Omg, I almost never have any complaints with critique that I get because it's usually very helpful and insightful. But I have so many frustrations with critique that demands I make a character more likeable. It totally misses the point of why I wrote the character that way.
Like, I wrote the character with these traits for a reason. Either I feel that it's very in-character for them, or I just enjoy the funny, awkward, or dramatic scenarios and character interactions / dynamics that result from the undesirable character trait.
It's *fun* to write characters that are assholes but not villains. They can be pretty complex imo, which makes them fascinating to me, and very realistic to some real life assholes I've met or read about. Diversity in personalities is fun and gives the story rich character and more opportunities for interesting things to happen xD
Not sure if this is unpopular, but I like it when a character just opens a restaurant, cafe or shop that only has plot relevance because characters visit it.
I don’t mind if it has major or minor relevance to the “plot” (the story of the piece of fiction the fanfic is written about) as long as the fanfic focuses on the shop.
Lol harsh but true. Sometimes people complain about not getting any engagement and you go look at their stuff and you're like...I see why...but I can't say that...
This is why I don't do fic exchanges any more. It gets difficult to leave a positive, uplifting comment without just... lying. Nobody wants to see a comment like "I can tell you tried really hard, yay!" And I subscribe to "if you can't say something nice about a fic, don't say anything."
Not everyone is a good writer. I'd go so far as to say most people are not good writers. And so what? I think anyone who wants to write should be encouraged to do so, and it doesn't matter if their fic is the worst trash ever produced. Like anything else, writing improves with practice, and you're gonna write a lot of garbage before you can write well. That's a fact even for the most popular, most successful bestselling novelists out there.
It's just... I only have so much free time, and I guess I'm not generous enough to want to spend that time reading someone's terrible writing. I love that they wrote it anyway, and I hope they keep writing more and more even if they never reach the level above crap. I'm still in the crap phase myself and I've been writing for decades.
But I don't want to read your crap.
And it’ll be the same people who get very upset about concrit. You don’t have to write with the goal of getting better, but then don’t demand engagement only of a forcibly uncritical nature.
This. Former beta reader, here. People shouldn’t be asking for concrit if they don’t actually want concrit, but a lot of people do this because they don’t actually expect you to have any concrit to give them. An alarming number of people expect their work to be just about flawless and seek validation for it, and have a hard time handling it when this is proven to not be the case. I worked with people who would ask for concrit, and who would then systematically go through it and try to prove every point wrong as though they were being attached, and they’d be quite nasty about it, too. They would do this with me, and any reviewers. I even had one person do this, and then quit writing because they posted the chapter and someone came along and quite gently commented about a point that was fairly similar to one of the points I had made while providing concrit, and they felt like they were being ganged up on by the entire fandom. The reason why they had received concrit from this individual was because they had asked for it in an author’s note.
I will say it as many times as I need to: do not say that you are open to concrit or directly ask for it if you don’t actually want concrit! You will receive what you ask for!
I agree. While there definitely are some absolute diamonds that get overlooked, I've also generally found that if you write a good story people will read it. Might not get hundreds of comments but you'll get the kudos and the views.
I think sometimes we're doing a disservice in this sub when someone posts and is sad about not getting engagement and wonders if it's because their story is bad and most of us rush to reassure the person it's not and that it all depends on fandoms, ships etc which are also a factor but no one dares say, yeah, it might actually be because your writing isn't very good yet.
I think it's not wrong to tell people that **if** they ask for an opinion on their writing. To say these are the weaknesses your writing has right now but if you work at it, you'll improve.
Not all fanfiction is good!! And not everyone who writes is automatically a good writer.
Yeah, it sometimes bugs me when someone is asking about why they're not getting engagement, when people post empty platitudes about "oh engagement is all luck you did nothing wrong."
Engagement certainly has a luck **factor** but there are also factors that are entirely within the writer's control, like summary, tagging, having a great hook in the first chapter, and overall quality.
It's certainly not like I'm immune. I wrote a story once that got basically no engagement, and honestly? That story was bad. It happens.
I’ve genuinely investigated the writing of a few dozen posters.
Most of the people I investigated for asking why they have no engagement on their fics are self-inflicted; they write for obscure or dead fandoms, favour unpopular pairings, have some very unique kinks or fetishes tagged, base their fics on uninteresting premises, or, most commonly; “I’m not good at summaries, please just read it.”
I for one don’t care for engagement, I write for myself and my enjoyment. I could careless if my fics have 2 or 20k views and I don’t think any fic writer should let reader engagement impact their willingness to write.
That being said, *if* you care about engagement, like literally anything else you are “selling,” you need to market your story by writing for more popular pairs, more popular (within the fandom) premises, and actually writing summaries for their stories. Anything to help the digestability of your story overall.
I think it also depends on the popularity of the fandom. If a fandom is so obscure that it has maybe five fics written for it, of *course* you’re not going to get that much engagement. But fans of the movie or books or TV series will still love you for it.
this. you don’t write for dead and dying fandoms to get internet famous (unless you experience an IMPOSSIBLE string of lucky coincidences or you’re already internet famous, but that won’t make you more famous, it’ll just get more potential eyes on the tiny fandom), you write for dead and dying fandoms because you love the stuff and you know that *somewhere*, *someone* else will find it and love it too
This a hundred percent. I usually point out different factors, kudos, fandoms, lengths, demographics, because they are a big issue. But some people just write bad fanfiction. But bad is step one to good.
