#online vs. published

[avaloque]

i want to know my actual average reading count.

i read a hella lot on ao3. so what i am going to try this year is: make a count of words of fics that i read, then translate that into pages to make my count.

we’ll see if it works

[edwardian-sea-witch]

Why did no one tell me that fairy tales count as their own fandoms on AO3?

I’d always avoided fanfic and fandom culture because seeing other people’s (entirely subjectively) Wrong Opinions on existing IP tend to make me irrationally angry (and that is something I’d like to work on Not Doing—why do I do that?) but!!! Straight-up fairy tale retellings? That aren’t AUs of copyrighted media?? Taking the tools of modern transformative fiction and applying them to traditional tale types and thus creating a hybrid between the very new and the very old???

[beauzos]

i don't hold it against any customer who chooses to buy a book off of Amazon rather than B&N because of pricing or availability but you don't need to tell us that. cause we'll say it's fine 'cause of course it is, it's your money and what works best for you, but most of us are internally like (go fuck yourself) about it BHSDH

Amazon is a fucking monster in the bookselling world. they're destroying the publishing industry. most bookstores hate them ya know, so we don't really wanna hear about it is all

[tiffanys-aus-and-headcanons]

Terrible Visions

A scrambled timeline is a timeline that has proceeded much like ours, except that some particular facet has been mixed up all over the place. For example, in the scrambled timeline we will consider today, our world's fictional stories have been told by different people, and in different ways.

Bryan Lee O'Malley, in this alternate timeline, is best known as the cartoonist responsible for Homestuck, a popular comic series about a group of children who become embroiled in a cosmic-scale video game known as Sburb. Although Homestuck is probably most often associated with the cult classic Edgar Wright-directed film adaptation released in 2016, the comics themselves are highly-regarded, and the film brought a new audience to them. Netflix has commissioned an animated continuation, The Homestuck Epilogues, which is due to be released soon.

Andrew Hussie, on the other hand, is a figure you're likelier to know if you're overly online. His "MS Paint Adventures" series - most notably including Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, which is kind of like Homestuck but weirder and hornier - have firmly remained a fixture of obsessive Twitter fandom culture. It doesn't help that the best-known iteration, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, is infamous for stretching thousands of pages of meandering digressions out of a simple and focused narrative starting point. Scott Pilgrim fans have developed something of a toxic reputation, which is not entirely deserved - although of course Knives discourse is interminable, and back in the fandom's heyday there were reportedly incidents of fans assaulting each other "for being evil exes".

Scott Pilgrim fandom was very big back in the day, though, and consequently it was a nexus for other creative figures who would go on to surpass Hussie. Perhaps foremost among these is indie developer Toby Fox. He was literally living in Hussie's basement when he produced ROSEQUARTZ, a universally-beloved retro Goonies-like RPG about a human hybrid boy born to a race of gem-based aliens. He's now developing an episodic spiritual successor, RAZORQUEST, with more overtly dark themes. It revolves around an inheritance dispute among a demon-summoning family.

Other foundational figures in this timeline's internet culture include Alison Bechdel, who helped get the webcomic scene started. Although she's now more seriously acclaimed for her personal memoirs, her gaming webcomic Press Start To Dyke, which premiered in 1998, was once everywhere. It had a broad appeal, and at its height, it was common to see even straight guys sharing pages from it. Time has not been especially kind to it, though, and at this point its main legacy is test.png, a meme spawned by one of the comic's most ill-advised pages.

Then there's John C. McCrae, more often known by his pseudonym Wildbow. A prolific and reclusive author of doorstopping "web serials" - long-form fiction published online - McCrae's best-known serial is still his first, Wind, a noir superhero story set in an alternate history where capes are mostly just a subculture of unpowered vigilantes. Wind landed in a culture already rife with comic book deconstructions, like Alan Moore's 2002 graphic novel Worm Turns, but it nonetheless managed to stand out from the pack with its extensive cast of characters and its themes of coordination problems and the end of the world. Later McCrae web serials include Part (the first "Otherverse" serial; an urban fantasy story about a couple who die in a car accident and find that they have become ghosts), Tear (a "biopunk" story set in a collapsing underwater city), Warn (the controversial Wind sequel), and Play (the second "Otherverse" serial, set in a small Indiana town that helps hide a psychic girl from the CIA).

Last and perhaps least, we should discuss J. K. Rowling. Far and away the most famous of any of these authors, Rowling's name is inseparable from the YA series that she debuted with, the Luz Noceda books, which remain her one successful work. Although it was heavily derivative of older fantasy novels - like Jill Murphy's Academy For Little Witches, or Philip Pullman's Methods Of Rationality trilogy - Luz Noceda was still a monumental and unprecedented success in the publishing industry, and the film adaptations were consistent blockbusters. The final book, Luz Noceda and the Watcher of Rain, contained some allusions to a romantic relationship between Luz and her recently-redeemed associate Amity. Rowling confirmed that this was her intent in subsequent interviews and indicated that she had fought her publishers for it; the film would then go on to escalate matters slightly further.

