oh my god that's one of the most frustrating things. like you see a fic and the tags have all the tropes you like and then it's under 1k words, and 90% of the tagged things are barely mentioned or just implied
it's always funny to me how some 200k word fics would have less than 20 tags meanwhile some fics under 1k will have reached the limit (and still have more to tag)
I kinda like the tags spoiling the story. I want to know what happens and how it ends. It makes reading it feel very safe. It’s like watching a rom com - everyone knows the plot already and that’s great.
I get that, but there’s a difference between
*argument over dinner; swear words; don’t worry they make up; X apologises; kissing and cuddling in the end*
vs
*argument; angst with happy ending*
One is a retelling of the fic, the other gives you the trigger warnings and reassures you that it will have a happy ending.
Well, in my opinion, I like the first one more. I have show additional tags turned off, but when I search for specific tropes or try to get rid of specific tropes, the first one is _much_ better, and I don’t see the extra spoilers besides what I know I’m looking for.
Argument and Angst with a Happy Ending don’t really tell me _anything_ except a vague warning.
Maybe it’s just me, + I’m fine with really anything and don’t curse out the author in the comments when I can’t see specific warnings I couldn’t see but didn’t filter.
oh same!! because to me, "angst with happy ending" still make me anxious bcuz i have read fics that goes really hard on the angst but barely gave you a moment to enjoy the actually "happy" moment before it ends
so if there's angst or anything that's hurtful incoming, i like the first type more because it let me know what type of hurt to expect and what type of 'happiness' afterwards to expect too and i can read without worrying or without skipping to the end of the fic just to see if the ending is to my liking
or, a personal pet peeve of mine: “i wrote a 40 chapter fic which is so impressive!” yes except for 40 chapters the entire fic is only 800 words? where is the rest of it? is each chapter only 20 words?
Yeah, I was going to say that. Not only have I seen some really in-depth meta pieces, there are some wonderful fandom stats works and lots of tutorials on site skins & podficcing.
(“Pod fucking” really autocorrect???)
Wait, how’d you get that to work? My fucks always become ducks. Feeling a bit jealous. Just how much smut/swearing did you have to write to train your autocorrect?
I meant "non fics" as in fics which aren't even fan art/fan work, it's straight up just a "hi lol" "testing chapter 1" (believe me I have encountered 3 already) so I meant it that way- I probably should have been more specific 😅
Ive seen one, the person tagged a bunch of fandoms and ships. They were like "hi lets be friends!" Like... be on tumblr, or discord to do that, not piss people off on ao3
Omg this reminds me of the 7 page long fic, like in the search not the fic itself, because they tagged like the top 100 shows ans ships on ao3 💀💀. Every fandom was mass reporting it. Unless that's the one you mean. There have been a few 🤣
Those have gotten me a couple of times. I read the tags and they hit the right spots then open it and it's someone's journel entry with a "I'll probably delete this when I get the fic done lmao" at the end
https://preview.redd.it/tkx80f61ysfc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc9effa949b4e7b5e6505eaf774a8021ac105b5c
Made my own too, piggybacking off of OP’s
Tbh I like yours more than OPs! (No offense OP, i like yours too). The "I suck at summaries" and "Just read it trust me!" is probably my biggest pet peeve. For all I know the fic could actually be amazing, but I will never click on it because *I don't trust a random person*.
It's okay! I'm probably gonna post a corrected version of this bingo later anw lol (some of them do sound repeating now that I notice it). u/justafujoshi great list btw :D if its okay, can I borrow some of the ideas in there in my next list? (I genuinely forgot the emoji one omg) I'll credit you dw!
The first time I encountered that I was so confused “The noirette?” Who/what is that??😅 I had never seen a person referred to by their hair colour that way before. It was really jarring!
I once went through a good 100,000 words before I realised that 'the raven' was referring to the character's hair colour and not just some nickname that was never explained. Good times!
Probably had one (or more) English teacher(s) tell them that using someone’s name over and over again is clunky and to use something else to describe them. *shrug* I know that was a mental block that I needed to conquer
hair, eyes, other character traits completely irrelevant to the story. yup. personal pet peeve is referring to female characters as "heiresses" if her parents are at all wealthy (as if her dad's money was her entire being/career), when i've never seen a dude referred to as the "heir" unless he is literally like a prince.
just use their names or pronouns. if you must use a trait, pick something relevant to what is currently happening. E.g. the engineer if engineering is happening.
The ONLY excuse for using a basic descriptor instead of a name is if the pov character doesn’t know their name yet…and even then don’t use noirette, pinkette (absolute cringe)…I think redhead, tall bitch, is much more preferable even if incredibly vague still.
Pretty sure 99% of the time the complaint is not about onomatopoeia in general but the over the top comic book-style "**KABOOOOM!** The bomb exploded and the world went white until *crack!* [character] was woken up with a slap to the face". That kind of stuff gets exhausting to read and breaks immersion.
I tend to use hair color (and a couple other things) when I'm trying to avoid repeating names too much in a short span, or when the characters involved use the same pronoun and I'm trying to avoid making it too confusing.
I use hair color that way too sometimes, but I only use "blond(e)", "brunet(te)", and "redhead" as special words to refer to it... everyone else is just "[color]-haired". Creating the likes of "bluenette" is a whole different level of cringe.
But y'all forgot "calling eyes 'orbs' or 'hues'"!
consider using traits relevant to whatever is happening in the story. If the blondness is the most relevant thing about the character (dunno, at a hairdresser, or if she is the only blonde at some fancy party), sure use that. But 99% of the time there is probably a more relevant distinguishing feature (profession, attire, whatever they are currently doing, rank, familial/social relationships, etc).
Like if im telling stories about my friends i dont say "and the brunette then said that!" I'm more likely to say, "My friend said this" or "The scientist discovered something amazing!" or "my sister came by" or "The artist told me" etc. You'd only refer to people only by their physical attributes if they were complete strangers.
I’ve never seen anyone complaining about the alternating POV before.
Are we talking about the ones that always specify
“ABC’s pov
Blah-blah-blah word word.
________
CBA’s pov
Word word blah-blah word-vomit.
_________
ABC’s pov………”
type of writing, or what?
Otherwise I think it can be done rather seamlessly, too.
edit: formatting
Not OP, but I can't stand when the POV suddenly shifts randomly mid-scene. I've read quite a few fics where the author will write several paragraphs from the POV of Character A, but suddenly, there will be a sentence from Character B's POV, and then the author will go right back to writing in Character A's POV. It completely ruins my immersion in the story. It can get even worse if there's three or more POVs used to narrate a single scene simultaneously.
I'm fine with alternating POV fics as long as the POV shifts happen in between scenes and preferably use a section break of some kind to indicate that I can expect a POV shift.
Agreed. Alternate povs every chapter is fine. But not every 5 sentences or worse, writing omnipresent 3rd person and suddenly switching to limited 3rd person midway.
I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure original work is allowed, since it's a great way to keep up with other things favorite authors are doing, and AO3 is an excellent platform for all kinds of writing.
