Why writers shouldn’t listen to fans

[MajorRewrite]

Here on Lit we get a lot of comments urging us to “write a sequel” or “finish the story”, so I think this video is relevant.

Fans just want more of the same. Writers are wise to resist the urge to give it to them.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree. If you have an idea for a sequel that genuinely serves some artistic purpose you have in mind, then go ahead and write the sequel. But that's not what fans want. They want more of the same. I've found that on the few occasions I've given into that request I've been disappointed.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Why writers shouldn’t listen to fans​

I’ve had requests for more in my Coleoidphila Universe. Aside from a recent 750 word story, I’ve resisted as I’d want to write something at least as good (by my low standards) as the existing trilogy.

It was much more of a self-contained work then say my Eden Baker series or my Angels & Demons stories. Both of them are more amenable to additional tales.

Emily

 

[AchtungNight]

Good video, but he has to justify and explain himself so much I almost want to yell “shut up and get to the point!”There is also a lot he doesn’t get- I think writers should at least admire their work and similar things- otherwise they might very well damage it and make things worse when they produce something. And producers should listen to fans ultimately when they have a good product and release that product before it turns stale (thinking of Coyote vs Acme here). If fans are wrong, yes, writers should not listen to them. But if they’re right, yes, writers should acknowledge them and not be assholes about their vision being superior if it isn’t. That is a case by case basis of course. Sometimes the fans are mothers as he describes at the end. One should remember that and respect such people.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This video is kinda misguiding for more than one reason.
First, media in this sense are quite different. In literature, it's only in those very rare cases that someone gets to continue someone else's work. It's always the original author continuing their work so no one can say they didn't understand their own work, no? In movies and TV shows, it's the opposite. Everybody is building on what someone else created before them and yeah, many times the new writers/creators don't understand a damn thing about the universe or its characters. It is pretty obvious in many cases.
Second, even if I agree that the audience mostly wants more of the same content and thus shouldn't really be a part of a creative process, (from the artistic point of view of course, not the commercial one) the same should apply to the political activism, which is also suffocating the creativity of various authors through social media, canceling etc.

So yeah, this was a one-sided view of the problem. Typical, to be honest.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Good video, but he has to justify and explain himself so much I almost want to yell “shut up and get to the point!”There is also a lot he doesn’t get- I think writers should at least admire their work and similar things- otherwise they might very well damage it and make things worse when they produce something. And producers should listen to fans ultimately when they have a good product and release that product before it turns stale (thinking of Coyote vs Acme here). If fans are wrong, yes, writers should not listen to them. But if they’re right, yes, writers should acknowledge them and not be assholes about their vision being superior if it isn’t. That is a case by case basis of course. Sometimes the fans are mothers as he describes at the end. One should remember that and respect such people.

That's because a lot of what he's talking about is either completely contrived or completely off the point.

Take that five-minute segment about "They should let a fan write it" for example. He doesn't seem to understand that the people who are using that argument don't mean "Take some random fan you see on a convention and give them a writer's job", they mean "Get a writer who gives a shit about the franchise you hired them to write in".

But I'm not a fan of Steve in the first place. Dude has me blocked on Twitter ever since I asked him why his lips always seem so unnaturally wet. So, maybe I'm just biased.

 

[MrPixel]

...he has to justify and explain himself so much I almost want to yell “shut up and get to the point!”

What you miss (or don't know about) is the magic "10-minute rule". YT vids don't earn the poster click pennies unless they're longer than 10 minutes. It so explains these long videos where the commentator blathers on and on with filler for information that could be covered in two or three bullet points taking a couple of minutes.

 

[OnlyHappyEndings]

If I write a sequel it will be different from previous. Same characters, a continuation of the same situation, but not the same story.

 

[AchtungNight]

What you miss (or don't know about) is the magic "10-minute rule". YT vids don't earn the poster click pennies unless they're longer than 10 minutes. It so explains these long videos where the commentator blathers on and on with filler for information that could be covered in two or three bullet points taking a couple of minutes.

I didn’t know about that. Thx.

 

[KeithD]

I agree. If you have an idea for a sequel that genuinely serves some artistic purpose you have in mind, then go ahead and write the sequel. But that's not what fans want. They want more of the same. I've found that on the few occasions I've given into that request I've been disappointed.