There have been many lengthy and heated online arguments as to whether the references in the book itself constitute text or mere subtext. Whatever your stance on this discourse, a new complication has been introduced recently: although she has put out no official statement on the matter as of yet, it has become quite apparent from Rowling's shrinking network of contacts and her conspicuous silences that she is certainly TERF-sympathetic, and likely an outright TERF herself. For many, this is leading to a critical reevaluation of the social values inherent in the Luz Noceda series; others, to say the least, are holding off on that kind of reappraisal.

Anyway, Scott Pilgrim just beat Luz Noceda in a Twitter poll for Most Gay Media, and people are piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissed

[mapsontheweb]

Votes vs total needed for the proposed law against planned games obsolescence in Europe.

Percentage of votes require for the "Stop Killing Games" petition to pass in each country, it uses video game item rarity classes to group them.

Every country has an threshold required for the petition to pass. If it passes in enough countries in goes the the lawmakers to make it a reality. This one would require all game makers to allow you to host your own game servers if they intend to shut their own, and a few more things.

Some time ago there was an announcement the servers for the game "the Crew" will be shut down, however along with the ability to play online all the single player content would become inaccessible despite not needing online to work. What was even worse the publisher (Ubisoft) started revoking peoples licenses for the game, that is taking away your ability to even download the game.

Due to that a movement was kick started headed by Ross Scott (Accursed Farms on YT) to prevent something like this form happening again. One of the means by with they want to achieve is be creating an EU petition.

The EU petition works as a way for the EU citizens to propose and outline new laws or projects they would like to be introduced and/or realized in the union. The petition have a minimal amount of votes required for them to pass to the European Parliament with each country having an additional population based threshold. If they do then its the job of the parliament, and experts is the relevant matters, to draft the specific law that would realized the petitions wishes.

The "Stop Killing Games" petition proposes the introduction of a law that would require the game developers/publishers to provide the game owners with the tools required to host their own servers in the event of the official one shutting down, as well as require them to remove any online connections requirements from single player games and single player portions of online games. This would allow a games community to keep it alive at its own financial expense and none for the publisher. 

(by MarbleHoarder/reddit)

[greenhorn-art]

All The King's Horses | As You Are Now, So Once Was I by @samwpmarleau (grumkinsnark)

All The King's Horses [LiveJournal ch1] [Fanfiction.net ch1]

As You Are Now, So Once Was I [LiveJournal ch1] [Fanfiction.net ch1]

Fandom: Supernatural, Criminal Minds

Rating: Teen | PG-13

Category: Gen

Words: ~36,192

All The King's Horses: Protect and Serve. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity. To what lengths would you go to uphold those oaths? When it comes to a particularly brutal and unsolvable case, the BAU just may have to resort to some more unorthodox methods. SPN/Criminal Minds crossover.

As You Are Now, So Once Was I: Sequel to "All the King's Horses." When Dean catches J.J.'s press conference on the news about a current case and notices a few...inconsistencies, he realizes the BAU is definitely going to need his help. Again. ON HIATUS

About the Book

FORMAT: Letter quarto, flatback bradel binding, french link stitch, no tapes

FONTS: EB Garamond [via Google Fonts], Supernatural Knight [via DaFont], D-Din [via Font Squirrel], Daniel [via DaFont], Permanent Marker [via Google Fonts], Arial

IMAGES: Seal of the FBI [via Wikipedia], Dean's handprint scar [by greenhorn-art]

MATERIALS: 24lb Xerox Bold Digital paper (8.5"x11"), 80pt binder's board (~2mm), 30/3 size waxed linen thread, embroidery floss (DMC #721), 1.9mm cording, brown cardstock, black Cialux bookcloth, gold foil transfer sheet (came with We R Memory Keepers hot foil pen)

PROGRAMS USED: Fic exported with FicHub, word doc compiled in LibreOffice Writer, Typeset in Affinity Publisher, imposed with Bookbinder-JS, title pages designed in Affinity Designer/Photo

.

I first read these stories on LiveJournal back in 2013, some time after I first encountered Tumblr, Supernatural, and the wider world of online fandom. Once I discovered SPNxCriminal Minds crossovers I devoured so many of them. Something about POV Outsider on the Winchesters, the existing connections with investigating monster vs human-crazy cases, and run-ins with the FBI... it's just works so well.

Of all the SPNxCM fics I read and enjoyed, All The King's Horses is among those that bookmarked themselves in my brain. Since it's been living there all these years, I thought it deserved a place on my bookshelf too.

(Rambling below)

Sourcing the Fic

I used FicHub to download the fics off of Fanfiction.net as HTML. Then I pasted them into LibreOffice Writer and created rich text documents of each fic, so I could Place them into Affinity Publisher.

The stories were crossposted, first on LiveJournal and then Fanfiction. I included the metadata from both sites in the appendices.

(It's fascinating to see the differences in the same work between platforms. FFN requires genres, so if the author doesn't add them on LJ then by default there's more info on FFN. But FFN limits listed characters to 2, so authors have to pick and choose the most important. Then there's the author's amusing disclaimers and spoiler warnings for these fics, which are only included in the LJ version)

Shoutout to the author for how they linked/listed their accounts on other platforms! Thanks to that I was easily able to track down all the tags/metadata for the fics, and find them here to express my appreciation for their stories!

