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ghoste-catte · 3 years

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I was curious what advice would you give to someone new to writing fics? I've been wanting to get back into it but haven't seriously written something since high school. I hope this isn't an annoying question or anything!

Not an annoying question at all! I'm just a little worried that I won't have terribly good or useful advice. To be honest, I also sort of stopped writing in earnest right as I finished high school, and didn't pick it back up until my late 20s. It's certainly an adjustment! But I think the few things that really helped me get back into writing fic as a hobby and something I spend quite a bit of time on would be:

Write for yourself first, then find your other motivations. My original inspiration in getting back into fic writing was that there just were not that many fics I liked for my favorite pairing, and I wanted more of them, and I especially wanted more with the tropes and characterizations I wanted to see. I think at the very core of anything you need that internal spark that drives you. At the same time, for me at least, if I just relied on my own drive, I would not get much done; I need some external guardrails. So having people send prompts, or writing for particular events, or writing stuff for friends really helps me to get my ass in gear and finish stuff. That may not be the perfect motivator for you, and that's fine! You just gotta figure out what is.

Be open to inspiration. Anything and everything can be spun out into a story with the right tweaking. Obviously stuff like music is a classic inspiration source, but I've also pulled ideas from poetry, from memes, from Reddit threads, from YouTube videos, from rambling conversations on Discord and from real life to make fics out of. So many times, someone will post a silly Twitter screencap, and I'll think, There's a fic in this. And a lot of the time, there is! Research is a wonderful thing, but so is serendipity. If you're out there actively looking for ideas, eventually one that you like will stumble past you.

Find your community. I can genuinely say I never would have finished more than one fic if I didn't have fandom friends to talk to about even stupid headcanons, to bounce ideas off of, and to encourage me (and to encourage them in turn!). Discord has been a godsend, and some of my closest online friends are people I met in the GaaLee discord server. As I've gotten more comfortable as a writer, I've also joined general writing servers and Reddit communities and have found them immensely helpful on both a motivational level (bingos, sprints, owe-me challenges) and on a craft level (plot workshopping and writing ethics and live grammar help). It's a lot easier to think about fic ideas and hash through problem moments when I have a constant stream of fandom-related chatter coming from the little people who live in my phone! Ao3 is an amazing website, and it's great as, well, an archive, but it isn't social media by design. If you want conversation and human connection and cheerleading, you've gotta forge out and find it.

Make it a habit ... If you want to produce anything longer than a couple hundred words, you really have to set aside time for it. And writing is just like knitting or dirt biking or painting little model figurines: the more you do it, the more easily it comes. When I was first getting back into the proper swing of things, I committed myself to 30 minutes of writing per week. Just 30 minutes. I didn't even hit that goal every week, but there were tons of weeks I got on a roll and went over that amount, and by the end of the year I'd written over 200,000 words. I used to spend an hour laboriously tip-tapping out 200 words, but now I can easily blow through 1k in a 50 minute sprint. It's all about training that muscle.

... But don't make it a chore. With fanfic, you aren't doing this as a job, and you aren't ultimately doing it for anyone other than you. That means you can take breaks when you need them, you can set deadlines and then fail to meet them, you can write stuff and then decide to never post it. When you start getting burnt out, when the practice loses the joy and energy, stop. There's no 'hustle' here. In our capitalist society we're so trained to push past our limits and keep going even when it hurts us, but the hobby you do for connection and relaxation and whatever else shouldn't be like that.

Ignore metrics. Sometimes stuff isn't gonna get hits, or kudos, or comments. There are some basic 'rules' as to the stuff that does and doesn't get traction, but every time you post something it's a roll of the dice. If you're focused on watching that kudos counter tick up, you will get bummed out fast. And any writer will tell you that the stuff you think is your best work will never be the stuff that gets the most accolades. So you have to find something else to give you a sense of success. For me, it's watching my wordcount go up in my stats and those occasional comments where someone has a lot to say and that one person who always leaves me a <3 emoji (and, shout out to @egregiousderp, having someone to have long one-on-one conversations with about the stuff that never made it to page).

Don't strive for perfection. It's really easy to want your first ever fic to be a complete showstopper, the best fic fandom has ever seen, hitting all the tropes and the ideas and the characterization that you just know fandom is missing and would be everyone's top favorite if only it was written. This is a trap. No one fic can be all things. Most people who want to write an epic as their very first venture will not see the end of that epic, because they haven't put in the practice hours to make something on that scale work. That's not to say you can't start out with a big, sprawling multichap, just don't expect it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread if you're just starting out, and be okay with abandoning it for greener pastures if you get to that point. Think of the first time someone makes a vase out of clay or bakes a loaf of bread. That's never their best vase or their best bread. If they keep up with it, they'll make more and better vases and loaves. Likewise, your first fic is probably not gonna be your best fic. See it for what it is: your launchpad.

