General writing fiction discussion thrad.

[Super Mario]

Frankly if it came down to posting, I would only post in TLS because they're a community I WANT to have reviews on. A limited audience is better than no audience, that and it can help me fuel my mind in the wake of no RPs to play at.

Not the kind of heavy novel-type works I'm aiming for but something I want to enjoy posting weekly or bi-weekly that can capture audiences. I am slow at drawing, but I do love to write adventure stories.

 

[Skan]

Something I've wanted to talk about for a while, 'cause there's so much discussion lately about lack of reviews and lack of readers and how to promote fanfiction. I'm speaking generally, of course: "you" = general you.

Okay, so ultimately, I think there are lots of things you can do for your own writing to make it more appealing to others, and I think that's a better way to think about it than to push the blame onto fandom for "not being interested" or being "dead." Sometimes the fandom is dead -- but I'm not convinced it's the case for a fandom like FF7. (I am not familiar enough with Godzilla fandom to say the same.)

And note, I'm not trying to say that your writing is bad. I'm saying that there is, at some level, a disconnect between what you are writing and what people want to read. Sometimes that disconnect happens because your writing is bad; I personally don't think that's the case for anyone in this thread. But more generally, I'm talking about what's happening in someone's brain when they read the first few paragraphs of your story, think, "Nothing about this compels me to keep reading," and hit the back button. That's what I'm talking about when I say reader-writer disconnect.

And the thing is, there are ways to get around this disconnect. But it requires you to think about how and why people read, and how and why people read fanfiction in particular.

Some of this is hard to talk about because I only have my own experience to go off of, but that's a place to start. Setting aside pairings/characters, what do you like to see in fanfiction? What makes you keep reading? What's your tolerance point? When do you hit the back button and why? You can also just go about reading popular fic, even the ones you don't think are well-written. You don't have to like these stories. All you have to do is read the first chapter (or the first few paragraphs) and ask yourself, what is this writer doing right to grab and keep people's attention?

And know that, if you write a character or a pairing that is unpopular -- know that you've gotta give people reasons to keep reading. This is not the same as if you write characters or pairings that are popular, where you just need to avoid giving people reasons to stop reading.

And once you understand better what you like to see in stories and what other people like to see in stories -- that's when you can start applying some of what you've learned.

Now, I'm not saying, "SELL OUT!" I'm saying there are many ways of telling the same story, but one of those ways will be infinitely more appealing to an audience than another. More often than not, it's not a content problem; it's a presentation problem. I have read fic before whose content I'm not really interested in, but whose presentation nevertheless compelled me to keep reading. Everyone has their own "thing" that keeps them reading; for me, it's well-crafted atmosphere. For others it may be an easy-to-read writing style or snarky dialogue. It varies, but there will be some overlap.

There is always room for learning and improvement. Not getting reviews or kudos or likes? Take that as an indication that you're missing something, rather than taking it as an indication that something is intrinsically wrong with the fandom. Unless you're gonna try to convince me that this fic was destined to fail because it's gen, and it's about Cloud's mom.

tl;dr - Popular fics are popular for a reason outside of just their content. Learn why.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I have read fic before whose content I'm not really interested in, but whose presentation nevertheless compelled me to keep reading. Everyone has their own "thing" that keeps them reading; for me, it's well-crafted atmosphere. For others it may be an easy-to-read writing style or snarky dialogue. It varies, but there will be some overlap.

This is very true. Not long ago I was bored so I started reading a Cloud/Angeal fic called Roots Run Deep and was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

There is always room for learning and improvement. Not getting reviews or kudos or likes? Take that as an indication that you're missing something, rather than taking it as an indication that something is intrinsically wrong with the fandom. Unless you're gonna try to convince me that this fic was destined to fail because it's gen, and it's about Cloud's mom.

tl;dr - Popular fics are popular for a reason outside of just their content. Learn why.

That fic about Cloud's mum was brilliant.

Nevertheless, if your fic is not getting a lot of hits it's quite possible that the missing magic ingredient is a popular character. It should come as a surprise to no one that all the FFVII fanfic with over 10,000 hits on AO3 stars Cloud and Sephiroth, quite often in the form of Cloud/Sephiroth, closely followed by Cloud/Vincent, Cloud/Genesis, Cloud/Zack, and Cloud/Genesis/Zack/Sephiroth/Angeal. The fandom for these characters and pairings is very far from dead. So, while it may not be a sufficient condition for success for a fanfic to feature these characters, I do think it is a necessary condition.

(Unfortunately for me, I don't really like reading about them. But I have my own small circle of Turk fans and fic-writers, and I'm happy with that).

 

[Obsidian Fire]

@Skan:
This actually applies to fiction in general, not just fan-fiction. The reasons you talk about here are why certain works are considered classics, and certain ones aren't.

One thing I would really recommend is to find a non-fan fiction work that you like and figure what it is about that kept you reading it (or do the inverse). I find that with non-fan fiction, it's a tad more obvious what it is that kept you reading as you actually don't have that much motivating you to actually keep reading it. Where as in fan fiction, you know who the characters are and what the setting is already, so you actually have a better reason to stick around to see how the author changes canon.

If a popular fic has the right pairings/characters for it's fandoms, then the writing style really doesn't matter as much. Will it help it? Yeah, but it's not going to make the fic any less popular then it already would be without a better writing style. The thing with fan ficiton isn't so much not getting people to hit the back button, it's getting people to hit the link to the fan fiction in the first place. Not hitting the back button really only matters from chapter 2 onwards. If you're writing a one-shot (that's 5,000 words or less) you're main concern for publicity is tagging and summary writing, not if your writing style is the best or not. And like it or not, if your tags are the popular ones, you will get more clicks then if they aren't. Reviews and kudos are nice, but you aren't going to get either of those if people don't come to your fic in the first place.