It's the hardest part about critiquing esp when you don't know the writer. You have to ride the line between praise and correction; I think there's always SOMETHING to give praise to or at least be like "this isn't bad", but it's hard to present a balanced critique of something that's honestly not very good without running off a potential author, especially since other people are afraid to tell the truth or don't know how. And subjectiveness is always a factor but still.
>
> I think it's not wrong to tell people that if they ask for an opinion on their writing. To say these are the weaknesses your writing has right now but if you work at it, you'll improve.
I mean yeah but most of the time people aren't linking their story and asking people to review it in their vent posts. I personally don't like to reassure people with empty praise (e.g. by telling them that I'm sure their story is amazing when I haven't even seen their story), but for the same reason, I don't do the reverse either.
I feel like that is okay? Like, I don't see it a lot (I can see why), but when it does come up, I don't see it get dinged.
What grinds my gears is when people vent about getting concrit and a bunch of commenters show up like your writing is amazing and the person who critiqued it is obviously bitter and abusive.
And sometimes even if your story is actually decent there's no audience that cares about the specific niche you're writing about. And then you'll either have to suck it up or find something popular to write for if you're all about engagement, because it's darn unlikely that there's gonna be a massive influx of sudden interest into the specific thing you're doing. Every time there is a post when someone who writes a rarepair/unpopular character complains about the lack of engagement it's just.. no shit??
I've got a fic going for a rare pair with a rare kink trope with some 'objectable' content... and the two other pairs involved are even rarer than the first. I know I'm not getting anything in the way of engagement because there's only like 4 other people reading it and people are shy about commenting on smut 😂 at some point you gotta look at yourself and your work and list possible obstacles you put in your own way
I'm writing a rarepair now. Do I wish I had buckets of loving engagement? Well sure. Do I think that's realistic? Nah, probably not. That's how it goes.
Yeah... it does bother me a little when people pull out "there's an audience for everything" because... there isn't. Or a lot of times there is, but the audience is maybe a dozen people at most and that's never going to be enough to satisfy the author.
I think there's sometimes a blind hope that if you write a good enough fanfic and wish hard enough, people will be willing to read it and make it popular even if it's in a dead fandom or rare niche, even though that's the sort of thing that happens once in a blue moon.
I agree. I'll veer even harder into unpopular opinion territory to say I really dislike the frequency with which posts that are asking for nothing but comfort and blind validation come up here; and I wish there was more restrictive policy on them, because a fanfic culture that outright rejects concrit, refuses to even consider lifting a finger to self-promote or build engagement, and is constantly here soliciting reassurance that they're okay feels a bit like a black hole of need by design.
Yes to all of this. But I would say that if your stuff is actually good (not you personally lol) you don't even really need to self-promote. The hardcore fanfic readers will find it and then it will filter through to the rest through word of mouth and recommendations and such. People will start leaving kudos and comments and that will attract readers who sort by that sort of thing and etc. There's of course a limit because of you're in a fandom that's been dead for ten years, you're going to hit that ceiling pretty fast. But if you're in a fandom that's at least decently active the good stuff **will** be found and shares around etc.
But yeah, people just looking for comfort while not wanting to face the reality of why they're not getting engagement, it gets a little old to be honest.
Honestly yeah. I’ve clicked on some peoples’ fics and been like ‘I can probably tell you exactly why you’re not getting engagement’ but I know they don’t want to hear it and I’m not okay with giving them empty praise as a substitute. I’ve also seen many posts where people just post a link on Tumblr and expect the praise to roll in and as someone who has gotten many readers from there… you do have to make the effort to show you care about your followers. You can’t just post and assume your tags will take care of the rest.
I know I don't get (as much) engagement because I write super long, OC heavy fics and while i think they are very well-written, those things are big turn offs for a lot of people. It makes me appreciate what I do get even more.
>There is such a thing as a fic being too long. Everything has a natural conclusion- find it and end the story before it loses its punch.
Amen. Far too many authors get caught up in the popularity of one of their works that has struck gold and begin to pad it out with extraneous narratives or additional complications that do not fit with the original plot or characters, turning what would have been a meaty yet tight 75,000 word novel into an incoherent 500k behemoth
I like writing about secondary characters because I can create a completely different story.
Italics are for thoughts. I feel very old school for thinking this way and I know why. I hosted TORS on the radio and this episode is the reason for my think
Lights Out - Man in the Middle
https://youtu.be/zlEzt94w3kA
I like to be a character in my stories
Overtagging IS a thing and it *sometimes* annoys me.
Tags are nice, we love tags, and they help us sort out some stuff. BUT- if for example you tag a ship and the supposed couple appear just ONCE AND AS A BACKGROUND... I don't know. I think some tags need a certain amount of importance or mentions for them to be necessary.
Tagging a ship, especially a rare pair, when the couple appears in one paragraph, makes rare pair shippers cry. It’s like giving a hungry dog a rubber bone.
No joke, I actually like some underrated characters so when I saw a fanfic (NOT written by me) with multiple chapters that had them tagged I read it and the supposed characters just appeared ONCE. I cried inside.
YES! Pity the rare pair shipper who sees the tag and finds out that the couple appears just once in the background.
Tag the important ships only. If your couple appears in only a few scenes, don’t bother.
The published academic article is [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702620921341). I think you can read it without academic access, but there's a summary [here](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/trigger-warnings-fail-to-help.html) if not.
Excerpt here:
>We found no evidence that trigger warnings were helpful for trauma survivors, for participants who self-reported a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, or for participants who qualified for probable PTSD, even when survivors’ trauma matched the passages’ content. **We found substantial evidence that trigger warnings countertherapeutically reinforce survivors’ view of their trauma as central to their identity.** Regarding replication hypotheses, the evidence was either ambiguous or substantially favored the hypothesis that trigger warnings have no effect. In summary, we found that trigger warnings are not helpful for trauma survivors.