You can't edit an empty page, but you can over-edit a full one. This kind of spins off of #7, but if the words aren't there, you can't fix them. Daydreams and headcanons are fantastic (and god, how many times have I wished for a speech-to-text engine that projected my falling asleep thoughts onto a Google doc for later perusal), but they aren't fic. If you want to write fic, you've gotta get comfortable with the idea of sloppy outlines and rough first drafts. You can't build a house without a frame and you can't build a man without a skeleton (I mean, you can, I guess, but he'd be one floppy man). The nice thing about fic is that it doesn't matter if that frame is structurally unsound or the skeleton has 18 too many bones, you can clean that up in the editing process. But you can't start hanging curtains and arranging furniture in something that doesn't even have walls. That's the process. But! Also know when to set down the editor's pen and say, "Okay, this is good enough for government work", and call it done. ("Done" doesn't have to mean "posted", but it does mean, "I'm done picking at this for now, and I'm gonna go write some more stuff".) Over-editing can make stuff seem laborious and forced, and it prevents you from actually improving. To continue belaboring the house metaphor, you can spend your whole life rearranging furniture in just one room, but the end result of that is a pretty narrow existence and a room with a lot of footprints and tracks in the carpet.

Write shit down. When you have ideas, jot them down--in a notebook, in a Google Doc, in the Notes app of your phone, in pen on the back of your hand. You think you will remember that brilliant line of dialogue or sparkling snippet of narration or genius plot that came to you in a dream, but you Will Not. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down! There have been so many times when a fic was completely saved by past!me having written down my shower thoughts about what happens next in the fic, that present!me had completely forgotten about and was floundering over.

Have fun with it! Try different stuff. Try stupid stuff. Try experimental stuff. Do stuff you've never done before that you aren't sure will work. It's important to get comfortable with your niche (for example, I know I'm never going to be the sort of person who writes intricate plots of intrigue or super long 100k epics or detailed battles), but you can't find that niche unless you explore lots of different niches! Figure out what you love and what you absolutely hate, and then keep doing the stuff you love.

Okay, so that was actually TEN things, but ... I hope you still found this helpful. Feel free to send another ask if any of this was confusing or unclear. Good luck with your fic writing and, if you want, send me a link to what you've written once you've written it! I'd love to read it.

#answered #anonymous #writing advice #i guess?#am i qualified to give this?#no #but im doing it anyway

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madasthesea · 4 years

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I’m sorry for being so mean. I had a really bad day and didn’t mean to say such awful things. But I am frustrated my fics always get ignored, especially by the big names in the fandom such as yourself that claim to support everyone. I’ve written so many fics in this fandom and have been doing so for over a year, yet I only have 30 subscribers. I get really frustrated and feel like I’m a bad writer because everyone ignores me and my fics. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.

(2/2) For a fan community that claims they are inclusive, everyone sure doesn’t act that way. Everyone already has their friends and people like me who don’t have many friends get ignored. The big names in the fandom don’t support or read the fics by the new people. It’s not just me. I’ve never received a single kudo or comment from you or anyone else that’s popular like you. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but people don’t read my fics.

Ok, I’m answering this in the middle of the night in the hopes that not a lot of people will see it so it won’t become A Thing and then as soon as this fic exchange is over I am turning my anons off forever. Anon, I guess I have to give you credit for coming to apologize, but I have to say, where before I was perfectly capable of laughing off your extremely rude message, I have to say, now I’m annoyed. Because there is not a single instance or bad day or frustration that makes what you said acceptable. You came into my inbox and threw a temper tantrum because you knew my name and I happen to have anons on unlike most of the “fandom big names.” You told me I had the worst fics in the fandom, told me I publish outlines instead of stories and accused me of writing incestual pedophilia because you had a bad day? I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re young because that is the only possible excuse I could give you. As I said in my original response, if I were already an anxious writer, you could have caused me to delete all of my fics and put me off of writing forever. Someone commented on your original message and said that they don’t post their writing because of messages like that one. You’re right you shouldn’t have taken it out on me, and you wouldn’t have if your name had been associated with it. But here we are, and I’m going to try to make it so this never happens again, at least with the two of us.

Now, onward to your frustrations. I am sorry that you aren’t getting the attention you want, but one) yelling at me on anon isn’t going to fix that. Two) not to be like callous and insensitive, but that happens to almost every writer I know. I’ve been writing fanfiction for 12 years. This is the seventh fandom I’ve written for and no one ever read my fics before this. My first year on AO3 I published six stories and had 500 views total. I get the frustration, but sometimes you just have to get the perfect combination of exposure, plot, and interest. Three) Do you have any idea how many stories get published in the Peter Parker & Tony Stark tag a day? I’m sorry, I can’t read all of them. I don’t want to read all of them, in fact I have 14 different tags blacklisted. Just because I am a “big name” does not mean I owe you a comment or a kudos. If I like your story, I will tell you. Chances are, I haven’t even seen one of your stories, because I’m an adult with a job and hobbies and writing of my own to do. Most of the “big names” are the exact same except a lot of them also have school. If you want someone to read your stories, ask them. Say “hey, I respect you and your opinion, could you look at this for me?” They will probably say yes unless they have a good reason not to. Don’t just sit there and wait for it to happen and get mad when it doesn’t. Also, this is the third time someone has yelled at me for not reading or commenting on their fics and it makes me less inclined to leave kudos in general in case someone comes and gets mad that I read their fic but didn’t comment. So uh… don’t do this again.