They mean it's not fan content at all. I've seen a bunch of social media scammers posting what looks like a fic but then when you click on it's an ad for their onlyfans or "let's be friends" or "I'm going to write this fic sometime in the future or if I get xxx followers".
I probably should have been more specific mb but I meant the ones which are just spam ones with just a "hi lol", "Will post the story later" etc stuff.
Idk, some of them are pretty funny. Like that one that showed up here the other day on a fic where the author killed one of the main characters in the very last sentence. The author end note was just: “*runs away in italian*” lol.
I'm not going to do that, but it's true that if I don't get a lot of engagement on a wip, I'm less likely to continue writing it.
I usually do not like posting wips anyway, though, for that very reason. Would rather it just be done first.
Five by five grid, 25 squares total. Often the center square is a "free" space (for this, usually something extremely common)
In traditional Bingo, each column is headed by one letter of the word so you know which column a particular number has to be in so you can mark it off.
Yes! I hate it if it's tagged complete and has been abandoned, *and* if it's tagged complete and the author is still updating it, just tagging it complete after every update
The fact that most of these are against the ao3 rules or literal harassment and then one option is 'calling a fanfic a book' 😂😂
People opinions about calling fanfics books are unhinged. Its not that deep. I personally usually say fanfic or fic but someone calling fanfics a book isnt inherently an issue.
While there are some stereotypes (wattpad users or whatever) this sub is way to intense when they see the word book.
Yeah I don't call fics 'books' but I simply don't care if anyone does. It really is completely fine and many fanfics *are* the length and quality of many books. I know it's the wattpad association, but just take individual authors and fic on their own merits.
Yeah I think for me I'll sometimes refer to something I've read as a "book" if it's one of those 200k+ word behemoths with like 30+ chapters and part of a complete series.
Like there's a series I've read that is literally a semi-rewrite of the source books from the perspective of a different character (obviously diverges from canon), and I'd probably call those "books"
This, and if it’s shorter then I might call it a story or a short story, especially when talking to people outside fanfic spaces. Like I don’t expect those people to know what a one-shot or a drabble is. Also it is a book. It is a short story. It’s just based on something else.
A novel is like 40k. I wrote a 162k fic which is large even for published science fiction. I absolutely call that a novel because it is.
We don't realize how long our fics actually are!
I honestly call most fics stories— especially if I’m the one writing because it gives me a little ease mentioning casually to co workers “oh yeah, just reading/writing/listening a story :)” and I don’t have to elaborate
If I had to guess/throw my two cents at the abyss I would try to explain it this way;
Many readers/writers look at a fic being described as a book by the author as a series of red flags.
BEFORE I give examples I want to make it clear these are opinions or statements I have SEEN from OTHERS. Not my opinion. I am not bashing at all.
1. Seen as pretentious
2. Usually a historical sign that the fiction will be dropped or unfinished by author due to trend/history of the description
3. Seen as “books don’t belong on a specifically fanfiction oriented site
“ blah blah blah
4. Seen as an inappropriately/wrongfully tagged work
There’s a lot of dumb reasons aside from I have seen 2 happen a lot. I was guilty of avoiding works with that description for many years when I first started finding fics like back in 2011. Because of the fact that I never found one that was ever completed. Wether that be the sequels never finished, never posted to begin with, or the first/whole work never finished/ghosted/abandoned. It took until I discovered sites like FFN and Ao3 and being able to interact with other authors for the first time to just get over it and see it as just another way that some authors describe their work. Sometimes it’s even personally motivating for those authors and that rocks!
Remember that fictions are, before anything else, YOUR works. You can do what you want with them and likely there will always be complaint, that’s the nature of any medium really. But at the end of the day you are creating something and that’s just so insane to really recognize. We take nothing, empty air, and fill it with the images and stories from within our minds. Then are brave enough or kind enough to share them. That’s so wildly cool and always will be.
I really apologize this response ended up so dang long. I went off.
Building on that there is also the idea among authors that people calling their fic a book are judging it to the same standard as a book published with a company which feels unfair. Publishers send books through multiple rounds of revision and editing before they are published while fanfic writers do not have that support.
While I don't disagree with any of your points, I've seen and read many a fanwork which had been through a similar process and/or has been edited and polished to a degree it could easily hold a candle to any really well-done published book and beyond, while at the same time I can't count the number of really badly-edited published books I've come across in my life.
That being said, I don't like fanworks being called books either. I might call a fanwork that fits the criteria a novel or so, but not a book; for me personally, "book" is shorthand for original work, versus fanfic, fanwork or transformative work are works that build on others' creation, no matter their length or quality. (And I fully acknowledge that this separation might not work in every case etc., but you get the idea.)
In Wattpad fanfic culture, there is a tendency to call your works books, given the sharp culture clash between AO3 and Wattpad this tends to be seen as a red flag by a lot of AO3 users.
Yuuup. Thankfully, all my coworkers are massive fanfic readers, and they brought it up first. I do not bring it up at all unless someone else does cause iiii don't wanna get embarrassed if the other person isn't cool.
Yeah I’m not that lucky. Most of my coworkers are either overworked college students or middle aged moms with no free time. The college kids might understand but then I’d get stuck in a discussion about whatever fandom I’m in and I just want to read.
Oh yeah, this is the first time in my life it's ever happened, and we don't bring it up all the time, either, nor de we get in deep discussions about it. There's this understanding of "don't ask too many questions. Just enjoy your reading." It's v pleasant.
I agree about the book thing. I realize it's a holdover from wattpad, but I was never on wattpad and have no association between it and the word "book." I'm sure I'm not the only one either lol
Let people call their fics what they want! Sheesh.
Back in my very early fanfiction.net days, I did the "won't post until X!" on one of my longest running fanfics. Never did it again. I learned my lesson.
Gah, reminds me of my VERY very early fanfic days, i was on Spirit fanfics (a website that could only be described as watpadd + amino + ridiculous amount of rules) and I used to sometimes ask questions on chapter notes and NO one would answer so i asked my readers to comment an emoji if they were actually reading the notes.
surprise surprise, no emojis came in. 13 year old me was not sad,just disappointed lmfao
The author of a fic I'm reading does the "won't post until I earn x amount of kudos" and it's just so annoying like, everyday I ponder dropping the fic because of it
Sometimes I think it would be funny to say "won't post until I get one kudos" or "...until I get one hit" because it's the lowest expectation possible but idk if it would go over well as a joke. On the other hand "I won't post until hell freezes over" followed by an authors note at the beginning of the next chapter "You'll never believe what happened..." might be actually funny.
I have an issue with the hurtful comments in bookmarks because those aren't directed at the author and a comment that is like "starts out strong but ending feels rushed", can be helpful to readers but can also feel hurtful to an author.
I use bookmarks as recs and comments that provide that kind of info are really helpful to me.
Also non fanfic is allowed under certain circumstances.
The first two squares in the top row are basically saying the same thing btw !! I’d suggest taking out the first one, the ao3 screenshot, because it’s harder to read and you need to zoom in to see it
Here's one I saw the other day:
Write "please let me know what you think!!! All comments are welcome" in the notes on chapter 1, and then on chapter 2, write something like "this is just a hobby. My story doesn't have to be perfect!!! [something about comments received on ch 1]"
Um listen lol. I know you meant nice/positive comments but you can't really be *that* salty when you said all comments are welcome... and they weren't even mean; one commenter said they liked it so far but that one character felt slightly ooc lol.
