Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

Continued Adventures: The Fanfic Thread


  • Reply
  • Start Topic

Recommended Posts

I posted my story the other day, I think got 4 or 5 reads, no reviews , and one slightly pornographic pm suggesting how I should continue the story. I was fine with that volume as I don't have a tumblr and didn't post about it to attract readers anywhere besides here. I think there is such a volume of fiction there that if someone doesn't happen to see your work right when you post, it can get lost in the vortex pretty quickly.

Link to comment

I hesitate to say anything, 'cuz I doubt it'll go anywhere, but I was reading a fanfic wherein Killian gets turned into a mouse. Now I'm totally hung up on the idea. Hell, I can't even decide if he'd have his little hand back or not. Still, how adorable is Killy-mouse? It wouldn't be for too long, but he'd get to have a bit of adventure.

Link to comment

I posted my story the other day, I think got 4 or 5 reads, no reviews , and one slightly pornographic pm suggesting how I should continue the story. I was fine with that volume as I don't have a tumblr and didn't post about it to attract readers anywhere besides here. I think there is such a volume of fiction there that if someone doesn't happen to see your work right when you post, it can get lost in the vortex pretty quickly.

 

Well, you at least made me feel better.  OUAT gives me a complex because I'm used to a fandom where basically everything gets 500-700 reads on the first day.  And I'm talking with no promotion at all, under a different pen name than other places I frequent with no link from other forums.

Link to comment

I have some absolutely wonderful loyal readers who read and review pretty much everything I write but it took me quite a few stories to attract the readership. The Once section at ff.net moves very fast, so it's easy for new stories and new authors to just get lost in the shuffle because things will get knocked off the front page in a couple of hours.

 

(And to be perfectly honest, I still have no idea how I attracted the readership I have. I remember watching in shock as the favorites on "Can You Help Me" climbed past anything I had posted on ff.net in any fandom ... and I've been posting in various fandoms since 2001. It's now my fifth most-favorited story and the four ahead of it are all Once stories. I mean, I'm thrilled and super-grateful but it also completely boggles my mind.)

Link to comment

Yea, things get pushed down fast in this fandom. I will say that I saw a big boost in my readership when I got my tumblr. I think many people search for stories or links to stories through the different fanfic tags there. I also find that one-shots don't get much love -- if you do a multichàpter, your views can snowball with each new chapter.

And to be honest, I'm a bad reviewer. I don't usually know what to say past "That's awesome!" That's one reason why I like the kudos system on Archive of Our Own. I'll also favorite or follow stories as a way to show my appreciation.

I was in another fandom where we had a great archive and message board, which made it easy to promote and recommend fanfics. I keep thinking I want to start something similar for the Captain Swan fandom over at ff.net if anyone would be interested. It's a bit hard since I already love this place and I'm not sure how many people would join even if I promoted it on tumblr. But I feel like the speed of ff and tumblr is causing things to get lost like stories or appreciation weeks and such. I rely heavily on recs from here because it's so hard to wade through all the fanfic.

Link to comment

I've actually mostly stopped reading Once fanfics. It was just making me even more disenchanted with the show, because so many of the fanfics were miles emotionally better and dealt with things the show never will.

Link to comment

Holy crap! How bizarre that Manic Monday got plagiarized as well. Last year, msgenevieve and I had our stories plagiarized by someone. It was so strange because I didn't have that many hits so I couldn't figure out why I was included in the mess. But why plagiarized two VERY well known stories? Idiot. I guess the good news is that I know from my experience that FF responds to plagarism reports quickly. Geez.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

Speaking of plagiarism, one of my reviewers informed me that my Captain Swan fanfiction, Neighborly Affection, looks like it was plagiarized as a Harry Potter fanfic. I PMed back to ask for more information, such as username, etc, since my preliminary searches aren't showing anything, but I suppose I was also working under the assumption that it was a HP/CS crossover, which might not be the case. 

 

If any of you have seen anything like my story, Neighborly Affection, under another username, please let me know. I have enough other stuff going on in my life to stress me out, and I really don't want to deal with this. But deal with it I will, if I have to. Plagiarists disgust me. A writer works his/her tail off writing a story, and someone else comes along and takes the credit for all of that work. That's just incredibly low. I guess some people are so desperate for attention that they will stoop to anything, I don't know.

  • Love 3
Link to comment

Whoa. I guess you've really made it as a fanfic writer when someone steals your stuff but at least changes the names so it's harder to find. ;)

I would suggest maybe picking out a sentence or two that's doesn't have any character mentions and Google them -- perhaps you can IG up the culprit that way. And make sure you not only report them but call them out in comments so that story's readers know what happened.