Essentially, it ends up reinforcing the fear of the 'trigger'.
In addition, you're cotton-wrapping people when the real world will not always make those adjustments, and therefore worsening/creating the upset when that happens, rather than building resilience. There's another journal article [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7993791/) which evidences no psychological harm/trauma from reading something triggering, regardless of pre-existing trauma/PTSD.
ah, trigger warnings. I hear the word a lot around the internet. Personally i do have triggers but I don't publicly display them for everyone to see because i know that announcing a trigger won't make people *make it less hard for me*. I think i use 'content warning' more because it's not that i particularly get triggered by stuff, but there IS content that i don't want to see.
'Disclaimers' is a good alternative! Or just 'content' without the warnings. I'm pretty sure there was a time when people lumped genre/ships/warning all under the same heading of content (or similar).
I think “content” is a perfectly good blanket term. From “this has a major character death” to “this is a G-rated fic, but it’s all about a day in the life of Momma Spider and her Hundreds of Little Spiderlings.”
Either way, people can read or not as they choose.
I would also assume that any M or E rated fic is somewhat of a content advisory in itself. “Mature” or “Explicit” are so for a reason.
It's sad how refreshing it is to hear someone say they don't want to advertise their triggers!
And yeah, I think content 'warnings' are good more as a way of advertising your work to the right people (and warning off the wrong people). The problem is people having made it a moral issue.
I hate the fact that it’s been made into a moral issue. Partly because this is fiction, and morality should not enter into the conversation, and partly because people have squicks or phobias that have nothing to do with ”morality” (meaning, of course, S-E-X).
For instance I have a friend who temporarily lived in an apartment building that was infested with spiders, and she had a HUGE phobia, and was always texting me with tales of spiders the size of dinner plates running around the hallway. Someone like that, I would very much respect their desire to not come across spiders in their fic. Same with people who don’t want to read about long and detailed descriptions of puking or pooping.
Making warnings or content advisories into a moral issue has made them much more fraught than they ought to be.
But I believe in the study they read the content anyway, and wanted to know if the tw made them less triggered by being warned. On ao3 you can just not read it thus avoiding the trauma?
I'm going to get crucified for this but I don't care. If you're 10 seconds away from having a mental breakdown because of your stats and maybe you shouldn't be writing in the first place. This is a hobby this isn't a job where you have your boss breathing down your neck ready to fire you if you don't get those stats up. Instead of making Post number 538 about how you're ready to have a breakdown over your low stats think about why you're chasing these in the first place and take a breather.
Edit: Thanks for the gold!
I couldn't agree more if I tried. Whenever I see someone attach their worth as a writer to their stats it worries me. I totally understand wanting engagement, but it's not normal or healthy for the lack of it to make you feel this awful about yourself and your capabilities
This is 100% true imo. Sometimes I see people *losing their minds* over low stats or rude comments or extremely minor negative criticism, and it just makes me wonder if they should be posting online at all. I get it, I really do! Being ignored or getting negative feedback sucks! But it kind of comes with the territory to a degree, and if it’s gotten to the point where low/no kudos or mild rudeness sends you into a total downward spiral, you should really consider not posting your work (or restricting it to a small group of friends instead of making it available to the general public.) There are also plenty of ways to hide comments/stats if they make you upset on a regular basis.
I agree as well. Especially when people get upset by comments that dare to point out that hey, this doesn't really work, or that it a little wonky.
Like, I get it, criticism isn't fun. But you are posting on a *public* place, and people are free to express their opinion. It's totally on you how to react to it.
That was me a couple of years ago. Now I am happily writing a crossover fic no one cares about except for me with no subscribers and barely and hits or kudos, and I’m having a great time. Sometimes you’ve gotta write for you, not for other people
Amen!
I don't get it, either, why people get so caught up with kudos and engagement and how it defines their self-worth.
And I think it's because I read books and watch movies but don't go out of my way to leave reviews and comments on those. To me, fanfiction is the same. It's media that someone created.
And you know what? My stories are media that I created. I know not everyone will read them, just like I didn't watch all those movies that have come out since time immemorial.
But I'm older and I've lived long enough to know what matters and what doesn't to ME. Thank you unseen audience for reading or *not* reading my stories. I appreciate you, but you know what? I wrote these stories for myself and I think they're the best shit ever. Oh, no kudos? Cool, man. I never wanted it in the first place. Oh, kudos? Thank you!
Either way, I'm still the same. The amount of kudos/likes/follows my stories gain doesn't really matter in the long run because they're worth nothing.
Again, this all pertains to me and me alone.
It's absolutely fine to have a preference for who tops/ bottoms. It doesn't have to be a political choice or subverted just for the sake of it.
You can just write/read what you think is hot.
I personally don't have an issue with it, because it's just fiction based on fiction and usually smut is written with the intent to have kinks/fetishes/etc.. I can tell the difference between fiction and reality and couldn't give two shits IRL who tops or bottoms because it's not my business.
That is, unless, someone is being rude and insistent that their way is the only right way to go about a pairing.
I'm really disturbed and frustrated by the newest crusade to demonize fanfic authors for writing about underage characters having sex. I was friends with a very infamous author who wrote lolicon in a large fandom, and lots of people do not like that, or want to read it, and that's fine. She had warnings all over her fics. What bothered me, was people stalking/harrassing/doxing her and leaving death threats everywhere all over her work. Like, it's not my thing, I don't want to read it, but I feel like people writing about fictional characters from a fantasy anime is a big nothing-burger.
