#Because I posted this I probably won't ever be traditionally published

[stephsycamore]

Hello friends. Yet another post on a topic literally no one here signed up for but the blog is about my hyperfixation of the month so here we are

I have been reading dramione. I know in my last post i said i was ki da over dramione after a couple of fics because i find the pairing too toxic but i only kinda lied because i have just reread the like 4 dramione fics i found and liked and now i will review them. Technically i have read/started more than 4 but i won't be commenting on fics i didn't like because that isn't fair to the writers.

The first one was manacled. Which i know what a fucking reintroduction to the fandom. But i am no young newbie. I used to read and rewrite A LOT of harry potter fic and while its still fuck jk rowling, she doesn't financially benefit from fic and i heard years ago that she doesn't like fic so. I hope its all a big fuck u to her.

Anyway, manacled. Wow!!! What the fuck???? It has lived rent free in my head ever since. I literally cannot stop thinking about it. If ever i reentered the harry potter fic world let it be known that it would be so i can write fanfic of this fanfic. A couple points - manacled is kinda overly long and would benefit from an editor/beta reader, but I heard senlinyu wrote it on her phone while nursing a baby and just???? Idk what her day job is, but that woman needs to be doing creative writing mfas, writers workshops, residencies, whatever. That is extraordinary creative talent.

I think the first part with hermione in the manor was a bit overly long and too torture porn ish. A lot of the scenes bordered into the unnecessarily gratituous. But overall, it was well plotted, well written, and gut wrenching. The last section takes my breath away

The second fic i read was Remain Nameless. And while i kinda don't love smut (it makes me a little uncomfy) i think remain nameless is a perfrct example of fanfic as a genre. Within fic, there are obviously genres, but there are stylistic elements and things that I think makes fanfiction a genre in itself. Remain Nameless is an exploration of character that goes beyond the confines of conventional or traditionally publish-able story structure. It is too long, too drawn out, too indulgent to be a traditionally published story. If i swap out the names and details in Manacled or Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in love (up next) out, its a probably close to a stand alone novel, but Remain Nameless relies on you knowing and already caring about Draco and Hermione. I don't mean that disparagingly at all, I just think sometimes people don't realize that fanfic should be different from traditionally published novels and that is a benefit of the genre. I think Remain Nameless is great. Its an indulgent, fluffy read that takes two broken people and slowly puts them back together again. Its like a hug in book format.

My next one is DMATMOOBIL!! I loved this one. And the author??? You cannot convince me that this fic was not written by someone with literal years of publishing experience in contemporary romance. No way. Its too good. Not just in a good writing way. Manacled is good in an unfiltered, raw talent way, but DMATMOOBIL is polished. The plot is perfectly structured and then each chapter within that is perfectly structured. I loved it. It wad witty, funny, heartfelt, and exciting. Not sure what more I can say about it. It reads like published fiction both in its polish and readability, and I think of all the fics I read has the best worldbuilding. It is truly exciting to read about the possibilities of magical and muggle science colliding in this book and bringing their world to the 21st century.

The last fic i read was Green Light by SereneMusafir. I thought it was so good but would benefit from being split into two maybe even three books. Green Light features a journalist coming to interview Draco many years after the events of the book, so that kinda complicates splitting it up, but as it stands, the story parts are too vast and thematically disparate to be one book. The first part has Draco and Hermione on an expedition in the desert to find a archeological myth and the writing is extraoridinary. Its poetic and cinematic. But I think at times it all tries to do too much. Like I said, the whole thing needs to be split up but each chapter also needs to be a bit shorter. Again, I don't mean cutting content, but rather restructuring. As it is, I read an incredible scene, but then there's like 5 more scenes of something else, and by the time I'm at the end of the chapter, I've kinda forgotten what amazing prose I read earlier on. Things get lost in this way. Beautiful passages buried.

I think two or three books would also allow each thematic section to be explored better. Idk i thought about this one a lot. I likely will not reread Green Light the way I have reread the others on this list, but other than Manacled, it is the one I think about most. Its the most ambitious plot wise and it kinda got lost in that ambition but I think it has so much potential and was over all very good.

