Jul 2022
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Jul 2022
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smokesalty
Jul '22
1

I think a really interesting thing about webcomics (and webnovels as well) is that you're able to get reader feedback while you're still working on your projects.

So, do you guys make any changes/tweaks based on reader response?

For me, it's always interesting to see what people's responses are to things that happen in my story, and how they feel about certain characters. I already have my entire story scripted, but I add in and change things all the time when I actually get to making pages.

I have actually tweaked things based on the impressions my readers get from characters. For example, I had one of my characters be interpreted as rude instead of sarcastic, so I decided to go along with it, but tweaked their dialouge to prevent them further coming off as whiny. That's definitely not something I concidered haha

But like, if someone comes up with a theory that predicts one of my plot points, I wouldn't change the story at all to change their expectations. I know why I've done things the way I did, and I would rather the story make sense and be satisfying than be unpredictable. Like people have and haven't predicted things correctly, that's the fun of people making theories :hype_01:

I guess for me I'm happy to make changes that better the story or kind of lead the audience in the right direction if I feel it's important.

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    Jul '22

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    Aug '22
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TheLemmaLlama
Jul '22

I think the only feedback I've gotten so far is on the readability of my text, and in response I increased the white area surrounding the text but didn't go back and edit the episodes I've already completed :stuck_out_tongue:

Hypothetically though ... I guess with character traits and plot points, I probably wouldn't change how I write them because the audience feel differently about them than I do, or find my plot points predictable. I want to write in a way that doesn't make the audience feel like they're being told what to think, or feel like I'm trying to outsmart them. And that means being okay with the possibility that my readers might hate a character I love ^^; If I changed the way I wrote them, my readers would probably be all 'clearly Lemma is trying to make us like this character' and hate them even more, just to be contrarian XD

On the other hand, if I get feedback about the pacing of my story, or if my readers can't understand what's going on, or if I've spelt things out too thoroughly that my readers feel lectured at or talked down to, then those things I'll probably change :]

darthmongoose
Jul '22

I'm definitely an "iterative" creator, and I tend to have an element of "ad lib" to my writing, where all dialogue in the script may be subject to change if a different way of wording it suits the panel or expression better, and seeing how the audience reacts to things does tend to influence me a bit, unsurprisingly since I tend to get right in there and interact with my commenters a lot. That said, I'm not as directly influenced by it as I thought I'd be... There were a lot of things where I was like "hmm... the audience might hate this, and if the reaction is negative I'll tone it down" or "I dunno if the audience will care about this character as much as I do" only for the audience to be surprisingly understanding or really hyped about characters I think are fun or cool.

Overall, the feedback has mostly made me feel confident in what I'm doing and taught me to have a little faith in myself. In the case of a character like Sarin Aoki, who tends to get a less big audience response thanks to being more subdued and serious a lot of the time, if I hadn't had such good feedback from other characters I might be tempted to change course with her personality or involve her less in the story, but I have faith that based on the response to other characters that the audience are going to love her once she's in the comic more in coming chapters.

IndigoShirtProd
Jul '22

No, not particularly. Granted most of the audience feedback hasn't been directed at the overall story so far. Even if it were, I would still try to stick to my guns in terms of plot and characters. Like said previously, there are reasons as to why I've written things a certain way and I think think the reasoning behind those reasons are pretty reasonable :rofl:. I think I would consider changing dialogue to flow better and to come off less "tell-y", if you know what I mean, if readers voiced some frustration with it.

EverydayWonderlander
Jul '22

For me, the feedback is mostly to keep me going. I like knowing that there's a point in shouting into the void, so to speak. There have been some legibility things that I want to keep in mind... but outside of that, the story isn't changing.

I think that it's kind of hard, when I'm writing a tragedy, and people are rooting for the protagonists. Of course, that means I did my job, but there's always this bit of me thinking "Would it really be so bad to give the characters a good ending?"

(It wouldn't be bad, but it would be a very different story.)

RobertBMarks
Jul '22

I could definitely see a situation where I make a tweak based on reader response in the next book, but not in the current one.

And that just comes down to workflow in my case. To ensure that the update schedule doesn't slip once a serial goes live, I don't fill out the queue until the book is either finished or mostly finished. And, since I own a publishing company, and the primary book is also going to see a print and e-book release, the text has to be locked down and typeset months in advance of the publication date so that pre-release publicity can take place. So, what the reader sees when a new episode goes up is part of a finished product where there really isn't any flexibility to do anything more than fix a typo.