As for the community, do you want to know how to make friends? Send asks (nice ones) not on anon. We can’t interact with you if you don’t know who you are. Reblog our fics. Comment on our posts. You can’t make friends if no one knows you exist. And the only way to show you exist is show yourself in our notes, in our inboxes. Sitting in your corner of tumblr and being bitter isn’t going to help anyone. This fandom is welcoming and it is kind and it is supportive. You saw how many people came to my defense tonight. If you talk to those people, they’ll talk back, but they can’t reach out to every single Irondad blog, it just isn’t feasible.

And finally, how to get your fics read more. Like I said, part of it is just… luck. I got in at the very beginning, as did losingmymindtonight, parkrstark, several others, and had already established myself before IW came out and the fandom got bigger. Lucky break on my part, but I’m also a good writer because I’m 25 and I have a Master’s in a writing heavy field and I’ve been writing my entire life. Sometimes it just takes practice. But there is stuff that all good fics have in common, so here we go:

1) Good grammar, good spelling, good punctuation.

I don’t know who you are so I have no idea what your writing is like, but this is stuff I had to tell college students as a teacher, so I’m just going to go over it.

Are there line breaks between every paragraph? No? There need to be. It’s hard to read when all of the words are bunched together, meaning automatic exits will happen, regardless of content.

Do you start a new paragraph every single time a new person speaks? You should.

“When someone is speaking,” I asked, “do you put a comma before the speech tag?” Commas, not periods. Not periods then commas. Punctuation goes inside the quotation marks.

Are you writing in first or second person (I or you)? Don’t.

Pay attention to your tenses. It is very confusing reading a story that switches tenses every sentence.

Are you capitalizing the beginning of every sentence and proper noun? You have to. Reading all lowercase takes energy and concentration and readers don’t like to put more effort in than they’re used to. Also it’s just pointless.

Get a beta reader. Get grammarly (but the free version, don’t pay) or another editing service. Google anything you have a question about. EDIT YOUR WRITING.

2) New ideas

Every fandom has tropes they love, but not every fic can be a trope fic. Every fic I write is, if not completely new, a spin on a popular trope.

Yes, there are some popular field trip fics, but most of them get lost in the weeds because they are all the same. And most of the people I talk to don’t even like them. (This counts for May dies fics, sensory overload… If you’re going to write it, you have to make it different and you have to make it good.)

Look to other movies or books for ideas, check out irondad-fic-ideas, something. Write something new, something only you can write, and at least some people will notice.

3) Good characterization

Now apparently everything I write is OOC, so maybe I’m not the best person to be giving advice on this :/ (I’m still annoyed. I’m getting over it)

BUT–the best way to write a well-known character is to know the source material. Listen to the way they talk, watch how they move. Ignore fanon. It’s hard, but try. Peter isn’t actually a perpetual ray of sunshine, chatter box 12 year old like we often write him, Tony isn’t 100% sarcasm and incapable of recognizing his own feelings.

If you can hear the character say it in their actual voice, it’s probably a good line.

4) Misc.

Fandom rule of thumb: cute fluff and hardcore whump win out over deep character studies on convoluted plot lines. If you’re just looking for hits or maybe a fic to establish yourself, that’s a good way to do it.

If you’re posting a multi-chapter fic, don’t post it all at once. People will comment on each chapter as you post and you’ll get more hits.

Respond to comments, especially at the early stages. It makes your readers more invested, it builds friendships, and it makes your stats look better.

There’s a blog that supports little known writers in this fandom! Rec your fics there!

Make sure to never, ever put “I suck at summaries” or “fic is better than summary” it is an instant turnoff. If you can’t write the thing that makes me want to read the fic well, why would I think I want to read the fic?

Tagging on AO3 is vital. Tag the right relationships, tag the right emotions (angst, fluff, hurt/comfort). I often sort just by these. Always put in the category, (M/M, F/M, etc.) and the rating. There is no reason not to, but not doing so makes people less likely to read. Always tag triggers.

Never steal fics or ideas. If a story inspires you, you can ask the author if you can write something similar and then link in your story back to theirs. Nothing will make you less popular in a fandom than stealing work.

Lastly, I know authors constantly talk about how important comments and kudos are, and they are so important to bolstering spirits, I get that, but if you aren’t writing for yourself first, you will always be disappointed. You should enjoy your fic as much when you read it in your word doc as when you read it online with comments and kudos. And maybe you write really niche stuff that doesn’t appeal to a lot of people, but churning out carbon copies of the Fandom Tropes and hoping for hits is not going to satisfy you and you will keep being frustrated.

Let’s not do this again, shall we? Next time you have a question, ask me nicely.