 

[Skan]

I think people are vastly underestimating how many hits people get for their stories? The thing is, unless you are truly awful at summary writing, you're gonna get 10+ hits. Out of the "unpopular" pairing/character fics I've posted recently, my lowest is ~50 hits on FFN and AO3 combined, and that's a fic in a dead fandom (dead enough so that there are only three pages of fic on AO3) about an unpopular character (only five fics about this character on AO3 and four about this character on FFN). My FF7 fics (all gen) each have over 100 individual hits on FFN alone. So I don't think getting people to click is actually that big of an issue.* 100 people is a lot. Hell, even 20 people is a lot. The question is, how do you get a few of those 20+ people to finish reading the fic and to leave a review/kudo?

I mean, this isn't even about popularity, right? It's about inducing response so that you don't feel like you're chucking stones into an empty well, 'cause that feels awful for a writer. I mention popular fics, because they're tried and true; you know that people liked them, so the writers must be doing something right. Not every single Cloud/Sephiroth story will get 30+ kudos. What sets some apart from the others? It's definitely not just luck.

Read them, try to figure it out. It's about learning what appeals to readers, and then using that knowledge to improve your own writing. You're trying to figure out how to impact your readers enough so that, when they do stumble upon your story, they feel compelled to read it all the way through to the end -- and then feel like they enjoyed it enough to click a button or leave a review.

I click on a lot of stories. If the summary is grammatically sound and doesn't sound awful, I will click. I have clicked on things like, "Jack is up to something." (Real example.) However, after I open a story, you have approximately 30 seconds to catch my attention. If you don't, I lose interest. I'm on the internet; lots of other things to do, lots of other things to read.

Sounds extreme? Well, I think that's what the average fanfic reader is like, if I'm allowed to generalize from my own experience. That's why the beginning of your fic is so important. If nothing else, labor over that beginning. Make it atmospheric, make it easy to read, make it funny -- whatever. Just make sure it hits some note that will resonate with readers.

*Okay, I have an even better example. There's a fandom with three stories in it. My brother wrote all three stories. His stories on AO3 have 18, 29, and 63 hits. That's a pretty significant amount of hits for a nonexistent fandom, no?

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^^See, I'm the opposite. I've read enough good literature that has crappy, boring beginnings (Tolkien, Robert Lewis Stevenson, I'm looking at you guys...) and then get really good later on. I'll tend to read the tags/summary and if the concept looks interesting, I'll click on it. Unless the quality is really, really bad (grammar mistakes and the like) I'll read it through to the end of the first chapter at least.

Fan fic taggs/summaries are like the blurb on book covers. If that doesn't make me interested enough to read the book, I'm not going going to bother. If I'm interested in the book/fic I'm at least going to give it a fighting chance to prove itself, aka reading the first chapter at least, and probably the first five chapters if the chapters aren't ridiculously long (5k words or less).

Also, don't compare the popularity of works with the the fandom's favorite shipping couple with the populatiry of works that are general or canon pairing. You're really not helping your cause by saying to compare your fics to the "classic" shipping fics in order to see what the audience likes to read. If you want to see what the fandom thinks is good writing and you're writing gen fics, read the most populare gen fics, not the popular shipping fics (and by shipping fics, I mean those that contain non-canon supported pairings). Shipping fics are always the most popular regardless of fandom, and are usually not the standard you want to compare yourself too.

 

[Skan]

You're getting hung up on "shipping" and are completely missing my point now.

Let me rephrase this:

"I mean, this isn't even about popularity, right? It's about inducing response so that you don't feel like you're chucking stones into an empty well, 'cause that feels awful for a writer. I mention popular fics, because they're tried and true; you know that people liked them, so the writers must be doing something right. Not every single Barret story will get 20+ reviews. What sets some apart from the others? It's definitely not just luck."

Does that clarify anything? I mean the exact same thing, but maybe that's more to your taste.

I mean, certainly no writer could ever learn anything about mood-crafting from this fic or this fic. Can't learn anything about comedic timing from this one. And, you know, I wonder how one manages pacing in a slice-of-life novella. Christ, these stories are just popular because they've got pairings, right? Nothing else to recommend them!

Short story: I met a writer earlier this year. She'd just gotten back into fandom and was writing fanfic again. She used to be a big-name writer in a completely different fandom but stepped out for a few years to work on her original fic. Deleted her old account. She started writing fanfic again this year, under a completely new username unconnected with her old one, in a new fandom. Posted her fic on AO3, no networking or advertising: instant popularity. That's not random. There's something about her writing that appeals to people. And if you think you can't learn something from her writing just because she writes pairing fics, then hey, that's your loss.

 

[Clement Rage]

I think there are two elements to lots of feedback. Subject matter people want to read, and skilled presentation. If you have skilled presentation, you can compensate for unpopular subject matter. If you have popular subject matter, you can compensate for slipups in presentation. But if you have the skill and the popular subject matter, then you get the three, four or five figure review numbers. FF7 is a good fandom to be in, because it's big enough to be active but not so big that you get lost in the masses. Smaller fandoms like Legacy of Kain tend to have more dedicated reviewers. Don't know about A03, I don't spend much time there except on specific recommendations (I just don't like the format, the tags either spoil the whole story or are completely misleading.) Personally, I steer away from pairings, especially non canon ones.

I write lots of pairing light OC fics, which are often dismissed, and I don't have the skill to engage lots of people despite that. Before Licorice found my latest one, I had four reviews for thirteen chapters, which was a bit dispiriting, but ultimately my problem, not a fault with the fandom. People want to read what they want to read.