Edited by sharky
Link to comment

I guess I'm double posting, but just wanted to let you all know that Jail and Bail is complete! I posted it on both FF and AO3.

 

Also, seastarved on tumblr is doing this cool hiatus prompt that I've been following and writing for. There's been some interesting pieces that people have written and you can find all of them here. I've really liked it so far!

Link to comment

Just a heads up that it looks like the puritans are coming out of the woodwork at ff.net to report smut in the Once community. So if you've written it or read it, I would suggest you head over to AO3. I know technically smut ism against ff rules, but it seems pretty petty and bullying behavior by the people reporting it.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

Are they just going after fics that are too graphic in nature, or what? Or any fic with sex in it at all? If it's the latter, what really is the point of having an M rating on the site? If it's the former...tastes on "graphic" can be somewhat subjective, and sadly I don't think FF net admins take the time to ascertain whether such an accusation is warranted or not. And honestly, I can't recall reading any fics in the fandom that are worse than any of the edgier romance authors published these days. Hardly anything that would qualify for MA masquerading as an M. But maybe my idea of what constitutes an MA is different than someone else's. And that's the problem, really. And FF net certainly hasn't gone out of its way to clarify the matter, either.

 

Update on the possible plagiarism situation: it's possibly a false alarm. I talked to the person who was worried about it, and I think it's possible she may have read Neighborly Affection at one point, forgot about it, and then it sounded super familiar to her when she found it again, maybe. Couple that with the fact that I also write a HP/CS crossover and maybe that's where the confusion came from, possibly, if she got them mixed together in her head (although, I don't see how...to me they are very different stories). I definitely didn't find anything by googling a line or two from that fic, except...my own story! Thankfully.

I'm going to PM her again and see if maybe she just got confused.

Edited by FanaticalWriter
  • Love 2
Link to comment

They're going after the "rule breakers." So ff doesn't allow MA, among other things, but writers still post it there. It seems there are a few groups who feel the need to police this kind of thing and have set their sights on Once fic. So they keep bullying writers saying they've reported it to ff admins and they're just trying to "help" writers better understand the rules or whatever. I get that the stories break the rules, but the way these groups have gone after writers is pretty obnoxious. On the other hand, more writers are taking their smut to AO3 now so I can't complain too much. I prefer that to ff since there's not as much bad writing to sort through to find the gems.

And if anyone does need an AO3 invite, let me know. I think the site had to shut down new user requests because of some spamming issues, but you can still get a new user ID if you have an invite from a current user.

Link to comment

The absolute worst is accidentally reading an abandoned fic. Getting to the end and wishing you knew what happened next... Sigh. I need to be more careful when downloading fics.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

Do you know for certain that it's abandoned? I'd pretty much given up on a fic that I discovered right when I first started reading CS fanfic...the author hadn't updated in almost a year...and then one day I was surprised to see an update in my inbox! Made my day! Apparently she was away at school most of the year, and really busy, so she didn't have much time for updates.

 

I know that's probably the exception to the rule, but still... 

Link to comment

You never now, "When doves cry" has just been updated today after month of waiting.

But, yeah, it's frustraiting when that happens. I always look at the date of the last update before starting something new.

Edited by RadioGirl27
  • Love 1
Link to comment

I usually do, but I was downloading a few new ones to try and sorted by follows and missed the update date on this one, the rest were either complete or updated recently. Oh well. The plot was interesting too. A child coming from the future to fix things.

Link to comment

Wait, When Doves Cry finally got updated? I'm not sure if I want to read the update knowing how long I'll have to wait for the next one. I've got a few on my list that haven't been updated in more than a month, which is frustrating. Lilac Wine was getting good -- and then a whole lot of nothing.

 

This is also why I try to get a story completely written before I start posting so I don't have big breaks between updates. Of course, I'm in the middle of writing what I expect will eventually be a 50K fic so I'm kind of thinking I may have to break that rule but even then, I'm at least trying to build a buffer for myself.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

One of the things I've vowed never to do is not finish a piece, because I know I how frustrating that is as a reader. I'm usually at least a couple chapters ahead of myself, so if I get stuck, I can still release something on some kind of schedule. I tend to write fairly quickly once I get the idea (it helps that I'll have more than one idea at once but can only actively work on one story at a time, so I'll have at least a vague notion of what I want to do before I even start writing), and I try to warn my readers if I have things coming up that may interfere with my writing schedule.