Typesetting

Fonts

EB Garamond is my new favourite body font, 11pt as per my usual.

The title page is entirely Arial: 1) it was the closest match I have to the case file prop I was copying, and 2) if it was a government doc they wouldn't be using anything but the most basic fonts.

Headings and the the bullets bracketing the page numbers are set it Supernatural Knight, a free font in the style of Supernatural's title.

The location segments are in D-DIN, the closest free match to the font Criminal Minds uses (which is probably DIN).

Daniel is used for Dean's 'rushed but legible' note.

Permanent Marker for the 'thick black Sharpie' case file labels.

Artwork

Title pages designed as FBI case files, copied from a prop found online (specifically Etsy's propfictionstudios', but it's all over the web so no idea who actually created it). I had fun plugging in all the fanfic/bookbinding meta!

The ID# above the author's name is the FFN story ID, and the date is the date originally posted on LJ.

The handprint used in the headings of ATKH is Dean's scar. I traced off of a screenshot from s4e01 Lazarus Rising. I chose to use the handprint instead of the anti-possession tattoo or a Devil's Trap as my SPN art element because 1) it's specific to Dean, and 2) indicates/reminds that the story is not set during the season 3 Agent Henriksen/FBI arc.

Grabbed the FBI seal off of Wikipedia.

Construction

Both fics typeset and printed separately, then sewn together into one book. Title page for the sequel was tipped in like an endpaper prior to sewing.

Endbands sewn with orange embroidery floss (DMC 721) around 1.9mm cording. I chose orange because Dean's being in jail brought to mind the orange prison jumpsuits Sam and Dean wore in s1e19 Folsom Prison Blues.

Black bookcloth for the cover, like the Winchesters' beloved black '67 Chevy Impala. (I'd wanted a Supernatural reference to balance out the Criminal Minds-ness of the FBI case files).

I'd originally planned to make lineart of the front of the car, and have it stretch across the bottom of the cover (maybe even wrap around to the back). Even found a useful reference to trace [from here], but it didn't look as good as I'd hoped. Instead I reused the FBI seal and swapped out its text with the titles.

(The effect of shiny foiled FBI symbol on small black book reminds me of one of those FBI badge wallets!)

The foiling process was an unnecessarily long and gruelling affair. My laptop served as a massive power bank for the hot foil pen as I spent 2hrs ever so slowly tracing the image, and then 15mins on the author name and touch-ups. Did it need to take so long? Moving slowly, pushing down hard, going over everything at least three times? I'm sure it didn't. BUT I did not want to chance peeling up the foil to check how I was doing and risk shifting it. It was worth it in my books (haha) ‒ I feel giddy and kick my feet like a schoolgirl whenever I see it!

New Things

Used 24lb paper for the first time, and I love it! It's a little thicker and heavier then regular 20lb printer paper, feels more substantial.

The page numbers & running/section headers are along the outer margin, instead of in the header/footer. This was my way around Affinity's buggy-ness regarding pinning things inline in master pages. (More about that below). If I had been thinking, I could have formatted them like the tabs on a file folder and cut the textblock to match. Oh well, the things you notice once it's printed 😔

This time I also started new chapters/sections using text flow & paragraph spacing settings, instead of using a master. As always, there are pros and cons.

Pro: much faster and less involved. (find chapter start, apply paragraph style VS working from the end cutting text, inserting a frame break, unlinking frames, inserting new pages with master, relinking, pasting, and adding chapter title to a different text box)

Con: images need to be added manually (whether by adding image directly, or by applying a master with the image). I forgot to do this for the second fic, so only ATKH have Dean's handprint scar.

Difficulties Encountered

Affinity Publisher is fighting me on pinning things inline on master pages. They like to disappear on regular pages I've applied the master to. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it only works on some of the pages. Idk what's up. (The bullet character only faces one way so I had use textboxes, flip/mirror one, and pin them inline to the page number).

So instead of having page numbers in the footer, bookended left and right by text boxes with Supernatural Knight's bullet, I put it vertically down the side.

Updated Publisher and all my paragraph styles' fonts changed/went funny. Something to do with the update's variable font support, I think. What was previously 'EB Garamond' regular, was now something along the lines of 'EBGaramond-Regular' which isn't a font. Issue seems to have ironed itself out in my original (near-complete) doc while I was busy remaking it. 😐

On the bright side, the update brought QR code generation to Affinity!

[worldweaveralicya]

Fics vs. Original Work

Hello there, keep reading if you want to know the main differences between writing fan fiction and writing completely original works!

First of all, fic writers are writers. There's not a single reason to look down on anyone who uses their words to create something new in this world.

That said, let's get to the main part of this post!

World-building

Of course, that can highly differ if you're writing a fan fic without utilizing the locations from the source material (cough cough AUs cough cough), but usually, you don't have to start at zero when writing a fic. The reader already knows a lot about your story's world and is therefore easily immersed in it.

In completely original works, you'll have to consider world-building way more. Even if your story doesn't take place in a fictional world, you'll have to introduce your readers to the locations/cultures in your story. They won't know what exactly to expect going into the story.