And then there's networking. Once you're established to be good, people will give more than the normal thirty seconds first impression.

The thing about hits is, how many of them are from the same six or seven people? Are they multichapter fics? My most popular fic is a parody series of FF7, with just under 9,000 hits(divided by 10 chapters, so maybe 900 readers, probably less.) It's been around something like three, four years now.

I'm not sure I'd consider the Turks a niche fandom, their tag is on over half of the FF7 fics on AO3.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

Now I'm starting to like you. :B

Careful, I have a reputation to maintain.

—————

I know I’ve been doing a fair amount of the aforementioned “Where has the fandom gone?” bellyaching, but that’s more because of:

1. I’ve been in the fandom for so long, seen it at its rather long-lived peak, took a hiatus for a few years (to focus on school), and returned to find that it wasn’t quite as immortal as I’d imagined it to be; and

2. I’m somewhat of a late adapter to new technologies (e.g., Tumblr) and have trouble identifying the proper platforms to reach people from and then also build a following in that community.

I don’t doubt that the FF7 fandom is healthier than most, but when you jump from 2010 to 2014 in the blink of an eye, you’re going to find a staggering change in the amount of fandom activity. (Not unlike Vincent emerging from his coffin after 20/23/30/whatever years and finding the world has changed. )

On the internet, it’s hard to reach people if you don’t have a following. Facebook, deviantART, Tumblr— these all require watchers and followers or else you’re just talking to an empty room. On FFN and AO3, the tagging system makes it easier for people to stumble upon you even if they didn’t previously know that you existed, but I don’t doubt that having an existing following means even more readers even in these communities.

I think it was Skan that I said this to, but that’s kind of the funny thing about social media. You need an audience before it makes sense to say anything, but you won’t attract an audience if it doesn’t already look like you have something to say. So the only way to really attract an audience seems to be to talk to an empty room for a while. But then, what about the things that you said while no one was listening? Do you repeat them again later when you have people to hear it? Or do those things just get wasted in empty cyberspace?

I don’t think my problem is keeping readers, so much. Well, for one thing, I write short fanfiction, so they only have to read most of my stuff once. The only epic I have is Redemption, and because it’s a web comic I assume that if/when I lose readers it’s because they’ve lost interest in the fandom, or because I’ve taken too long publishing new pages. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time to invest in a web comic, so I don’t think people “stop reading” as much as they might with written fiction as long as there are more pages to read.

For my short fics, I’ve always taken for granted that a hit means they read it. And hits are enough to satisfy me. Kudos are even better. My end goal is for people to enjoy what I’ve made for them, that’s all. My “reach” goal is for them to be so into it that they have discussions with me about it; I love the thought of making people have new ideas about things (or, selfishly if you prefer, because I’m not one to deny that everything done by any human has a selfish motive behind it: making them see things my way ;p ).

But, I will take the advice given here, and make sure that the first 30 seconds of my short fics are enough to keep them reading. In design, there’s a rule about seconds: you have 3 seconds to grab their attention (the fic summary, I guess), 30 seconds to let them know why they should continue, and 3 minutes to communicate the entirety of the message to them. I don’t think my fic summaries are all that great, either, so it’s something I will look at.

Interestingly, as a reader, I really don’t invest my time into reading something unless I’ve already been introduced to its characters and its world. The last series I’ve gotten into have been A Song of Ice and Fire, The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter. I saw the first movies of the latter two series before deciding I was interested enough to read the book, and—although I hadn’t watched it yet—the Game of Thrones series was already on HBO before I decided ASOIAF was probably worth my time. So even with original content, I approach it like a fanfiction reader.

by shipping fics, I mean those that contain non-canon supported pairings

This is an interesting statement to me. I mean, I get that if a mostly “general” fic references, say, Cloud and Tifa having a post-Meteor relationship, or Vincent being in love with Lucrecia, that’s not really a “shipping” fic in and of itself because those relationships are just a part of the already established canon. But if a fanfic is entirely about that relationship, wouldn’t you still consider it a “shipping” fic? And if not, and “shipping fic” only refers to fanfiction in which a non-canon ship is pushed, then why are these more popular than fics that might push people’s canon OTPs?


Gotta run to work so apologies if this post rambles and doesn't make sense.

 

[Skan]

I think there are two elements to lots of feedback. Subject matter people want to read, and skilled presentation. If you have skilled presentation, you can compensate for unpopular subject matter. If you have popular subject matter, you can compensate for slipups in presentation. But if you have the skill and the popular subject matter, then you get the three, four or five figure review numbers.

Absolutely. And yeah, it's totally your prerogative if you don't like to read pairing fic. I'm not saying you have to; I just gnash my teeth when people imply they're substandard by default. Pairings don't have to be your thing, but that doesn't mean they're bad. At their worst, they're crutches for a story; but that says nothing about what they are at their best.

I was using the "visitors" numbers when I as counting the hits, so they should be distinct peoples clicking on the stories. I write primarily oneshots. My most popular FF7 oneshot (w/ Sephiroth) seems to have garnered ~160 individual visitors on FFN since it was posted and 120 hits on AO3. The response for all of my FF7 stories has been much better on AO3 than on FFN; it could be the audience, but it could also be the fact that it's really, really easy to click "kudos."

I've mentioned this before, but if you're writing and posting chapterfic, if you want to maximize views, I always suggest finishing the story beforehand and posting it on FFN on a fixed schedule to keep it near the top. (This is also just better in general from a pacing/coherence standpoint.) A lot of people don't have that patience though.

There was a self-insert story I saw floating around on AO3 that got an extremely good reception. The writer took the story down and reworked it it into a pairing story, and I was tickled by the fact that it didn't get as good a response the second time around. If you're interested in glancing through it, here it is. And here's another story (FF8) by magistrate that had quite a few OCs; not as popular, but very riveting.