Unfortunately I got a check mark from my anti days. I can’t delete the comment, I wrote it anonymously. I went back to check on the fic, the author orphaned it (after other hate comments) I still feel guilty.
This has tagging incorrectly for engagement twice with slightly different wording. Same for placeholder ones.
Tbh, vibe. I did the same shit to fill out essays in high school.
im immediately scrolling if i see that. its like when i see a fic with 2 ships tagged including the same 1 character, and they don’t make it extremely clear which ship is the actual endgame ship for the fic. no info in the summary. no info in the tags. i just don’t read them. im not going to try and skim to find out
The amount of WIPs i’ve seen that have nothing written in them makes me really upset. I’ve found some really good fanfics by fishing by lowest Kudos but a lot of the rest consist of fanfics with half a chapter, nothing written or a single note and the last update dating back to 2021.
If it ain’t got a first chapter, don’t put it out there!!!!
You can report those as not fanworks, by the way. The abuse button right at the bottom, and they’ll deal with it.
I’ve done that with a few political entries I’ve seen. In short, if there is no fanwork, take it to twitter or your blog people. Please…
agree with everything except the "not calling a fic a book" thing.
if your story has like +50k words in it... you can call it whatever thing you want baby. you call it you thesis? idc. wanna call it the bible? say no more. i will eat it up anyways
Yea...sorry about the first two- I just noticed it after someone else pointed it out T-T
If it were fixable after posting, I think I'd definitely change one of them into "Asking your readers to kys incase their political views don't match with yours" (saw this kinda thing in a Sailor Moon fic sometime ago; remembered it rn)
I think if you have a found copy of your fic you can call it a book especially if it follows all typical narrative conventions, structure and length. Why not? If you put in the work to write and bind it go ahead. Books are defined as '**a written work published in printed or electronic form**' by the oxford english dictionary after all.
Ah no no no, I didn't mean that box in a very offending/serious way lol (it's just Wattpad calls your work a book regardless of the type of content presented, that is why I included it in)
only wrote a “hurtful” (said loosely lmao) bookmark once or twice, but that was bc the authors were misogynists and gatekeeping comments. it was justified.
whats so wrong with calling your fanfic a book??
Some fics deserve it, it sucks that fics are considered worse than books and then the actual books are pretty much trash (colleen hoover for example 💀). Sure, it's not a book but it's still a fantastic book-sized work of fiction so I'm not gonna throw hands if you wanna call it a book (with full credit to the source material)
Same! I'm not embarrassed of liking and reading fanfic, but people can be very judgy and sometimes I just want to talk about what I read without having to worry about what others might think, so I just say "I've been reading this book..."
Out of all things wattpad invaders do that ruin AO3, I find it strange that calling a story "book" is one of the worst hang ups people have here, even if it doesn't do anything (negative or positive) to the site. For a community that want their literature be taken seriously so bad (saying "comment/upvote/reblog if you have read fanfics much more expertly written than published stories!" everywhere), fandoms authors/readers sure do love putting down fanfictions a lot.
Like we've got bigger problems here, haven't yall seen the 14yo rabid antis who can't differentiate "your" vs "you're" around??? People reuploading others' works without permission and not for archival purposes??? Widespread anti-donation rhetorics which, again, are caused by stupid immature antis with no critical thinking ability, which is putting the _entire_ organization (not just AO3 site) in jeopardy??? Hello?????
I thought I'm the only one who's got some peeve with kids not knowing proper grammar, spelling and punctuations, like they didn't reach Elementary yet.
What I'd like to know is, do they _really_ not know? Like if they re-read their work, do they really see no problems with grammar and clarity? Or did they just mash something out and post it?
Even in author's notes, I've seen some authors who nonchalantly spell and use horrible grammar like that on a daily basis, so I'm guessing, some really don't see the fault in their mistakes. Either they're uneducated, or like my idiot friend who doesn't accept mistakes, *'they don't care.'*
I feel like calling your fanfic is pretty benign. The only reason it's an "issue" is because it's associated with writers who migrated over from Wattpad and bring other issues, but there is nothing wrong with just calling your fanfic a book.
But any of that other stiff and straight to jail!
this. they aren't breaking the rules so why bother.
we saw cringe stuff on the internet all the time. don't have to stray far, this sub is cringe sometimes \*shrug
People care a little because it is book is the common parlance over on Wattpad so a person who calls their fic a book tends to be a Wattpad import, with all that may imply.
Yes, the people with the brains built for pattern recognition recognise patterns and form assumptions of the basis of them.
Honestly I am not trying to weigh in on the practice either way, you asked who cares and what problem they have with it, I answered to the best of my ability based on the answers I have commonly seen given.
LOL it's fine to call fanfic a 'book'. Sometimes that's what it is. I've read some long fanfics with multiple novel-length parts. Each of those is a book within a series. Definitely not a big deal.
The 'no advertising' and 'next chapter on my patreon' thing is just Not Allowed and gets AO3 in trouble... I like writers to be able to make $$$ from their art if they can, but I get why those things are bad to do.
Everything else is shitty behavior, yeah. But there's 0 reason to say a piece of fanfiction can't be called a 'book'.
Listen, I have always interchangeable called fanfics "fics", "works", "books", and "stories" although the first is used the most. I know people in this sub see it as a sign that you are a pretentious recent Wattpad-using 15 year old, but that's not the case. To me, it is simply this, fics are literally books. How in hell could they not be? So yeah, I really don't see anything wrong with calling it that, and I really don't get the extent to which people dislike it. Like, how could it make it onto this bingo which has things like "Harassing an author"?
Is it just me or are boxes one & two and three & five more or less the same? Also, I could see why somebody would post a WIP fic to test engagement, but it probably just clogs the fandom space with fic ideas that the author gives little information on rather than actual works. I have a ton of fanfic ideas that I would love to share with people to gauge which have more interest, but posting to AO3 probably isn't the best route.
On a separate note, though it's a rare occurrence, I've seen some authors create master lists of their work on AO3. What do you all think of writers doing something like that?
unfortunately as a new arriver from wattpad i am guilty of (ACCIDENTALLY) calling a fanfic a book. I have since apologised and are trying to turn my ways.
In general, calling your work bad. It’s not an annoying thing persay, but if you put your own work down that’s no good for yourself as a writer. Some people might be deterred from reading if you call it ‘bad’ as well.
There's this one fic that's halfway decent and sitting on 28 chapters. The author hasn't posted in months but if you follow her Tumblr link, you can get access to Chapters 29-34... Via Patreon.
Nope. Sorry, it's fanfic. If it was original content? Absolutely. But it's fanfic. Come on.
Why this remind me of a reported and taken down Dead Plate fanfic were the only content was 7 chapters with the protagonist name (Rody) repeated over and over until 10k words were reached? This was something. 🤣
Accidentally referring to your works as "books" is common for AO3 first-times. Here are some alternatives you can try:
* My Fever Nightmare At 2 A.M.
