Are my Fanfiction stories that bad? Feeling depressed due to lack of reviews

[Tashasaurous]

I know this is out of the blue, and if you guys don't like me being miserable about this, but I just want to know if pretty much most of my fanfic stories are that pathetic and stupid that I should just quit or delete them because as I'm lack of reviews on my current projects on those stories that I'm feeling discouraged and thinking that maybe my writing is terrible, and that's what making me depressed, though I don't want to stop writing, I fear that I might have to.

I even ask nicely for people's opinions or try to talk to them, but no one seems interested. Am I a pathetic and terrible author? Because if I am, then that means once again, it effects my studies and discourages my future.

 

[RedFFWolf]

I've had a quick glance on your FF.net page. I see that the majority of your works have reviews (and more than one, at that). So there's no need to be so hard on yourself

Spoiler: Let me give you an example

I'm still writing my own major Fanfic piece, my FF: Battle Royale. It has original artwork of more than fifty characters, world maps, and even a front cover. I've made my own glossary spanning 38 pages (over 10,000 words), and backstories to each game featured (so no one reader can be left unfamiliar to the games before reading this). It's all presented in a PDF that has all the proper layouts, contents, and fillers in the footer and header that make it look like a proper book.

At the moment, my PDF is over 182,000 words - and that's half of the story (though the second half will be shorter)

I even keep track of all the Easter Eggs and secrets, questions that arise etc., in a document spanning 30,000 words as of now. I keep track of the timeline, the metaphysical and political aspects of the world I've established, and more.

I have an account on Inkitt, Wattpad, Deviantart, Fanfiction.net, AO3 and not just a FB page for it, but even my own website! The money (between the site maintenance, artwork commissions and other aspects) that has gone into this is almost at four figures, I reckon.

And I have no reviews AT ALL - but, hey, maybe it's just too long to get into and it is a slow burner at first. However, there is one person who followed it on FF.net, and whether or not he/she still follows I'm still gonna give. One day, it might just be picked up by the right person who can set in motion a chain of events that could bring it to the attention of those who may appreciate it most. In the end, I love envisioning the story and writing it all out - and that's the key aspect I'll continue below.

If you love writing, that's all that matters. Yes, it's nice to receive feedback, of course, and at heart is gold to any author, but it is no reason to doubt your abilities or give up a passion for. I've seen great stories without a mention, and questionable ones with hundreds of reviews - sometimes it's just down to mindsets and audiences, sharing stories here and there, and sometimes it's luck (see what I mean in the example section about being picked up by the right person/people).

Remember one thing, too. It's easy to reel in fans regarding one show/movie/game, category or genre etc., but once you begin crossovers, it's harder to find people interested enough to read something where one major aspect is alien to them. I noticed a handful of your stories are crossovers.

In the end, not everyone---in fact, I daresay many would not?---will grant the time to devote a critical analysis of another's work. Perhaps you could try a share-for-share review of work? Ask someone to review your work whereby in return you will do the same for them - specifically, someone with similar stories/interests would be most reliant.

Now let me ask you: Do you enjoy writing your stories? This is often reflected in one's work. How about reading one of your works - tell me, did you like it? What did you like about it and what do you think were its key strengths? For example, do you feel you can capture the characters' personalities well? Do they work as one would envision them to in the environment at hand? Does the whole story read as something believable (does the pacing make sense etc.)? These are just examples; you don't have to consider these ideas in particular

 

[Ghost X]

Are you a part of a writing community group / writing society offline, or online for that matter? You should join such groups (both offline and on), if you're not. It's a two way street. Network. You'll probably find people interested in reviewing your stuff that way. Granted, I'm not sure of the culture myself. There may be specific groups you need to join to get that interest.

You say you talk to others, but do you comment on their work? If you're passionate about writing, get really involved in those respective communities. I'd review your work if I wasn't so busy, although I'm not big on fanfiction. If you want to get better at writing, you should also read a lot, not just fiction, but literature theory. Understanding why people write the way they do is probably more important than reading their stuff. At least, that's my approach.