I was just complaining to one of my friends about the "Additional Tags" option in AO3, because it seems like nobody is using it for organization or searching. It seems to be more used like hashtags on Tumblr, which is ... off-putting. But AO3 does have a nifty feature that allows you screen all "Additional Tags" so all you see are the warning, pairing, and character tags. Which is what I do. And if you like, you can just fill those default sections out and leave the "Additional Tags" section blank. (Which is also what I do.) You're probably not gonna lose readers from not using the additional tags. You can't really search with them; you click on one and it takes you to all the stories that are attached to the tag, not the fandom-specific stories attached to the tag, so as a quick filter button, they're completely useless.

@ Ravynne: FWIW, I think your fic summaries are fine. (Then again, you've seen what I would click on...)

I understand where you're coming from, because I also vanished from fandom in 2010, and when I came back, everyone was on Tumblr. Which is why I speak so much about the good ol' LJ days. Again, I don't really have a good suggestion except to focus on what you can control: your own writing and your own stories.

Re. shipping fic -- It's fandom dependent. The most popular stories in FF8 are a smattering of Squall/Rinoa (canon), Seifer/Quistis, and Squall/Seifer. In FF6, I get the impression that Celes/Locke (canon) is rather popular. FF7 is overwhelmingly Cloud/Sephiroth (as we know), but I wonder in part if that's because the main canon ship, Cloud/Tifa, is "so freaking boring," as one of my friends put it.

 

[Fangu]

Well, shipping is a giant source of comfort, and probably the biggest reason people get into fanfic at all - shipping, and smut. They can make your grey day feel a lot better. Comfort squee.

As for popularity, it's definitely not a mark of quality - not in fic, nor anywhere else in life. And to be honest, the moment I breached some sort of popularity barrier - enough of it, anyway, I can't say my fics are widely successful - that's when I started having the 'wtf' comments. The one liners. The ones that are nice and all because they mean you're being read, but they don't add anything of worth (if I can use such a word) to your progress. They're basically saying nothing. I'd rather have a page of trashing than one line of OMG I LOVED IT, to be honest.

I've also grown a lot more interested in Gen over the last few years, but Gen by definition doesn't get a lot of attention. (Which is why I like posting Gen. I know that when people trust me enough to read my Gen, I'll more likely get a comment that is valid feedback.)

(I sound like a cold hearted bitch now, but I treat my writing as I treat a lot of the other tedious hobbies I have; if I don't see progress, I don't bother.)

So - when considering hits and clicks and reviews, consider what they're worth. In my world, they're not worth that much. And they are not something to strive for. It's basically like eating sugar: Sweet right there and then, but holds no nutrients and it doesn't keep you full for more than a minute.

My “reach” goal is for them to be so into it that they have discussions with me about it; I love the thought of making people have new ideas about things (or, selfishly if you prefer, because I’m not one to deny that everything done by any human has a selfish motive behind it: making them see things my way ;p ).

Oh god this. The most awesome thing about one of my stories was when people were really moved by the characters and - since I tend to just hammer down stuff without thinking too much - when I was having those conversations, it was almost like talking about somebody else's characters. Or, as if the characters had lives of their own. That's the biggest reward for me so far.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

^^Pretty much what I was trying to say, but better.

On tagging... as annoying as it can be, it's really needed on AO3. That site has a shit sorting system and tags are the best way around it. There's no "without" filter for one thing and clicking multiple tagging boxes runs an "and" sorting function instead of an "or" sorting function. It can making finding fics you want to read take a while because you have to do multiple searches to filter out fics you don't want to read. The best method I've found isn't to use the filters at all and read the tags on the summaries. That way I don't miss anything. But that takes a while... the tagging helps speed it up because that way I know if I should even spend time on the summary.

FFN doesn't have tags, but it recently came out with the "without" filter, which is really useful for getting rid of all the fics you know you don't want to read. Don't want to read fics with a certain paring/character or genre? filter all those fics out. It save a lot of searching time. Better yet you can combine it with the "with" filter.

 

[Skan]

Just gonna leave this here because it's recent and relevant. Try not to step into the 50 Shades wank, but the thread highlights something I think writers should probably be more aware of, and it's that badfic is actually more interesting to people than blandfic. People can stomach a lot of bad writing as long as the story still induces an emotional response; what they can't really stomach is being bored. Even if something is technically well-written, it doesn't mean it's going to be interesting, and if it's not interesting, then why read it?

And some anons mention a bunch of other things that turn them off of reading a story, which is also good to know. Trawl through, take a look. Highlighting one that I particularly agree with:

- Too-long sentences. Lack of variation in sentence length.
- Lack of focus. I should have a good idea of where the fic is headed by at least the first page, if not the first paragraph. I should feel safe with this writer.
- Lack of variation between dialogue and description. Too large a block of either can be tiring.
- Not setting up an immediate mystery in the first few paragraphs (what's happening to the character? what obstacles are in their way to what they want?)
- Characters being introduced and then disappearing. Lack of proper character arcs.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

To be fair, as far as summaries go, the AO3 tagging system is kind of like a lazy, standardized form of summarizing. "Story = this thing + this thing + this thing." Which I’m okay with.

Good to know about them being ineffectual as actual tags, though. I wonder what people are searching for when they find Anomie Theory, then? It's probably not "hojo sex."

Re. shipping fic -- It's fandom dependent. The most popular stories in FF8 are a smattering of Squall/Rinoa (canon), Seifer/Quistis, and Squall/Seifer. In FF6, I get the impression that Celes/Locke (canon) is rather popular. FF7 is overwhelmingly Cloud/Sephiroth (as we know), but I wonder in part if that's because the main canon ship, Cloud/Tifa, is "so freaking boring," as one of my friends put it.

