#in which I give advice that I am wholly unqualified to give

[kjack89]

hi! first off, congrats on having 500 works up! ❤ ive been wanting to ask you for advice... im fairly new to posting fics on ao3, so i know not to expect much hits/kudos, but one of my fave fics that i wrote barely has any hits, and tbh it made me feel bad, coz i poured my heart into writing it. now im nervous to post the multi-chap fic that i wrote last year and am proud of coz what if it doesnt get appreciated and i lose appreciation for it too? :( do you have any advice for me? - E.

Thanks so much Nonny!

In terms of the advice you’re looking for…well, I can try, but the truth is, I may not be the best person to ask because the question you pose runs so opposite of how my brain is (mis-)wired that I temporarily blue screened while reading it. (Which is not to dismiss your feelings as invalid by any stretch! But they’re not necessarily something I’m equipped to help with.)

Which is to say, to me, you’ve already done the hardest part. You’ve already written something more.

When I have a fic that flops - and I’ve had a lot of them! I will have a lot more still to come! - my difficulty is always in getting past it to write the next thing. And I won’t lie, I’ve built in my expectations for return on investment into how I write fics. It’s why I don’t write very many multi-chapters anymore. It’s why I’ve had ideas for a fic and know that I’m never going to write it because the effort isn’t worth the payoff. It’s why I play things fairly safe in terms of treading familiar ground. Because I know how to manage my own expectations (and because I know that’s important to me to be able to keep writing).

But you! You have a multi-chapter already done and ready to go! And not only that but if I’m reading your ask correctly, you managed to write the entire thing without any feedback/hits/kudos/comments whatsoever! That’s mind-boggling to me. I don’t work like that. It’s one of many reasons why I struggle with the idea of writing a novel - I have a hard time staying motivated when I’m not getting semi-consistent feedback (in no small part because my brain chemistry is pretty fucked up).

Additionally, my appreciation for my own fics generally doesn’t change once it’s done and posted. I have moments of doubt, sure, like when a fic that I really love bombs I may question if it wasn’t as good as I thought it was, but I’ve been doing this for long enough now that I tend to read that more as a reflection on the fandom than the work itself. Like, oh, I wrote a whump fic, fandom didn’t respond, they must not be into that anymore (or at least right now), so I will probably not write a similar fic for awhile (or, if I get an idea that I just have to write that is in this vein, I’ll do so knowing that it’s gonna flop and adjust my expectations for it accordingly).

(And, on the flip side, if a fic ends up going over super well and I think it’s kind of meh, I don’t tend to think higher of it just because fandom loves it. I figure I managed to tap into something in the zeitgeist and that’s great but it doesn’t make my clumsy turns of phrase or lack of effort in characterization any better, y’know?)

So in terms of the advice that you’re looking for, I don’t know that I have an answer for you. All I’ll say is this: you can’t get appreciation from anyone besides yourself if you don’t share it. That said, for right now, maybe you decide to shelve it for the moment, to work on something else and keep this for yourself until you’ve established yourself in whatever fandom you’re in. And that’s ok too! I truly cannot relate (though I wish like hell I could) but you probably have a healthier relationship long-term with your writing than I do if that’s a decision you’re happy with.

At the end of the day, the only thing you (or any writer) can do is keep writing, so my advice is to do whatever you think will help you most to keep writing. That will almost certainly not look the same to you as it does to me, which I know is maddeningly unhelpful, but it’s all I’ve got.

[butihavejoy]

Do you have advice on writing fic for a new fandom for the first time? Or for getting back to fic writing in general, after you haven't written for a long time? Fandom feels so different now than when I was writing fic before, and it makes me feel less confident about posting fic I write, to the point that I haven't been able to make myself finish anything. How do you deal with it?

I mean, the easy answer is that I don’t deal with it, since I tend to stick pretty closely with the fandoms I’m in, and for this exact reason. Writing for a new fandom is hard — you’re juggling the dual tasks of figuring out how to write new characters and how to write for a brand new audience.

But by breaking it down into those two tasks, you can start to see the different pieces to feeling more confident in your writing for a new fandom, or even just getting back into it. For me, when it comes to figuring out how to write new characters or how to write characters I haven’t in a while, the absolute best thing to do is obsessively consume canon material. Rewatch TV episodes or reread the book a bunch of times until you have the relevant scenes imprinted on your mind. I know I’ve found it when I can hear the characters having conversations and see them in situations in my mind that never happened in canon.

As for writing for a new audience, again, obsessively consume material, but in this case, consume what’s already out there. Read fic that’s always been written for the fandom or the pairing. Some of it may inform your own interpretation of characters, but it’s also a market study to see what readers respond to, what tropes they love, etc. If fandom feels different, it’s likely because the audience has changed — folks have moved on, tropes have gone in and out of popularity, etc., so take a moment to see what’s happening currently in the fandom before going in blind.

None of which is to say that you should tailor your writing toward only what the fandom already enjoys, because they can’t enjoy something new if they’ve never experienced it, and they may surprise you! But it can at least give you a starting point.