Characters

One of the main reasons for writing or reading fan fiction is to see more of our beloved characters. Therefore, here you don't have to start at zero either. Readers already bonded with the characters. That makes it more important to be consistent with writing the characters because readers already have expectations of them.

With original works, you'll have to introduce the reader to completely new characters - And make them interesting. But you'll have more freedom and won't have to worry about straying too far from the source material.

Plot

While writing fan fiction, part of the fun is exploring "what if" scenarios. But you'll always have the source material to fall back on if you're stuck. You'll know where the story starts and how it'll develop, you'll have an outline of sorts on which you can build.

If you're writing something completely original, you don't have that outline from the get-go. Heck, you'll probably discover new things about your story while you're writing it! Which is a pretty cool thing, but it can get disorienting quickly.

Sooo, should you write fan fiction or original stories?

Eh, depends. I personally think writing fan fiction before writing completely original work might be good for some aspiring writers, because:

You don't have to focus on every single aspect of a story to make your writing functional, so you can improve your writing skills without getting overwhelmed.

There's less pressure to immediately succeed and publish a whole novel, and you can get feedback from fan fic communities online.

You and the reader are already familiar with aspects of your story, which can make writing feel more natural.

However, that's just how it works for me personally, and you might feel differently about writing fan fiction/original works. You can be a veteran writer and still mainly/only write fan fiction. You can be a beginner and write original works to practice. No matter the case, you should do what feels right to you and what you're passionate about.

Until next time, keep weaving words!

[mjjune]

How To Have a Good Beta Reading Experience (or: what I've learned from 3 years of beta reading)

So lately I've been having a lot of discussions about beta reading with my discord groups so I thought I would write it out here and also share some resources I've used over the years.

This is mostly by and for writers, however readers can learn from this post as well!

DISCLAIMER: I'm by no means a writing expert, but I have been either beta reading others' books, or having my own stories beta read consistently since 2020. THIS IS ALL PERSONAL EXPERIENCE/OPINION. Others may agree or disagree ❤️

Here are the main points I'm going to talk about in this post, and I'll do it under the cut to save your dash space:

Understanding Alpha vs. Beta Readers

Choosing Readers

Being Clear About Feedback

Swapping / Compensation

The Importance of Writing Community/Groups

Websites/Resources for Finding Beta Readers

1. Understanding Alphas vs. Betas

So this is extremely important and for me, this may be the difference between me finishing your book or not. Many times, especially from new writers who had never had anyone read their work before, had extremely rough drafts that were barely coherent and were NOT beta ready, but asked me to beta read. I am not a person who can look past extensive grammar errors, nor am I the kind of person who will sit and fix all your grammar line-by-line for you.

Alpha Readers - for first/second drafts

Beta Readers - for polished drafts

It is ok for alpha reads to be unpolished and have grammar issues, and it's even ok if they have plot issues, continuity errors, etc. Because alpha readers are there for that purpose: to be the first eyes on your story and help you find and fix those issues.

The issue I have had over and over, though, is people asking for a beta reader when what they really needed was an alpha. I went in expecting a polished draft and got someone's Draft 0. In some cases, I got 100k drafts where the writer obviously had no idea how to format dialogue grammar and every single dialogue was wrong. Obviously this made me slow and in many cases, unable to finish.

Alpha readers will go in expecting it to be unpolished, and will be prepared to look past grammar/stylistic errors in order to focus on the big picture issues (plot holes, character consistency, pacing/engagement issues, etc). A Beta may be too frustrated by an unpolished draft to finish it or provide the feedback you're looking for. If you have been experiencing a lot of betas backing out and not finishing your work, you might consider this as a possible reason why.

I would also recommend, if you have never had anyone read your work before, even if you have had multiple drafts, it might be safest to ask for alphas rather than betas.

A quick way to see if your work is beta ready (again, personal experience): Pick up a published book from the shelf in your genre. Does your book read similarly? Does your formatting & grammar look the same? Bonus: read it out loud! If reading the published book out loud is significantly easier than reading yours out loud, you're probably in the alpha stage.

TL;DR: Understand your draft and which level of reader your draft is ready for. Know the difference between polished and unpolished, and be upfront about it.

2. Choosing Alphas/Betas

You may not like it but: Just because someone is your friend, real life or online, does not mean they will make a good reader for you.

#1 MOST IMPORTANT: GET READERS WHO LIKE & REGULARLY READ YOUR GENRE!

I cannot stress this enough. As someone who writes vampire content, I cannot begin to express to you the amount of useless comments I got from readers who had clearly never read a vampire book in their life.

You need someone who is familiar with your genre and you likes your synopsis/blurb.

Caveat: that said, I did find a few great betas who had never read vampire content before and gave awesome feedback. However, these readers knew and admitted they knew nothing about the paranormal genre, and because of that did not make any comments on worldbuilding, instead sticking to plot and character development only. Some readers can't make this separation.

Another thing I would recommend, especially if you are swapping or the beta reader is also a writer/on writeblr, I would recommend reading their writing before having them beta read. If you read their excerpts and see that it's really unpolished or a style that's vastly different than yours, that might change whether you want them to read for you.