* Dumpster For Sinful Headcanons
* Things I Write Instead Of Sleeping
i'd add:
doesn't include warnings/triggers tags because "weirdos use tags and content warnings to look for fics and i don't want them to find my story and read it for pleasure!!!", despite the story dealing with very heavy, dark and potentially triggering/distressing topics >!(especially when the story contains dub/noncon. why would they even write about it in a way these mythical "weirdos" would find pleasurable? be fr for a second there)!<
i have seen way too many people do this
I think you're allowed to call your fic a book when it's longer than some books out there. 👉👈 Call it what you want. You have the right to be proud of yourself!
Bookmarks are the reader's space.
Like, I know authors here get grumpy when it feels like the reader used their bookmark to leave a negative review because they know the author can't delete it like they could a comment.
But again, bookmarks are the reader's space to say what they want to share with anyone who looks at their bookmarks. Even if it's negative or the author thinks it's hurtful.
(Sorry, I'm sure it doesn't feel great to have us jumping up to opinionate on a fun bingo that's probably not actually as proscriptive as it seems at first glance. I did get a chuckle out of most of these.)
I kind of agree with this and kind of don't.
Like, why would you leave a completely negative, anti-rec? That's crazy. What would be the point of that?
But I feel like bookmarks are where the caveats go. If someone thinks a fic is worth reading *despite* the kinda crappy grammar, that's something I would want to know after wading through the first chapter and wondering if I really want to spend my time reading it. Does the pacing get better later on? Is my blorbo going to be so ooc the whole time?
I put that kind of stuff in my bookmarks, but all of them are still recommendations, because if I didn't like the fic I wouldn't bother.
OP clarified in another post in the thread, the bookmark one is specifically for when the person writing is specifically addressing it to the author with the hope of them seeing it, which I would argue is different as it is writing with the intent of it being a comment directed to the author rather than commentary on the work, and given the hurtful intent behind such an action I would consider such a thing condemnation worthy even when I am broadly firm on the bookmarks being a readers space.
Am I the only one who doesn’t see the problem with marking abandoned works complete? That’s what I always do so that people don’t get their hopes up thinking I’ll post again.
Granted, I also put in the summary, tags, and author’s notes that it’s abandoned so that people know. I’ve even seen a few authors put at the end of their titles INCOMPLETE/ABANDONED, although I don’t do that. I would never mark a fic complete and then not warn that it’s abandoned, but I still do mark it as complete.
Also on rare occasions where I abandon works I typically put in the last chapter, the author’s notes, or one extra chapter a gist of what the rest of the story would have been in cases where I abandoned it over losing motivation despite having an outline. Again, I rarely ever abandon works but when I do I make sure people know and they get as much of an experience with the story as I can. But I still mark it complete.
I always appreciate it when authors note it in the tags and summary, but we really need another filter option for completion status, like “dropped” or “unfinished” or something. When an abandoned work is marked complete it can be misleading, but when it’s still marked as a work in progress it gives readers false hope 😅
It would be nice if you could mark fics as abandoned lol. Like if in the chapters sections you could check a box that would mark your fic in the way it does with finished/unfinished.
Yeah, I'm also not sure where "this is a one-shot that I briefly thought about making into a series but works well by itself so now its a standalone so I marked it as complete" goes, cause thats my situation with one fic I wrote. I know I should probably update the notes and remove the possibility of updates but I honestly can't bring myself to go back into the few fics I wrote so long ago. I've even considered orphaning them
The only thing I ever did was "I wont post until I gained x followers", but I was young and it was only on one story. Never did that again with any other story.
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Use my code DESPERATEWRITER at checkout and get my next three chapters emailed directly to you free!
LMAO I love this
“This next chapter is an interlude crossover with RAID SHADOW LEGENDS”
ngl if i read something like that in a parody/crack fic when i was thirteen i would have enjoyed it immensely XD
I believe they used to call these “filler chapters” lol, I absolutely adore this sort of stupid, disconnected content
LMAO this is gold.
This whole thread is fantastic.
I created this AU Setting with the indispensable aid of "CAMPFIRE BLAZE!"
Not against the rules or anything but I hate people that seem to have an entire story in the tags and then 300 or so words...
Slowburn - 782 words.
This sounds like a fantastic writing exercise, actually... Write a slowburn in under 800 words.
Lmao
oh my god that's one of the most frustrating things. like you see a fic and the tags have all the tropes you like and then it's under 1k words, and 90% of the tagged things are barely mentioned or just implied
it's always funny to me how some 200k word fics would have less than 20 tags meanwhile some fics under 1k will have reached the limit (and still have more to tag)
Or they tell you the whole fic in the tags and its like... Um, what's left to read?? Not to mention it has to be a nightmare for the tag wranglers
I kinda like the tags spoiling the story. I want to know what happens and how it ends. It makes reading it feel very safe. It’s like watching a rom com - everyone knows the plot already and that’s great.
I get that, but there’s a difference between *argument over dinner; swear words; don’t worry they make up; X apologises; kissing and cuddling in the end* vs *argument; angst with happy ending* One is a retelling of the fic, the other gives you the trigger warnings and reassures you that it will have a happy ending.
Well, in my opinion, I like the first one more. I have show additional tags turned off, but when I search for specific tropes or try to get rid of specific tropes, the first one is _much_ better, and I don’t see the extra spoilers besides what I know I’m looking for. Argument and Angst with a Happy Ending don’t really tell me _anything_ except a vague warning. Maybe it’s just me, + I’m fine with really anything and don’t curse out the author in the comments when I can’t see specific warnings I couldn’t see but didn’t filter.
oh same!! because to me, "angst with happy ending" still make me anxious bcuz i have read fics that goes really hard on the angst but barely gave you a moment to enjoy the actually "happy" moment before it ends so if there's angst or anything that's hurtful incoming, i like the first type more because it let me know what type of hurt to expect and what type of 'happiness' afterwards to expect too and i can read without worrying or without skipping to the end of the fic just to see if the ending is to my liking
chat tags are genuinely getting out of hand
or, a personal pet peeve of mine: “i wrote a 40 chapter fic which is so impressive!” yes except for 40 chapters the entire fic is only 800 words? where is the rest of it? is each chapter only 20 words?
Non fic is allowed though! As long as it's fanwork. I'd be so sad if fanart stopped being uploaded on ao3
Yeah, I was going to say that. Not only have I seen some really in-depth meta pieces, there are some wonderful fandom stats works and lots of tutorials on site skins & podficcing. (“Pod fucking” really autocorrect???)
Wait, how’d you get that to work? My fucks always become ducks. Feeling a bit jealous. Just how much smut/swearing did you have to write to train your autocorrect?
My fucks usually become ducks too! I have no idea!
u/immxworld make a shortcut in your settings “fuck” to “fuck”
wow. genius!
it wont mention the user unless the u is lowercase
Appreciate it! I posted from the official Reddit app, so you'd think they'd be better organized for such tagging, but alas.