 

[Tashasaurous]

I've had a quick glance on your FF.net page. I see that the majority of your works have reviews (and more than one, at that). So there's no need to be so hard on yourself

Spoiler: Let me give you an example

I'm still writing my own major Fanfic piece, my FF: Battle Royale. It has original artwork of more than fifty characters, world maps, and even a front cover. I've made my own glossary spanning 38 pages (over 10,000 words), and backstories to each game featured (so no one reader can be left unfamiliar to the games before reading this). It's all presented in a PDF that has all the proper layouts, contents, and fillers in the footer and header that make it look like a proper book.

At the moment, my PDF is over 182,000 words - and that's half of the story (though the second half will be shorter)

I even keep track of all the Easter Eggs and secrets, questions that arise etc., in a document spanning 30,000 words as of now. I keep track of the timeline, the metaphysical and political aspects of the world I've established, and more.

I have an account on Inkitt, Wattpad, Deviantart, Fanfiction.net, AO3 and not just a FB page for it, but even my own website! The money (between the site maintenance, artwork commissions and other aspects) that has gone into this is almost at four figures, I reckon.

And I have no reviews AT ALL - but, hey, maybe it's just too long to get into and it is a slow burner at first. However, there is one person who followed it on FF.net, and whether or not he/she still follows I'm still gonna give. One day, it might just be picked up by the right person who can set in motion a chain of events that could bring it to the attention of those who may appreciate it most. In the end, I love envisioning the story and writing it all out - and that's the key aspect I'll continue below.

If you love writing, that's all that matters. Yes, it's nice to receive feedback, of course, and at heart is gold to any author, but it is no reason to doubt your abilities or give up a passion for. I've seen great stories without a mention, and questionable ones with hundreds of reviews - sometimes it's just down to mindsets and audiences, sharing stories here and there, and sometimes it's luck (see what I mean in the example section about being picked up by the right person/people).

Remember one thing, too. It's easy to reel in fans regarding one show/movie/game, category or genre etc., but once you begin crossovers, it's harder to find people interested enough to read something where one major aspect is alien to them. I noticed a handful of your stories are crossovers.

In the end, not everyone---in fact, I daresay many would not?---will grant the time to devote a critical analysis of another's work. Perhaps you could try a share-for-share review of work? Ask someone to review your work whereby in return you will do the same for them - specifically, someone with similar stories/interests would be most reliant.

Now let me ask you: Do you enjoy writing your stories? This is often reflected in one's work. How about reading one of your works - tell me, did you like it? What did you like about it and what do you think were its key strengths? For example, do you feel you can capture the characters' personalities well? Do they work as one would envision them to in the environment at hand? Does the whole story read as something believable (does the pacing make sense etc.)? These are just examples; you don't have to consider these ideas in particular

Well, those stories who have reviews are my older projects and they seem to like those better than my current ones. Sure I review other people's stories in the ones that I like pretty much all the time whenever I get the chance. Like I said, I try to do what some other authors ask for readers to do with their stories, but lately nobody seems to do that.

Actually, and I keep forgetting to sign up to the whatever website I'm supposted to go to, to get my nomination thing one of my finished crossover fics "Sailor Moon VS The Mummy" since that was nomintated as one of the favorites, but yeah, I do have a lot of crossovers, but not all of them are crossovers.

Yes, I enjoy writing because it's fun, and I actually pretty much read my own works almost all the time when the mood hits me. I even have to go back and re-read current worked on ones to refresh my memory before I begin a new chapter(as I said, my memory sucks but not to the point where I have short-term memory loss).

In capturing the stories themselves, I try to work on the characters and focus on the story and how they should work out(battle scenes and dialouge) and how they should fit at least decently.