Finally, when all else fails, you just gotta throw something at the wall and see what thinks. All fic writing is trial and error, and there’s always going to be things you write that people respond to and things people don’t, which is as true in fandoms you’re established in as in new fandoms (unless you write pure gold and nothing you’ve ever written has flopped, in which case, you’ve got a leg up on me and I salute you). 

Above all, believe in your story, believe in your characters, and know that there is always, always someone out there who will find and love your story. Which in and of itself is more than worth it.

P.S. Put a “First fic for this fandom” or “I’m new to this fandom, be nice please” disclaimer in the author’s notes on your fic. It does absolute wonders and you will be amazed by how incredibly kind some folks are when it comes to welcoming people to the fandom.

[divorceyourring]

A week in family law: Forced marriage, unexplained wealth, children in care and more

A package of measures to tackle the crime of forced marriage has been announced by the Home Secretary Sajid Javid. As part of this, a public consultation will be launched to determine whether there should be a mandatory requirement for professionals to report a forced marriage case to the authorities. This will help identify which professionals the duty would apply to, the specific circumstances where a case would have to be reported, and potential sanctions for failure to comply with the duty. The measures have been welcomed by Jasvinder Sanghera CBE, the outgoing head of the charity Karma Nirvana which victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage, but she warned: “I’ve lobbied five home secretaries in my time and heard them talk of their commitment to this issue but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating”, adding that she felt “there is not the right leadership in government to mainstream this issue.”

As I reported here yesterday, a judgment of the High Court may mean that the wife of a foreign banker will lose a UK property worth millions of pounds, unless she can explain the source of her wealth. The woman, who has been named as Zamira Hajiyeva from Azerbaijan, was the subject of the UK’s first unexplained wealth order earlier this year, meaning that she will have to explain how she was able to afford the property without using the proceeds of crime, her husband having been convicted in Azerbaijan of various offences including misappropriation, abuse of office, large-scale fraud and embezzlement in connection with a bank of which he was the chairman. If she does not give a satisfactory explanation as to how it was obtained, then the property could ultimately be seized. Mrs Hajiyeva asked the High Court to discharge the order, but her application was refused. As I said in my post, the case will surely act as a warning to anyone whose spouse has been involved in serious crime: not only will they will not be able to hold on to assets acquired using the proceeds of that crime, they may not be able to hold on to assets if they cannot provide a satisfactory explanation as to how they obtained them.

I mentioned here last week a case in which a family took their child to the Republic of Ireland in order to avoid her being taken into care. Thankfully, the Irish High Court ordered the child to be returned to this country. What I did not notice when I quickly scanned the report of the case was that the parents told the Irish court that before they removed the child they had received incorrect advice from a McKenzie friend to the effect that they were not forbidden from removing their daughter from this country. The case has led to further calls to regulate the McKenzie friend industry. It really is time that vulnerable people such as these parents were protected from those who effectively masquerade as unqualified lawyers.

In a shocking statistic it has been revealed that almost 17,000 new-born babies were taken into care in England in the last nine years. The statistic comes from a report by the Nuffield Foundation which looked at children born into care. The report revealed that 2,447 new-borns were subject to care proceedings within one week of birth from 2016 to 2017, compared with 1,039 in 2007-08. Over the nine-year period, a total of 16,849 new-borns were subject to care proceedings. The research also found that almost a third of all infants coming before the courts in care proceedings did so as new-borns in 2007-08. By 2017-18, this proportion had risen to 42%.

And finally, we have had another scathing judgment condemning the lack of secure accommodation available for children in need. In the case Her Honour Judge Lazarus had been asked by the local authority to make a secure accommodation order in relation to a 16 year old boy who was beyond parental control and involved with gangs and drug dealing. However, she was unable to make the order, due to the lack of secure accommodation places available. She said that this was “clearly a wholly unacceptable situation.  He is a child in local authority care who is at risk from his disordered background and the depredations of gang life.  This is the opportunity to help him and make him safe, and it is being lost.” She went on: “Like my colleagues before me, whose published judgments increasingly feel like heads banging against brick walls, I am dismayed, frustrated and outraged; and to quote the former President of the Family Division from last year’s case of Re X , I am deeply worried about the risk that ‘we will have blood on our hands’.” She said that the case represented “yet another sorry example of the state failing a child in need”, and directed that her judgment be sent to the Secretary of State for Education, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and to the Children’s Commissioner for England.

Have a good weekend.

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[kjack89]

Ooo 23 please I bet you have tons of those!!!

23. What's the most valuable writing tip you've encountered?

Like all writers, good and otherwise, I’m going to steal from someone far better at writing than me, Neil Gaiman:

“Keep writing. Improve. Finish things. Start new things. Read everything you can. Don’t stop, and don’t listen to anyone who says you can’t do it.

And good luck.”

It is infuriating advice, because if writing was as simple as that, you wouldn’t need advice in the first place, right? But what makes it infuriating also makes it true. I can shoot out eighteen different tips and tricks, but at the end of the day, what it always comes down to is simply what Mr. Gaiman said. 

Keep writing. Don’t stop. And good luck.