General Discussion

[quote name="RtoRestart" date="2022-11-29 10:21:01" ] [quote name="@w1ndrunn3r" date="2022-11-26 08:26:39" ] [quote name="@ImpossibleJedi4" date="2022-11-26 06:28:12" ] [quote name="RtoRestart" date="2022-11-26 06:14:22" ] Meee! I feel embarrassed sharing mine though so I tend to keep them to myself T.T Not that I really write them anyway, I tend to just have ideas rotate in my mind like a rotisserie chicken... Unfortunately my current main fandom doesn't have too much of an art/fanfiction community (from what I've seen), so that's a shame. I've been wanting to get back into reading them but I get super embarrassed about looking it up so I just... never do it. :c [/quote] Hey no need to be embarrassed!! Rotating ideas is fun too lol but hey, there's a lot of people out here doing this and I promise there's nothing to be ashamed of :) [/quote] Sometimes I have to remind myself too that its okay to be cringey sometimes. <3 [/quote] [s]Sorry for replying late, I got shy ;_;[/s] I keep telling myself to own being cringey but it's difficult >.< I'd love to be more open about this kinda stuff eventually. [/quote] Let's be honest here: if fanfic was cringy, then the great Neil Gaiman is apparently cringy too, since [url=https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/655051316456996864/do-you-consider-fanfiction-legitimate-writing]calls some of his work - accurately - fan fiction.[/url] Fanfic is valid and it is a form of literature. Yes, even the ones written by beginners, people who haven't fully mastered the language they're writing in, or people writing purely self-indulgent stuff. Even if you only write fanfiction, congrats, that still makes you a writer. An artist. A creator. And that's more than a lot of people can say about themselves. You want to write? That's great! You want to share it? That's great too, even if the work might not be for me. Because someone, somewhere will appreciate it. Even if what you write is a weird little niche, there'll at least one person out there liking that niche as much as you do. Although if a writer might think their work isn't perfect - and true perfection is something that's impossible to archieve - it might become someone's favourite, or at least one they think about frequently. It is art. And whether you create or just enjoy reading fics, art ultimately enriches your life. It is good. Enjoy yourself doing something you love.

[quote name="Arcaena" date="2022-11-26 15:21:55" ] I'd like to say I don't see fanfic as practice for "the real thing". As someone who writes both fanfic and original fiction and knows there are people who are published and still write fanfic--it's an enjoyable thing to do on its own right and doesn't necessarily have to be something you do to build up to working on completely original fiction. Personally, I get excited about fanfic a lot of the time in a way I don't with original fiction. There's this sense I'm having a lot of fun, the expectations are lower (in the sense there's no pressure to perform in a particular way for a particular end), you have more freedom to do whatever you want because there's no market you have to consider, and I get a feeling I'm sharing something with other people in a way I don't when it comes to original fiction. I think for a lot of people there's definitely pulls to one or the other and some people do start off with fanfic and realize they like writing and want to focus on original works more. But it's a hobby that encompasses a lot of different types of stories and writing styles from a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons and it's difficult to really give one representation of it because it's all so varied. I've been reading fanfic for a long time and I also read a lot of published books. I think what readers want out of either one is so vastly different that aside from some prose and formatting dialogue you're not going to get good practice doing one for the other, necessarily. I mean even though I'm still the same person what I want from one or the other isn't the same. And there are things I genuinely believe fanfic does really well that original works don't. As for readerfic? Actually I think it's a pretty cool thing that it's a niche that exist solely within fanfic. I mean think about it, regardless of what anyone thinks it's a type of story that doesn't exist anywhere else. Fandom/fanfic invented it and that's pretty neat. (I mean I guess you could say that dating sims/some VNs are sort of the game equivalent just with branching choices but for writing there's not.) I think it's pretty cool that so many people use their talents and build their skills to share creative works for no other reason than to live in another world for a little bit and share that with others. [/quote] I just want to say that I really love this. I’ve had multiple people try and encourage me to concentrate on original fiction instead of fanfic, even when I try and tell them that I’m just not in the right mindset for original work. I have a super hard time getting and staying attached to my own original characters. I had one friend who just couldn’t seem to understand that while she viewed fanfic as a stepping stone to “real fiction,” I absolutely do not. They are very different mediums. One thing I absolutely adore about fanfic is that you are allowed to experiment to your heart’s content. There are certain things I utterly adore that I rarely if ever see in published works. 2nd person is my all-time favorite POV, yet that barely exists in published works. Heck, I’m not even a fan of Reader fics for the most part (with the exception of one specific AU), and yet I still don’t have to look too far to get my 2nd person fix. Non-linear fics are another thing that are difficult to find in original published works. Also, throuples.