#answered #it is 2:30 in the morning but I was so annoyed I couldn't sleep so here we go :)))))#Anonymous

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quincywillows · 4 years

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how do you plan out your books/wips bc I have a solid idea and pretty much a billeted list of what I want the plot to be and how my book goes but I’m lost at outlining everything in a coherent and organized way it’s highkey frustrating

okay i’m going to do my best to try and give some helpful tips here for how you can organize your thoughts, and i’ll take it from the perspective of both fics, novels, and just general story ideas! a lot of the principles i follow overlap, and obviously it differs by project (and by writer, for example me and my roommates have completely different outlining styles), this is just what has worked for me so far. hopefully it’ll give ya some things to chew on!

firstly, to make sure i’m orienting myself correctly -- from what i understand, it sounds like you’ve already got a sense of what your beginning, middle, and end is. not beat-by-beat, but the general gist of it. this is already a lot of progress, so kudos!! it can be hard to get from just that general warm and fuzzy and exciting idea phase to an actual concrete sense of what you want to plot to be, so feel good about that. it’s not easy work.

i think what you’re now trying to do is get your ideas down into a tangible format that you can follow to start actually working on it, yes? if so, here are some of my thoughts.

method #1: phase-by-phase, beat-by-beat method

i’m starting with the sort of straightforward outlining method here just because that’s what i’ve employed with quincy willows, so it’s most fresh in my mind. when it came to outlining quincy willows so i could start actually writing it down in concrete scenes, i decided to visualize my story by beat rather than by chapter or major plot points. “beat” is a sort of loose storytelling term that means different things to different people -- for me, it’s not a set “scene” (some beats include 2 - 3 scene changes), but more so an important emotional or context moment. this could be a reveal of information, it could be a relationship building scene, it just in some way drives the story forward even if its just the tiniest step.

how this ended up panning out was that i actually divided my full story into “phases.” these are sort of like the stereotypical “acts” in classic storytelling structure, but less strict on how they’re interpreted. so i can have 7 “phases” to quincy willows, for example:

for me, each of those reflects a distinct SECTION of the story where a major development is occurring plot wise, and sort of roughly reflects story structure. (new kid in school is through the “inciting incident”, unlikely partnership & secrets unravel is up to the midpoint, inevitable decay & halloween are the rising action, and the final gamut is the climax).

within each of those phases, there could be anywhere from 6 - 12 beats. by sort of outlining what the general progression of things would be and what beats i THOUGHT would be included where, i was able to create a good enough skeleton of an outline that i felt comfortable starting to actually write. but one thing i think is important to note is that the phases and beats are totally flexible. i’ve deleted beats entirely, i’ve moved beats between phases, i’ve added beats where i felt like something was missing. it’s a malleable outline, and i think you should never feel tethered to an outline. it’s a roadmap, but it’s not the only way to get to your destination. sometimes, your story will change on you, and that’s okay. hear it out! you can make the decision to stick to your original plan or adjust accordingly.

then, i’ll also say, once i have my general idea of my beats down i will go in and almost... like basically, every beat gets about three synopses. there is the “title,” which is the most basic, often quippy take on what is happening in the story. then i have the “logline,” which is the essence of the beat boiled down to one or two encompassing sentences. then, i have a greater description of what is happening in that scene emotional turning point by emotional turning point. so, to use qw again as an example:

this is the title (up top) and then the logline. when i go into the actual scene on scrivener, i have my notes about all the things that happen in the actual scene which i worked off of to write the scene. but even then, i don’t always follow the original idea of my notes explicitly. sometimes i don’t think an idea works all that great anymore by the time i’m actually writing it, and that’s okay. it’s flexible!

one thing i have loved about this outline structure is it allows me to write out of order. i can jump in and work on whichever beat feels fresh and exciting to my brain, which is so helpful for working on a long project that needs a complete draft from the get-go like quincy willows. however, on projects like fanfic where i can take my time, want to write and post in order, etc...

method #2: bare bones outline

full disclosure -- i have written all the lonely people with a bare bones outline since its inception. sure, i have a whole little doc where i wrote down all the major themes, plotlines, and emotional beats i wanted to cover, but as far as structuring it and deciding what would go into each chapter (especially the early chapters), i mostly winged it.

this is where a looser outline can be a nice approach. you sort of outline how long you want the project to be (i.e., atlp is 16 chapters), and you have a vague IDEA of the Major thing that will happen in each chapter (“11 and 12 are the back story chapters,” “10 is where the romantic tension will finally snap but also they’ll have their fallout that they have to come back,” “4 will be the first kiss”). but then you just start working on the beginning, and as ideas come to you you can toss them in the general realm of each chapter without explicitly outlining when each and every beat will happen. that allows you to start walking around in the world of your project and playing with the characters rather than waiting until you have a Perfectly Perfect outline. you know?

then, usually, when i prepare to write a new chapter (atlp... i’m coming for u in december baybee), i will examine the little beat ideas i had and try to construct a more concrete mini-outline of that chapter alone before diving in. sometimes i do, sometimes i don’t -- but it goes to show that depending on the story, you don’t need a super strict outline to follow.

but even then, if you’re still feeling lost, i feel like the most tried and true method is honestly...

method #3: let it marinate

it might very well be you’re just not yet ready to jump into actually digging the narrative yet. and that’s totally chill. i came up with the initial nugget of an idea for quincy willows in sept of last year, let it exist as a fic for about 4 months, and then took it down in like dec to start working on it as an original work (bc that’s really what it was). i then thought about it for 6 months until the outline jumped out of me basically fully formed over 2 days in early june. so that’s... 9 - 10 months of ruminating and thinking about character and worldbuilding and jotting down notes and making playlists and talking to friends -- that’s almost a whole year of just wiggling in the idea until i stretched it out enough to start seeing the writing on the wall.

i hope all of this is a help in some way, or at least gives you things to think about that guide you in the right direction for you! let me know if there’s any other way i can help or things you’d like advice on. i will try my best to articulate well and offer some insight haha. you got this, writer friend!!