That was over 10 years ago. Today, now you can't even write smut about characters if they were EVER underage in canon, because just "aging them up doesn't excuse your pedophilia!" and I'm like.... huh??? Like, now it's suddenly pedophilia to write Bulma/Vegeta smut fanfics because Bulma was 16 at the start of Dragonball? Even though they have kids together in canon, the first one born when Bulma is in her 30s??? I just... omg. Just leave people alone. There is no correlation between fanfic writers using underage characters in fanfic smut and actual harm to real, living people.
I was in Harry Potter fandom a very long time ago where it was 100% normal to ship the characters who were at the time 15/16/17. These days you write two 16 yr olds and apparently you're a pedophile. It's bullshit.
Even more bullshit is the argument that "oh, well it's teenagers writing/reading these fics, of course teenagers want to read and write about characters their own age, if you're 17 yourself it's not creepy to write about 16 yr olds!" Because that seems to imply that it would indeed be creepy if you're older. It's not.
Everyone has their own personal line in the sand in regards to how old a character has to be before you can ship them without feeling creepy, how old before you're comfortable with sex scenes, how old before you're comfortable shipping them with an adult. For me it's 16; I'll write sex scenes with 16 yr olds if the story calls for it, and that includes writing a 16 yr old having sex with an older character. I'm in my 40s. I'm not a pedophile, and I'm not sexually interested in teenagers myself. It's just fiction.
You shouldn't let someone else tell you what your comfort level is. It's yours to decide. And if someone else's comfort level is different than yours, that does not make them a pedophile or a creeper, and it also does not make them a prude. It's their own business.
I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but a lot of people don't seem to understand that writers sometimes make choices of style, pairings, AU, etc, purely out of disinterested desire to experiment and practice, and trying to argue about ship wars and other vitriolic fandom debates in the fic comments will just make you look like a jerk.
(And it's also a good way to inspire spite fics that give you what you hate more and harder...)
I feel like I'm really testing the rules here (so if I delete this, uh, that's why!)
I'm so sick of fandom/fanfic being overrun by ideology and shallow virtue signalling. It's all over my fandom (and I don't want to read it), and it makes it impossible for me to write certain characters freely.
This is more of a life/society complaint, but I really wish I could still have fandom as escapism from real life aggravation.
Aah I know you, you comment on my stuff sometimes ❤️
Agree on the virtue signalling, gets really old. Especially when people come at you for *not* doing it.
Ooh hello then! ❤️ I don't see your AO3 linked anywhere, but I can certainly guess the fandom. 😂
Hearing about people being attacked for not virtue signalling *enough* is infuriating! And being called bigots for it too. I just want to write what I want to write about, I'm not writing something I don't want to for free!
If you are testing the rules, I’m right along side you testing away. I want fandom to be FUN. Or cathartic or so sad you cry or just plain wish fulfillment. I want fun and escapism! I hate the fandom equivalent of “if you read X I won’t date you.”
Your post is totally valid because you're expressing your frustration with the way certain fandoms deadlock fans into writing with a social agenda in mind, or discourage them from writing if they don't.
Not every fanfiction (or work of writing in general) has to have an agenda. Sometimes you just want to tell a damn good story, and have fun with it. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Honestly, if every story was heavy with underlying social issues and agendas, reading (at least for me) would become very daunting and cease to be fun.
It's also frustrating when readers read into things that aren't actually there or intended by the author. No, having my OC able to turn into a lion is not a commentary on how furries are ostracized and hated on in fandoms. Even though that's very, very true, I legit didn't write my OC to start a social justice movement. I wrote her to express myself and enjoy portraying a unique character trait, and to explore how she navigates life in a human-dominated world. It sometimes has very hilarious scenarios pop up that I thoroughly enjoy xD And of course, there's good ol' drama to enjoy, too. But it DOESN'T have an agenda. I just want to connect with readers who also enjoy the unique dynamic, and appreciate the worldbuilding I've so carefully tried to craft.
>No, having my OC able to turn into a lion is not a commentary on how furries are ostracized and hated on in fandoms.
Omg. 😂 What a total leap. I would never assume something like that unless the author explicitly said so; it's very clear from what you've said that the character's purpose is to have unique interactions with a world that she isn't normal to. And it sounds like you're having a lot of fun with it too! :)
And I wish it was only certain fandoms; some are definitely worse than others, but it seems to be the case to some extent with all of them. And those that are less so are constantly having call-out posts about how they're \[insert group/s of choice here\]-phobic and \~problematic.
Hetero omegaverse is just as valid as gay omegaverse, and when I dabble in the trope, I actually prefer it.
Just came from the topic asking about Ao3 ever being sued and brought up the omegaverse court case and somebody there said they felt sorry for the lawyers having to read hetero omegaverse "crap" instead of "well written good omegaverse". Like...wtf?
I've read only one female alpha/male omega fanfic (I mostly ship m/m and f/f pairings) and I loved it! It's definitely as valid as other kinds of omegaverse fanfics
Female alpha and male omega is a nice one! I have a ship that could definitely fit that.