That being said, I also want readers to use their imaginations when reading my stories to make sense as well, if that makes sense.

Are you a part of a writing community group / writing society offline, or online for that matter? You should join such groups (both offline and on), if you're not. It's a two way street. Network. You'll probably find people interested in reviewing your stuff that way. Granted, I'm not sure of the culture myself. There may be specific groups you need to join to get that interest.

Actually, no, I'm not part of any community. I just write for fun and hope silently that it'll get people's interests. Maybe I should, but then again, in the past, most people seemed to like my Kingdom Hearts "The Betrayal of Light" better since that has the most favorites on my account.

You say you talk to others, but do you comment on their work? If you're passionate about writing, get really involved in those respective communities. I'd review your work if I wasn't so busy, although I'm not big on fanfiction. If you want to get better at writing, you should also read a lot, not just fiction, but literature theory. Understanding why people write the way they do is probably more important than reading their stuff. At least, that's my approach.

I try to comment on their work. I'll do my best in literature, but I just base the ideas in my fanfic on both on what I know already and on other theories and just make them up. Plus, fanfiction stories aren't meant to be based really on the real world as much.

 

[Alex Strife]

I can't speak for others but I have the feeling that crossovers are often very... let's say too stereotypical. It may just not be a very popular subject, regardless of your skills.

Have you tried writing something with your own characters? It's an interesting exercise.

 

[Tashasaurous]

I can't speak for others but I have the feeling that crossovers are often very... let's say too stereotypical. It may just not be a very popular subject, regardless of your skills.

Have you tried writing something with your own characters? It's an interesting exercise.

I have various own characters in some of my fanfics. (Lusie/Chibiusa-Future Mini Moon, Sailor Tide, Sailor Magic-Dust, Sailor Ultra, Sailor Passionate, Sailor Passion, Sailor Star, Sailor Dark-Heart, Sailor Demise, Sailor Heartless, Sailor Nature, and Queen Selene, my SM ocs, Simon, Jake and Savanna, Tasha, Citrus, Reene and Alistair, six Pokemon Trainer Ocs). These characters are pretty much in my Sailor Moon Continuum headcanon franchise.

Thing is, I find that I'm better in writing stories based on movies and add them all in with my favorites together, while trying to do my own in changing the storylines in some places(example-my Sailor Moon VS the Mummy is nominated as one the favorite crossovers in...I can't remember the name of the website and I keep forgetting to sign up to see what it's like, and I haven't joined any community).

I find that doing my own stories are more difficult because my mind goes blank, despite the feeling of excitement in wanting to do them, which is upside down.

 

[Splintered]

Don't feel discouraged, just lately most people don't review as much anymore. Or at least, fandoms are so dispersed compared to the old days that it's not as concentrated in either website or fandoms.

I find the amount of reviews less to be about quality and more about said popularity of the subject. The BIG ones can amass huge followings but unless you are an active fandom with a small amount of fanworks, or you are a big name, it's difficult to receive a following.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with you. It can be discouraging and I'm not going to by a hypocrit and say "it'll be fine" because the fics I've spent most work on or the ones I found to love the most have almost no reviews, whiles ones I kind of just wrote but happened to be in the right fandom at the right time got more attention, and it sucks and is frustrating.

But in the end it really is all about love of writing. I got plotbunnies in my head and they need to come out. Even if I'm just talking to myself, it's really fun to see it come out.

 

[Jason Tandro]

I have written 89 stories on FF.net and if I let my reviews and views and subs determine my writing I would never have written anything. Use story stats to give you a better idea of who is viewing your content, when and who your main audience is if it's that important to you but I would advise you to write from the heart. Sometimes I look back on my old writing and smile - though more often I gag.


