Anatomy of a comment

So I was thinking about what made those top commenters we have here great (and BO, that includes you ) and I decided that some of it had to do with the elements of their comments. (Am I getting to technical/introspective for here ??)

A comment could have any one or combination of the following elements
1) The "I" - what did your story do to me. It could arouse me, make me laugh, frustrate me. It is the emotion side of the equation.,Feeding this back to the author lets the author know how the story affected you and provides an emotion quotient feedback,
2) The "You" - your praise (or damnation) of the writers skills, ability, imagination etc. It lets the writer know that you think they are wonderful, creative, imaginative or whatever. A good ego boost mechanism
3) The "Story" - feedback or suggestions on the plot, characters etc. Pure opinion, nothing the author should take personally; just your take on what happened and where the story might led.

Phew...got that off my chest ! Now I can go back to commenting and be more aware of how to tell my colleagues how much I enjoy their submissions!

Also different comments are addressed to different targets. The target could be the author, prospective readers, or even other commentors.

Sometimes my comments are addressed to the writer, but more often I'm aiming at a prospective reader of the story.

I sometimes make a comment on a story that is well written, well thought out, fantastic dialogue and descriptive data, but where a certain character is annoying or angers me. My comment isn't to condemn (I don't think I've ever done that to an author here), but to just point out exactly what Gail says. How the story made me feel. For example: The type and degree of punishment, bullying by either gender, how a submissive character makes me feel. That sort of thing.

When making my comment, I make sure I realize how the author herself/himself feels about spanking in general. F/m - F/M - M/F - M/f etc... We as authors at the LSF are in tune with our needs and wants just as the characters are we write about. We can be submissive, very submissive, dominant, or very dominant. It all depends on OUR OWN orientation and the severity of it in the spanking scene.

When I get a thank you from an author whose story I commented on, I get feedback from them as to what I wrote in my comment. Nice feedback. An explanatory message. It's then that I send a pop-up back as to what I might have found wrong with it, but only in my mind. I don't like to do this in a public comment. Some do, but that's just not my style. I'm not saying it's wrong, but just not my thing. As for those who may do that in a comment to one of my stories, I don't mind at all.

If an author can make a person cry, angry, and sympathetic, especially to one of my spankee/spanker characters, then that to me is the mark of a knowledgeable writer. There are authors in the LSF that truly stun me with the stories they write, and I mean that in a good way.

This thread is already very informative. Thank you for starting it. It will help me to improve the quality of my comments. Also I agree with Bendover; if what we are doing is more of a serious critique, then that is better left to communicating with the author via the pop-up. BTW, I like feeding back on a story through the filter of my own sick mind or how the story speaks to me. Or I may offer a suggestion, if the author asks for. I am not qualified to criticize anybody's work here.

Sounds to me like a perfectly wonderful basis fro commenting. We need more of that! Feel free to comment on my stories any time.

Great writer that he is, NJRick was actually speaking through my voice. He actually meant "Feel free to comment on a GuySpencer story any time".

Guy

He's absolutely right. I would never ask anyone to comment on one of my own stories. Perish the thought. But do comment on GuySpencer stories.

(Is there anyone else I need to shill for?)

When it comes to comments my attitude is: "It's all good." I don't care if you want to comment on what the characters did or didn't do, the theme, the technique, whatever. A comment tells me that you actually read the story and on some level, liked it. Now you might say, "but Rollin, my stats show it's been read 287 times." But like the song says, it ain't necessarily so. What you see there Ms. Author, is 287 clicks of a mouse. You don't know how many of those 287 read the opening lines, and tossed your story aside. But if they commented, well then you know. And that's why comments, any comments, no matter how mundane or repetitive are good. They tell us you read the story.

I agree, rollin. As a new author, who has just gotten the courage to submit her first story, I am so excited every time I see a new comment in my email. It not only tells me that you read the story, but took the time to say something about it. Of course, I cherish the good comments, but I also want to hear what you didn't like or had questions about. Those comments tell me where I need to put more effort.

I always bear in mind that the author has given of his skill freely and without any intention of personal gain. Even if I don't like the story (very rarely on this site) I always try to thank the author for his efforts.

The only comments that irritate me are those that take the story too literally. I want to scream "This is a work of fiction!"