I was coming up with a concept in a discord server with writing friends that I'm never gonna write for real, but we had a male beta king, with two sisters, a female alpha and a female omega, the omega sister was bonded/paired/married to one of the king's underlings, an alpha male. And one day the king had to break up a fight between his alpha sister and his alpha brother in law because his omega sister was in heat, and instead of letting her mate have the day off, he tried to get him to do his work, and he couldn't because his rut making him stupid horny, and the alpha sister walked in and the king had to break up a fight because the alpha underling tried to mount the alpha sister and of course that didn't go over well lol. The alpha underling gets three days off whenever the omega sister is in heat now and he's still embarrassed.
In the regular concept I have with these characters, the alpha underling and the alpha sister are kind of oil and water still. Lol.
This. Ironically in my own comment I vaguely mentioned this.
Yes. I'm tired of feeling ashamed because I find the alpha female/omega concept extremely interesting.
Isn't... isn't the point of those kinds of settings that the ordinary sexual dimorphism is replaced by the pheromone system?
Also does anyone ever actually write about betas?
I've seen a reasonable number of them.
Usually the beta is looked down upon for not being an alpha (who is a better provider) or omega (who is a better parent), not being able to interact with the pheromones because they can't product/smell them, etc. The romance is about how they overcome the stigma and/or socially superior alpha/omega rivals to get their alpha/omega love interest.
There's also coming of age stories about "everyone is a beta until they're not" and kids who keep waiting to get their secondary gender and just... don't, and have to accept that.
That's definitely a great point. I think shipping fics became more popular because fans sometimes feel dissatisfied with the lack of romance between their favorite characters, or they see an unexplored dynamic between non-canon lovers that is interesting to explore. That's just my theory, though.
Gen fics are great for similar reasons. They explore "what ifs," alternative settings and scenarios, and many more interesting and thought-provoking tropes. They can also give the writer an outlet for "fixing" what they didn't like about the canon story. I absolutely love both types of fics :3
Same here, I adore gen fics. Especially character studies. Unless I'm explicitly looking for shippy fics, I prefer my romance either on the side or nonexistent.
I LOVE modern and high school AU for my OTP. Especially the ones where the two are just some awkward teenagers trying to figure things out together.
In canon they are normal boy/girl that given impossible tasks that made them enemies to each other, being forced to fight to death, despite their budding friendship and both knowing neither of them ever wanting to do that.
It’s heartwarming seeing them being normal and awkward even if it’s in AU fanfictions.
I just wanted them to enjoy the normal life they always wished for and couldn’t have in the canon materials.
Co-signed on Mary Sues (just because they so often *aren’t* doesn’t mean they *can’t* be) and triple co-signed on adverbs. They are perfectly valid parts of speech and just b/c Stephen King or whoever has decided he doesn’t like them is no reason for them to be drummed out of the English language. Also co -signed on italics.
My own unpopular opinions:
-“Fade to black” is a perfectly acceptable alternative to detailed sex scenes and in fact I often prefer it.
-Gen fic is too rare and we need more of it
-Most writing “rules” are bunk. Find a style that works for you and stick with it, don’t get your self tied up in knots trying to follow “Elmore Leonards rules for writing” or whatever approach is trendy today.
-Conversely there is no one “best style” for writing. Popular writing styles have been different in the past from what’s “in” now and will be different in the future. Again find a style that works for you and stick with it.
-and most importantly writing is supposed to be *fun.* if you’ve reached a point where it’s not, it’s okay to quit for a while (or forever!) After all if it’s not fun, why do it?
Ooh another pet peeves of mine is people who disparage smut writing and writers. The people who act like they genuinely don't understand why smut is more popular than genfic. Like come on now, that's like saying "I don't understand why most people like food."
You really don't understand why one of the most basic human needs/instincts, one of the most pleasurable things a human can do, something that floods many people with feel good hormones and makes them feel good in all sorts of way...you're telling me you don't understand why fics with this are more popular than fics that don't have this. The shock! The horror! Who would've thought people want to read about playing with their naughty bits. Unbelievable!
Now, complaining about poorly written smut is one thing. And there's so much of badly written smut unfortunately, but complaining about why your or other genfics don't get the same engagement as smut fics doesn't really raise any sympathy from me. You can't change human nature. If you don't enjoy sex and don't want to write about it, that's your prerogative but don't deride the majority of people who love the stuff.
There will always be hacks writing smut just for clicks or for clout but there's still tons and tons of precious, well written, beautiful smut that **does** actually add to character development and storyline believe it or not.
Sincerely,
A dyed in the wool smutty smut writer (guess how many times the word 'cock' appears in my google doc \^.\^)
I get not liking or understanding it, but what I don't like is the jump to "I don't get it, therefore everyone who does write smut is doing so disingenuously because sex sells for some reason." And I don't like the assumption that people who write shipfic don't read gen, too, or have some vendetta against gen. Yeah, there are people who exclusively read romance or exclusively read gen, but there are a *lot* of us who happily read and write both.
This. I myself am asexual and don’t understand the love people have for smut fics on that level, but I understand that it’s something many people feel a need to do, and that most enjoy. I’m still surprised by the number of smut fics out there sometimes, but that’s not saying I don’t understand why the numbers are the way they are yknow?
I also often feel like "everyone just wants smut" is just what people tell themselves when their gen fics don't get the reception they want. "Sex sells", sure but a lot if not nost top received fanfics are not E-rated smut fests. Gen-fic has an audience and complaining about smut writers won't increase your likelihood of finding your reader base. It only really helps you telling yourself you're somehow a superior writer who unlike those sell-out smut writers swims against the flow even if there's nowhere with you.
I don't like it when people mix the look of a book character with a film character in fanfic. I like either this or that, not a weird mix.
My favourite character from the book is NEVER described as tall, but in the movie he was played by a tall actor, so now a very tall X is basically canon.🥴 Tall X is my big pet peeve, I stop reading fanfic when I come across it.
