Can I leave reviews for my OWN stories?

[Melrick]

Short answer: NO.

Long answer: Some people like to communicate with reviewers of their own stories by leaving their own reviews in response. Some people like to carry on arguments with negative reviewers of their own stories. Some people like to make comments in their own reviews to artificially inflate their review count. Whatever the reason, we don't allow it, and will actively delete them. Continued breaches of our Terms of Service may get you banned. If you wish to communicate with specific reviewers then either email them, or if that's not possible, make a short author's note at the beginning or end of a chapter to address them. Do not create a separate chapter just for review replies.

The reason is two fold: One; we want the review section to be purely about reviews, and nothing else. And Two, it's an unnecessary waste of bandwidth, something that's extremely important with a website that is entirely free to you, but definitely not for us.

Is there anything else you can do to communicate with your reviewers? Well yes, yes there is! It's the very thing you're looking at right now: the forum. Here's what you can do...

Okay, let's say you wrote an Original story. Firstly, you would find the "Fan Fiction" subforum. Find the "All Other Archive Categories" subforum. Click on the "Original Writing" subforum, then select "General". Then you click on the "Start New Topic" button near the top right. For "Topic Title" you could write the exact name of your story and indicate that it's for review replies (e.g., Review Replies for "Story Name"). Then you would start it off by perhaps introducing your story, leaving a summary (just to be sure visitors know it's for the correct story), any other info you want to include, a link to your story on the archive, and encourage people to comment. Make sure you don't include spoilers for your story! Finally, regarding your actual story in the archive, include an "author's note" at the end of the story/chapter, encouraging people to go there to comment, making SURE you include a link directly to it in the forum.

And if you didn't write an Original story? Once you're in the "Fan Fiction" subforum, just look around until you find your fandom. As always, if you're unsure then simply ask a forum mod.