 

I mostly feel bad for my prompters because I can only write one thing at a time, so it may take me a couple months to get to it, depending on what I'm working on when the request comes in. That's also something I tend to tell them when they ask, though.

Link to comment

Wait, you're the writer, FanaticalWriter? I forbid you from doing life outside of When Doves Cry! Or something. Just make sure you post in big cap letters when you get the next chapter up. Two chapters in a row I can handle...for now. ;)

 

I mostly feel bad for my prompters because I can only write one thing at a time, so it may take me a couple months to get to it, depending on what I'm working on when the request comes in. That's also something I tend to tell them when they ask, though.

I don't even take prompts. First, I'm not very good at them anyway -- it's hard to write something when I'm not the one originating the idea, but I am working on that. And second, I have so many other things I want to write first. It's a bit hard to fit writing into my life so when I do, I want to make sure it's something I write.

Edited by sharky
Link to comment

So far, the prompts I've been given have been very, very vague, which helps a lot because then I'm free to interpret it however I want. For instance, my "Aftermath" came about because a reader asked me to do a Daddy Charming piece following "White Out." Those were the only specifics she asked for, so it allowed me a lot of freedom to decide how I wanted to write it up.

Link to comment

Also, seastarved on tumblr is doing this cool hiatus prompt that I've been following and writing for. There's been some interesting pieces that people have written and you can find all of them here. I've really liked it so far!

 

Sharky, I read all yours today and they were fantastic!  Are more coming or were those 4 from you the total? Or does it depend upon how inspired you are by the prompt?

Edited by selinak
Link to comment

Yes, I'm the author of WDC. Seems I've finally been outed, haha. I'm working on the next chapter of WDC in tandem with some other fics that I've had update requests for, so it's a matter of which fic cooperates and writes itself the fastest, so to speak, as to what will get posted first. 

  • Love 4
Link to comment

Yes, I'm the author of WDC. Seems I've finally been outed, haha. I'm working on the next chapter of WDC in tandem with some other fics that I've had update requests for, so it's a matter of which fic cooperates and writes itself the fastest, so to speak, as to what will get posted first.

Hey--you posted about being the author of Neighborly Affection, and that's one of my favorite CS WIPs. ;-)

Are you guys reading Walking in a Straight Line? So so good!

  • Love 2
Link to comment

Are you guys reading Walking in a Straight Line? So so good!

 

You know it!  Everything msgenevieve writes is like sweet torture.  And being an Aussie, she always posts a new chapter literally right as I'm heading out the door for work in the am.  So, I suffer the entire day long thinking about it until I can get home.  It's great, lol.

Link to comment

Can I get someone to beta the first chapter of what looks to be possibly a 3 chapter story?  I will include the outline so you know where I am going. I am using open office but I can export it to word format. I also need feedback, I am not sure Killian sounds right, Neal I have a good handle on.

Link to comment

Was just about to post that as well! I have to get my list together. I know certain fics will definitely get nominated so I'm trying to think of lesser known fics that deserve a nod.

Edited by sharky
  • Love 2
Link to comment

Dianthus, thanks so much for beta ing the first chapter of my fic. It looks oh so much better now. It's up on tumblr. Hopefully a few people will like it. I need to find time for the next part.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

Dianthus, thanks so much for beta ing the first chapter of my fic. It looks oh so much better now. It's up on tumblr. Hopefully a few people will like it. I need to find time for the next part.

You're welcome! Happy to help.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

I've been writing down scenes that I think should happen within the six week time jump. If we're not going to get the character cooldown period, then fanfiction is going to have to sate my appetite. One scene is with Henry and Emma looking at houses and discussing Regina and Hook and another is Will breaking into Jefferson's house to look for his hat. This show has some of the most interesting one-on-one setups. Debating on whether or not to publish these as a collection.

  • Love 1
Link to comment

I've been writing down scenes that I think should happen within the six week time jump. If we're not going to get the character cooldown period, then fanfiction is going to have to sate my appetite. One scene is with Henry and Emma looking at houses and discussing Regina and Hook and another is Will breaking into Jefferson's house to look for his hat. This show has some of the most interesting one-on-one setups. Debating on whether or not to publish these as a collection.

I'd give it a shot. I've been considering a series of small ficlets myself, centered on specific songs/music cues. AO3 is a good place to go. There's a waiting period to get started, but it's not long (in my experience). 

Link to comment

Dianthus, thanks so much for beta ing the first chapter of my fic. It looks oh so much better now. It's up on tumblr. Hopefully a few people will like it. I need to find time for the next part.

 

Daxx, do you have a link to your tumblr?

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...