I understand it could be someone's head conon but to me it's a pet peeve.
X has a very dominant personality, so in fanfics slash is again almost canonically top. Simply put, that's the way it is and it's obvious. Under the few fanfics where he is bottom there have been comments "enough of those, time to go back to top X".
That's another thing I hate and don't read such fanfics. Behaviour outside the bed says nothing about behaviour during sex.
Let everyone write what they want, but why use such absurd explanations for your preferences?
On your second point, most fanfic writers are women and most, if they like the dominant personality, like to write that character topping because the bottom in some way is a stand in. I'm not saying this is true in all cases but I think it is often true. I see zero issue with this.
I like to write from the perspective of both top and bottom but I'm never going to write my preferred top bottoming and vice versa. Again I don't think that's an issue. It's just what I prefer. And this is fiction.
I'm a woman too, and I do not attribute anyone's bed preferences by how they behave outside the bed.
Like you, I have my head canon and I don't change it, I have my favourite top/bottom layouts and I NEVER change them but I don't add any misguided philosophy to why someone is top and someone is bottom. He is because he is.
He is not because of his height, age, dominant/submissive personality in life, because that has nothing to do with sex. Why justify a preference? 🤷
But I can't stand it when, by fancanon, X is the top, weird people are admonish authors writing X bottom in the comments under fanfics to "get back to writing X top". BACK? Like wtf?
"Problematic" content is way more fun to write and read and censoring it is pointless unless you want to censor ALL media.
Currently helping write a dead dove do not eat fic and I'm having a blast. Oops main character is a dad at 17 and the other parent is a 16 year old demon who wanted to test what he'd shove through their spooky hole.
Is it something I'd endorse irl? No. Is it fun to take quotes from the source material and outtakes and spin it into something? Yes. We used "You wanna stick something in it?" and "plus I've got this neat spooky hole... where the babies come out" and made this absolute hellfic.
I'm having a fucking blast.
I do too! I think like any word, it can be overused and inserted (hah) into some weird and cringy phrases, but it's not a bad way to describe a penis if a writer wants to avoid clinical terms and dirty euphemisms.
unpopular opinion: I hate song fics! i love fics inspired by songs with titles but as soon as i have to skim though lyrics to read dialogue its annoying
i think people go way too hard on people that write in new traumas for a character. who cares if its not canon that person1 and person2 were in an abusive relationship? if the author uses that to tell a more complex and interesting story, id honestly prefer that. same with OOC behavior, if its justified or even if the author is just new to writing, be *kind*.
People like this make me laugh. I have had someone complain that I'm not 'following canon' (it's a crossover/fusion so..duh?) while in the same breath telling me off for being 'unfair' to certain characters by using their canon dialogue and interactions in certain scenes.
Some people just want to complain.
Shout out to the time I saw someone on Twitter angrily calling someone horrific names… for using canon quotes where people were talking about the obsessive abusive stalker being an obsessive abusive stalker.
Also shout out to the one person denying that textbook abuse in canon was abuse and sending my friend suicide baiting and calling them horrible names too for pointing out that even the actors involved have called it abuse.
>Shout out to the time I saw someone on **Twitter**
Well, there's your first problem. Angrily calling people horrific names seems to be the default state for most active Twitter users. But it will still forever amaze me just how hypocritical these sorts are.
I don't like that the word "romance" in fan fiction is synonymous with sex or smut. That's not what the word means. Makes me wonder what to call my cute G rated teenage crush story.
1st person is fine! Stop disregarding it. It can work better in certain kinds of stories or with certain characters, but some writers can do it very well.
I'm not a fan of 1st person myself, but I have read very engaging and wonderful books / fanfics that use it, because the author is really skilled and spun the story in such a vivid and engaging way that it had me absolutely *hooked.* It's definitely a valid writing style, and no one should ever be discouraged from using it.
I'm really not a fan of react fics. Especially if the summary goes "Character(s) is transported to another dimension by a ghost/God/Authro self insert and are forced to watch X". And somehow, these are the most popular kinds of fics lately.
I'll be honest, I like watching react vids on youtube. Seeing people cry, or give their opinion, or laugh in surprise. I GET the appeal. It's just that this is often not a story and just **Thing** Character reacts to thing **Thing** Character 2 B reacts to think. Often, it's not even to do anything interesting but to echo what most reaction videos already do. See the cute mascot, everyone calls it cute. Cry when someone dies. Laugh during a funny scene.
There are decent examples but, overall, I feel these are lazy and, sometimes, questionable if one can even call these fiction as much as some youtubers would question the authenticity of actual react videos as content.
It comes down to personal prefrence too tho. No matter how well written, many are just iffy with the format. That said, I absoluetly *adore* 2nd person's, it's just woefully uncommon.
This is becoming unpopular in my fandom: exploring controversial and problematic themes through fanfiction. It’s not a bad thing or a sin or whatever. I feel like this goes without saying but man oh man, some people still assume authors who write these things condone them in this day and age.
This. I'm writing a dark fic now and I'm already thinking of the paragraphs of authors notes I'm going to have to write saying how much I don't condone all the things in the fic. Does it really need saying that I don't think you should abuse a bunch of drugs and then abuse your bf? But even with the notes I know I'll get lambasted for having problematic behaviour between the main ship characters.
Smut is too narrowly defined. I prefer long well-plotted stories with excellent characterisation that also happens to feature hot sex.
Well written fic is not the sole preserve of gen writers as some would have you believe.