In my most recent beta round, I used a google form to do a quick survey to see who was interested in beta reading. This worked really well for me and I would recommend it! You can also use this to make all potential readers agree to not share/distribute/plagiarize your work, so you have it in writing just in case someone were to try something.

This was also a great way to see which genres they usually read and how many times they have beta read in the past!

TL;DR: Get readers who LIKE your genre. Read their writing and see how they write. Use an online signup form to narrow down.

3. Be Clear About The Type of Feedback You Want

This is perhaps the second most important thing when you get readers. Many readers will shy away from reading your work if you have nothing in mind for them to look out for. Also, being clear about this shows that you 1) know it isn't perfect and needs work and 2) you have insight into what the issues already are.

For Alphas, these traits are what I have found to be the most helpful:

Immediate inline reactions - particularly emotional engagement and pointing out lines that resonated with them

NO grammar/stylistic comments (unless incomprehensible)

Questioning of worldbuilding, character decisions, and character development - particularly if confusing or unclear

Comments on action sequences & their readability

Comments on believability of the plot points/progression

For Betas, these are what have been most helpful to me:

Comments on grammar, especially if repetitive

Stylistic comments, particularly for over-used words or noticeably repetitive sentence structures

Comments on pacing

Comments on plot initiation point and buildup/execution of the climax

Not questioning my worldbuilding/plot and trusting that what I have written is intentional. Only pointing out areas that have on-page evidence of inconsistencies.

Everything above is simply personal preference. You might find other comments to be better for alphas/betas. However, being upfront about which comments you want or don't want can drastically change which people want to read for you!

Some readers are obsessed with in-depth inline grammar/style comments, some aren't at all. Some writers LOVE these in-depth grammar comments, and some don't. Being clear about what you want is the best way to make sure you and your readers are compatible for the stage of editing you're at.

4. Swapping / Compensation

So this one I might have a bit of an unpopular opinion, but I wanted to cover it because so many people talk about it on here and other sites.

Again, based on my personal experience, swapping and compensation does not mean you're going to get better feedback or have a better experience or relationship with readers.

For the record, for everyone who beta reads for me—and finishes—I always offer to read theirs, even if it's a genre I don't like.

Personally, I have never tried compensation (re: money) for beta readers. However, there are a few issues I've come across with swapping:

Mine was beta ready and theirs was unpolished first draft

Our types of feedback didn't align

Our genre preferences didn't align

Their feedback was nowhere near as high quality or constructive as mine

In these cases, one or both of us burnt out on reading the others' work, and then we'd both bail. Especially with #4, it was very disheartening for me to spend hours finding their plot holes, helping them come up with ways to fix them, for them to then write 1 paragraph about what they thought of my story that was extremely surface level. To me, that wasn't even a swap, and was practically worthless. There was even one who got sensitive about the feedback I was providing (which was a queer sensitivity read) and then left almost identical comments on my story, which weren't even relevant. It was like revenge-commenting.

All this to say: I have had positive experiences with swaps. My alpha for twtr was a swap and I really enjoy her work and she enjoys mine, and we will probably continue to swap forever.

This goes back to #2 above: be picky & choose your readers well. Your story is your baby, and it deserves to be critiqued by people who value you and your story, and want to help you make it the best possible version of itself.

To summarize, I have had two good swapping experiences. I have had 10+ good uncompensated betas—with an offer for me to read their stuff when it's ready. Do with that what you will.

5. Writing Community / Groups

On to a more positive note! I have had the best experience here on writeblr, and this is coming from someone who has tried multiple other communities (which I discuss in the last section below). Having my own discord server from tumblr, joining a few other writers' discord servers, has completely changed the game regarding finding consistent betas, more resources, and just having an overall much more positive time writing and editing.

Writeblr keeps me grounded, keeps me hopeful, and even if I share something that doesn't get tons of notes, it's so nice to have interaction. It's so nice to give and get back, consistently.

I do want to emphasize the importance of giving to get back. If no one is liking/interacting with your excerpts, tag/ask games, etc. then that's probably because you're not interacting with them! It's very important to show interest in other people's work!!

I'm not saying you need to jump onto everyone's taglists for all their wips, but join the ones that genuinely interest you the most. Play in ask/tag games consistently. Follow writers back who follow you (if they post things you're interested in, ofc).

I have the same amount of followers as the people I follow right now, and I think that goes to show that people reciprocate here on writeblr! It's a lovely community and don't be afraid to reach out ❤️

I have found almost ALL my recent betas from my tumblr and discord groups. They have been lovely so far and I would highly recommend building up community here if you are interested in finding betas.

6. Websites/Resources for Finding Betas

Alright, last section. Thanks for bearing with me. I'm going to go through the sites I have used, and why I still use them, or why I dropped them.

Scribophile

So, for starters, this is one I don't use anymore. This was the site I first used when I had a polished draft in 2020 and had no idea how to get feedback. Essentially, they have a point-system. The more comments you make, the more points you get, and then when you have 3 points, you can post a chapter. It continues in a cycle.