Careful, the CloTis might hear you.

And FWIW, as someone interested in neither CloTi nor Squall/Rinoa, I find both pairings equally boring.

But there could very well exist a fanfic that might be about the CloTi relationship that I would have thought to be described as a “shipping fic”—I mean, I wouldn’t know about it, because who’s even reading that?—but that’s definitely a canon relationship. And more relevantly to myself, I write primarily VinLu, so are those not “shipping fics” just because it’s a canon pairing? What if I were to write Cid/Shera fanfiction? What about Tseng/Elena, which occupies a realm of “canonish” somewhere in the realm of “slightly less canon than VinLu but way more canon than Tseng/Rufus” (I am pointing no fingers)? What about a Tseng/Aerith fic that muses on his feelings for her but does not put them in a relationship? What about my Anomie Theory, which features a canon (but unpopular) pairing but not in a “D’AW THESE TWO SHOULD TOTALLY BE TOGETHER” kind of way? (And for that matter, into which category of canon/non-canonicity do pairings fall when they include at least one character who arguably has more than one canon pairing? CloTi vs. Clerith, Tserith vs. Tselena, VinLu vs. HojoLu, etc.)

I’m just honestly interested in what exactly constitutes “shipping fic,” and if this is different from “pairing fic,” or whatever else. Because we seem to be using the term a lot. Does “shipping fic” have to include feel-goodness, or positive intention, or what? What about angsty portrayals of relationships with bad endings, which clearly support a pairing but aren’t comforting?

If “shipping fic” is the opposite of “Gen fic,” then isn’t “shipping fic” by default a fic that includes any pairing whatsoever (at least by AO3 tagging standards)? And I definitely pose this question not just to Skan but also to Fangu and anyone else who uses the term.

im confus.

So - when considering hits and clicks and reviews, consider what they're worth. In my world, they're not worth that much. And they are not something to strive for. It's basically like eating sugar: Sweet right there and then, but holds no nutrients and it doesn't keep you full for more than a minute.

See, I only eat dinner so I can excuse myself for eating dessert. I’d eat dessert all day every day if I could. Dessert is amazing. Dessert is life. If I lacked a superego I’d just be stuffing my face with sugar all day long, not even fuckin sorry.

So yeah, in terms of reader response, fill me up on sugar bby. Can’t get enough. Because it's not about sustenance; it's about feeling good. Like the comfort you mentioned from shipping fics, I guess. It's just the high of feel-good chemicals. I work for sustenance; I hobby for dopamine.

- Too-long sentences. Lack of variation in sentence length.
- Lack of focus. I should have a good idea of where the fic is headed by at least the first page, if not the first paragraph. I should feel safe with this writer.
- Lack of variation between dialogue and description. Too large a block of either can be tiring.
- Not setting up an immediate mystery in the first few paragraphs (what's happening to the character? what obstacles are in their way to what they want?)
- Characters being introduced and then disappearing. Lack of proper character arcs.

I wonder, does this change according to the length of the story? Would a reader still expect a multi-chapter fic to tell you where the entire story is going in the first page, with compelling character conflict within the first few paragraphs?

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I have no answers on the shipping fic question. I don't think there's an agreed definition of the term. FWIW, I always think of a shipping fic as one where the story is entirely about the relationship between the two characters. I've also heard it used in a more derogatory sense, i.e. that the fic has nothing to recommend it aside from the pairing and serves no purpose except to satisfy the shipping needs of those who ship that pairing.

I actually think CloTi is a fascinating relationship, but I can't off the top of my head remember a fic that really explored its potential. I'd love to read a good one. Actually, all the canon relationships in FFVII are fascinating, because none of them are straightforward (except Zack/Aerith) and all of them are troubled:
- Cloud/Tifa - he constantly forces her into a mothering role and acts like an irresponsible, moody teen
- Cid/Shera - why does she stay? I like fics where she develops a backbone and walks out, but I also like the ones that explore their complex dynamic, and which bring him back from the Crisis a better person.
- Rude/Tifa - UST x 1000. Rude is Mr Forever Alone
- Tseng/Aerith - where do I even start?
- Tseng/Elena - her massive crush and forceful personality eventually wear him down?
- Cid/Vincent - no just kidding.
- Cloud/Aerith - stabbed through the heart before it had time to blossom. I don't know if she'd have stuck around once she figured out he wasn't a second Zack, though.
- Reno/booze

I'll be the first to admit that Tseng/Rufus is not only not canon, it's almost impossible to justify since the two barely even share any screen time - none in the OG, none in AC (except I guess where Tseng and Elena fire their net guns) none in CC, two scenes I think in BC... Which makes it all the more interesting that Tseng/Rufus has always been the single most popular pairing for Rufus (closely followed by Rufus/Reno). I think it says a lot about the human psyche and the nature of shipping that so many fans feel these two characters, who barely interact each other, somehow belong together.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

'Shipping' fics for me are fics where the entire point of the story is the romance/pairing. What little plot there is is to get to people in the pairing to notice each other and to provide obstacles for them to overcome in order for them to realize that they're in love with each other. The "end" of the fic is when they finally get together for good, not when (if) any outside conflict is dealt with. (And yes, I realize this includes a ton of non-fan fiction romance novels; guess which genre of book I rarely read even when it isn't fan fiction...)

It should be mentioned that if the charcters can stay in-character, I'm a lot more okay with shipping/romance. So I don't have as much trouble with it in non-fan fiction (the character's can not be out of character by default). It's just that so much of shipping leads to (or requires) character to be OOC, that it's just easier to not bother with it.