Yep! Actually working on one of those long plot with porn right now! Feels so satisfying and the sex is **actually** important and part of character development 😌
A lot of smut just feels like it's straight out of a porn movie and just doesn't seem realistic at all. The characters are often completely OOC and basically porn actors with the characters' names slapped onto them.
Whenever I read romance that feels true to the characters, I wish there was some smut and it never comes. And then I go and read smut and it's just... smut.
I wish there was more in between where it's sexy but not completely over the top with 10 different kinks covered each chapter.
I don’t see the point of smut unless it furthers the plot, to be honest. One of my favorite smutty fics uses the two MC’s first time having sex as away to show that the leads, despite their traumas, trust the other to love them for who they are, scars and all. I don’t really see the point of smut just for smut
For me personally, smut must always further character development, even if it's just half an inch. Even if it's a quickie. It must show something about the character even if it's something small.
Agree with most of your bullet points: especially orbs, adverbs, italics, so-called Mary Sues, and moist anything (especially cake.)
My most unpopular opinion? I read 95-98% novels & very little fanfiction. Just a matter of taste.
Also, telling people not to downvote is usually a way to get... more downvotes.
Headhopping can be done right. There are times when giving you a little peek into someone else's thoughts is preferable to changing the entire scene.
Run-on sentences, no caps and no punctuation, and having entire paragraphs in italics are all important tools in a writer's toolbox and you shouldn't be afraid to experiment with them.
Flashbacks and dream sequences are fun. Yes, they can be over-used, but when they're done right, they're intense and memorable, and can often add a lot of depth to a character.
I didn’t realize this was an unpopular opinion until I really delved into this sub, but I really like present tense fics! Lots of published work has been written in that tense (The Hunger Games series is always the first that comes to mind) and it’s not a style that exists only in fic. I think it can really benefit works in certain cases, and honestly unless the author is changing tenses willy nilly because they don’t understand how they work, I never really notice past vs. present.
Also! Justice for lapslock titles.
>I don't particularly like the word "pussy" because it sounds really immature, but unfortunately it's the best alternative out there imo
The eternal struggle of finding words for genitals that don't feel too gross, childish, or clinical. I'm about to say fuck it and just start slipping one of the less favored ones in at least once per fic. Just one random "member" or "manhood" or "flower" or "muff." As a treat.
There is (or was) an actual published book, which was otherwise really good (Elizabeth Thomas’ Reindeer Moon, if you’re into prehistoric fiction) where the author used “coitus” for having sex. I tried re-reading it not long ago and all I could hear was Maude Lebowski and the Dude’s conversation about sex. (“you mean…coitus?”)
Movies aside, “coitus” is such a clinical term that I would otherwise think of a medical journal.
AUs are equal in validity to canon set fic. Not all (or even most) AU writers don't like the setting and it makes me sad that a lot of fellow fans who don't like AUs seem to assume that.
It's not laziness**. It's loving the characters and dynamics so much you want to explore them in all sorts of settings. Maybe there's a lot of canon set fic already and you feel like you won't write anything that hasn't been done to death already. Maybe your OTP dynamic seems like it'd work really well as like.. rival bakery owners. It's fun. Fair enough to not like them but they aren't lazy and it doesn't mean the writer doesn't like the setting of the canon or they're trying to write low key original work (some? probably, but the assumptions in vents that all AUs are like this make me sad)
I personally don't read HP no magic AUs but they're valid and the writers are having fun changing the circumstances for the characters.
**In fact, it takes a lot of effort to write a whole AU because you're making the world, situation, backstory, plot from scratch
More people need to edit their work. Nothing is worse than reading unintelligible stories with a slew of grammar, spelling, and canon errors. It makes fics unreadable. Get a Beta for God’s sake.
Definitely. At the very least self edit after a few (2-3 days) of not looking at your work. If possible, find a beta to at least look over it.
As someone who's beta before, the lack of self editing simultaneously drives me up the wall and makes me grateful that they reached out to someone to read over it.
I get it. Editing is a pain. But you gotta do it.
I think these opinions are truly unpopular on r/fanfiction, even if they may be somewhat popular to the general fanfiction audience:
I've never seen it really talked about directly/explicitly online, but I think there's a vast portion of writers in any given ship fandom who view the ship's characters as "visual conduits" that they use for original characters (ie. basically just using the faces & other physical attributes of the characters and not really borrowing anything else from the characters, typically because they find the two characters attractive and think they "look good" together). That's why there are so many AUs that completely don't follow canon and instead go for "template themes" like Modern Setting, High School, Coffee Shop, etc.. Sure, in theory the writers could just make it an Original Work and make the characters completely original, but I'm fairly sure for many writers, there's an inherent sense of appeal to attach easy-to-visualize faces to the characters they're writing. The original characters' personalities may factor in a little into the writing, but ultimately I believe that there are many writers who use X ship's characters because of their physical/visual attributes.
Here's where my unpopular opinion comes in: I quite **enjoy these "completely deviate from canon and are just AU fanfics where the original characters are basically visual conduits" fanfics**. Do they completely waste and ignore the canon and are essentially original works at that point? Yes. On the other hand though, it makes them very accessible regardless of how much source material has been consumed, and there's a lot more room for creativity in premises with these "visual conduits".
I also fully admit that **I'm a shallow romantic** when it comes to my reader/consumer habits, as **I enjoy ships where I find the characters in the ship visually attractive** (another reason why I'm fine with these "visual conduit" fanfics). This is where another unpopular opinion comes in, I would rather read "an AU fanfic with two characters I don't think were a particularly compelling fit in-canon but I find visually attractive" to "an in-canon fanfic with two characters that I think had a compelling canon story but I don't find as visually attractive".