Anyway. That is the end to this book review no one asked for. I will likely not be reading more dramione. So here ends that brief of excellent phase.

[stygiusfic]

u cant spell sword without words thats what i always say. with that in mind pls 19, 20, 22 and 23 :D

you are RIGHT and you should say it!! those five letters don't lie!! <3

19. the most interesting topic you've researched for a fic

traditionally I've been allergic to writing anything that requires extensive research. either I won't have the patience for it, or worse, I'll get sucked into the research and never actually start writing. this is why I don't do modern AUs, I prefer to write fictional settings where I can make up the rules.

i did fall down a research hole of flower language when i was writing the hanahaki fic, and that was a lot of fun! (I did waste weeks of bigbang drafting time on that, though...)

20. in what year did you publish your first fic?

trying to count the rings on my tree trunk, i see... my earliest fic posted to ao3 on my first account is dated May 2008, but I was definitely posting elsewhere online for quite a few years before that. I think the very first may have been around 2003 on a forum for my first fandom, but I've lost track of the post so idk for sure. 

22. do you ever worry about public reaction to what you're writing? how do you get past that?

let me tell you a story. I wrote that cursed skelly/zagreus fic (my proud masterpiece Hard to Port) in half a day in january of 2021 to mess with all-star hades writer thepleiades, and I was half-expecting I would be chased out of the fandom with torches and pitchforks for it, so I waited until April Fool's to post it, for plausible deniability.

then after posting it I gained 3 whole subscribers on ao3. the following day i posted a perfectly normal thanzag fic and I lost 4 subscribers

the lesson from the universe here is to always write for the sake of trolling your friends and having fun, and also that trying to predict anyone else's reactions is probably pointless. 

(it still gives me weird anxiety to post now and then, especially if it's something i worked hard on, but slowly I'm getting better at turning my brain off after I hit post. my days of vibrating out of my skin hoping my latest fic will be well-received are certainly coming to a middle. maybe even three-quarters!)

23. pick three words that describe your writing

i answered this one here so i will trade you for the next!

24. how do you recharge when you're not feeling creative?

brain's a sponge so sometimes you just have to walk away if there isn't enough water to squeeze out. I like to read and watch new media for a change of pace, and usually that helps get me out of a rut! other times I'm stuck because the story has a problem I haven't figured out how to fix yet, and when that happens I talk about it to my pet bunny and he just stares or lies down because he enjoys hearing voices. and then very often my problem is magically fixed!

(wip ask meme)

[brain-depositary]

Kiddos, I see there's a post about "problematic media" going about and how to read it and I just want to say that media, especially media that's put out by large corporations like major publishers, film, etc., is not created by individuals in a vacuum-- especially today with creators being paid less than ever and publishers wringing more and more "content" out of them.

Like even with extremely cut and dry cases like Jay Kristoff naming one of his major villains, a friggin cabal-running vampire, Adonai, in one of his novels, you cannot lay the blame entirely on Jay Kristoff. Even if he was the most virulent antisemite in existence, if Nevernight had remained in a private file on his computer never to be read by anyone or even just read by a close circle of associates, it's hard to argue that the novel itself would be perpetuating "harm". Even if he had self-edited and self-published it and sold a few hundred copies, it would not have had that far of a reach. The real kicker is that this passed through a major publisher and got published as it was. I mean if there's any proof that Jews don't run the media, this is it -- there would have been no fucking way anyone Jewish would have seen that and not raised some sort of alarm before it was printed. The elephant in the room is not just that Jay Kristoff had this "problematic" thought in his head and decided to write it down, but that we don't also consider the sheer number of eyes that went over his manuscript and decided there was no problem with it and just let it steamroll on through.