Gen fics then, are when characters are in character, and take place in the canon setting. So they can have romance in them (actually, any genre can), but the romance isn't the point/end of the fic. Dealing with whatever conflict the plot brought up is.

 

[Ami]

I've been writing a fan fiction since July (it feels like a lifetime ago right now) and been struggling to update it with all the recent shit in my life. But I received this really nice review this morning and it's kind of urged me to carry on when my head's settled down.

Just started reading, and I'm in love. Please update soon. I know you're probably incredibly busy, but just please know that you have a huge fan, waiting patiently for the next update! Have a great week.

It's incredibly motivating when I get stuff like this and guest reviews (it was a guest, I did forget to mention) are usually just shite or the usual, "Please update soon!" crap.

I could go on a rant about some recent things I'm seeing on FFN (where I'm actually writing), but I'll just leave this here for now.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

Tseng/Rufus has always been the single most popular pairing for Rufus (closely followed by Rufus/Reno). I think it says a lot about the human psyche and the nature of shipping that so many fans feel these two characters, who barely interact each other, somehow belong together.

I think it says a lot about fandoms’ collective lack of imagination— that they have to imagine that every canon character must be paired with another canon character and can’t possibly meet someone to whom we have not yet been introduced (should they even decide to settle down), leaving fandom with only the limited cast of characters that we know to choose from, and they reach for whomever they feel seems to be the “best” candidate from that limited selection. I think the most convincing ship I've seen Rufus in was with Company Man's

Spoiler

Dr. Laura Stein: an OC who made sense for the situation and was awarded no special frills beyond that

.

There are a lot of canon characters that I can’t see realistically having any involvement with any other canon characters. Which is perfectly okay, because none of us are supposing that the characters with names known to us are the only people who exist on their Planet.

It should be mentioned that if the charcters can stay in-character, I'm a lot more okay with shipping/romance. So I don't have as much trouble with it in non-fan fiction (the character's can not be out of character by default). It's just that so much of shipping leads to (or requires) character to be OOC, that it's just easier to not bother with it.

That might be my primary problem with non-canon pairings, actually. (Is that why you place canon pairings in a separate category?) I’m really still trying to put my finger on it. Because, to be honest, there are some non-canon pairings that don’t rub me the wrong way at all.

For example, I can totally buy Reno/Cissnei because even though we don’t see them interact ever (unless Cissnei is your BC Player Turk, in which case I assume she interacts with Reno in exactly the same capacity any other BC Turk would interact with Reno as your Player Turk), it can be assumed that they know/knew each other, that they could have had the opportunity to engage in a relationship, and we don’t see anything in canon that contradicts that it could have happened (possibly owing to that very lack of shown canon interaction but presence of implied canon interaction). If you wanted to tell me that Genesis and Angeal were secretly Brokeback Mountain lovers, I’d probably buy that, too. Hell, tell me Cid hooked up with Scarlet once or twice. That could have happened.

But try to convince me that two characters who we SEE interact with absolutely zero chemistry (e.g., Sephiroth X Tifa), or at least one is already canonically spoken for by someone else (e.g., Vincent X Yuffie), or the pairing would require one or both characters to have a sexual orientation that the canon implies that character does not have (e.g., Cloud X Zack)? I think that’s the point at which I chuck my reader at the wall and groan about fanwank.

At the same time, though, there are plot devices that I’ve written into my fanfiction that I think would make people groan, and I’m trying to figure out how I can avoid this and still have a plot, or if it isn’t as bad as I imagine it will be, or if I should even care at all what the audience thinks. How far IS the audience generally willing to suspend disbelief? Can absolutely anything be pulled off as long as it’s presented well enough?

Where do you guys find that line drawn, for you? The line between “okay yeah I can buy this” and cracked e-reader screen?

Gen fics then, are when characters are in character, and take place in the canon setting. So they can have romance in them (actually, any genre can), but the romance isn't the point/end of the fic. Dealing with whatever conflict the plot brought up is.

That seems to me to be less related to whether or not the story pushes a pairing and more related to whether or not the story has a compelling and well-presented plot. Surely the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

I've been writing a fan fiction since July (it feels like a lifetime ago right now) and been struggling to update it with all the recent shit in my life. But I received this really nice review this morning and it's kind of urged me to carry on when my head's settled down.

Yes. There have been times when responses like that were the only thing that got another page of Redemption drawn.

Is it FF7? Link me to your stuff.

 

[Ami]

It's not FFVII sadly, but I do have an FFVII/FFX crossover in the works.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I think it says a lot about fandoms’ collective lack of imagination— that they have to imagine that every canon character must be paired with another canon character and can’t possibly meet someone to whom we have not yet been introduced (should they even decide to settle down), leaving fandom with only the limited cast of characters that we know to choose from, and they reach for whomever they feel seems to be the “best” candidate from that limited selection. I think the most convincing ship I've seen Rufus in was with Company Man's

Spoiler

Dr. Laura Stein: an OC who made sense for the situation and was awarded no special frills beyond that

.

I take your point, but I think you're missing mine. The vast majority of all fanfic in all fandoms pairs canon characters with each other (canonically or otherwise), unless there's no pairing at all. Pairing existing characters together requires one sort of inventiveness; pairing a canon character with an OC requires another. Personally, I didn't find the pairing of Rufus and Dr Stein convincing; if anything, it felt forced. She was a flat character; I could see no reason why he would be into her, or why she would be into him. Now, one might say that I would feel that way, and one might be right - but I have read and loved some very convincing fic that paired Rufus with (separately) Tifa, Yuffie, and Elena, so I'm not irrationally wedded to my yaoi.

