LJ vs. Teaspoon, round two

[dbskyler]

From what I can gather, it's a generally accepted axiom that people are more likely to leave a comment for a story on LJ than they are to leave reviews on Teaspoon. I've certainly seen that, anyway, and I even made a post about it once.

Well, my latest fanfic posting -- which consisted of chapter four in a WIP -- broke that rule, in a big way. I posted it here on LJ yesterday morning, and it went thump. Silence. Crickets chirping. Of course, me being me, I immediately got worried. Does it completely suck? Have I embarrassed myself forever? I did consider that the huge gap between now and when the previous chapter was posted (*cough* four and a half months ago *cough*) meant that, quite understandably, people were no longer interested, but that didn't stop me from jumping to the "it sucked" explanation. I then wondered if I should go forward with posting the chapter on Teaspoon, but I re-read it and, well, I still liked it. So I posted it, and it got validated late last night, and as of right now the chapter has three reviews. Which for Teaspoon is very respectable, especially considering it hasn't been up for 24 hours yet.

So now I'm left wondering why there's such a huge discrepancy between the LJ reaction and the Teaspoon reaction. Because I can't help wondering about things like that. Anyone with ideas or insight, feel free to help me guess.

(And by the way, this is NOT NOT NOT a backhanded request for people to leave reviews for the fic here on LJ. I would hate to feel that anyone reading this starts to feel obligated, coerced or harassed into giving me reviews. There is no requirement to read any of my fic in order to read my other journal posts, or to be on my flist, and there's, like, a negative infinity requirement to actually like my fic. I'm just, you know, curious, and posting about my curiosity. Hopefully that all goes without saying, but sometimes it's good to explicitly say it anyway.)

ETA: When I posted this I had 0 comments on the fic, but that's now changed, so whew! Still a better reaction from Teaspoon, though. I think it's just a slow week on LJ.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Interesting. I started off on alt.drwho.creative (I'm an old-fashioned gal) and responses really vary, although a good This Time Round story will usually get everyone commenting, moved on to archiving things at Teaspoon and it was so addictive I largely decamped over then & then noticed all the LJ stuff. I still don't post on LJ much by and large, usually just link to the Teaspoon archive. I'd post for a ficathon, dw100 which is a lot of fun, and non-DW things, because I can't really expect Spooks fans to have Teaspoon accounts. So it's hard to say. I think, until recent slowness, I've always had more reaction on Teaspoon. But it does depend on timing, too. If your story gets okayed at the front of a whole queue of others, it can go completely under the radar.

Things do seem to be quiet of late. It seems bizarre to me that lack of DW on TV could make you want to stop writing about it, but it does work like that often. :lol:

I must catch up with your Turn Left story, because the beginning was great. I am so behind on just about everything!

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating that both you and primsong have gotten better reactions on Teaspoon. I wonder if it's a function of the particular audience you draw, or a function of where on LJ you're posting? Of course, if you mostly link to Teaspoon, you don't know how many of your readers are getting drawn from LJ vs. coming into Teaspoon directly.

But it does depend on timing, too. If your story gets okayed at the front of a whole queue of others, it can go completely under the radar.

Yes, I've had that happen to me. I've also had the opposite, where a story ended up right at the top of the "recent stories" list for a good long while due to the chance combination of where it was in the validation queue and when the validations were happening. I know it evens out on average, but it's still frustrating when the first appearance of your story gets buried.

It seems bizarre to me that lack of DW on TV could make you want to stop writing about it, but it does work like that often. :lol:

I think that's because the TV is the inspiration for the fanfic. No new episodes = fewer new plot bunnies. The real question is, why would lack of new episodes make you want to stop reading fanfic? You'd think it would work the other way . . . although Teaspoon reviews don't seem to have dropped off any. Maybe since a lot of LJ use is driven by discussion in addition to fanfic, the lack of something new to discuss has made people start to drift away?

I must catch up with your Turn Left story, because the beginning was great. I am so behind on just about everything!

No need to rush, because at the pace I'm writing it, there is plenty of time. ; ) (Although I do hope to do better with the next chapter. A four and a half month posting gap is pretty sad.)

Congratulations on your Calufrax rec, by the way! Speaking of stories that need to be caught up on . . . I'm going to go read it right now!

[thisbluespirit]

Heh. I just find that I tend to get all my plot bunnies from re-watching classic Who. Lack of New Who? Like that's going to stop me when just one viewing of Image of the Fendahl spawns millions of them plot bunnies.

And I think Teaspoon reviews have drifted off, too. There's definitely less response to calufrax at the moment. But I suppose people have things favourited and that let's them know when things have been posted. (I obviously don't have my settings arranged that way, because I don't, but others do.)

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Well, calufrax is LJ, don't forget -- the only part that's Teaspoon is when they become "Featured Stories" on the home page, and that list hasn't been updated in ages (in fact, I've been wondering what's going on with that). But if you think the Teaspoon reviews have dropped too, I'll believe you -- I haven't been posting enough lately to really be able to tell.

As for Classic Who plot bunnies, all I can say is yay! Keep them coming! : )