#writing #writing tips #writeblr #writers of tumblr #writerblr #writing gabs #maggie.txt #i hope this makes sense LOL #other pals feel free to share ur methods + other ideas!#Anonymous #ask and you shall receive

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silversiren1101 · 5 years

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Writing and My Goblin

The writer in my brain is a Goblin.

They’re really good at digging up impossible things from the dirt, plot points and ideas others would’ve left as trash but can turn into diamonds when polished.

They’re also an idiot that chews on pencil erasers and chokes on the rubber bits that fly down its throat.

I love it a lot and have had such a joy working with it.

But recently, it’s been on strike.

My internal write-mine is shutdown. The Goblin has gone on strike, and I know why. Bitterness and jealousy, the things we always say we’ll never succumb to.

And yet, here we are.

Because we aren’t just creators, we’re also consumers. Many of us start writing because there is an absence, something we want to read but it doesn’t exist. We’ve read everything that’s interested us, fallen in love with authors and creators, and are still left hungry.

So we write, but are we necessarily read?

Most of us have been there: we see other people writing in the same niche space as we do that get so much more attention.

“Did we do something wrong? Why aren’t we popular? Am I just a shit writer? Is the fandom purposefully excluding me? Did I write on a taboo subject?” If you’ve had any of these thoughts, you are not alone. Your fears aren’t silly.

It’s like screaming into the void, except the screaming is writing and the void is the internet... which is kind of the same thing, nevermind.

But anyway.

Why is this happening?

Because no one ever really told you how to wrangle your Goblin. It’s some cruel hazing ritual we as creators have to figure out for ourselves.

Notes and kudos and comments and fanworks, “Validation Jewels” I’ll call them. These are a TREAT, and it’s toxic to yourself to think of them as anything but. Your Goblin CRAVES validation jewels, will scream like a kid passing McDonalds for a Happy Meal.

But you have to be the parent that says “we have food at home.”

Because as much as you give them the jewels, their hoard will NEVER be big enough for them. Their craving will never be sated. They’ll look around at all the other creators in your space and their hoards, and wonder why they have some jewels that we don’t have.

Worse, what does it do when it sees their hoard of jewels is so much bigger than ours?

Well, it throws a god damn fit. “What’s the point?!” it screeches. It smashes the keyboard to pieces. It snaps the pencil in two. No more writing in this mine, no sir.

When I sit down and open the word doc, the Goblin stands there with its arms crossed. “Validation jewels first”, it demands, tapping its foot. You turn out your pockets to find them empty, and all you can do is look achingly at the languishing plot plants wilting about the edges of the cave. It doesn’t care that you need to actually produce first before any validation jewels can be harvested.

And so I close the word doc, only to open it again a week later and go through it all again. And again. And again.

And it won’t stop until you realize: YOU are the Goblin Wrangler.

The Goblin has grown greedy and needs to be reminded that Validation Jewels are a TREAT. They’re not actual food.

A true healthy diet is built upon Accomplishment Coins. These are the unique, undescribable coins found at the end of completing a piece. These are the fuzzy, prideful feelings once you submit that WIP. It’s the tears you wipe away after you finally save a piece without “draft” in the title. It’s the crack in your throat when you shout “Finally!”. It’s the feeling of wanting to run miles upon miles in joy.

Self. Fulfillment.

You did this. You wrote this. And no one could’ve done it in the same way you did.

Accomplishment Coins are loaded with healthy vitamins and minerals. It’s pure goodness. While Validation Jewels are a nice treat, it’s like eating nothing but ice cream all day.

The Goblin wants it. Don’t give the Goblin what it wants. You know better as a Wrangler.

So at the end of it all, remember that Validation Jewels are a rich, luxurious treat only to be consumed in moderation. Trying to make them a valid diet for your Goblin will only make them spoiled and sick. Accomplishment Coins are the only true, sustainable meal for a Goblin, and will make you, your plot plants, AND your Goblin happy and healthy.

Treat your Goblin well, but most of all, treat yourself with kindness.

#writing #writing advice #writeblr #fanfiction #silversirenwrites

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lit--bitch · 4 years

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Current-Reads (20/04/2020 - 26/04/2020) 🍓🐢

(Disclosure: I don’t know anybody I’ve been currently reading this week. 😊)

Adding the preface again here: every Sunday without fail I throw up the freshest literature and photography I’ve read over the week, sometimes it’s a book, sometimes it’s a piece I saw in a magazine or an online zine, sometimes it’s something I saw on social media, etc. Sometimes I add ‘RECOMMEND’ next to a few of the titles, but that’s not to say I don’t recommend all of them, I just love some pieces more than others. Not everything will be everybody’s cup of tea, yanno, c’est la vie. And any titles that you see in bold are hyperlinked so if you click or tap them they’ll direct you straight to the source… or shopping basket.