And then of course there was the great "Midgar: The Soap" that paired him, unhappily, with Yazoo....

My point is that when a significant percentage of a fandom sees two characters as belonging together romantically, despite their lack of romantic interaction in canon, it's a sign of the zeitgeist, or something. I'm thinking, for example, of Levi and Erwin in AOT, or Ed and Roy Mustang in FMA (not a pairing that does anything for me) or Cloud and Sephiroth. These represent certain archetypes of relationship dynamics that people find intrinsically interesting. I don't think their popularity can be dismissed as "lack of imagination". Not that I'm saying Rufus/Tseng or Rufus/Reno is as popular as the others I mentioned, just that there's something in those relationships that speaks to our social selves.

I mean, for example, I just can't get on board the Cloud/Genesis ship, but it's very popular and I think it's instructive to try to consider what it offers to its fans.

Where do you guys find that line drawn, for you? The line between “okay yeah I can buy this” and cracked e-reader screen?

If the writing is good enough, I can buy anything. Although it has to be pretty bloody fabulous to make me believe that a canon character is in love with an OC. I'm not a big fans of OCs (with the exception of the ever-awesome OC Turk Lyn in giraffeonthemoon's A Smile On My Face - and all of Clem''s OCs!) and I tend to resent it when they intrude into the canon.

That seems to me to be less related to whether or not the story pushes a pairing and more related to whether or not the story has a compelling and well-presented plot. Surely the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

No they don't, and one sees plenty of fic that proves they're not.

 

[Ravynne Nevyrmore]

I take your point, but I think you're missing mine. The vast majority of all fanfic in all fandoms pairs canon characters with each other (canonically or otherwise), unless there's no pairing at all. Pairing existing characters together requires one sort of inventiveness; pairing a canon character with an OC requires another. Personally, I didn't find the pairing of Rufus and Dr Stein convincing; if anything, it felt forced. She was a flat character; I could see no reason why he would be into her, or why she would be into him. Now, one might say that I would feel that way, and one might be right - but I have read and loved some very convincing fic that paired Rufus with (separately) Tifa, Yuffie, and Elena, so I'm not irrationally wedded to my yaoi.

See, I think that's why the ship was successful. Because the author didn't spend an inappropriate amount of time pushing Dr. Stein (okay I was trying to spoiler tag but ) at us. If they had, it would have felt like a forced agenda and entered the realm of fanwank. And I think that's an important line to stay behind when dealing with an OC. But we knew only as much about her as we needed to because ultimately nothing more about her was important to the story. I'm sure there were other things about her character that he would have been into, but we didn't need to know about them because Conservation of Detail. It's perfectly reasonable, I think, that Rufus Shinra would develop a relationship with someone who I don't know and don't need to know too much about.

Just like if you took me and a group of 20 people I know and tried to suggest that every single one of us was going to have some kind of romantic/sexual involvement with someone else in the group, it would become a little ridiculous. Some will, sure. But there will also be some whose romantic interests lie outside this group, with people who I do not know and do not need to know well, even if they tell me about them once or twice. "My wife's name is Mary." "Mary likes to ski." Great, that's about as much character building as I care about re: Mary, because I have my own life that I'm more interested in.

Sometimes, fandom tries too hard. Much harder than it needs to.

My point is that when a significant percentage of a fandom sees two characters as belonging together romantically, despite their lack of romantic interaction in canon, it's a sign of the zeitgeist, or something. I'm thinking, for example, of Levi and Erwin in AOT, or Ed and Roy Mustang in FMA (not a pairing that does anything for me) or Cloud and Sephiroth. These represent certain archetypes of relationship dynamics that people find intrinsically interesting. I don't think their popularity can be dismissed as "lack of imagination". Not that I'm saying Rufus/Tseng or Rufus/Reno is as popular as the others I mentioned, just that there's something in those relationships that speaks to our social selves.

I mean, for example, I just can't get on board the Cloud/Genesis ship, but it's very popular and I think it's instructive to try to consider what it offers to its fans.

I think what you're saying here is: "Setting aside the ridiculousness of needing all canon characters to be paired with other canon characters, there's a reason why fans are choosing THESE specific pairings again and again"? Like, even if you told a second group of people that they all had to take those same 20 people that I know and force the into pairings regardless of the ridiculousness, logically they would come up with drastically different answers, right? And if they don't, then that trend must mean something?

Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes it's down to "these two characters are both pretty" or "I saw this one ask that one how her day was going, once." But even if someone tried to persuade me that me and my married, gay boss actually have a lot in common that we never realized, I'm still not about to develop a crush on that person.

If the writing is good enough, I can buy anything. Although it has to be pretty bloody fabulous to make me believe that a canon character is in love with an OC. I'm not a big fans of OCs (with the exception of the ever-awesome OC Turk Lyn in giraffeonthemoon's A Smile On My Face - and all of Clem''s OCs!) and I tend to resent it when they intrude into the canon.

Now by OC, do you mean even, "Oh, I heard that Reeve is getting married to same lady named Beth Jones." "Oh isn't that nice. So anyway, on with our plot"? Would you look at that and go, "Pah! No way you're convincing me that Reeve is in love with this Beth lady; I've never heard of her!" Or do you only mean the sort of OC that comes with an elaborate back story, character profile, and concept artwork?

Because I find the former perfectly believable but the latter to be cringeworthy. I think it has to do with the authorial intent conveyed in the amount of detail provided and amount of authorial attachment implied.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

The Rufus/Dr Stein relationship was successful because it was not really important to the story. But I still didn't like it. I just do not like OCs getting into romantic relationships with the canon characters. I feel like shaking a stick at them and shouting "Bugger off, interloper." As far as I'm concerned, once a canon character has formed a permanent relationship with an OC, they have left the building. I am well aware that this is hardly realistic, but if I were after realism I wouldn't be reading and writing fan fiction about a Square Enix game.