Pros: Personally, I think the site helped me a lot in realizing what a bad critique looks like (which is helpful!) and also helped me learn which comments/feedback types work for me, and which don't. I don't regret my time there by any means, and I found one life-long friend and beta reader there I wouldn't trade for the world. It also allows you to post/remove your story and the readers don't have direct access to it—meaning if they want to download/steal/plagiarize, they'd have to copy and paste or screenshot chapter by chapter. It's a little safety precaution.

Cons: It's not the best place to get constructive feedback. The issue with their system is it encourages quantity over quality in critiques. Because of that, you'll get strangers rewriting your entire chapter in their own style so they get 2-3 points for one critique, but... was any of it actually helpful to you? Maybe, maybe not. It's also random, so you can't control who comments on your stuff, and they might just comment to get points even if they hate your genre. I also don't think it's fair to have to do 3-5 chapter critiques in order to save up enough points to post ONE chapter of your own. And if you want to post your story for full beta reads and control who reads it and who doesn't, you have to subscribe monthly.

So I keep an eye on it occasionally to look through their forums on writing, agents, publishing, etc. But most of the forums gets nasty, because there are a lot of really pretentious writers who think they know all the rules. If you join small groups (e.g. sub-groups based on diversity, etc) they tend to have better and more meaningful discussions.

Personally, I would never use it for beta/alpha/feedback ever again. This is the site where most of my bad swaps came from. But you might find it useful! So I thought I would share it.

Nanowrimo Forums

This is another one I don't use anymore, but might consider reusing in the future. The biggest issue I have with nanowrimo is that a lot, and I mean A LOT, of these participants are first-time writers and have no concept of what polished vs. unpolished even means. I did find two really good swaps there (actually the only two good full swaps I've had) but those were very hard to find.

There is also the issue that a good chunk of them only write during November, not year round. So for finding consistent, year-long partners, this is not the best option. I'm a member of 2 discords that have all fallen silent as soon as Nano actually ended.

Also, in my experience, asking questions about anything related to "controversial" topics (especially trans and minority ethnic groups) becomes toxic very quick, which is unfortunate. There are even a few moderators who seem to be contributing to the toxic/immature discussions rather than fixing them/shutting them down, which is the main reason I stopped using it.

However, it's a GREAT place to get free, simple covers! Their artisan section is fantastic and there are a lot of people there willing to make basic covers/banners for you for free.

BetaBooks

I've only been using this one about a month so far, but I'm really liking it. It's set up that you can invite betas to your story specifically, or you can look through a beta reader library, read their profiles, and invite them to see if they're interested.

This is essentially an alternative to Scribophile. It allows you to post your story online and find betas and become a beta.

Why I like it better than Scribophile: it's not a point-based system, meaning it's uncompensated so the readers have nothing to gain other than enjoying/helping your story. There's no hard feelings if someone bails. It allows you to see all comments in one place (which Scrib can't do). (And with discount codes found through google, it's cheaper, too. Message me if you need help with this 👀)

It also is all online, easily removable, so readers would have to copy/paste or screenshot chapter-by-chapter to steal it. So again, just a little safety net that makes me feel better.

Writeblr

Yep, that's right. Right here. Actually right here on tumblr has been where I have found the most beta readers and in the shortest time. I talked about this in the section before so I won't regurgitate. But there's a reason why this community is so long-lasting. It really is the best one out there I've found.

TL;DR / IN CONCLUSION:

Know where your book is in terms of reader-readiness. Know the difference between alphas/betas and polished/unpolished. Know the types of feedback that work for you and specifically request it when recruiting betas.

Interact with a community. Give interaction in order to receive, and don't expect people to reblog/like your content if you don't reach out first. Join small, niche writing community discords. Find like-minded writers.

Decide to swap or not, but this won't make or break you.

There are many writing communities out there designed to help you not only find betas, to provide beta-reading feedback forms and commentary. Try them out and see what works best for you.

And above all, thank Writeblr for being such a lovely community ❤️

[sithbelle]

Jingo has been crossed off the list! I vaguely remembered the island, but little else about the story, which made it all the more entertaining!

I didn't realize this is where the Pavlovian response blurb came from, or the Us vs Them passage, both of which I've seen making the rounds on here and elsewhere online for years.

It's also sad to see the equivalent of Islamophobia being reflected in a pre-9/11 work. As someone who was rather young when this was published (and grew up ridiculously sheltered), I naïvely thought that sentiment was something that didn't become prevalent until after the attack (not condoning it by any means, just a point of observation).

I love how Pratchett went out of his way to essentially say, "hey, cultural differences do exist, but at the end of the day, we're all just people. It's actually the power hungry bastards at the top who are the real problem, and the common folk who are so easily misguided into hatred are excellent tools for their end".

Next up, we return to the adventures of Rincewind with The Last Continent!

[avaloque]

i'm currently sobbing my eyes out. omg. that ending, that thing that i knew was coming- i don't know how i didn't consider that possibility at all. i loved it. i suddenly don't know why i was scared at all.

[hillbilly---man]

Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan: Character Guide Book THE FULL PDF ------------------------------

To view online: https://online.fliphtml5.com/mbugx/mnpd/

To download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13R9hLERuJcW1uh0DQZz5UnLmqLAeQIEJ/view?usp=sharing Transliterations of all of the names from the character profiles are at this link: https://textdoc.co/Byd6PsanXmrf8txK (I tried pasting the list here under a read more, but Tumblr wasn't letting me publish it that way)

This book has character profiles for 254 characters, including birthdays and blood types.