Case in point for me:

Spoiler: My Elite 5 - All with 15 reviews or more

So to break this down for you - my best performers are my three novelizations (the FF7 one is complete albeit terrible and the other two are better but as of yet in indefinite hiatus... maybe I should start writing some more), and two serial novellas that I wrote that I released chapter by chapter hooking people in. SeeD and Limit Break oddly were both FF8 pieces the former an AR fic which starts out not bad but has a pretty rushed ending and the latter is survival piece which, while again had a bit of a rushed ending I'm rather proud of what it became.

But these are multi-chapter pieces with a clear audience - the novelizations are a given and the other two are I guess compelling pieces or at least they are compelling compared to my usual crop of shite

Now for contrast....

Spoiler: My Worst Lot - All 0 Reviews

So I notice a scant few actually pulled off Favorites somehow, but let me run this by you. First lets knock off some of the under-performing episodes of my Shinra Inc. And series which is now over with (lasted 5 seasons and 60 episodes. Woo!) The rest are short stories that underperformed (and frankly were underwritten)

Spoiler: What I Did Wrong:

- Reunion was in the middle of my most underperforming season - Season 4, which was basically one long running story rather than the format that had made the series semi-popular of short independent stories with a running backstory.

- The Hiring Process was based around job interviews... and I thought this was funny at the time.

- NSA was... probably too soon or probably just not that good.

- Thanksgiving was lazy.

- Assignment comes from my Turk-fap phase where I wrote nothing but poor quality Turk fics and this is no exception.

- Bad Mojo is... terrible. I wrote it for a Genesis Awards contest and was more interested in making cheap jokes than in telling a cohesive narrative. So it's about a drug trip. And has a terrible name.

- Harry Potter Abridged I'm actually proud of but the word count and the fact that it's a limerick poem probably turned most readers off.

- I also like Stronger and The Boy Who Lived but they were kind of personal projects with no real audience, though I wrote Stronger for Lic's thread on these forums about writing sharing IIRC.

- Yes, It's Christmas Again - so terrible I considered removing it but chose to leave it as a monument to my sins.

Now these are just how they performed with the peoples. I'll have you know some of my favorite stories were mediocre performers:

Score, one of the best stories I ever wrote, an FF9 retelling of The Monkey's Paw with my own twist, only got two reviews, and not noteworthy views.

And 90% of my Shinra Inc. And stories got 2 reviews or less.




tl;dr

You can predict certain trends in fanfiction, longer stories tend to do well in reviews if they are compelling pieces, but most importantly write for yourself.

I know it's irritating when nobody is interested in reading your work. I know you will feel like "what's the point?" But any writer worth their salt will write because it's what they do. Keep writing, even if you don't get attention because you'll be that irritating thorn in everybody's inbox and we'll remember you and then one day you'll write the best thing you've ever written and it will get the attention it deserves. I promise you that.

 

[Kionae]

I'm going to echo Jason... if you try and judge the quality of your writing based on reviews, a lot of the time you're going to come away disappointed. Some of my best stories are the ones that have next to no reviews (in fact, one that Jason thought was good enough to include in this site's roundup awhile back has only been reviewed 5 times in the entire year it's been on ff.net). And some of my worst have gotten tons. And vice versa.

Hell, even my main series on ff.net only garners an average of 3 reviews per chapter anymore, in spite of the traffic stats on showing a pretty hefty chunk of people reading it and following it.

Reviews are always nice, but write for yourself first.

 

[Octo]

Pretty much what everyone else has said. I've never put any fanfiction online, so this is my pov as a reader.

To expand on what Alex said - crossovers seem to be less popular, because you're having to cater for an audience that likes both (or more) fandoms. Furthermore, OC's aren't very popular either - that's not to say that OC's are inherently bad, but people tend to avoid fics with OC's because they're more interested in the existing characters and some (but not all) OC fics pull too much focus from their favourite characters.

So if you're doing fics with OC's and a crossover then you're probably not getting as big an audience.

Now that doesn't mean you should stop writing what you want, but it's something to be aware of.

