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Yes, it's time for a morass of negativity. I most regret that the Spike/Buffy pairing became widely known as Spuffy instead of Bike. You?

I regret that so few authors are willing to attempt to write new or unusual pairings in ANY of the fandoms I follow. It's so rare to find the couples/groups I like best, let alone well-written.

A: All are excellent points that highlight the value of the reader's perspective about stories. I guess I take for granted that revision is for a reader's sole benefit, while some never consider the necessity of considering a reader's feelings at all. So yes, there does come a time when you must consider the audience over your personal feelings when slaving away at a keyboard to create a good story. The published writers in this world have that consideration at some point within their creative endeavor, or they would not be published and making an income from what they love doing. I often see "write for myself instead of readers" commentaries in many threads throughout these forums. I see the logic of where such comments come from, because without having that element in the writing process, few writers could truly get anything completed. Without interest in the topic, writing an interesting story is impossible. Still, even if the story interests the writer, it is not a guarantee it will be liked by readers. Individual, yet overlapping tastes in topics and writing styles of the reading class is the whole reason "Genres" exist. I make a point of thinking about readers whenever I am doing revisions because the reader is the most important part of the process of writing. Readers do create the final link in the process to promote a true case of give and take to crafting great reading tales. Without thinking about the readers responses to whatever is crafted, how can writers truly design tales that will keep their readers begging for the next chapter? Within the publishing industry, readers are the only reason for the writer's existence. Fail to deliver, and the author loses money for the publishing house. So the pro level authors have to understand their reader demographics and write with readers specifically in mind. Knowing about this mandate in the publishing industry, I do my level best to revise for readers instead of for myself. The first raw draft is for my own drive to get the plot bunnies out of my skull. The revisions are solely geared to increase the amusement of those who may read my work. Perhaps it is a long neglected element in many hobby writers' arsenal of techniques. A: When a story grabs me by the throat and the plot bunnies are beating me over the head, I simply pour it all into the mix, and then go back to revise heavily. Bribery has never worked with the fiends in my head so I do envy you the ability to side track or outright bribe your muses. So I find that I must open a second document and plunk every single off topic into the new doc for later contemplation because a few of the random non working items for the story I am working upon, prove themselves very handy for different stories. Of course this means I have tons of orphan snippets on file to develop into diverse stories over time. Each writer has a unique way of handling said overloads of ideals, and must find the best route to take to curb the imagination it seems. Some of the best tactics are the cached within the gossiped about eccentricities of famed authors over the centuries.

The fact that the writers for the games can't seem to figure out that romance doesn't have to include angst, stalkers, or a redemption arc. Or STDs, just to toss that one out there.

The fact that on the one hand, HP fans will read just about anything, but on the other hand tend to be extremely judgemental about other people's pairing and character preferences. (Speaking about the HP fandom as a collective, not about any specific members of the community)