's bad.

I will admit that I fall into the 'read but don't comment' category, but mainly because I don't know what to say about the story. I don't hate it because there are no errors or whatnot, but at the same time there's nothing interesting that I can highlight.

On the other hand, I could just type 'Great chapter!' or 'Nice!' on every story I read, but I don't do that because I feel like it's not a genuine comment. It makes me feel like I'm a robot typing out praises for every story without highlighting anything wrong or anything interesting about it.

If you have nothing to say, wouldn't it be best to just stay quiet?

As for your story, Cal, I've read it till the latest chapter. It's a good story, but it didn't have anything 'interesting' for me to make a comment on. Then there's the yaoi (male-male relationship) subtext which I'm not really a fan of, but I did my best to try and ignore it (no matter how much you try to enforce it :P) and focus on the plot. Maybe I should've at least leave a like. I tend to forget about doing it every nowadays.

As for my reason to write. It's fairly simple: I have an idea, I write, and I enjoy doing it.

I don't really care about feedback, but I appreciate them, both negatives and positives (the former if they contain any useful advices). Like Delta said, "Feedback is good, but it isn't that important."

What's important is whether you like your own story and enjoy writing it. Feedback can be a moral booster, but that doesn't mean you're down and out if you don't have any.

I don't care that much for feedback on my stories. I did in the beggining when I joined but that was becuase I haven't written for years before and I needed advice. I got much better now and currently, all I need is "Great chapter!" or just a like. I write becuase I need to write, because I enjoy writing. In some places I don't go forward more then a few chapters, but I'm happy about those few that I did post.

As for a way to attract more readers and get more feedback? Get a feature on the main page that links to the ToC of a story. That should help. I read all features when they are shifted.

Thank you for the support, guys! I really didn't expect to get much replies, but I appreciate it! (I don't usually reach out for support.)

I'm still new to write fanfic stories and I didn't expected to care this much for comments when I started. The story I'm currently writing is my second one on the line.

Why I'm writing, firstly for myself and bringing my characters to life because I enjoy doing it. I like to share these stories, too.

As for feedback I only want to hear your thoughts on it wether it is you liking or hating it. Critisim is welcome, too. I accept questions too, though not sure if I can give a answer properly.

I also understand male x male romance isn't everyone's cup of tea. :) I still appreciate that people takes their time to read it.

In any case, I'll keep writing more chapters. It may be slow going, but that's my way before 'bad things' happens. :)

[/blockquote]

I'm not sure if I can help really. I've been dry for most of the last seven months; mostly due to time, stress and other factors as Karve and I have certainly proven I've still got some writing juice stored somewhere, but I certainly get what you're talking about.

For the longest time, my Streets of Boston was the only (purely) Fallout long story on the vault and while I kept hearing of people praising it left and right barely any of that appeared on the blogs themselves. It's disheartening, while I don't write for others I'm someone who works best with feedback and as such I love going through comments or even just looking at the like counter going up. My best ideas come from interaction and while I can have a pretty good idea of how things are going to turn out sometimes a well-placed comment can give just the right spark to change things up.

I think Ben may be on to something. Sometimes you just have to keep the end goal in mind. If you've got a chapter coming up you really like and you'll know will engage/shock your readers but you know you'll first have to finish up some other stuff just to make it work, it's a good thing to keep in mind that if the parts that are seemingly unimportant and that people appear to ignore are important to set-up the good stuff.

Another thing which might help is to set up the occasional casual discussion with some of your fellow writers. I know we've got some sort of "official" Vault writer's Skype but I haven't heard much good coming out of it (haven't given it a chance yet for myself so I don't really get to judge), I personally just gathered (or got gathered; the details are foggy) a group of other writers and discuss some of the stuff I wrote about with them. You get the input you desire and better yet; you can sorta coerce them (in a friendly manner of course :P) into commenting on your stuff when need be. Personally, I hang around with Karve and Liss (as you may have guessed from the whole Straag Rod expanded universe thing) but I'm sure you probably have some writers (or readers for that matter) you like to discuss things with.

[/blockquote]

Technically we do have a Skype chat for writing and all that, which I can put you in easily as there'd be no objections, however it tends to be quiet in there at times. Maybe that's because there's only 11 people in it XD. But if any writer is interested, don't hesitate to ask if you can join; I know several people would love to have it filled with wrtings and ideas and all that (shitty advertising, I know but I don't care XP)

Feed back isn't just about a moral issue and to give someone a reason to write. It's essential in what I believe to be four key areas in a writer's journey.

1: Communication

Receiving feedback is a great way to communicate and open up our stories with each other. It allows the reader to ask questions about plot, characters, character development and story progression.

2: Feedback helps with understanding

When we read a story and provide feedback, whether it’s by questions or simply ‘I like that fight scene’, then the writer gets to experience something fundamental.

They know what they have written has been understood. How often do we write something and ask ourselves, ‘does that make sense? Can a reader follow that?’ I ask Aela this a lot. I know others ask me for my opinion.

3: Feedback helps with moral.

Positive feedback adds value to the writer. They feel more involved and appreciated that someone is taking a few minutes to reach out to them rather than just feel they are posting a piece of writing and having someone read it and dismiss it just as quickly. Without this a writer can quickly loose moral.

When this happens it’s a massive shame…

4: Feedback helps the writer to improve and develop

There was a big discussion I had here once about feedback. Some people take it as a personal criticism or attack. Yet when feedback is done right, and taken in faith, then it becomes constructive and helps to develop a writer’s skills.

When I first started writing on the blog I had little writing skill or knowledge. I made grammar mistakes one after the other and fell afoul of many a writing trap. Someone took a look at the first section of my initial chapter and pointed out so many flaws that it would have crushed many a beginner.  I asked for heavy criticism and that was what I received. I still have those notes. I don’t refer to them anymore as I learned from them.

Trouble is, now I make new mistakes……….

By giving feedback we open the writer’s mind to new words; new ways to better understand and communicate scenarios and events in their stories. Stories we read. By helping a writer develop their skills we benefit by having a writer write better stories and chapters ones we will enjoy more and find more fulfilling.

If I never had feedback then I wouldn’t be the writer I am.

For those of you interested in the discussion concerning Criticism, I've added a link to it. 

Criticism; The Story Slayer

Well, the latest in UOTW is Aela calling a Nord a coward.... (Chapter 248)

I know the screenshot I want to get for this. I need to find a Nord guy in Solitude, maybe three of them and stand him/them inside the Winking Skeever by the door and have Aela face them in a confrontational manner. 

The other thing I'll need to add is a dog.... (Dog, not Wolf)

Any suggestions as to what dog is used? It has to be freely avaliable as I won't hace a lot of time to do quests in order to unlock it but I can do a few.

I'm still needing suggestions on a suitable dog...

Also, with some luck tonight I'll be posting a chapter where I deal with the wedding assassination. I've given it a bit of a twist though so with some luck...

Has anyone else added an unusual twist to a quest line in their stories? I'd love to hear about them.