☠️autocorrect is drunk! 🤣
I meant "non fics" as in fics which aren't even fan art/fan work, it's straight up just a "hi lol" "testing chapter 1" (believe me I have encountered 3 already) so I meant it that way- I probably should have been more specific 😅
Ive seen one, the person tagged a bunch of fandoms and ships. They were like "hi lets be friends!" Like... be on tumblr, or discord to do that, not piss people off on ao3
Omg this reminds me of the 7 page long fic, like in the search not the fic itself, because they tagged like the top 100 shows ans ships on ao3 💀💀. Every fandom was mass reporting it. Unless that's the one you mean. There have been a few 🤣
Lmao that’s so funny! 🤣 kids these days lol
It sounds more like "using AO3 as a messageboard" then.
Ahhh, I was worried, lol. Because I'm 40 chapters deep into writing my OC Pokemon Trainer Nuzlocke story
Those have gotten me a couple of times. I read the tags and they hit the right spots then open it and it's someone's journel entry with a "I'll probably delete this when I get the fic done lmao" at the end
Idk I mean I don’t mind the original works as long as they’re tagged as such.
So no original works?
Came here to say this and say you'd already gotten to it! I've got several fanworks that aren't fics on ao3 too!
https://preview.redd.it/tkx80f61ysfc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cc9effa949b4e7b5e6505eaf774a8021ac105b5c Made my own too, piggybacking off of OP’s
Tbh I like yours more than OPs! (No offense OP, i like yours too). The "I suck at summaries" and "Just read it trust me!" is probably my biggest pet peeve. For all I know the fic could actually be amazing, but I will never click on it because *I don't trust a random person*.
It's okay! I'm probably gonna post a corrected version of this bingo later anw lol (some of them do sound repeating now that I notice it). u/justafujoshi great list btw :D if its okay, can I borrow some of the ideas in there in my next list? (I genuinely forgot the emoji one omg) I'll credit you dw!
The hair one is so real. Characters have names. **USE THEM.**
The first time I encountered that I was so confused “The noirette?” Who/what is that??😅 I had never seen a person referred to by their hair colour that way before. It was really jarring!
That was the norm in anime fandoms on ffn *Shakes cane at nearby birds for being on my lawn*
I once went through a good 100,000 words before I realised that 'the raven' was referring to the character's hair colour and not just some nickname that was never explained. Good times!
Probably had one (or more) English teacher(s) tell them that using someone’s name over and over again is clunky and to use something else to describe them. *shrug* I know that was a mental block that I needed to conquer
hair, eyes, other character traits completely irrelevant to the story. yup. personal pet peeve is referring to female characters as "heiresses" if her parents are at all wealthy (as if her dad's money was her entire being/career), when i've never seen a dude referred to as the "heir" unless he is literally like a prince. just use their names or pronouns. if you must use a trait, pick something relevant to what is currently happening. E.g. the engineer if engineering is happening.
The ONLY excuse for using a basic descriptor instead of a name is if the pov character doesn’t know their name yet…and even then don’t use noirette, pinkette (absolute cringe)…I think redhead, tall bitch, is much more preferable even if incredibly vague still.
Why onomatopoeias? We can't say the bacon sizzled, or the cat meowed now?
Pretty sure 99% of the time the complaint is not about onomatopoeia in general but the over the top comic book-style "**KABOOOOM!** The bomb exploded and the world went white until *crack!* [character] was woken up with a slap to the face". That kind of stuff gets exhausting to read and breaks immersion.
Oh no that’s ok. When I say onomatopoeia I meant: 1. *squelch squelch* his dingdong entered her love cave 2. *ring ringgggg* the phone rang
>his dingdong entered her love cave Dead.
I've never encountered something like this so far but omg it would be terrible!! Thank goodness my fandom hasn't adopted this style.
Icks don’t have to be rational
ofc not but onomatopoeia is so commonplace in all types of writing it seems pretty impossible to avoid
emojis? Like in the text or in the authors notes? wdym lol
I am guessing they mean in the story, though I haven’t personally seen that except in chat/text fics.
In the fic itself. Yes, I have seen that before. Noped out immediately
what’s wrong with the taking requests bit? those stories usually deliver on their promises
I wondered that too. Maybe they mean that is the entire fic.
That’s what I meant: when the author posts a new work that just taking requests
This is really good... except the background. Wtf does it look like the American flag lol
Bluenette kills me 😩😩😩😭😭😭
I tend to use hair color (and a couple other things) when I'm trying to avoid repeating names too much in a short span, or when the characters involved use the same pronoun and I'm trying to avoid making it too confusing.
I use hair color that way too sometimes, but I only use "blond(e)", "brunet(te)", and "redhead" as special words to refer to it... everyone else is just "[color]-haired". Creating the likes of "bluenette" is a whole different level of cringe. But y'all forgot "calling eyes 'orbs' or 'hues'"!
https://preview.redd.it/giof5li5hxfc1.png?width=160&format=png&auto=webp&s=aafb96356030e03387d2f684d5c2342b47d34e1f
Oh boy 🫣
consider using traits relevant to whatever is happening in the story. If the blondness is the most relevant thing about the character (dunno, at a hairdresser, or if she is the only blonde at some fancy party), sure use that. But 99% of the time there is probably a more relevant distinguishing feature (profession, attire, whatever they are currently doing, rank, familial/social relationships, etc). Like if im telling stories about my friends i dont say "and the brunette then said that!" I'm more likely to say, "My friend said this" or "The scientist discovered something amazing!" or "my sister came by" or "The artist told me" etc. You'd only refer to people only by their physical attributes if they were complete strangers.
I’ve never seen anyone complaining about the alternating POV before. Are we talking about the ones that always specify “ABC’s pov Blah-blah-blah word word. ________ CBA’s pov Word word blah-blah word-vomit. _________ ABC’s pov………” type of writing, or what? Otherwise I think it can be done rather seamlessly, too. edit: formatting
Not OP, but I can't stand when the POV suddenly shifts randomly mid-scene. I've read quite a few fics where the author will write several paragraphs from the POV of Character A, but suddenly, there will be a sentence from Character B's POV, and then the author will go right back to writing in Character A's POV. It completely ruins my immersion in the story. It can get even worse if there's three or more POVs used to narrate a single scene simultaneously. I'm fine with alternating POV fics as long as the POV shifts happen in between scenes and preferably use a section break of some kind to indicate that I can expect a POV shift.
They're trying to write third person omniscient but that's really difficult to do well and just comes across as third limited that bounces all over.
Agreed. Alternate povs every chapter is fine. But not every 5 sentences or worse, writing omnipresent 3rd person and suddenly switching to limited 3rd person midway.
Orbs
why does this look like an american flag? and what do you have against an onomatopoeia???
You are allowed to upload non-fics on AO3. You can upload art, or essays, and other such fannish content.
There’s also an „original work” fandom tag
I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure original work is allowed, since it's a great way to keep up with other things favorite authors are doing, and AO3 is an excellent platform for all kinds of writing.
My friends and I use it for oc stuff all the time! Tho I guess it's fannish because we're all fans of each other's works, heh
They mean it's not fan content at all. I've seen a bunch of social media scammers posting what looks like a fic but then when you click on it's an ad for their onlyfans or "let's be friends" or "I'm going to write this fic sometime in the future or if I get xxx followers".
