My fanfic year-in-review 2022

[brightknightie]

Now that hlh_shortcuts has de-anonymized, I can share my 2022 fanfic year-in-review list:

• June: Forever Knight: "Amaranth (love-lies-bleeding)" in the FKFicFest challenge (M, m/f, ~5K words) (12 kudos, 8 comment threads)


• August: Battlestar Galactica (1978): "Conjunction" for Sharpest_asp in the Every Woman exchange (G, gen, ~2K words) (6 kudos, 2 comment threads)


• December: Highlander: "Would you leave" for Argentum_ls in the HLH_Shorcuts exchange (G, gen, 3K words) (28 kudos, 8 comment threads)

I'd planned to post more stories in 2022. But the Retro TV exchange didn't happen. And I didn't manage to complete anything not event-driven.

I did dash off several dozen assorted bits and pieces throughout the year -- just, you know, notebook sketches, random prompts, 50-200 words snippets. But I never managed to turn any of them into "real stories."

In my head, when looking at my own stuff -- not yours! -- I feel as if there's a baseline default that it can't possibly be worth the reader's time if it doesn't have not only a beginning, middle, end, arc, and moral -- I love morals and themes; I know not everyone does -- but if it also isn't at least 2K words, much better 10K, much much better 50K... though I haven't reached those higher counts in ages.

There are of course reasons I feel that way. I wrote a paragraph here examining those reasons, stared at it, and deleted it. They are all true motivations. But none logically validate my emotions about rigid prerequisites I must meet in order to post fanfic.

I have a handful of unposted, unfinished, tiny Pokemon GO sketches written over the past several years. Maybe I will pick a couple, polish them up just as they are, under 500 words, post them, and then backdate them to their actual vintages when I first dashed them off. That's got to be my most... harmless... fandom? I mean, on the AO3, even when you filter away all the crossovers and the weird M and E stuff, it still seems dominated by teenagers writing self-insert and second-person. (And if I haven't come up with Sierra's motivation for inventing the Strange Eggs by now, will I ever?)

I also have unposted, unfinished, tiny sketches in my more substantial, traditional fandoms, but... those readers and characters really do deserve more! Better! "Real" stories. All the goodness I can muster. So the question is, how do I get from the little miscellaneous bits to something I'm confident is worth a reader's attention in these fandoms? There's some measurement that I need to have "tick over" in my imagination. I don't know what it is.

Step one: I'll officially decrease my self-imposed minimum length to 750 words.

Step two: I'll put "fanfic writing" literally on my calendar with twice-weekly appointments.

Step three: I need to self-impose some deadlines. Deadlines are how events get me to finish pieces.


Thank you for your generosity in reading this whole post! If you happen to have insight or advice on how I can move from miscellaneous snippets to genuine "real stories" worth readers' time -- such as both readers and my brain will agree with -- please share with me. :-) If not, that's okay, too!

Comments

[thefruitbat]

First of all; I love your writing style. It's so lively, the pacing is great, the story arcs are beautiful. You just have a way with words. :)
(And please count this as extra kudos for "Amaranth")

It's sad to hear that you feel pressured to write stories of a certain minimum length. I bet even your snippets are worth posting. Some things work better in shorter form, some in longer form.

I think your steps to write more sound very sensible. If you do well with time-pressure, that looks like the way to go. In one of my last postings I shared my experience with co-writing. It helped me to get back to writing on a story I haven't touched for months. It's also a form of pressure, because you know others are writing at the same time as well, so maybe that could be something worth trying (if you haven't already)?

[brightknightie]

Thank you very much for the compliments!

I did read your post about "co-writing." I was not wholly sure what you meant. It didn't sound like co-authoring, which is of course when two or more people collaboratively write the same one story together. I guessed that it meant something more like having some friends come together, either online or in person, and all of you work on your own separate stories during the period you're together?

If the second, no, that isn't something I've personally done, and I don't think it's available to me. :-) But many folks do similar things, I know, and it works very nicely for them!

