Comment Hooks
Comment hooks are essential features of good fanwriting. To inspire the best locs or mailing comments, faneds must spike their zines liberally with comment hooks.
Only rare letterhacks or apans have the knack of responding relevantly without something to fasten their comments onto. As a 1980s loccer kvetched:
The trouble with a fanzine like [yours] (which is why neither [of us] got around to responding to the first issue) is that it doesn’t exactly sparkle with tempting comment hooks – not, I hasten to add, that this is the fault of your writing, but I think it has more than a little to do with your contents. What, after all, can one say in response to an account of some unpleasantness at a summer barbecue, unless one has a similar anecdote of one’s own to offer? Which I don’t... which perhaps means that I lead a rather boring life, but then I guess that’s just tough on me.
An easy trick is to make a controversial statement or pose a question, but better is writing that resonates with the reader. Ted White described the first type of comment hook in Energumen 7 (April 1971):
I have been intending to write you a loc for the past several issues of your fanzine, because I have enjoyed it thoroughly. However, thorough enjoyment doesn't spark a letter -- letters are sparked by "comment hooks" which look like checkmarks (exactly like checkmarks, in fact!) in the margins. These hooks are usually found grazing in the margins near fuggheaded remarks.
The term apparently dates to the late 1960s or early 1970s. The earliest use to turn up so far is from March 1970 by Don Miller in Diplomania 29. Like TEW, Miller enclosed it in quotation marks, suggesting it was new then.
See also: RAEBNC.
| Fanspeak | 1970s— |
| This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc. |