This week I’m gonna throw in a red herring and tell you about something I’ve been watching as well as what I’ve been reading, because I think it’s really cool and definitely appropriate for the age we’re living in at the moment.

So I’ve been reading: Susan Sontag’s As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh (Diaries 1964—1980) which was edited by her son, David. I also read an interview on Granta from March between Rachel Long and Morgan Parker. I’ve also tucked into a couple pieces on Fence, Lexi Welch’s ‘Astroturf’ and Anthony Michael Morena’s ‘The Whale’. I also saw Cecelia Knapp’s poem in Bath Magg Issue Three (but the whole issue is an absolute smacker, it’s great). Last but not least, I’m up to episode 5 of a brand new thing called The Midnight Gospel. It is crazy good. And it’s on Netflix right now.

***

Cecilia Knapp, ‘I Used To Eat KFC Zingers Without Hating Myself’, Bath Magg Issue #3: I really loved the whole of Issue Three, I guess I was quite struck by this particular poem for its “staccato-ness”. This poem is buttered with present-day references. But they’re not necessarily about creating a familiar environment. Rather the object of familiarity is found within the assemblage of places, snacks and thoughts, all of which compound the grief ‘I’ is experiencing. The ‘I’ ruminates on life’s banality and their personal insecurities in living banality: ‘I need a thigh gap. I use emojis / to avoid conflict. Worry I’m a gentrifier. Watch docs about murdered women’. The vapidity is funny. The pain is not. The insecurities deepen. Your body, your life, continues the ache of day-to-day routine, and finds no resolution in the things which may or may not stand to comfort oneself when ravaged by loss. The poem feels quite loose, and disinterested. It’s a sore poem, but its array of references make it colourful. It sort of reminded me of Édouard Levé’s work a little bit? But if Édouard Levé had been a pop culture fanatic chewing HubbaBubba bubblegum on the London Overground. Bath Magg is a pretty exciting new magazine, (been around just under a year I think?) and they’ve published a lot of great writers, many of whom are emerging and I’ve spotted some quite established peple in there too. Kudos to their rubber ducky logo. It’s run by Mariah Whelan and Joe Carrick-Varty.

In Conversation with Morgan Parker and Rachel Long, Granta Magazine: I deeply love Morgan Parker’s work, she’s, in my opinion, the master of titles. I can’t think of anybody who titles their work as well as Morgan Parker does. And I love the depth of honesty and charisma in this interview. Like yeah, it appears to be a generic Q/A but, it genuinely feels like a conversation, and it’s welcoming and unpretentious. Rachel Long asks some penetrating questions, and Morgan’s answers are so detailed and self-aware. Most of the discussion revolves around the action of writing poetry in general and where does that impulse arise from, but they do discuss Morgan’s latest collection Magical Negro which came out February last year. It’s a narrative on black womanhood, on micro-aggressions and reoccuring violence, it’s about breaking down white perceptions of blackness, and dissolving those projections. What I love about Morgan Parker is she’s tackling this fucking idiot thing where (mostly) white people think she’s attempting to represent all black women in her writing, which is, by Morgan’s own admission, impossible. Her work is a duty to herself, to the background she’s lived and lives, and to unpack that discourse in her own way. And if it resonates, then great! I felt all this was inherent in the interview and only adds to my respect for her, and to Rachel for being such an attentive interviewer. BTW Rachel Long has a debut collection coming out this July, My Darling from the Lions.

Anthony Michael Morena, ‘The Whale’, Fence Portal (Streaming) (RECOMMEND): I can’t tell you how much I adored this beautiful mass of whale and word. It’s an essay which references the American Natural History Museum’s Blue Whale model. The writing is thick with feeling and fat with concern. It blends monologue, memoir. It’s non-fiction and documentary. It’s elusive, enigmatic, fragmented. It’s like broken biscuits and blubber. To me it felt like a note on the offences of climate change, the emotional response and grief as we bystand erosion and corrosion, the loss of life, and the urge to merge something back together as it dissolves and fragments before our eyes. It’s as personal as it is public. A gorgeous and complex piece.

Susan Sontag’s As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh (Diaries 1964—1980) (RECOMMEND): I felt so afflicted reading Susan Sontag’s diaries, because y’know, it’s the equivalent of invading an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. Like, leave people alone. At the same like, this woman. These diaries are still shaping me, and each section leaves you with the weirdest aftertaste. Her personality permeates through every detail, every line-break, every reference and articulation of feeling. You learn so much, you gain so much from her perceptions and observations. How do I contain Susan Sontag? How do I describe these diaries? Not at all. Just buy it.

Lexi Welch’s ‘Astroturf’, Fence Portal (Streaming) (RECOMMEND): My eyes locked onto this piece and just didn’t really stop reading. Lexi’s voice is enamouring and hypnotic. It’s so violent too. You’re lunged into friction burns and sports injuries, time and progression, the tensions between collectivity and individuality, family and sexuality, or as Fence put it, ‘lesbian eros’. This piece felt acidic. At times you can’t tell if the ‘I’ is indifferent or hurting to the point of numbness. It straddles so many different thematics, and breaks down a lot of conventions pertaining to the “ideal experience” of family relationships and team work. The resolution seems to be that in spite of people, our collectivity is defined by our collective solitude. This essay kicked me around a football field. It takes a good few repeated reads to appreciate its kaleidoscopic shifting, but it’s definitely one of my favourites.

