Polished analysis

Given that my data, methods, and in fact entire project are a little different from others' and, in fact, I don't have much in the way of traditional quantitative data...well, or for that matter, I'm not even sure how much I have in the way of traditional qualitative data. Whatever exactly that might be. (Look, I was a lit major, I don't know what I'm doing with these things.)

However, the primary data I did gather that's a little more quantifiable than "Hey look, I have a crush on fictional characters and it totally shows, watch me write about it" was the reviews I received from re-posting/cross-posting previously published fanfics. I did organize all of it into a data sheet that I'd really love to embed, except I don't know how, and probably it got lost in the flood of text when I originally posted it.

So here it is again: a data sheet breaking down the comments I received so they're a little easier to see and quantify. It's also a PDF so I guarantee everyone can view it. Although my commenters don't add up to a large enough pool to be a truly representative sample, the comment breakdown is still interesting--it's immediately obvious that virtually all of my reviewers were female, for instance, which came as no surprise to me. While I suspect the gender ratio varies from fandom to fandom and has also varied over time (I've gotten the impression that the sort of people who wrote fanfiction for fanzines in the pre-internet area were primarily male, for instance), it seems that the bulk of active internet fandom today is female, as are the majority of those who write fanfiction. This seems to hold true even in fandoms that might be seen as appealing to the stereotypical male nerd, such as Doctor Who: it's science fiction, after all, which I believe also began as a male-dominated field. In this case, it may have something to do with the preponderance of female readers in general, although that's pure speculation.

Of course, it's also possible that a decent amount of males also read my fanfics and simply didn't comment, which I'd have no way of discovering, but the fact that more females commented probably says something.

The communities where the commenters found these fics may also be significant, although it's a little more difficult to determine since they didn't all start from the same point; there were only two or three places each to post "The Lost Boy" and "Too Close to the Moon," while "No Splendid Phoenix Wings" had only been previously posted in two locations and could then be posted to six additional communities. However, the majority of comments on that fic came from the communities DWFiction and/or doctorwho, which is where most of the new comments on the longer fics also came from. Perhaps more interesting, the non-fandom-specific communities--those open to fanfics from any fandom or even any kind of fiction--garnered me no new comments, even though they probably have a larger readership; since they're less specific and focused, they also gained me a much less targeted readership.

As for the actual content of the comments, the fact that they were all positive was certainly nice for my ego and my confidence as a writer, although given that the majority of the comments were simple praise (i.e., "Loved it!!!" or "Oooh... Nice!") with nothing specific and nothing resembling negative feedback or criticism, that may say more about the reviewers themselves than about me and my writing. Reviewers who provided specific feedback, even if it didn't necessarily tell me what could use revision, were at least the most satisfying--knowing what you did well is just as useful as knowing what you didn't do well, in just about any field.