When someone asks for more, it does tick my muse/brain to consider if there's something to pick up again. There rarely is and I just move on, but once or twice my muse has come up with something interesting to pursue. But rarely.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Only once did I listen to a comment (it wasn't praising me, for sure). I found it a year later by accident (somebody had just commented below him). I experimented with his idea, I liked it and published it. It wasn't a request for a sequel, yet it sure resulted in a lot of them. So he was right after all.

 

[gunhilltrain]

What you miss (or don't know about) is the magic "10-minute rule". YT vids don't earn the poster click pennies unless they're longer than 10 minutes. It so explains these long videos where the commentator blathers on and on with filler for information that could be covered in two or three bullet points taking a couple of minutes.

Not every long video is bad. But, yes, the ones with a "talking head" for an hour or more are repetitive. In fact, their whole channel becomes tiresome if it goes on for years.

 

[MyBareTorso]

I'm always happy to consider sequel suggestions (I think I've had, like, two)...if the idea turns me on, and I can make it work, I'll go for it. I've enjoyed writing the suggested sequels, but I'd never do it solely because someone suggested it... I've got to be into it to make the effort.

 

[Rob_Royale]

A reader will always want more of anything they like, like any consumer. If they were to cease production of mint chocolate chip ice cream, I would take to the fucking streets.

And there's nothing wrong with the creator to at least listen. I would hope they would if I were to lead the masses to their gates, like Spartacus, demanding the reintroduction of my beloved mint chip.

But it's our job as artists to only follow their heed if there is yet a decent story to tell. Something Hollywood has yet to learn in all their years giving us awful weak-quels.

 

[nice90sguy]

If I were writing for money, I'd probably write whatever the readers wanted me to write. "You want a sequel? Sure! More of Jenny and Glenda? Here ya go..."

 

[AwkwardlySet]

What you miss (or don't know about) is the magic "10-minute rule". YT vids don't earn the poster click pennies unless they're longer than 10 minutes. It so explains these long videos where the commentator blathers on and on with filler for information that could be covered in two or three bullet points taking a couple of minutes.

I don't think this is accurate? There used to be a 10-minute rule because you could place a mid-roll ad only in videos that are 10 minutes+ in length. That didn't mean shorter videos couldn't earn money as you could always place an ad at the start of the video. So it was an additional benefit only. Either way, I believe the limit isn't 10 minutes anymore but 8 minutes+ for a mid-roll ad.

 

[mildlyaroused]

I don't think this is accurate? There used to be a 10-minute rule because you could place a mid-roll ad only in videos that are 10 minutes+ in length. That didn't mean shorter videos couldn't earn money as you could always place an ad at the start of the video. So it was an additional benefit only. Either way, I believe the limit isn't 10 minutes anymore but 8 minutes+ for a mid-roll ad.

Exactly. It's now 8 minutes for mid-rolls, no minimum length for general monetisation. Monetisation as a whole only requires 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time in the past 90 days.

I'd still say 8 minutes is too short for mid-rolls. Lots of creators have intros and outros that are 2 minutes each, which means they're only giving 4 minutes of actual 'content' in a video.

 

[MrPixel]

Thanks for the updates, guys. Many moons ago I benefited from Google's click largess, but have since minimized my time on YT to very specific tasks.

 

[Wifetheif]

True to a point BUT creators, especially in film and television MUST respect the work of the originators or you run the risk of ruining a loved property. Look no further than Star Wars -- the current creators REJECT George Lucas's vision and actually believe his vision is misogynist and racist. Neither charge is true. Star Wars is now a dead franchise, its movies and TV shows tend to bomb. The toys and tie-in novels don't sell. Fans have fled Star Wars BECAUSE the new writers pissed all over the fan base and the original creator!
Also, he neglects or more likely purposely ignored the fact that many franchises today recruit fan fiction writers to be regular writers for series. Wired magazine had a profile of several of them a while back. One woman started out as a Buffy fan fic writer. Now she's on a big budget show writing scripts. These writers, while familiar with the properties are not markedly better writers than an outsider. The media behemoths want it both ways. They want to hire fans on THEIR terms while also rejecting every existing fandom. The result? A ton of crappy movies and TV shows. If this guy's argument was cogent then the writing today would be superlative but everyone knows that current Hollywood writing sucks donkey balls. He complained abot AI having the appearance of thought and originality -- all too often these days that can apply to scripts churned out by human beings.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It's all addiction.