Hey, this is The Thread for me!
I've been writing and publishing fanfiction since I was 19, which happened to be in 2014 (I feel old omg).
My writing timeline is somehow funny: I had very intense first three years of writing, which resulted in me putting out 97(!) fanfics, mostly in the Supernatural fandom.
I published one fic in 2017 and went on a hiatus until on a random day in 2018 I found a half-finished fic that just yelled at me for leaving it like that so I edited what I had, wrote the missing chapters and dropped it. It turned out to be an absolute banger in the fandom (it's no2 on the list of my most popular when it comes to kudos) but I still dipped for another 4 years because I just couldn't deal with the things going on with Supernatural.
Enter 2022, I think it was the work of fate that I decided to binge the rest of that damned show. I wrote an alternate ending fic, which didn't do that great, but it still felt like a nice warm up for what was about to come - two weeks ago I arose from the dead again.
I've fallen headfirst into the CoD fandom on tiktok and playing the game myself, I've experienced emotions I forgot existed. Ghostsoap became my comfort ship so fast, I don't even know what hit me but the inspiration was just overflowing out of my brain straight on paper and I had to write or else I would explode.
So far I published exactly 17329 words about these two dumbasses and I don't think I'm gonna stop anytime soon lol
The fandom is so lovely though and the response from people commenting makes me fall in love with being a writer all over again. I've been straight up showered with love and it makes me feel like I could move mountains.
Many of my works aren't very FR friendly so I won't be posting a direct link to my profile here but my last fanfic is just simply cute, pretty tame and I'm really proud of it so I think it's fair game.
As a bonus I wanna drop a promo for the silliest story I've recently written because it's inspired by the tiktok dabloon economy craze and I think something about that may resonate with people who enjoy FR lol

I've suddenly found myself the author of a surprisingly popular fanfic on Ao3 for the work it's based on. First page of the fandom tag when sorted by kudos and everything. I write as an anonymous author so if you don't mind too terribly I won't share more than that for the sake of self-preservation, but I would like to talk about how jarring it is. This one work has surpassed 9k hits, thousands more than any other piece I've written on any other site, and the comments have all been (save for one) incredibly sweet. I just... Don't quite understand. I'm not treading any more new ground than I usually do. It is a rather unique concept for the fandom itself, but I've seen it done justice elsewhere. Most of my works are like that, usually, where I take a very strange premise and run with it completely straight the entire time. The big difference is, this time people like it. When, from what I can assume by low numbers, usually people just ignore it. I know that the numbers don't mean anything and are certainly no indicator of skill or prowess, believe me I have seen some rough-edged fic at the top of some tags, but nonetheless it's mind-numbingly bizarre. What did I do right this time that I missed every time before?

[quote name="LilLegendary" date="2022-12-05 17:07:46" ] I've suddenly found myself the author of a surprisingly popular fanfic on Ao3 for the work it's based on. First page of the fandom tag when sorted by kudos and everything. I write as an anonymous author so if you don't mind too terribly I won't share more than that for the sake of self-preservation, but I would like to talk about how jarring it is. This one work has surpassed 9k hits, thousands more than any other piece I've written on any other site, and the comments have all been (save for one) incredibly sweet. I just... Don't quite understand. I'm not treading any more new ground than I usually do. It is a rather unique concept for the fandom itself, but I've seen it done justice elsewhere. Most of my works are like that, usually, where I take a very strange premise and run with it completely straight the entire time. The big difference is, this time people like it. When, from what I can assume by low numbers, usually people just ignore it. I know that the numbers don't mean anything and are certainly no indicator of skill or prowess, believe me I have seen some rough-edged fic at the top of some tags, but nonetheless it's mind-numbingly bizarre. What did I do right this time that I missed every time before? [/quote] I think it's a matter of excellent timing perhaps and a summary that gets people curious. You found the golden hour for the ship and the exact type of fic that the fandom needed. I had some of my most creative work perform terribly because people didn't want to read an elaborate au at the time and I had the silliest little fic outdo massive pieces that took someone ages to write, there is just a factor of luck to it, I guess. Maybe someone who has many friends and followers shared it somewhere and it blew up this way? I had an old fic of mine absolutely skyrocket after Supernatural ended because it happened to accurately predict some events, someone shared it in a facebook group and I got like 20 comments with people calling me a prophet within two hours. There is surely some kryptonite for each fandom and if you stumble upon it first, you may actually become a legend for years to come and while it is fun, I think having to live up to the legacy afterwards is putting on a pressure that is usually what fanfic writers want to avoid by writing fanfic over original works. I think you may need to look at it from some outside perspective if you wanna find out why exactly this fic. Take the Unholyverse from MCR fandom as an example. Why a story about Gerard Way being a priest who exorcises demons would become so popular? If you know the fandom and the band imagery a little bit you know exactly why. The author was just the first person who took the whole aesthetic and made something grand and well-written out of it. People noticed it immediately and it left an impression so big that they couldn't shut up about it.

