@mercuryfoam
the writer who simply responded that she knew I’d figure it out on my own so there was no need for her input. My respect for her and her craft went up 100000x in that moment.
I think the more confident you are in your writing the more inclined you would be to react the way this writer did. Because individual interpretation notwithstanding, I'd be likely to see a reader getting "lost" as my fault - as a failing to convey the events better on my part. Which is where I might be likely to overexplain.
That's not to say I want everyone to interpret everything that goes on in my story the same way I do like some sort of simlit overlord :D A lot of my story is intended to be open to interpretation, so my "version" is not necessarily more correct than other people's :)
@lone_cat
After reading everyone's comments, I am going to hold off on explaining things in the comments unless someone directly asks for an explanation and leave more up for interpretation by the reader. I feel like I either go from revealing too much or too little and need to be more consistent.
Haha I feel like I'll be paranoid about what I say in response to comments now too! But I don't know if there's a way to reply to comments in a way that doesn't reflect the writer's intent, unless you reply to every comment with "interesting idea, what do you think?" - which I do a fair bit, but replying that to everything would probably get quite stale quickly :)
I think I have a may have tendency to reveal too much when it comes to things I don't consider that "significant," or rather, when I know it's something that the reader will not get an answer to later in the story. By which I don't mean that it's a matter that will be left ambiguous down the line, but that it's something that will not be explored at all. In which case I might think, "oh, this is clearly something that matters to this person, and I have nothing to offer on the subject further in the story," so I might give extra detail. But maybe I should just learn to shut up :D
On the other side, I don’t want to feel like an author is being a dictator and being like, no you are completely wrong, and this is the only way to see things. I haven’t really run into this in simlit, but I don't always comment on everything I read. I guess I'm lucky and haven't had a negative experience with author comments.
I wouldn't say I've had negative experiences either, I have had a writer tell me that my interpretation was not where they were going (which of course may have just stemmed from what I described above) and that what character x was actually thinking was xyz, but it didn't bother me - my brain just rejected the author's intent and continued to go along with "my version " lol (Obviously I didn't lash out at the author or anything like that, but my way of interpreting their story hasn't changed). So I guess I don't have issues with applying Death of the Author :D
But for the most part I do like getting extra context - you don't get the opportunity to ask the writer to ellaborate or give extra background when reading a book, and I do love that aspect of simlit, that everything is a two way conversation. Makes it more alive :)