And like, there's a whole cascade of reasons why there are these recent 'Eastern European'-inspired fantasy books that end up with wildly antisemitic subtext and even text getting through publishing. There's the sentiment that "(Western) European Fantasy Stories are boring" but at the same time extreme risk aversion to anything new and unwillingness to work with PoC authors to publish anything else. So, white people latch onto eastern Europe as a "safe" region they're "allowed" to pilfer from as eastern Europeans are white but that will still make their fantasy stories "unique", while not realizing how baked-in the antisemitism is to so much writing and folklore from there. And, if you're looking to eastern Europe for your dose of exoticism, you're not going to know enough about antisemitism there to recognize it even if it if bites you in the ass, and so, at best, you're going to replicate it out of ignorance. This fiction was not created in a vacuum. And it's so strange that none of the blame is laid at the feet of all the people who are making demands of this story, not the original writers but the ones who insisted on changing it so it would sell and the ones who did eventually choose to sell it. The writer is the one who wrote down the antisemitism and that is by some measure bad, but is it not the fault of the people who thought antisemitism would sell that it sold?

I think about the Isabel Fall attack helicopter story and I think about the publisher a lot here and how nothing happened to them, how they were completely ignored in all this controversy. I've long felt like a lot of short story markets are exploitative -- like in the manner of writing a college essay, that you're intended to mine your 'trauma' or 'culture' for brownie points and set it up in a particular "punchy" style that makes it appealing for these markets. I've felt like Clarkesworld, the publisher of Fall's story, was one of the bigger offenders of this, so while I didn't like her story, I didn't find what made it bad to me unique. What was unique was that it was on such an inflammatory topic that it got a lot of attention outside of those who usually read short stories from magazines like this. I can understand if Fall herself did not anticipate the fallout of such a story, and I can't blame her, but I seriously question the wisdom of Clarkesworld of publishing it at all. Did they not have an inkling that it would be inflammatory to the point of causing a shitshow? If they didn't, they hadn't been paying attention to any writing circles on social media, and I would say they therefore did not know enough about the topic to publish a piece on it, and therefore what happened was their fault; if they did have some inkling that this shitshow was even a possibility, did they tell Fall? Not warning her, at the very least, is negligence on their part, and they're still the ones at fault. Even if you thought that the story was problematic to the point of being dangerous to trans people somehow, blaming Fall for writing it and not Clarkesworld for publishing it is just so absurd, because no problem occurred until it was published. Clarkesworld chose this story to publish above all others, and I'm not sure if people understand, but according to publication statistics, Clarkesworld only publishes 0.57% of stories it receives. Yes, that's right, they could have published one of about 199 other stories instead of Fall's, but Fall's was the one they chose. That it existed at all may have been Fall's doing, but that the world saw it was absolutely a very deliberate choice by Clarkesworld.

When writers submit, submit, submit, and are continuously rejected, it's because their writing does not satisfy some arbitrary standard. Even if it's not "not good enough", a lot of marginalized people are always told that what they write is "too similar" to something they already have. The entire publishing apparatus poses itself as an arbiter of taste, of knowing what the market, the people, will consume, so when those same people wrinkle their noses in disgust at what they're being sold, why are we not finding fault with the people who are doing the selling?

I think it is hard lay blame at the seller and not the writer because the people doing the selling are a mostly invisible force, a faceless company, with so many hands touching the product to distribute responsibility, while the author is often right there on Twitter to scream at. But if publishers aren't for you, the reader, a sign of quality editing to find and correct at least the most egregious faults, and they're not help for the writer to correct these most egregious faults, you've got to wonder what the hell they're even there for.

[lonewolfshayu]

I love Worm, but I seriously doubt it can be traditionally published. It can, of course. But it wouldn't be Worm anymore.

Trad publishers make you change a lot. Even with books that are 90,000 words long. Worm is over one million and a half words long!

Seriously, this thing cannot be published traditionally. If it would be, it would be so different. Authors who want to be published traditionally aren't advised to write any sequels to their books before the first one has even been published. And obviously a web novel that is over one million words long would have to be split up into several books.

Worm is impossible to traditionally publish.

And if Wildbow did go that route, it would take a very long time for book one of Worm to come out. Traditionally published novels take a few years to come out, if I remember correctly. Just one book. Worm would probably be at least 15 books long. That's means Worm would take over 15 years to become a complete published series.

Editing all of that would take some time, too. Plus a traditionally published book one of Worm could make the rest of the books be all for nothing. Because trad publishers would want much changed.

In all honesty, Worm is better off being self published. Or even just staying the way it is, as an online web novel forever. A traditionally published Worm would mean a complete rewrite of the entire Worm web novel. And that would be a lot of work.

