Last Christmas you gave me your Coal

2016 Timeline : https://yuletide-admin.dreamwidth.org/28

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Collection: http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2016

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Heh. I don't really relate to the general hatred of author's notes. In this sort of context, like another anon said below, I feel like it makes the gift feel more personal.

More generally, I'm intrigued by the thought process behind the creation of a story or work of art, whether original or derived from something else. I want to know a bit about what the artist was thinking (beyond what I can glean from the work itself).

Serious question here for the note-hating anons: how do you guys feel about published authors sticking prefaces or appendices on their work? Also cringey, or acceptable?

It's all about the time and content. In academic work I read all the notes and appendices but in just fiction I don't waste my time reading the dedication and acknowledgements because they aren't the story. Unless it's in the narrative style I don't want to read the author breaking in and distracting me. If you think your fic is like pro nonfic or a translated novel or book of poetry and needs an intro chapter, give it a fucking chapter. I probably won't read it, because I'm an end notes or nothing person.

NA

That's why I dislike endnotes, though. Feels like academia and that's not what I'm here for.

NA

I would be overjoyed if every fic I read had endnotes and appendices. I love those things. Also, pseudo-permission works are my favorite type of fic.

SA

*Pseudo-academic

DA

You really want the average fic writer to produce endnotes and appendices too? Do you have a hankering for 5 screens' worth of misspelled supplementary content about on how drunk the author was when they wrote the fic, or the latest meta from TJLC?

AYRT -- I wasn't thinking of academic or nonfic books so much as novels where the author includes a chatty preface or extensive notes at the end (the latter seems to be common in fantasy novels with complicated world-building, a la ASOIAF).

If the note is in the same voice as the narration, that's not cringey. If Author's personality overwhelms the content of the note, that is. Chatty preface unrelated to content in tone or substance is absolutely a reason I would put down a book, walk away, and never look back.

Interesting. It sounds like you are okay with the idea of a prologue (i.e. a little segment that comes before the main body of the story but is technically part of it), but not a preface (which I would define as a bit of commentary in the author's voice preceding the story).

Yeah, a prologue and epilogue are parts of the story. If it isn't part of or relevant to the story, I don't think it belongs there. Especially in fanfic where you can gift it to a person and don't have to have a separate page or portion of the inline text talk about who it is for and why.

One of the anons who hates authors notes (but not the OP) here

I don't read the prefaces usually, because I just don't care, but it doesn't bother me that they exist. And if such a huge majority of authors notes were not cringey as fuck, I would just scroll past them on AO3, too. But I have never seen a published author have a dedication or preface or something like:

"For Megan. I know you wanted gay kissing in the same universe as my first two historical mystery novels, but it turns out I can only write about straight astronauts this week, LOL. sorry! Please write me some fanmail to let me know you don't hate me! Also, I'm sorry this is so short. I tried to work in some bondage, since I know you love it, but that's REALLY not my kink and it was really hard to write. I struggled super hard to write this book as a result, because bondage is just so gross and awful to me, but I hope you like this story anyway! uwu *throws confetti at you*"

I doubt anyone (except maybe Megan) would care that it was a novella about straight astronauts with minimal and uninspired bondage, but calling attention to the fact that you didn't give the recipient what they wanted and/or basically asking them to reassure you that they're not mad is in really poor taste.

DA

I haven't seen anyone who was pro-author's notes being pro this TYPE of author's notes, though. In fact, I'm pretty sure almost everyone has included the caveat that they DON'T mean that type of author's note and consider that cringey.

AYRT

Then we're on the same page, it sounds like! I'm really not opposed to A/Ns on principle, but the cringey A/Ns happen so frequently it almost feels safer to tell people to just try to avoid them in general unless there's a reason (BESIDES making yourself feel better about writing coal). Or put them at the bottom of the work? Or anything other than starting your fic out like that, basically. I would want to know if I were doing something so cringey people were immediately backbuttoning out of my stories.

Um, that's because published novels are not generally written to specific people's requests in gift exchanges? The context is totally different.

AYRT

Well, yes, that is horribly cringey in a very specific way. But are you against author commentary on general principle, or just that particular wanky flavor? Because a lot of the people in this thread seem to be uncomfortable with hearing from the author at all.

No dude, you are in a thread about Cringe. All things mentioned under this banner are about the cringe effect. Nobody is saying No Author Should Communicate. Just that the way many ANs are written is cringeworthy.

Understood, but there are at least a couple people in this thread explicitly saying that authors should not write notes at all....?

DA Third comment on the thread: "Please don't leave an A/N barring some kind of special circumstance. Too much potential for cringe. No one cares if you had fun writing it or not."

idk, sounds pretty much like "you might fuck it up so just don't try"

Also sounds an awful lot like "shut up and give me my fic, no one wants to hear you". No wonder fanfic authors complain about being treated like fic machines.

AYRT

I don't have anything against author commentary IN THEORY, even though I will usually ignore it until after I've consumed and enjoyed the story. There's a reason you're not allowed to give any context for your stories in creative writing workshops and whatnot! Sometimes some context is good (notably historical fiction/AUs and similar), and obviously I'm not going to begrudge a short dedication like "For X—your amazing prompts are awe-inspiring. It was a pleasure to write this for you. Happy Yuletide." And sometimes finding out after I read that the story was inspired by a song or the author's mother's abuse or something will intrigue me, and I'll want to go back and re-read. That stuff is totally fine. In theory.

IN PRACTICE, author commentary seems incredibly easy to get embarrassingly wrong, so I avoid it. And I do tend to avoid works that get it painfully wrong, whether that's fair or not. People are free to write A/Ns if they really want, but I think it's fair to warn them that putting that content at the beginning of the fic could possibly put off a lot of potential readers if the A/N goes awry in ways they weren't aware of. I just can't handle the secondhand embarrassment, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

tl;dr I'm not opposed to it in general, but I wish more people thought about what they write before hitting post.

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Last Christmas you gave me your Coal

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