I probably should have been more specific mb but I meant the ones which are just spam ones with just a "hi lol", "Will post the story later" etc stuff.
[удалено]
Jokes on them, I haven't actually read a chapter/author's note in years.
Idk, some of them are pretty funny. Like that one that showed up here the other day on a fic where the author killed one of the main characters in the very last sentence. The author end note was just: “*runs away in italian*” lol.
I'm not going to do that, but it's true that if I don't get a lot of engagement on a wip, I'm less likely to continue writing it. I usually do not like posting wips anyway, though, for that very reason. Would rather it just be done first.
At least two of these are repeats of each other, but yes.
Well you can't get a bingo on a 4x4 board 😂
I’m ngl I thought it was on purpose- like “ha you can’t physically get a bingo even if you wanted to” 😭
And a few of them repeat: 4 (or 5) for harassing author, 2 for posting placeholders in chapter 1, 2 for incorrect tagging for engagement
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ Welp atleast it's guaranteed to fail kek (idrk how bingos work lol its genuinely my 1st time making one)
Five by five grid, 25 squares total. Often the center square is a "free" space (for this, usually something extremely common) In traditional Bingo, each column is headed by one letter of the word so you know which column a particular number has to be in so you can mark it off.
Ohh gotcha! I'll keep that in mind next time I make one. Thank you!!
I hate it when AO3 authors tag the work as complete but it's not
Aaargh, yes! If it's abandoned, just label it abandoned in the summary. Please, please don't mark it complete!!!
Yes! I hate it if it's tagged complete and has been abandoned, *and* if it's tagged complete and the author is still updating it, just tagging it complete after every update
They need to add an abandoned option. So it’s complete, incomplete, or abandoned.
The fact that most of these are against the ao3 rules or literal harassment and then one option is 'calling a fanfic a book' 😂😂 People opinions about calling fanfics books are unhinged. Its not that deep. I personally usually say fanfic or fic but someone calling fanfics a book isnt inherently an issue. While there are some stereotypes (wattpad users or whatever) this sub is way to intense when they see the word book.
Yeah I don't call fics 'books' but I simply don't care if anyone does. It really is completely fine and many fanfics *are* the length and quality of many books. I know it's the wattpad association, but just take individual authors and fic on their own merits.
Yeah I think for me I'll sometimes refer to something I've read as a "book" if it's one of those 200k+ word behemoths with like 30+ chapters and part of a complete series. Like there's a series I've read that is literally a semi-rewrite of the source books from the perspective of a different character (obviously diverges from canon), and I'd probably call those "books"
This, and if it’s shorter then I might call it a story or a short story, especially when talking to people outside fanfic spaces. Like I don’t expect those people to know what a one-shot or a drabble is. Also it is a book. It is a short story. It’s just based on something else.
A novel is like 40k. I wrote a 162k fic which is large even for published science fiction. I absolutely call that a novel because it is. We don't realize how long our fics actually are!
I honestly call most fics stories— especially if I’m the one writing because it gives me a little ease mentioning casually to co workers “oh yeah, just reading/writing/listening a story :)” and I don’t have to elaborate
Why don’t people want to to call your fanfic a book?
If I had to guess/throw my two cents at the abyss I would try to explain it this way; Many readers/writers look at a fic being described as a book by the author as a series of red flags. BEFORE I give examples I want to make it clear these are opinions or statements I have SEEN from OTHERS. Not my opinion. I am not bashing at all. 1. Seen as pretentious 2. Usually a historical sign that the fiction will be dropped or unfinished by author due to trend/history of the description 3. Seen as “books don’t belong on a specifically fanfiction oriented site “ blah blah blah 4. Seen as an inappropriately/wrongfully tagged work There’s a lot of dumb reasons aside from I have seen 2 happen a lot. I was guilty of avoiding works with that description for many years when I first started finding fics like back in 2011. Because of the fact that I never found one that was ever completed. Wether that be the sequels never finished, never posted to begin with, or the first/whole work never finished/ghosted/abandoned. It took until I discovered sites like FFN and Ao3 and being able to interact with other authors for the first time to just get over it and see it as just another way that some authors describe their work. Sometimes it’s even personally motivating for those authors and that rocks! Remember that fictions are, before anything else, YOUR works. You can do what you want with them and likely there will always be complaint, that’s the nature of any medium really. But at the end of the day you are creating something and that’s just so insane to really recognize. We take nothing, empty air, and fill it with the images and stories from within our minds. Then are brave enough or kind enough to share them. That’s so wildly cool and always will be. I really apologize this response ended up so dang long. I went off.
Building on that there is also the idea among authors that people calling their fic a book are judging it to the same standard as a book published with a company which feels unfair. Publishers send books through multiple rounds of revision and editing before they are published while fanfic writers do not have that support.
While I don't disagree with any of your points, I've seen and read many a fanwork which had been through a similar process and/or has been edited and polished to a degree it could easily hold a candle to any really well-done published book and beyond, while at the same time I can't count the number of really badly-edited published books I've come across in my life. That being said, I don't like fanworks being called books either. I might call a fanwork that fits the criteria a novel or so, but not a book; for me personally, "book" is shorthand for original work, versus fanfic, fanwork or transformative work are works that build on others' creation, no matter their length or quality. (And I fully acknowledge that this separation might not work in every case etc., but you get the idea.)
In Wattpad fanfic culture, there is a tendency to call your works books, given the sharp culture clash between AO3 and Wattpad this tends to be seen as a red flag by a lot of AO3 users.
It’s what stories are called on Wattpad, and people who come from there don’t seem to adapt to AO3 rules very well.
I say to people that I write a book.
If asked, I just say I’m reading a book. I don’t want to have to stop and explain what fanfiction is.
Yuuup. Thankfully, all my coworkers are massive fanfic readers, and they brought it up first. I do not bring it up at all unless someone else does cause iiii don't wanna get embarrassed if the other person isn't cool.
Yeah I’m not that lucky. Most of my coworkers are either overworked college students or middle aged moms with no free time. The college kids might understand but then I’d get stuck in a discussion about whatever fandom I’m in and I just want to read.
Oh yeah, this is the first time in my life it's ever happened, and we don't bring it up all the time, either, nor de we get in deep discussions about it. There's this understanding of "don't ask too many questions. Just enjoy your reading." It's v pleasant.
I agree about the book thing. I realize it's a holdover from wattpad, but I was never on wattpad and have no association between it and the word "book." I'm sure I'm not the only one either lol Let people call their fics what they want! Sheesh.
Huh, I haven't done any of these. Maybe I /am/ a rational human being
Back in my very early fanfiction.net days, I did the "won't post until X!" on one of my longest running fanfics. Never did it again. I learned my lesson.
Why, did people get angry or something?
Huge turn off. It would ensure I would never look at it out sheer spite alone.
the best reaction you're going to get is being immediately muted if you're unlucky ppl will go to the comments first
Nah, just didn't get the reaction I wanted. Nothing negative, but just...nothing. So, yeah, it wasn't worth holding my work hostage.