As for what could happen with the next book, that depends on the feedback and how workable it would be to implement it. For example, if a character that I am counting on the readers to like actually ends up being hated, that would be a good reason to tweak them or change their role in the next story (if they are appearing). But, sometimes, it's just not possible. For example, I received a bit of reader feedback for Re:Apotheosis that shorter chapters would be better for the serial format. I actually think there's a decent amount of merit to the suggestion, but making structural changes now that all of the chapters are written and locked down is, as I said, a practical impossibility, and the chapters for the next book really have to be the length that best suits the content (which, as it turns out, is mostly about double the length for structural reasons).

UrMom
Jul '22

Only three times, although the first and last ones aren't really from a reader.

The first one was early on in my comic I got a critique not to do this anymore:

Mild sexual innuendo

no.PNG785x453 686 KB

They said stacking two panels on the left of a full panel is confusing, so I started to only stack them on the right from time to time. Not really related to story or character changes, but still.

The second was when I started introducing Julian's trauma and anxieties relating to their gender, I had some readers speculating that they were intersex. This was back when they were biologically male, but transfeminine non-binary. After seeing what my readers said I did some research on intersexuality and discovered it fit much better for Julian than their current sex and gender. The way I was planning to tackle their gender issues would only require me to tweak some dialogue, so that became a thing.

The third was actually from getting advice from @Breezy in their medical thread. Which is also not influence from a reader, but I still made changes.

Spoilers, medical talk

For a future chapter I was going to have Julian be hospitalized in a mental health institute for a period of time, while they were also dealing with multiple cancers. Upon getting Breezy's medical advice relating to the types of cancer I'll be using I decided to scrap the mental health hospitalization, and have them get diagnosed and treated right away... or at least treated within a couple weeks. This'll make the overall story more smooth anyway since during treatment Julian can get the mental health care they need, and there will be less bulk for me to deal with.

jyujuku
Jul '22

Yes,,,, I stopped writing for nearly a month because someone told me that it was moving too fast. :sob:
but i overcame my writer's block and i'm fine now lol.

powerplantanimations
Jul '22

Oh of course. I'm a huge people pleaser; although, should people find a character annoying or too mean spirited I try to own it. Like, I make people aware of it?

I will say tho, I feel like there will be moments in my comics where I could go a little too far (there's this one chapter coming soon that'll probably make people uncomfortable and think Naota is irredeemable), but I need for that to happen in order to get my message across.

Feedback is going to be interesting for that because I would need to find creative ways to dial back while also trying to be disturbing.

DokiDokiTsuna
Jul '22

A lot, actually. Sometimes I even plan for it-- as in, I'll be writing a script and think "I'm not 100% sure what should happen in this scene...I guess I'll just wait for the readers to start guessing and see if any of their ideas sound good."

This is only for fanworks (I don't get feedback on my original works...) but it's nice to have a backup plan when it comes to parts of the story that have a lot of possibilities.

NickRowler
Jul '22

I don't know, I feel like I have dealt with people who give me weird advice and insist I make huge changes to suit them even if it makes no sense. I have also dealt with conflicting requests of people who like/prefer the humor of my earlier work and people who hate/cringe at it. And I end up not know what to do with that...

I remember someone saying my comic was "too long"...which is sort of a strange thing to say. I guess for my new series I tried to make the chapters shorter, seeing if that helps. But now I am sort of unhappy about that and wish I didn't do that because the pacing is sort of messed up.

I feel like I would rather want people to point out grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, that stuff would help me out a lot more.

bulgariansumoRegular
Jul '22

Future episodes? Not so much. But I have gotten some really useful feedback on the first section of my story, which was to add another chapter behind what was originally the first one.

To be fair, I haven't really gotten much feedback on what I should be doing in the future, but even still, I'm a little stubborn about making changes to what I already have planned.

EncryptedWriting
Jul '22

Yes and no.

I don't really plan on changing my plot much as once I have everything laid out, it ain't going no where.
However, if someone comments on something about too much of "they" "too much calling them by first name" or "capitalization be wack", then I will obviously listen and try to fix the errors. I have done so with commas as I adore comma splicing.

I am always willing to listen to feedback and try to understand what I could have done better and I have done well.

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closed Aug 22, '22

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