(note: the book is in the usual Japanese right-to-left direction, but I couldn't get the FlipHTML5 PDF viewer linked above to stop splitting the pages if I made it that way. So it's on there left-to-right like a typical western book. It shouldn't affect much; just pretend it was printed that way to begin with) ----------------------------------------

Just a heads up: they weasel out of giving a handful of characters full names. Mrs. Kaidou, Matsuzaki, and others will sadly have to continue to be mysterious...

The book was published August 4th, 2015, before Chapter 159 was released. Notable characters missing: Satō Hiroshi, Suzumiya Hii, Akechi Tōma, Aiura Mikoto

(I tried to stick to ONE romanization system despite the fandom often using different systems at once [for example: Nendo vs Nendou vs Nendō], so if the spellings are "off", that might be why. Or I could have screwed up in some unrelated way. I don't know Japanese very well lmao)

[betterthanburrow]

The Newest Bengals Fan - Instagram AU

(Bengals Quarterback! Joe Burrow x Digital Creator! OC)

liked by yourinstagram and 25,980 more users

Bengals: Almost time.

view all 10,005 comments

yourolderbrother: LET’S GO WHO DEY NATION!

username1: me and my homies HATE the packers!

username2: i’m ready to see the rookies play!

yourinstagram: i can’t wait for the football game!

↳ yourolderbrother: since when are you a football fan?

liked by yourolderbrother and 13,420 more users

yourinstagram: Cincinnati Bound 🤎

view all 101 comments

yourolderbrother: why are you in Cincinnati?

↳ yourinstagram: no particular reason 😊

yourinstagram story update

viewed by joeyb_9 and 10,013 more users

liked by yourolderbrother and 45,190 more users

Bengals: Hungry for some football 😤

Canvus Game Poster | @.drinkcanvus

view all 18,700 comments

username1: the game graphics are back 😢🔥

username2: WHO DEY! WHO DEY! WHO DEY!

username3: why is the cat fighting cheese?

username4: game days are finally here!

yourolderbrother: SHE CINCIN ON MY NATI TILL I BENGAL 😫💦

↳ yourinstagram: ???

↳ yourolderbrother: you weren’t supposed to see this.

liked by joeyb_9 and 20,999 more users

yourinstagram: Golden Hour on Game Day 🌅

view all 513 comments

yourolderbrother: GAME DAY?! … what sports game are you going too and why didn’t i get a ticket?

↳ yourinstagram: Bengals vs Packers 😚 and 🤷🏽‍♀️

↳ yourolderbrother: since when were you a football fan and liked going to football games?

↳ yourinstagram: that’s a story i won’t tell online.

liked by yourinstagram and 105,865 more users

Bengals: Not now… but soon.

view all 500 comments

yourolderbrother: Super Bowl MVP season is COMING

username1: GIRL DINNER!

username2: remember when everyone thought that he was going to be out until week 5 of the season 😵‍💫

yourinstagram: my quarterback 🤎

↳ yourolderbrother: there’s something strange going on between you and the Bengals?

↳ yourinstagram: nothing strange is going on… i’m just a the newest Bengals fan 😊

yourinstagram story updates

viewed by yourolderbrother and 15,009 more users

liked by joeyb_9 and 50,513 more users

yourinstagram: drinks for two 🤎

view all 13,009 comments

joeyb_9: 🤍

↳ yourolderbrother: JOE BURROW… WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!

↳ joeyb_9: 🤷🏼‍♂️

Author’s Note:

in honor of the NFL pre-season coming to an end, here’s an Instagram AU inspired by the Bengals’ first pre-season game of the 2023 NFL season!

it’s feels like it’s been a while since i’ve published an Instagram AU, but really it’s been like a week and 2 days since the last Instagram AU was published.

if you have a Instagram AU request, please send the IG AU request to my Inbox and i’ll try to get the requested Instagram AU published as fast as i can!

thank you all for the love and support! 🤍

[gacha-incels]

imo this is another reason it’s so frustrating to have these young idk ~20 year old type “content creator” shills treating this entire thing like it’s some z-list western youtuber vs youtuber drama blasting no-context and misinfo out buckshot to their extremely impressionable young audience. when you look at their social medias their entire online life revolves around this specific game company and playing their games and posting about their games and making “content” about their games and following other kids who post about their games and play their games and post about their games etc. - essentially consumption of this media has become a central facet of their personality, and any slight on the product is now a slight on them personally. there’s also a growing cult of personality around the director that fosters another type of parasocial relationship. I’ve never witnessed “fandom” spaces for an extended period of time like this so it’s been surprising to me just how extreme all of this gets. But when something threatens the media that these fans have tied so closely to their sense of self they are going to be easily manipulated into placing the blame on a particular group or separating into an Us vs Them mentality. In this case so many of them have been laser focused on exonerating Project Moon that they’re slandering and putting targets on artists who do not deserve to be harassed and groups that are genuinely helping victims of feminist ideological verification in South Korea. at some point the short-sightedness of this becomes obscene.

