#personally i'm flattered by someone commenting on my fic *and* saying they'd like to read more/hope there will be more

[onyxbird]

I think a lot of this comes down to context cues: The norm for AO3 comments is commenting on fics you read and liked, and most authors will interpret comments within that positive context if it's plausible. If it's clear you're commenting outside that norm (e.g., haven't read the fic), then your comment is more open to misunderstandings/more negative interpretations and may need to be more carefully written and explicitly positive to have the same effect.

If you're trying to compliment on a fic you read and liked, the AO3 norms work in your favor. Context says the default answer to "Why did this person leave this comment?" is "Because they liked your fic!", so if your comment can be easily read as meaning "I liked your fic" then it probably will be. As a result, an enormous range of comment styles, from a single emoji or keysmash up to paragraphs of detailed commentary, tend to be taken as compliments. That's true even if the comment never explicitly says "I liked this" because the norm is that that's what drives people to comment. You generally would have to say something that comes across as specifically negative for the comment to not be understood as a compliment.

(I think this is what people generally mean when they say "All comments are appreciated," even though we're all on the internet, which is well known to have lots of genuinely mean and ill-intended comments. Readers who are worried about their phrasing not being perfect are presumably not leaving explicitly negative/nasty comments, so their comments are generally going to land inside the general range of "cool, they liked my fic!")

Comments outside the norm, e.g., on a fic you explicitly haven't read, lose a lot of that default positive spin. That's going to leave your comment more open to interpretation, as is obvious from the notes here. If the commenter didn't read the fic, then the answer to "Why did this person leave this comment?" is clearly not "Because they liked your fic," so individuals are going to make their own guesses at intent and meaning based on the wording. Those guesses will be influenced by many factors from their own experiences/attitudes. In general, if you want such a comment to be read positively, you're probably going to need to err more on the side explicitly positive and specific comments.

E.g., here, "so excited to read this when its completed" is a nominally positive statement--something about what they posted excited you. However, 1) it implies this does not mean "I already read the part you've posted and liked it" so you lose that default positive interpretation, 2) it's not clear what specifically you did like, if not the fic contents, and 3) it's expressing excitement for a thing that doesn't actually exist, i.e., the completed fic that may exist in the future (note that comments just asking for updates are a fairly common point of frustration--similarly, they put the emphasis/enthusiasm on what the commenter expects to be written in the future without saying they liked what was already written/posted). Some authors will find the sentiment encouraging and motivating; others will find it disappointing or discouraging (especially those who know the fic might never get finished or doubt you'll actually return to read and comment); others will probably find it neutral and just wonder why you're telling them this before you have anything to say about the fic itself.

As alternatives, I would first consider if you really need to specify that you haven't read it yet. If you're excited to read the fic, then something like "Wow, I love this premise!" or "___ is an amazing concept!" is presumably accurate and a specific compliment but will likely be read as "I liked this fic." Many people comment more than once (due to re-reading or just leaving a quick comment and coming back when they're prepared to comment in more depth), so you can just leave another regular comment later when you read the full fic. IMO, this is probably the "safest" way to leave a compliment before reading the fic if you don't know the author. (It probably means a stranger will inaccurately think you already read their fic, but does that matter?)

If it's important to you to comment and convey that you haven't read it yet (e.g., because you interact with the author elsewhere and it might become awkward if they think you read it and you didn't), then maybe comment on what you like about the fic description plus "Looking forward to reading this!" It's a specific compliment and expressing enthusiasm, but doesn't tie that to something they need to do, i.e., finish the fic, before you consider it worth reading.

(You're also likely to get more benefit of the doubt from an author you "know" in some sense, even if just through previous positive comment exchanges, rather than being a complete stranger, but that again comes down to being aware of the context you're working in. Hopefully in that case you'd already have some sense of how your comments might come across to that individual.)

I've got a question about the general feelings? etiquette? of commenting on in-progress fics with "so excited to read this when its completed" or something along those lines. Because I personally like them, and thought they were generally well recieved and encouraging, aka I've seen authors replied positively. But then the one time I tried to leave a similar comment, the author basically went "I don't know why you comment if you hadn't read it." So, whats the general feeling?

Oof. This is one of those things that's kind of a crap shoot anon. Some authors will take it as a compliment, others will absolutely hate it. It all comes down to how that author feels about readers who don't read works in progress.

Some authors don't post their works until after they've finished writing them - or at least not until they have enough chapters finished that they have a buffer built up and then they can post on a schedule. Other authors post each chapter as they write it.

In either case (but maybe more so for the latter group), authors rely on getting feedback as they post a work in order to know that the work is being received well by its intended readers. If there's silence (a lack of kudos or comments), the author might decide to stop posting the work. They'll assume no one wants to read it and therefore they shouldn't bother to post it.

For a writer in that mindset, someone saying they won't read it until the work is complete feels... bad. Like that person doesn't want to support you during the hard part (writing and posting) and is only going to show up when the work is done.

An even bigger factor, and one that could be in play no matter how the author goes about writing their story, is that comments are kind of a big deal to most writers. They're few and far between and each one is precious because it's a signal that someone is reading and they care and they're telling you that they're reading and they care. But your message explicitly says that you're not reading (yet) - which some authors may take to mean that you don't care, but which either way means that they saw that wonderful comment notification only for it to be "check back later".