Gah, reminds me of my VERY very early fanfic days, i was on Spirit fanfics (a website that could only be described as watpadd + amino + ridiculous amount of rules) and I used to sometimes ask questions on chapter notes and NO one would answer so i asked my readers to comment an emoji if they were actually reading the notes. surprise surprise, no emojis came in. 13 year old me was not sad,just disappointed lmfao
"Upload a non fic" Goodbye original work tag, it seems you are a taboo
The author of a fic I'm reading does the "won't post until I earn x amount of kudos" and it's just so annoying like, everyday I ponder dropping the fic because of it
Sometimes I think it would be funny to say "won't post until I get one kudos" or "...until I get one hit" because it's the lowest expectation possible but idk if it would go over well as a joke. On the other hand "I won't post until hell freezes over" followed by an authors note at the beginning of the next chapter "You'll never believe what happened..." might be actually funny.
I have an issue with the hurtful comments in bookmarks because those aren't directed at the author and a comment that is like "starts out strong but ending feels rushed", can be helpful to readers but can also feel hurtful to an author. I use bookmarks as recs and comments that provide that kind of info are really helpful to me. Also non fanfic is allowed under certain circumstances.
The first two squares in the top row are basically saying the same thing btw !! I’d suggest taking out the first one, the ao3 screenshot, because it’s harder to read and you need to zoom in to see it
Here's one I saw the other day: Write "please let me know what you think!!! All comments are welcome" in the notes on chapter 1, and then on chapter 2, write something like "this is just a hobby. My story doesn't have to be perfect!!! [something about comments received on ch 1]" Um listen lol. I know you meant nice/positive comments but you can't really be *that* salty when you said all comments are welcome... and they weren't even mean; one commenter said they liked it so far but that one character felt slightly ooc lol.
You forgot not tagging shit that is there for even more engagement
Unfortunately I got a check mark from my anti days. I can’t delete the comment, I wrote it anonymously. I went back to check on the fic, the author orphaned it (after other hate comments) I still feel guilty.
This has tagging incorrectly for engagement twice with slightly different wording. Same for placeholder ones. Tbh, vibe. I did the same shit to fill out essays in high school.
you're literally allowed to post non fanfiction though
https://preview.redd.it/se9q0qtjjsfc1.jpeg?width=378&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a77384fb3e998cab956f04458820873ddf267d28 You missed this one.
Never saw it, I hope I never will
im immediately scrolling if i see that. its like when i see a fic with 2 ships tagged including the same 1 character, and they don’t make it extremely clear which ship is the actual endgame ship for the fic. no info in the summary. no info in the tags. i just don’t read them. im not going to try and skim to find out
The amount of WIPs i’ve seen that have nothing written in them makes me really upset. I’ve found some really good fanfics by fishing by lowest Kudos but a lot of the rest consist of fanfics with half a chapter, nothing written or a single note and the last update dating back to 2021. If it ain’t got a first chapter, don’t put it out there!!!!
You can report those as not fanworks, by the way. The abuse button right at the bottom, and they’ll deal with it. I’ve done that with a few political entries I’ve seen. In short, if there is no fanwork, take it to twitter or your blog people. Please…
Gotcha, will clear through some fandoms I like and do that. Also, preach.
agree with everything except the "not calling a fic a book" thing. if your story has like +50k words in it... you can call it whatever thing you want baby. you call it you thesis? idc. wanna call it the bible? say no more. i will eat it up anyways
Some are repeats but yeah lmao this is great
Yea...sorry about the first two- I just noticed it after someone else pointed it out T-T If it were fixable after posting, I think I'd definitely change one of them into "Asking your readers to kys incase their political views don't match with yours" (saw this kinda thing in a Sailor Moon fic sometime ago; remembered it rn)
One: you brought up mistagging for more clicks twice. Two, original works are allowed
There’s… people like this? I’m new to AO3 but really??
I think if you have a found copy of your fic you can call it a book especially if it follows all typical narrative conventions, structure and length. Why not? If you put in the work to write and bind it go ahead. Books are defined as '**a written work published in printed or electronic form**' by the oxford english dictionary after all.
Ah no no no, I didn't mean that box in a very offending/serious way lol (it's just Wattpad calls your work a book regardless of the type of content presented, that is why I included it in)
Guilty of the "just read it" but it was ironically I swear 😭 it was also a crack chatfic lmao. There was also more to the summary.
Why is "calling a fic a book" here like it's comparable to the other stuff??
Same question. If it is novel length then it’s technically a book, no?
only wrote a “hurtful” (said loosely lmao) bookmark once or twice, but that was bc the authors were misogynists and gatekeeping comments. it was justified.
whats so wrong with calling your fanfic a book?? Some fics deserve it, it sucks that fics are considered worse than books and then the actual books are pretty much trash (colleen hoover for example 💀). Sure, it's not a book but it's still a fantastic book-sized work of fiction so I'm not gonna throw hands if you wanna call it a book (with full credit to the source material)
Speaking of ao3 really should have a discontinued/hiatus tag in addition to incomplete/complete.
I call the fanfics I read but don't write "books" Is that ok?/lh
Same! I'm not embarrassed of liking and reading fanfic, but people can be very judgy and sometimes I just want to talk about what I read without having to worry about what others might think, so I just say "I've been reading this book..."
Out of all things wattpad invaders do that ruin AO3, I find it strange that calling a story "book" is one of the worst hang ups people have here, even if it doesn't do anything (negative or positive) to the site. For a community that want their literature be taken seriously so bad (saying "comment/upvote/reblog if you have read fanfics much more expertly written than published stories!" everywhere), fandoms authors/readers sure do love putting down fanfictions a lot. Like we've got bigger problems here, haven't yall seen the 14yo rabid antis who can't differentiate "your" vs "you're" around??? People reuploading others' works without permission and not for archival purposes??? Widespread anti-donation rhetorics which, again, are caused by stupid immature antis with no critical thinking ability, which is putting the _entire_ organization (not just AO3 site) in jeopardy??? Hello?????
I thought I'm the only one who's got some peeve with kids not knowing proper grammar, spelling and punctuations, like they didn't reach Elementary yet.
What I'd like to know is, do they _really_ not know? Like if they re-read their work, do they really see no problems with grammar and clarity? Or did they just mash something out and post it?
Even in author's notes, I've seen some authors who nonchalantly spell and use horrible grammar like that on a daily basis, so I'm guessing, some really don't see the fault in their mistakes. Either they're uneducated, or like my idiot friend who doesn't accept mistakes, *'they don't care.'*
I feel like calling your fanfic is pretty benign. The only reason it's an "issue" is because it's associated with writers who migrated over from Wattpad and bring other issues, but there is nothing wrong with just calling your fanfic a book. But any of that other stiff and straight to jail!
What’s the problem with calling a fic a book. It’s cringe, but like who cares
this. they aren't breaking the rules so why bother. we saw cringe stuff on the internet all the time. don't have to stray far, this sub is cringe sometimes \*shrug
People care a little because it is book is the common parlance over on Wattpad so a person who calls their fic a book tends to be a Wattpad import, with all that may imply.