The Midnight Gospel, from Pendleton Ward and Duncan Trussell, Netflix: (RECOMMEND) So the other day my friend Ben linked this to me and I had seen the trailer ages back and thought “Oh yeah I really wanna watch that”, but just forgot. After his reminder, I started watching it and ever since I’ve been saying to loads of other friends “Have you watched ‘The Midnight Gospel’ on Netflix?” because I’m d y i n g to talk about it with everybody.

I literally can’t categorise this “TV show” to you. It’s like if animation had a baby with a philosophy podcast and then put that baby onto an IV drip of psychedelics. It’s this swarm of different stimuli which you kind have to zone in on and absorb individually and yet somehow collectively.

So like, “Clancy” is a spacecaster who sets up “spacecasts” (podcasts) with creatures from other simulated worlds and he interviews them. But when Clancy transports himself into these worlds, it’s not like they’re sat down on some cream sofa with two glasses of water like it’s animated Oprah. No, his interviewees are like in the middle of fighting off a zombie apocalypse or meditating on a mountain or trying to find and save their lost lover. And Clancy just joins them on the journey and interviews them about their “specialism”. These are real people that are being interviewed like, the first episode is with Dr. Drew Pinker. And when you’re watching it, you think that the animation is totally separate to the conversation exchange the characters are having, but that’s not true. They have intersections, they have meaning. It only becomes obvious that it has meaning right at the end of each episode, but if you lock on you’ll see it’s all relevant throughout.

One of my friends was like “Oh I might stick that on tonight and have a joint” and I was like, don’t fucking get high when you’re watching this because it’s already intense enough as it is, like you know that Pendleton Ward and Duncan Trussell have felt some real shit to create this absolute rare jewel. In my opinion, you don’t need cannabis to appreciate these discussions. But if you wanna do it, then hey it’s a “free country”. And it’s not as though there’s a serious, central core plot like there is with Rick & Morty, I mean there is a kind of overarching plot but it’s not always integral. Like ultimately we’re invested in Clancy’s story but also all the stories of all the other people that come his way. There’s multiple plots, there’s multiple dimensions and ways of seeing. It’s a programme which delivers on multiplicity, which manifests itself in everything and everyone we see and know and touch and hear, etc, etc.

This production articulates some of the revelations that psychedelics can give you. Psychedelics don’t make you see the world literally like these animations do, but the sensations of the animation are reminiscent of an acid trip’s oscillating moods and sensitivities. It’s really cool, and it’s very poignant, and it’s my new favourite show to watch. And what’s so great about it is that, it requires multiple watches in order to really absorb everything in its entirety, so it’s a series you can just keep going back to even after you’ve seen them all. It’s re-watchable. Just fundamental goodness all round. Best way to indulge in it is with ice cream. 🍨

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So that’s it for this week, next Friday’s review is Annie Ernaux’s A Girl’s Story translated by Alison L. Strayer, published with Fitzcarraldo Editions.

Stay safe and well as always, my little caramels. 💁🏽

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beatrice-otter · 7 years

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AO3 Best Practices: How do I choose whether this is a story, a chapter, a series, or a collection?

Jenrose has two great pieces of meta/guides for AO3 use. One is a primer for posting Google Docs fic to AO3 and how to avoid the pitfalls thereof. The other is about the differences between chapters, stories, series, and collections, and why you should choose carefully which you use for different fics. I am not affiliated with the Archive in any formal way, and never have been, even as a volunteer, but I do use the archive A LOT both for posting my own stories and reading other peoples', so take my opinion for what it's worth. Here's my take on stories/series et al on AO3: To decide how to categorize your writing on AO3, you should take into account both what feels good for you as a writer, and what works for your readers, as well. You want people to be able to find what they're looking for easily (so they won't throw their hands up in disgust), you want everything related to be together, you want them to be encouraged to comment/kudos. And some people (like me) who are fandom veterans and download copies of every fic they like for personal archival purposes (I've seen too many beloved fics disappear), and it takes very little effort for us to be happy, too. A story/work is the basic unit. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. It may be long or short, and it may or may not contain internal subdivisions (chapters). You should be able to read it on its own with no problems, and nothing other than a few sentences explaining the previous works if it's part of a series. It can be a work in progress, but other than that, it should be complete in itself. This is what most people think of when they think of a story. A story/work should not be a dumping ground for short unrelated pieces.

If someone likes one of them and then gets excited that "oh, wow, there's 30k words of this story!" they are going to be VERY disappointed when they find out otherwise.

If someone is looking for one particular trope (say, wing!fic, or curtain!fic, or "Howard Stark's A+ Parenting," or any particular trope) and you tag the story as that because one piece has it, they will read the first section, maybe the second section, and probably give up in disgust because what they've read has nothing to do with whatever they're looking for. By putting short unrelated pieces together, you prevent people from finding (and hence READING) the stories of yours that they actually want to read. Lots of people simply are not willing to wade through all of the different tidbits to find the one tidbit that they want.