In my opinion, Wildbow should become traditionally published. But I don't mean he should trad publish Worm. I mean that he should make a new book that isn't based off any of his web novels or anything. He already has an audience. The guy could really start a new work that becomes loved by many. And even more people would become fans of Worm the web novel.

BTW self publishing Worm into multiple books would take a lot of time as well. Because editing.

I know people would prefer a physical Worm series. Actual Worm books. But I highly doubt that will ever happen. Don't forget that Worm isn't perfect. It has grammar errors, typos, etc. All throughout a web novel that is almost 2 million words long. All of that would need to be fixed during editing.

So, I believe Worm should stay as it is. An online story.

Wildbow should write an actual physical novel, just to do it. And more readers would become fond of that online superhero story he wrote.

But I would also just love to see Wildbow write a genuine novel that you can hold, one that isn't based off his web novels or anything. I know people would love it.

Considering that Wildbow said before a Worm 3 won't happen, because of a toxic fandom, it would be nice for Wildbow to start anew. A new book. A physical one that is original and just like all of the traditional novels that the person reading this post likely has in their home somewhere.

BTW I'm the writer of the web novel Redouln Rising. It is one million words long. Wildbow inspired me to make it that long. Worm did that. And I'm now planning on getting back to self publishing actual physical novels. I believe it wouldn't hurt for Wildbow to do the same. Just with traditional publishing, though.

I love Worm. I do.

But I want people to realize that there is no way Worm would become a physical thing. What I believe is the best case scenario is Wildbow keeping Worm as the free online story that it is, and him writing original works and traditionally publishing them. He can self publish as well. I think Wildbow should do both.

Worm may never go mainstream. But Wildbow can. If he becomes a famous and popular mainstream writer in several years, I can mention to other people that this famous author also wrote a cool web novel that they should check out. That would not be bad at all.

In short, Wildbow should stop the web novels. He should traditionally publish and self publish, keep Worm the way it is, and just go mainstream by getting original novels traditionally published.

Regardless, Worm is still amazing. And that will never change.

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Also, while fanfiction won't teach you everything you need to know to write original fiction, that's… not actually a flaw in the form?

I mean, by that logic, poets should be shit writers. Because what the fuck are they learning? Weird structures, often way too much description, not enough plot, sometimes no characters at all— not to mention the fact that most of it is just too damn short to ever be a novel.

Or screenwriters! This time not enough description, and they're definitely not learning how to frame dialogue properly, or communicate where the characters are without literally printing it in capital letters at the top of the page.

Short story writers don't learn how to manage a longer narrative spanning multiple chapters; novelists may never figure out how to cram a satisfying story into just a few hundred words— it's almost as if these are all completely different forms with completely different purposes.

Fanfiction is fanfiction, it's not Baby's First Practice Writing For Before You Write Your Real Novel.

The only reason it sometimes comes across as more amateurish than 'proper writing' is because it's one of the only forms where the average reader is regularly exposed to work from new writers. Very few people will sit down to write their first story ever and immediately churn out something that ends up getting traditionally published, while most people will happily post their first fanfic online.

(It's also a form of writing that is exclusively done For Fun— when fanfic is legally done for money it morphs into 'adaptation' or 'tribute' and tends to traitorously ally itself with the likes of Proper Fiction— which in some cases probably does lead to lower standards. Personally, I don't edit my fics nearly as much as I edit my original stuff. They would almost certainly be better if they did, but this is For Fun, and editing is Not Fun for me.)

This doesn't mean that those first time writers (or longtime slackers, like me) will become worse writers because of it. Not only will a lot of the skills they learn from fanfic transfer over to original but, whatever happens, writing a lot of fanfiction will definitely make you better at fanfiction. And that's not an unworthy goal.

tonight’s twitter discourse:

this thread (all their takes after the initial tweet are bad too)

https://twitter.com/benedict_rs/status/1349954211358924800

i don’t know if they wanted to become a more popular writer or podcaster but they’re getting ratioed by the minute. 

i’ve been finding new authors to follow by digging in the quote-retweets