Obviously not every author is going to feel this way about things, but I hope that by explaining why some might you can understand it a bit better? Some suggestions for other comments that might be more universally appreciated:

this is just the kind of fic I love!

this one's going in the bookmarks!

this is such a great premise!

All of which you might mean, but they leave out the part where you won't be reading the fic itself for weeks and/or months.

I will caution, however, that if you leave a comment like this when they post chapter one and you don't come back again within a couple of chapters, a certain percentage of authors (and it's not a small percentage) will assume that you loved chapter one and hated chapter two and that's why you didn't come back to comment again.

[cbk1000]

If you're a young (or even just inexperienced) writer, you should know that if you get a less-than-stellar comment or review, that's just business as usual. I don't say this to defend the people who leave nasty (or sometimes well-meaning but unnecessarily harsh) comments, but rather just to assure you that almost everyone gets at least one at some point, especially if you've been posting for a long time. This is the internet; anonymous people like to be dicks.

While probably a good 98% of reviews I've received over the years are positive, or at least mostly positive, here is a brief rundown of some less than laudatory ones:

The DM from someone very condescendingly informing me I was bad at descriptive writing

Another DM from someone else who basically wanted me to persuade them to keep reading my fic (They were hemming and hawing about whether they should keep reading and listed all the problems they had with it and seemed to want me to make a case for continuing with it, and I had to be like, "I'm not going to tell you to read or not read this. It's free. On the internet. Read it or don't.")

The comment likening my work to Dr Seuss (Not inherently a bad thing, but in this case it was clearly meant as an accusation of childishness.)

Another comment comparing my work to high school writing (Hint: I am not anywhere near high school, that's pretty obvious in my writing, and while it weirdly preceded a lot of gushing, I can't see how anyone could think it's a compliment to tell what is obviously an adult writer that their writing reminds you of high school.)

A very long copy and paste flame from another fandom entirely that was addressed to me personally but was not at all personalized beyond that (Frankly insulting; they didn't even change the names of characters. The lowest effort trolling imaginable. A disgrace to internet trolls, honestly.)

A handful of comments over the years from various people who for some reason feel like they have to announce that they're no longer reading your work, and why

And a less-than-flattering comment on this website about my prose (Remember, kids: authors might be on multiple social media sites, so think twice before making a comment you wouldn't leave on their fic because it's rude. They might see it.)

The tl;dr is: I know it sucks, and it can be discouraging, but unless you turn off comments completely, you will probably eventually receive a less-than-flattering one. While it's hard to remember sometimes, the fact that you've received a negative comment does not, in and of itself, say anything about the quality of your writing, and I'm confident if you asked any of the writers you admire, they'd be able to tell you they've received a few of their own negative comments in their day.

[thestalwartheart]

Omg I have so many asks because I totally adore your fics and I dont even know where to start but:

🎯 🎉

🦅 ✅

❌ 🌞

And this is me 🙈 because even I suspect I went overboard xD hopefully I've overlapped with some asks already 😅😅😣

Hi! Oh boy, haha! I hope you're ready for some of my chaotic thoughts 💖 Thank you for taking this much interest in my writing and the process of it. I'm flattered!

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

This is a great question! I don't think I tend to write the kind of twisty-turny fics that lead my readers to guess at the plot points. I'll be interested to see if that changes with the alternate timeline fic I'm writing, which is more plot-driven.

Still, there are probably a few examples of it happening. My favourite - and I'm sorry, this is not at all serious - was in a rank above (a smutty oneshot based on Bond's navy uniform) where someone was clearly typing their comment as they were reading the fic. They'd reached the point where Q said something like, "I can't believe you're still wearing the hat," and the commenter wrote "I hope he fucks him with it on omg the t h o u g h t."

And reader, that was exactly the point of the fic! The commenter was delighted when they got to that part. 😂

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

a) If I enjoy it (both producing it and reading the end result), and it taught me something about the craft of writing.

b) If people connect with it emotionally. I've written a few fics where people have reached out to tell me how much it affected them, or meant to them. I'm always most proud of those fics that make people rethink the way they view canon, the characters, or their own experiences.

The fics that mean the most to me are generally not the ones which get the numbers.

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

I am a pants-flyer 🙈 There are stories where that's impossible, of course, like the one I began posting yesterday which deals with alternate timelines. But I don't like to plan obsessively. Absolutely no shade to people who do - I think it's requires incredible discipline - but my brain doesn't enjoy the process of creating those outlines or sticking to them afterwards. The editing part is where all the inspection of details happens for me.

That's not to say I don't have a few notes written down on where things are going. If it's over about 3000 words, I like to have a rough idea of the direction of a fic before I start writing.

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

Plenty of things! MI6 rooftop scenes, the word 'perhaps,' lots of discussions of hands, a drinks cart in Q's house, cats. Almost all the time, cats.

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

I don't like saying 'never,' but enemies to lovers is just personally not my thing. I find it difficult to envision a scenario where I'd write it well and enjoy it.

Annoyances to lovers, absolutely! Enemies? It's simply too much drama for me. 😂

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

Lunchtime onwards, for sure. I am not a morning person. Late afternoon/early evening is probably when I get my best stuff done. I do love a night owl sesh, but I find a lot of what I produce then gets rewritten.

Thank you again for the interest in me and my work! ❤️