People read stories (or watch movies etc) because they want to go for a ride. They get onto the roller coaster of the plot and it twists and turns and drops them off at the end and it's fun. The problem is, that they get so addicted to certain rides, that they just want more of the same, thinking that they'll just get the same thrill again. It's not true. Your first cigarette is always the best one. That first drink was what got you hooked. That's why you always have to smoke and drink more and more and more to get the same high, because it's not as good as that first one. Many of these movies and TV franchises don't warrant any sequel, but when they do make one and people are disappointed, it's just because the audience wants more of the same and didn't get it, or it was the same and they were bored because there were no new twists nor turns.

These franchises are very good and cranking out new crap based on old ideas just to feed the audience's addictions (and once i a while one of them is good). Just look how horribly Star Trek has been maimed and molested with countless spin-off series that are little more than soap operas. Soap operas are not good TV. Soap opera fans are simply addicts.

 

[Duleigh]

That video proved in the first 60 seconds what bad writing has done to a good source material. Everything he mentioned was a slaughterhouse of wasted IPs. I've watched a couple of episodes of each new trek series and pronounced them all dreck. They're garbage, not because a fan asked for more but because people not involved in the writing process told the writers what to write. If a fan asks for something more, a good writer will give them something MORE, not less like Disney did to Star Wars.

Here's a What If question for you -

What if you are a fan of your own writing?

What if you weren't just churning out crap that met corporate demands and DEI imagineering and were trying to write the best story you could? If the story were complete, you would tell your fan "Nope, it's done." If there was potential in a second or third iteration with the story, you would say, "Hold my beer!"

It's all about being honest with your readers, your material, and yourself.

 

[SkyBubble]

Here on Lit we get a lot of comments urging us to “write a sequel” or “finish the story”, so I think this video is relevant.

Fans just want more of the same. Writers are wise to resist the urge to give it to them.

Sometimes, I <i>want</i> to write a sequel, or at least more about the same character(s), but sometimes I don't. If I want to, I'll do it.

 

[SkyBubble]

If I write a sequel it will be different from previous. Same characters, a continuation of the same situation, but not the same story.

In a sense, it can be part of the same story. I have a couple of cases where I wrote about a woman finally giving in and doing it, then a story set the next day. It could be considered chapter 2 of the same story, but it also stands on its own.

 

[SkyBubble]

What you miss (or don't know about) is the magic "10-minute rule". YT vids don't earn the poster click pennies unless they're longer than 10 minutes. It so explains these long videos where the commentator blathers on and on with filler for information that could be covered in two or three bullet points taking a couple of minutes.

Is that really a thing?

 

[lustychimera]

True to a point BUT creators, especially in film and television MUST respect the work of the originators or you run the risk of ruining a loved property. Look no further than Star Wars -- the current creators REJECT George Lucas's vision and actually believe his vision is misogynist and racist. Neither charge is true. Star Wars is now a dead franchise, its movies and TV shows tend to bomb. The toys and tie-in novels don't sell. Fans have fled Star Wars BECAUSE the new writers pissed all over the fan base and the original creator!
Also, he neglects or more likely purposely ignored the fact that many franchises today recruit fan fiction writers to be regular writers for series. Wired magazine had a profile of several of them a while back. One woman started out as a Buffy fan fic writer. Now she's on a big budget show writing scripts. These writers, while familiar with the properties are not markedly better writers than an outsider. The media behemoths want it both ways. They want to hire fans on THEIR terms while also rejecting every existing fandom. The result? A ton of crappy movies and TV shows. If this guy's argument was cogent then the writing today would be superlative but everyone knows that current Hollywood writing sucks donkey balls. He complained abot AI having the appearance of thought and originality -- all too often these days that can apply to scripts churned out by human beings.

People can say what they will admit the prequels, but I've always respected the hell out of how much novel worldbuilding George put into those.

The newest ones were a nostalgia vehicle that they crashed and burned. They didn't create anything. They rehashed the past lore and dumped all over it--like the hyperspace bomb.

That being said, there's also a world of difference between a franchise that's so big, it's taken on a life of its own, and an author posting stories online for fun. The same rules don't apply. It's apples and oranges, so blanket advice for amateur authors referencing mega fandoms doesn’t really work.