It clogs up the tags, especially if you put pieces of different fandoms in the same "story." Say you have a work/story with three Harry Potter ficlets, two Naruto ficlets, and one Rivers of London ficlet. You tag it with all of those fandoms; it appears in the works list for all of those fandoms. Then you add two more Harry Potter ficlets and a Once Upon a Time ficlet. Every time you do that, it goes to the top of the tag for every fandom it is tagged in. This is especially annoying for the small fandoms, where they don't get much new fic, and they get excited because yay, new fic! only to be disappointed that it is not, in fact, a new fic in their small fandom. They will probably be very annoyed with you and less likely to read your fic in the future because it feels like you are using bait-and-switch tactics. (Yes, I have heard more than one person in more than one small fandom complain about this.)

You will get fewer readers. Most people choose to read a story based on the summary. They may use tags to find stories they might like, but a large part of the decision on whether or not to read this particular story is the summary. If you have a lot of unrelated short pieces together, you can't really write a summary that has stuff about them all, and hence you are DRAMATICALLY reducing the number of people who will read any of it.

Sometimes people are looking for a long fic, and will click on a tag (fandom, character, pairing, other tag) of stories they'd like to read and sort by length. Your collection of unrelated ficbits now looks like a long story of the type they want to read! Except it's false advertising, because it's not 50k words of what they want, it's 783 words of what they want with 49k words of other stuff they don't care about. Chances are, they will be very annoyed, and more annoyed if they don't figure out what the deal is right away.

You will get fewer kudos. If each ficlet is its own thing, and someone reads two of them and likes them, they can kudos both of them. If they are part of the same story/work, they can only make ONE kudos for everything altogether.

If someone does read all of it, and likes one ficlet but not any of the rest, and they make a habit of downloading their favorite fics to read while commuting or for personal archival purposes, they won't be able to do so.

There are two exceptions to this. One is for drabbles (true drabbles that are exactly 100 words) and other ultra-short things. Even if you put 50 drabbles together, that's still only 500 words total, and the very smallness mitigates against many of the problems.

The second exception to this is if you have a series of longfics, and also some really short scenes and gapfillers and outtakes and whatnot. Then you can put them in one story with a summary that tells what it is--"short stories and outtakes from my [whatever] series"--and people won't mind. Everything is there in one place, easy to find (if they like that series) or avoid (if they don't). Everything is clearly labelled and easy to find. It's not clogging up the tags. Even so, if there's something that stands on its own as a story within the series, I would recommend making it its own work, rather than just a chapter in a jumble of scenes.

It is better to have a single work marked as a WIP than to have each chapter of your story posted as a separate work. A chapter is a short piece that does not stand on its own but must be read in order with the other parts of the story.

Someone looking for a complete work will be very disappointed. They thought they were getting a complete story, and all they're getting is one chapter in a WIP. There are some people who don't read WIPs, only complete fic. If each chapter is a separate work, they can't tell if it's complete or not ... so they won't read it.

The default at AO3 is to view a fic chapter-by-chapter, but you can also set it to view an entire work all at once. If you post each chapter as its own work, nobody can do this. Those readers who prefer to read a whole work in one page will be annoyed or disappointed.

Those who download fics to read offline or for archival purposes will find it much more difficult. Instead of downloading one story, they'll have to download a lot and figure out how to get them in the right order on their device.

It's false advertising. People know what a story is, and they know what a chapter is, and if you give them what is basically a chapter and tell them it is a whole work they will be annoyed. Annoying your readers is counterproductive.

You clog up the tags. This is especially annoying if you're posting frequently in a medium/small fandom. Someone clicks on that fandom and they get a whole slew of "works" that are, in fact, just different chapters of ONE story. It drowns out other stories and thus annoys other authors and any potential reader who wants to find more than just your fic.

So what do you do if you have more than one story (complete works that stand on their own) that goes together? How do you handle that? On AO3, you make them into series or collections. A series is a group of related works/stories in the same plot arc set in a particular order, be it chronological or otherwise. When you put things in a series, you are telling your reader a couple of things. First, that all of these stories belong together quite closely (more closely than a collection) and that they should be read in a particular order. A collection is a group of works or stories that you believe belong together for whatever reason. Maybe it's "all the fic I've written about Bitty cooking." Or maybe it's "all the fics I've written in any fandom with kidfic." Or maybe it's "all of my favorites." Or maybe it's "all of my tumblr meta ficlets." Note: I don't think there's much point in creating collections or series with all of your works in a particular fandom in them; it's super-easy for a reader to find them without you doing anything. They click on your username, and get taken to your dashboard with a list of the fandoms you've written in right up there top center. Clicking on the one they want will take them to all of the works you have written in that fandom. On the other hand, it's not like there's any problem with it, or any inconvenience it causes your readers, so it's purely a matter of personal preference. comments Comment? http://ift.tt/2rE8M9e

#fanfic #archive of our own #ao3

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