Also, check out tumblr for 'imagine' blogs relating to your fandoms, it's a good way to get prompts and from them you can write short drabbles, then you can usually submit to the blog or link to your own tumblr. It seems like a good way to get some exposure in your fandoms, and usually once people have read and liked your shorter stories then they'll be more willing to commit to longer fics . I hope this helps

 

[Tashasaurous]

I'm going to echo Jason... if you try and judge the quality of your writing based on reviews, a lot of the time you're going to come away disappointed. Some of my best stories are the ones that have next to no reviews (in fact, one that Jason thought was good enough to include in this site's roundup awhile back has only been reviewed 5 times in the entire year it's been on ff.net). And some of my worst have gotten tons. And vice versa.

Hell, even my main series on ff.net only garners an average of 3 reviews per chapter anymore, in spite of the traffic stats on showing a pretty hefty chunk of people reading it and following it.

Reviews are always nice, but write for yourself first.

Funny...the only fics that have Ocs are pretty much fanfictions that are titles set within my "Sailor Moon Continuum" stories-Sailor Moon: Truth of Nightmares(crossover with some ocs), Sailor Moon 0: Birth By Sleep(prequel crossover with ocs), Sailor Moon & the Return of the Mummy(sequel with ocs), Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Search of the Tribe(non-crossover with ocs), Pokemon Mega Colosseum Adventures(non-crossover with ocs), Sailor Moon the Halls(crossover with one oc), and Sailor Moon's Mammoth Christmas Adventure(crossover with one oc).

The rest of them are some crossovers, but others are mainly not and are either set in within the Final Fantasy VII universe or the Kingdom Hearts universe, but neither of ocs, because I feel more comfortable with ocs and a large crossover with pretty much my favorites in my headcanon "Sailor Moon Continuum"(which stands for a continuing adventures, and the involvement of space and time).

Pretty much what everyone else has said. I've never put any fanfiction online, so this is my pov as a reader.

To expand on what Alex said - crossovers seem to be less popular, because you're having to cater for an audience that likes both (or more) fandoms. Furthermore, OC's aren't very popular either - that's not to say that OC's are inherently bad, but people tend to avoid fics with OC's because they're more interested in the existing characters and some (but not all) OC fics pull too much focus from their favourite characters.

I think the only crossover-story that has most focus on ocs is "Sailor Moon & the Return of the Mummy", because even of other ocs in my other tiles, such as my current project "Sailor Moon: Truth of Nightmares" is pretty much not a focus on ocs as much, but mainly focusing on the main existing characters, because I haven't been focusing on my female oc's character in that title since she has a small role to play at the moment.

So if you're doing fics with OC's and a crossover then you're probably not getting as big an audience.

Now that doesn't mean you should stop writing what you want, but it's something to be aware of.

Why does my mind always work in reverse on expecting things? *sighs in exasperation*

I'm doing fics that are both with ocs in crossovers, as well as crossovers without ocs and non-crossovers which don't have ocs at all, and so far, my KH fanfic "The Betrayal of Light" is my highest one in getting the most favorites and reviews which, in respects of reviews themselves, most of them in pretty much most of my stories are postive and people like my stories. I was thinking more along the lines that my writing skills and how to write chapters are lacking lately and the ideas are getting worse, even taking a break from that doesn't help much anymore, and it's not due to me being busy in my studies.

Also, check out tumblr for 'imagine' blogs relating to your fandoms, it's a good way to get prompts and from them you can write short drabbles, then you can usually submit to the blog or link to your own tumblr. It seems like a good way to get some exposure in your fandoms, and usually once people have read and liked your shorter stories then they'll be more willing to commit to longer fics . I hope this helps

Most of my fics are pretty long, because I'm no where near finished with them just yet. And in truth, I don't have a tumblr account, and I don't feel comfortable in joining just yet either, to be honest. I just find the tumblrs a bit creepy, while other sites, like this one and Fanfiction.Net make me more comfortable while I chat to people personally.