[thefruitbat]

Yes, I think I should have been a bit clearer in my post, I guess. ^^ I meant the second one.

[senmut]

I am a writer who writes selfishly. I had an idea so I wrote it. I want to explore this moment, so I wrote it. Someone just asked what if, so I wrote it.

I am also a writer who literally uses writing as therapy. Not in the "here are my issues inflicted on my characters" way, but in the "if I put myself in their heads, sometimes I think my own issues out from a different perspective", so I write.

However, until recently, I have been a notoriously short-form writer, with a love of drabbles. A lot of my niche fandom I am stuck in are actually 1k or longer because that is the number of words I needed to explore the premise. My friends (especially my wife) always tell me that they need ten or more words for every one word I use, to accomplish the same thing.

I sometimes envy them, as I know from the reader side (and have been told regularly by said readers) that my fic is too short.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying 'if you write it, they will come'. As my self-indulgences acquire readers from somewhere. Sometimes those little snippets, when shared, will spark a reader chatting at you about them, about possibilities, and then you can write something larger from it. Sometimes, the reader IS just looking for 'what was Natalie thinking in THAT moment'.

A joy of fanfic for me as a reader? Is when I find soap opera fics. Soap Operas sprawled across daytime and nighttime television all my childhood. And while there would be PLOTS (sometimes?), they were more about people living their (extraordinary) lives day to day. So when I come across fics in fandoms I love where Things Happen but mostly it is life for them, I am a cheerful reader in the kind of tapestry I prefer.

[brightknightie]

Thank you for sharing your insights and approach. I will think on them.

I wonder if your "soap opera fics" concept is similar to what I think of as "interlude fics" -- the things that happen between the big adventures, not necessarily literal missing scenes, but rather the downtime between defeating a big bad and gearing up for the coming of the next big bad, the holiday dinners and pick-up basketball games and the like. I learned to love those scenes in my peak teenage comics-reading years, the rare scenes or more rarely even issues when one of the characters just goes to the grocery store or does homework... and the baseball games at the end of the summer Avengers and West Coast Avengers annuals.

[senmut]

YES! In serial TV, they'd be called "filler episodes", showing you more of the characters without a true plot.

[pj1228]

Good luck with the three steps.

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but maybe try not to think too much about if your story is worth the reader's time. Write what you enjoy writing. If you're satisfied by it, the readers will enjoy it, too.

[brightknightie]

Thank you! I will think on it.

I tend to feel, for myself, that that the act of posting publicly says that I think others should read what I've posted, and for that I should be considering the audience... I wonder whether I've always felt that way, or whether two decades of playing exchange-style fanfiction games have built that feeling.

[greerwatson]

Little vignettes have value too, you know. Their insights are focused.

[brightknightie]

You're right. A miniature is not inherently worth less than an mural. The quality of the crafting can make each perfect in its own way.

[malinaldarose]

I think your steps are useful. I particularly like the writing appointment step and may swipe it.

[brightknightie]

Thanks! I wish you very good luck with the appointment idea. I'm planning to start with a "Story-writing club" reservation on my work calendar for 7-10pm Mondays. "Ooops, sorry, can't work/meet late tonight; I have this appointment..."

[vegetablearian]

I feel the same way as you about shorter fics with no real meat to them (and about being considerate in public online spaces). But, I realised they're perfectly easy to filter out on AO3. If someone doesn't like short fics - and I don't, as a reader - and they're seeing them, it's either their own fault or they'll actually be grateful because they're desperate for crumbs for whatever reason. I've been in that situation!

I hope you're having luck with your writing appointments :)

[brightknightie]

Thank you. Yes, I feel that the act of posting fic to a public forum, like the AO3 now or a mailing list in the old days, is an act of saying: "I feel that folks should read this."

It's not that a micro-story can't be a perfect story; it surely can, and some writers specialize in that. Rather, I hadn't been achieving pieces that I do think folks should read...

Fingers crossed that it will pick up momentum and do better this year!