[quote name="Kementeri" date="2022-12-06 11:49:35" ] [quote name="LilLegendary" date="2022-12-05 17:07:46" ] (Snip) [/quote] We're authors, of course we're verbose. [/quote] Very good points made here. I suppose it's also of note that the fandom doesn't exactly generate a lot of written content overall, so I was bound to catch some attention either way. Though, I'm shocked to say that I did a brief search of my fic's title on certain social media platforms and saw that someone made fanart of one of the scenes! Without even saying anything! So you have a good idea that perhaps people are sharing my works amongst themselves in places I am not privy to.

[quote name="LilLegendary" date="2022-12-06 12:45:19" ] [quote name="Kementeri" date="2022-12-06 11:49:35" ] [quote name="LilLegendary" date="2022-12-05 17:07:46" ] (Snip) [/quote] We're authors, of course we're verbose. [/quote] (snip 2.0) [/quote] Lmao love the idea to cut the quote xD I talk too much But yeah, I returned to tumblr after like 4 years to hopefully give my works a bigger chance at grabbing some attention since I joined a fandom that experienced a big rebirth and the post that I think worked the best in my favour was just me showing some of the sweet comments I got and rambling about how the fandom is amazing xD I have a feeling some people have discords or their twitter circles or something where they share new fics they liked and it's not really searchable then unless you are in that specific group so you may have lucked out and been promoted in a place like that. Also holy shit, congratulations! I personally think it's the biggest honour when someone genuinely feels so inspired by your words that they draw a fanart for it! I think I would cry if someone did that for me out of their own need to visualise whatever my silly brain came up with.

can confirm the 'posting on discord' and 'shoutouts on private twitter circles'.
now that i think about it, it's actually kind of rare to stumble into recommendations out in the open without actively looking for them.

but yeah, the right place and time definitely matters!
good summaries too, i'm more likely to click on something with an enticing summary than on something with a very vague one, especially if accompanied by tags i'm not too keen on in the first place.

other than that it also boils down to a. established readers, b. themes and tone, c. engaging style of writing, d. how people filter their tags.

there was an AU fic that i completely skipped because it wasn't presented in a way that appealed to me within a tag genre i just don't like, plus the AU itself just isn't my thing.
later it got some spinoffs by other writers and one of those spinoffs became a fic i'd eagerly anticipate updates for despite it still being the same thing i just don't care for.
all they did was overhaul the tone of how they portray both the theme and the AU and wow suddenly THIS one out of many is the one i want to read.

don't gotta be the first since quantity don't really mean quality. writing has a style that clicks with people as much as drawings do.

[quote name="MrWalnut" date="2022-12-06 14:55:15" ] can confirm the 'posting on discord' and 'shoutouts on private twitter circles'. now that i think about it, it's actually kind of rare to stumble into recommendations out in the open without actively looking for them. but yeah, the right place and time definitely matters! good summaries too, i'm more likely to click on something with an enticing summary than on something with a very vague one, especially if accompanied by tags i'm not too keen on in the first place. other than that it also boils down to a. established readers, b. themes and tone, c. engaging style of writing, d. how people filter their tags. [/quote] Man, do I spend hours witing the right summary or picking the best teaser bit lol I honestly struggle with having established readers because I tend to pop into some fandom hellhole for a bit and then move on to the next, I don't know how people specialise in just one thing but I can't and making a new account for each fandom seems a bit meh... I feel it's hard sometimes to prove your fic is gonna be worth reading when the best parts of it would be spoiled if you tagged too specifically, idk if it is a universal struggle (but obviously I don't mean trigger warnings because you gotta put those out there), I think some of my stuff tanked because of that or not being able to explain too much in the summary without ruining plot twist