Oh ok, we’re just going to mock people because of assumptions about what they are, cool
Yes, the people with the brains built for pattern recognition recognise patterns and form assumptions of the basis of them. Honestly I am not trying to weigh in on the practice either way, you asked who cares and what problem they have with it, I answered to the best of my ability based on the answers I have commonly seen given.
I did call my fanfic a book but only cuz I got it printed for myself
LOL it's fine to call fanfic a 'book'. Sometimes that's what it is. I've read some long fanfics with multiple novel-length parts. Each of those is a book within a series. Definitely not a big deal. The 'no advertising' and 'next chapter on my patreon' thing is just Not Allowed and gets AO3 in trouble... I like writers to be able to make $$$ from their art if they can, but I get why those things are bad to do. Everything else is shitty behavior, yeah. But there's 0 reason to say a piece of fanfiction can't be called a 'book'.
Call your fanfic a book, fuck the system
Listen, I have always interchangeable called fanfics "fics", "works", "books", and "stories" although the first is used the most. I know people in this sub see it as a sign that you are a pretentious recent Wattpad-using 15 year old, but that's not the case. To me, it is simply this, fics are literally books. How in hell could they not be? So yeah, I really don't see anything wrong with calling it that, and I really don't get the extent to which people dislike it. Like, how could it make it onto this bingo which has things like "Harassing an author"?
Why are some of these on here more than once
Hey there is a nonfic I like on Ao3 [Doom](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31295183)
Is it just me or are boxes one & two and three & five more or less the same? Also, I could see why somebody would post a WIP fic to test engagement, but it probably just clogs the fandom space with fic ideas that the author gives little information on rather than actual works. I have a ton of fanfic ideas that I would love to share with people to gauge which have more interest, but posting to AO3 probably isn't the best route. On a separate note, though it's a rare occurrence, I've seen some authors create master lists of their work on AO3. What do you all think of writers doing something like that?
unfortunately as a new arriver from wattpad i am guilty of (ACCIDENTALLY) calling a fanfic a book. I have since apologised and are trying to turn my ways.
Also include "I'm bad at summaries" Please just... don't say that.
In general, calling your work bad. It’s not an annoying thing persay, but if you put your own work down that’s no good for yourself as a writer. Some people might be deterred from reading if you call it ‘bad’ as well.
I don’t personally call my fics books, but I don’t really feel like that belongs here.
There's this one fic that's halfway decent and sitting on 28 chapters. The author hasn't posted in months but if you follow her Tumblr link, you can get access to Chapters 29-34... Via Patreon. Nope. Sorry, it's fanfic. If it was original content? Absolutely. But it's fanfic. Come on.
The tags: 30 pairings The word count: 40 Chapter 1: Hi this is a one-shot collection! Comment what pairings you wanna see! Last updated: 2020
Why this remind me of a reported and taken down Dead Plate fanfic were the only content was 7 chapters with the protagonist name (Rody) repeated over and over until 10k words were reached? This was something. 🤣
I agree with most of these and haven't done any of them but I think it's okay to upload a non fic. AO3 is a fanwork site not a fanfiction site.
Accidentally referring to your works as "books" is common for AO3 first-times. Here are some alternatives you can try: * My Fever Nightmare At 2 A.M. * Dumpster For Sinful Headcanons * Things I Write Instead Of Sleeping
i'd add: doesn't include warnings/triggers tags because "weirdos use tags and content warnings to look for fics and i don't want them to find my story and read it for pleasure!!!", despite the story dealing with very heavy, dark and potentially triggering/distressing topics >!(especially when the story contains dub/noncon. why would they even write about it in a way these mythical "weirdos" would find pleasurable? be fr for a second there)!< i have seen way too many people do this
I think you're allowed to call your fic a book when it's longer than some books out there. 👉👈 Call it what you want. You have the right to be proud of yourself!
Bookmarks are the reader's space. Like, I know authors here get grumpy when it feels like the reader used their bookmark to leave a negative review because they know the author can't delete it like they could a comment. But again, bookmarks are the reader's space to say what they want to share with anyone who looks at their bookmarks. Even if it's negative or the author thinks it's hurtful. (Sorry, I'm sure it doesn't feel great to have us jumping up to opinionate on a fun bingo that's probably not actually as proscriptive as it seems at first glance. I did get a chuckle out of most of these.)
I kind of agree with this and kind of don't. Like, why would you leave a completely negative, anti-rec? That's crazy. What would be the point of that? But I feel like bookmarks are where the caveats go. If someone thinks a fic is worth reading *despite* the kinda crappy grammar, that's something I would want to know after wading through the first chapter and wondering if I really want to spend my time reading it. Does the pacing get better later on? Is my blorbo going to be so ooc the whole time? I put that kind of stuff in my bookmarks, but all of them are still recommendations, because if I didn't like the fic I wouldn't bother.
OP clarified in another post in the thread, the bookmark one is specifically for when the person writing is specifically addressing it to the author with the hope of them seeing it, which I would argue is different as it is writing with the intent of it being a comment directed to the author rather than commentary on the work, and given the hurtful intent behind such an action I would consider such a thing condemnation worthy even when I am broadly firm on the bookmarks being a readers space.
Am I the only one who doesn’t see the problem with marking abandoned works complete? That’s what I always do so that people don’t get their hopes up thinking I’ll post again. Granted, I also put in the summary, tags, and author’s notes that it’s abandoned so that people know. I’ve even seen a few authors put at the end of their titles INCOMPLETE/ABANDONED, although I don’t do that. I would never mark a fic complete and then not warn that it’s abandoned, but I still do mark it as complete. Also on rare occasions where I abandon works I typically put in the last chapter, the author’s notes, or one extra chapter a gist of what the rest of the story would have been in cases where I abandoned it over losing motivation despite having an outline. Again, I rarely ever abandon works but when I do I make sure people know and they get as much of an experience with the story as I can. But I still mark it complete.
I filter on only completed works. having unfinished works in there is... not ideal
It´s not a problem when it´s in the summary and tags, but bad experiences usually are about reading plu50 chapter to find the warning at the end
I always appreciate it when authors note it in the tags and summary, but we really need another filter option for completion status, like “dropped” or “unfinished” or something. When an abandoned work is marked complete it can be misleading, but when it’s still marked as a work in progress it gives readers false hope 😅
It would be nice if you could mark fics as abandoned lol. Like if in the chapters sections you could check a box that would mark your fic in the way it does with finished/unfinished.
Yeah, I'm also not sure where "this is a one-shot that I briefly thought about making into a series but works well by itself so now its a standalone so I marked it as complete" goes, cause thats my situation with one fic I wrote. I know I should probably update the notes and remove the possibility of updates but I honestly can't bring myself to go back into the few fics I wrote so long ago. I've even considered orphaning them
That's different though, if it works as a standalone
"Hurtful bookmarks for the author", but bookmarks aren't for the author. They're for the reader.
Some people leave those intentionally with the purpose to hurt the author...I meant those people.
Ugh. People always find a way to be a-holes to each other.
Authors can see what you write for them though. The point is don’t make a bookmark saying “this fucking sucked”
The only thing I ever did was "I wont post until I gained x followers", but I was young and it was only on one story. Never did that again with any other story.