So, yes, the idea that Reeve was getting married to some random faceless OC (or indeed that Tifa, wearying of Cloud's neediness, was entering into a civil partnership with hot OC Jack Daniels from the fruit market) while perfectly valid and more than likely to happen in real life, would totally alienate me from a fic. And I think this is a natural and common reaction with fictional worlds. I care about the characters I know and love. With a few notable exceptions, I don't care about OCs. Having said that, I have certainly some tics that persuaded me to care about the OCs and accept them as part of the FFVII world (and family). But I can't off the top of the head think of a single fic I enjoyed where a major character settled down in a permanent relationship with an OC.

 

[Skan]

Another grab bag:

For me, shipfic = any story where a pairing is the main focus. Genfic is anything where the main focus is not on the ship. Genfic can have shipping elements in it though, and the ship can even be indispensable to the understanding of the story (see Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose, which straddles the line between slash and genfic so well that it won awards in the gen category for the SG fic awards). For that reason, there are a lot of stories that others might consider pairing stories that I would consider genfic.

A lot of people who read/write pairing fics actually don't read/write romance fiction. There was a survey on Tumblr, actually. Pretty interesting; wish I cared enough to dig it up.

Shipping doesn't necessarily lead to or require characters to be OOC. I think most ships can be totally written IC. It's just that many authors don't take the time to set them up to the satisfaction of the people who are not in their target audience. And you know what? That's totally fine. The fic is not written to sell a pairing to me; the fic is written to celebrate a pairing with other fans of that pairing!

(And that's why you get so much bitching about Squall/Rinoa. Because Squall/Rinoa was not set up that well. Squeenix wrote the story as if it was a given they would fall in love, but the audience didn't believe that, and so you ended up with ... "Wtf, why did Squall's brain just fucking break?" I still think the pairing was very integral to the story Squeenix was telling, but it wasn't presented that well.

But seriously, Squall/Rinoa canonically happened. So in my mind, almost any pairing can be made to work at least as well as Squall/Rinoa.)

I wonder, does this change according to the length of the story? Would a reader still expect a multi-chapter fic to tell you where the entire story is going in the first page, with compelling character conflict within the first few paragraphs?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I would expect a multi-chapter fic to hint to me, from the very beginning, either the happenings of the larger plot or what the story is ultimately about (i.e. not plot but theme). I love it when the story hits both notes, but that is rare.

I am a lot more forgiving of original fiction in general though. That said, I still can't get through the first few pages of Sabriel. I just can't force myself to give a shit.

These represent certain archetypes of relationship dynamics that people find intrinsically interesting.

Exactly. A lot of people loooooooove antagonistic relationships because they're fun to read and fun to write. They come with built-in snark, conflict, and hot sex. What's not to love?

(I'm somewhat convinced that Squall/Rinoa is not as much of a dud as Cloud/Tifa primarily because there is so much conflict between them in the game.)

You know, I shipped Ed/Roy once upon a time. I still don't get Cloud/Sephiroth though.

Will line up for Brokeback Angeal/Genesis though.

(You know, for all this pooh-poohing about shipfic, I will confess that I find shipfic a hell of a lot harder to write than genfic.)

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Ed/Roy is kind of tempting. I leaned more towards Roy/Maes Hughes, though. It was just a phase for Maes, part of the intensity and comradeship of war; he moved on and got married, but Roy didn't, which is one of the reasons why he couldn't reciprocate Hawkeye's feelings. (There's a Tseng/Elena thing going on with Roy and Hawkeye.)

Yes, Cloud/Sephiroth is a complete mystery to me too. But I think it falls into the general category of "fix-it" fics.

[I really wish auto-correc would stop changing "fic" to "tic"]

 

[Clement Rage]

For me, while everything can be plausible, a non canon pairing fic will have to work much harder to make me believe it. We know how CloTi happened, so you don't need to lay the groundwork for me, but if I see a fic where Vincent and Yuffie are madly in love my reaction would be 'wait, what? Go back, how and when did this happen?' It's kind of the same as introducing from nowhere that Cloud is a table tennis champion. "Okay, but tell me more."

Sometimes, though, I find a romantic bond between characters lessens my regard for them. Cloud/Zack makes me question whether Zack would have left him to rot in Nibelheim if he wasn't his lover. I can buy Reno/Rude, but I want to see how it happened. I think a question worth asking with a non canon pairing is 'okay, what am I adding to the existing relationship? Does it make it more interesting?'

Any given pairing, (Well, no that's not true, I can't see anyone making Vincent/Rosso convincing) I can buy if enough work gets put into it but the cumulative effect of all this shipping seems to imply that no bond has any value except romantic love. Snake/Otacon is borderline canon, but I dislike it because introducing a romantic bond undermines a beautiful relationship of mutual respect that is already there. Not every bond is necessarily love, Levi can trust and respect Erwin without being in love with him. Steiner can be loyal to Garnet without being in love.

On OCs, I quite enjoy them if they fit into the world. Cloud's secret best friend that lived next door to him in Nibelheim and followed him into the army but we somehow never heard about is questionable, but there are conceivably people who knew him in the army and were friends. If they fit into the world, without any more knowledge or skills than they could reasonably have. This (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6201074/1/Mightier-Than-The-Gun) worked for me because it was reasonable that journalists exist and might not be fond of Shinra.

The 'Beth Jones' example elicits the 'wait, what? When did this happen, tell me more' reaction from me. but if you spend some time with her (but not only with her, and hopefully as part of some larger plot.

Personally, I hate dominance battle romances