Managing expections

[lizardbeth]

So here's a question I had today,inspired obviously by current fic, but something I've struggled with before. For a long fic posted in installments, reader comments are obvs fantastic, especially when they make guesses about what's going to happen. Now when they're right, it can be both a little bit 'oops guess that was more predictable than I hoped' or 'yay people are getting it' depending. Anyway it's fairly easy to know how to respond.

Most wrong guesses just elicit evil chortling. But sometimes, someone comes up with something very exciting that is not at all going to happen. This reader is probably going to be very disappointed that zombies aren't going to attack (usually it's something less out of left field, but still, not something even close). Now obviously if I wrote tv or something, that person would have to take their lumps; they expected something that didn't happen, bummer. But this is fanfic - it's also very easy for me to PM this person and tell them, no, sorry, there are no ninjas, and manage their expectations a bit.

Anyone have any thoughts on this, as reader or writer?

Comments

[lizardbeth-j.livejournal.com]

They're assuming/hoping there's going to be a huge battle climax, basically. Now given I've spent 20K with people talking to each other, this is kind of unreasonable, IMO, but it's also not totally out of left field because there is an offscreen villain who keeps getting namechecked. So. I can kind of see where they think the payoff is going to be that the villain shows up, but that's not what the story's about.

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I might say something then, since it's a case of "This is not the story I'm telling" vs. "The story's not going there." (if that makes any sense!)