I don’t think any of these kids and young adults (not saying this to demean you, the typical age group is ~ 16-22) comprehend the severity of the systemic issue that Project Moon had (and has) put itself into. This isn’t My Side vs Your Side, this is about violent antifeminism, systemic misogyny and worker’s rights in South Korea. This is not about you as a fan of a videogame, especially if you do not live there. Again I genuinely do not think Project Moon superfans should be making posts about this issue if you are looking at it in the latter way and not the former. You see this as some “drama” or “event” that effects you and the fans as individuals and the words “vellmori left on her own” or “watch the video” will make people stop talking about it. You repeat this with no contextual knowledge of how any of the labor laws or defamation laws in South Korea work, you look at this case in the bubble of your video game and nothing else. No one serious is doing this tit for tat bullshit in South Korea. I’ve literally been following this case and similar cases for over a year now, you can scroll through this entire blog’s archive and see the landslide of similar feminist ideological verification cases that have taken place since Project Moon’s. PM 7/25 is still referenced as a significant event when newspapers publish articles about this issue. No one is waffling about if the artist left on her own, they understand the situation in their own country. The strange idea that has somehow spread in the English speaking community that KGCS is some grifter group is absolutely baffling. The posts in english “warning” not to donate to them were hilarious at best and extremely condescending at worst, you’re talking like this is some scam gofundme. They probably don’t even know you exist. They typically raise the money they need within a couple of hours, close the donation pool, and then refund anyone who asks. This group not only helped Studio Ppuri’s animator avoid being fired in an event that almost mirrored project moon’s, they raised money for her legal fees that she used to press criminal charges against her harassers and helped set up meetings with the animation directors to explain the “controversial” shots. This was one of the biggest cases of targeted attacks from incel men, it had the chickenshit company Nexon deleting Studio Ppuri’s videos and their studio name was removed from the credits in the Korean broadcast of Solo Leveling. you can search the studio ppuri tag on this blog to see it all, I’ve found an article that has a short interview with the animator that I’ll post later.

Needless to say this is a serious societal, systemic issue, it does not deserve some westerners butting their heads in because they don’t want to feel guilty about playing a videogame. It’s disturbing to see this treated like some drama you just want to be over. it’s gross to watch information twisted and used in pedantic tit for tat arguments you only care about the end product of - “winning” and stopping any further discussion or “drama”. Please get some perspective.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi there! I have a question about publishing. I did not plan to want to publish when I started writing but now I'm really into it and think I might have something and then learned about first publishing rights. Problem is I've shared parts of my work on tumblr (a few chapters)

What come under losing first rights? If I end up editing my tumblr stories so it's rewritten (it looks like first draft vs finished product) has this still lost first rights? How does it work?

Worried About Publication After Sharing Story Online

There's a pervasive myth that sharing your book online means publishers won't touch it, and that's not exactly true. It's nuanced, so let's get into it...

When we talk about publishers wanting to be the first to publish your book, we're talking about actual publication... as in for sale with an ISBN number. We're not talking about posting the first draft on your blog or sharing a few chapters on Tumblr. And that's not to say that having your book self-published or independently published unquestionably negates your ability to have that book by a major publisher... there are self-published authors whose books did so well, they were bought and republished by a major publisher. It's just really, really unlikely, so it's better not to risk it.

As for sharing a few chapters online, it's incredibly unlikely that would dissuade a publisher, especially if what you shared isn't the final draft or wasn't seen by thousands upon thousands of people. Every publisher has their own rules and guidelines, but most aren't going to care about a handful of chapters of an earlier draft. It's definitely something you would talk about with your agent and/or publisher, however, and even though you could theoretically get away with sharing your whole book online (as long as it's not for sale), once again, it's better not to risk it.

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[screams-of-the-damned84]

OMG the swap au I love it so much!!!! if you don't mind I maybe had a few ideas about which lodgers could swap

i think maybe swapping mosley and bryson/phaall (the name is different between the online and published version) could work because mosley deals with below the earth and bryson deals with the sky

seeing as griffin is based on someone from a h. g. wells book I thought maybe make him into a time traveller? it would technically be a swap seeing as the time traveller from h. g. wells' book of the same name already appeared in sage's short 'paraphernalia'

i thought maybe also switch archer and bird with pennebrygg and flowers seeing as that's sort of nature vs machines

obviously take all of this with a pinch of salt lmao this is your au of course!

??? THATS SO SMART??? YOU ARE LITERALLY A GENIUS ILY

especially the nature vrs machines swap?? ur brain is hugeee this is such a cool way to swap them. this is now au canon.

[louiejoyce]

Well the giant Kaiju cat’s outta the bag! I’m writing and drawing a Godzilla mini series set in Port Kembla! ‘Godzilla: Skate or Die’ #1 from IDW Publishing, this June 12. It’s the King of the Monsters vs. Varan vs… teenage Australian skate punks?

Also featuring an unbelievably rad variant cover from one of my favourite cartoonists: Juni Ba! 😍😍😍

More info: https://godzilla.com/blogs/news/godzilla-skate-or-die-idw-publishing-comic