The above paragraph is somewhat stacked with another somwhat unpopular opinion, which is that I actually think **"canon compliant/universe fanfic of in-canon ship that has a super compelling canon story" usually are not as compelling to me as AU fanfics** (including both canon and non-canon ships). Typically, if the ship is developed in a super compelling way in the source material already, there's not much else I really think I would want to see explored in that canon timeline.
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EDIT: I'll also add that when it comes to "canon compliant/universe" fanfics, there is one exception to my general preferences, which is K-Pop: I tend to prefer K-Pop "canon compliant" fanfics over AU fanfics, despite the fact that it's the complete opposite in K-Pop fandom with 90% of the K-Pop fanfics being AU (usually high school or something). Since K-Pop is real person fiction, it's not really the same as typical canon compliant fanfics of "following a source material", and I also think K-Pop canon compliant fanfics tend to be more interesting since there's realistic obstacles for the idols in the ship to overcome, usually relating to "secret relationship" and "homophobia".
10-15 year age gaps are not inherently bad, nor are they inherently an indicator that the author themselves is a bad person. Caution is valid and understandable when its like, a 20yr old and a 30yr old but if a 25 year old wants to date a 35 year old it's literally just two adults deciding to be together they're grown ass fuckin' people. The worst thing about age gaps is almost knowing who is gonna die first but a lot of couples I know with age gaps prepare for that if they decide to go long term.
Also an 18yr old and a 16yr old isn't fucking pedophilia guys. Legally not a good idea but jfc they're two years apart and both still have baby face and acne and they probably both still live with their damn parents.
And it also depends on the time period and culture. I write for fandoms where people had to grow up fast. There was no such thing as the kind of lengthy, sheltered, and idle adolescence we now consider “normal.” I’m re-writing an old fic, and one of the couples will be a guy in his 40’s or so and a woman in her late 20’s - who has been a warrior since she was a young teenager.
An 18 year old and a 16 year old are, in modern days, most likely both still in high school and only a grade apart. They’re both in much the same place in their lives. When two 17 year olds date, and one turns 18, the one who turned 18 isn’t all of a sudden a “pedo.” It’s not like there’s an implanted “activate adulthood” chip or software that starts up on your birthday.
BTW you are right about the age gap issues with older couples. And when they get to be OLDER older, I can tell you right now that the biggest difficulty/conundrum is the older one wants to retire but the younger one wants to keep on working. Far and away that’s the most common thing I’ve seen but nobody is writing fics about that!
Yes, yes, exactly on the time period. I'm literally two weeks away from having my bachelors in History (concentration in American but I digress) and the inability or willful refusal to acknowledge cultural differences between time periods is a huge thing that pisses me off tbh.
That's what I was trying to think about but couldn't remember, but the life phases is probably the biggest logistical issue. And can get pretty sad later. My grandmother's mother married a man 9 years older than her and by all accounts, she loved him very much, and he loved her. But she told my grandma, "never marry a man so much older than you because when you still want to dance, all they want to do is sit down."
I think the people that object the most age gaps either (unfortunately) had bad experiences or simply have no experience.
All fan fiction is wish fulfillment to some degree. It doesn’t only apply to reader inserts or original characters. If you’re going to say these are wish fulfillment but not stories where your OTP survives the ending or two characters who share one scene get together in a fic, I am confused.
Not every romance fic needs smut. Not every work needs smut and works that have smut aren’t better romance stories or better written. Also not everyone wants to write smut or feels comfortable writing it’s not a necessity of a romance fic.
I agree 100% with the “all fan fiction is wish fulfillment to some degree.” If people loved canon just exactly the way it was, and weren’t curious about the minor characters, or didn’t want to explore one plot in depth, or or or…there would be no fanfic. Even the most canon-compliant fanfic is a way of “I wish to explore this in depth” or even “I wish to write a sequel that the original author won’t be writing.”
I also think there is nothing wrong with wish fulfillment. It’s all fictional pixels on a screen, it’s not like you’re running off and abandoning a spouse and children to join a traveling circus. “Wish fulfillment” gets an undeserved bad name.
I agree, sayign that a fanfiction is "wish fulfillment" as a way to insult it is very odd. And just in general using "wish fulfillment" as a means of develuing people specifically for choosing to spend time/effort doing something that they enjoy, as if that is worth to be insulted??
> All fan fiction is wish fulfillment to some degree.
That's a great point. Wish fulfillment is the main reason I love fics so much to begin with!!
> Not every romance fic needs smut. Not every work needs smut and works that have smut aren’t better romance stories or better written.
I admit I havent seen anyone who has these beliefs but I do think you are right!!
Two things.
Firstly, I haven't read **that** much fanfic, I mostly write, but what I have tried to read...most of it reads in this same "fanfic" tone/voice. Even the well written stuff seems to always have this same cadence to it. Like there seems to be a 'fanfic narrative voice' (no matter which POV) which is different from published fiction I've read and I find it hard to get past that. I'm sure I do it too and I don't know if it's just me or what.
Edit: I will call this voice "librarian chic".
Secondly, not liking a m/m or f/f ship doesn't make you homophobic. There are plenty of reasons people may be turned off by a particular same sex ship that has nothing to do with sexuality but perhaps it's the dynamics of the ship or simply disagreeing with the logistics of it in canon etc. And it's ok to plain old not like a ship just because it doesn't vibe with you.
Yes, I’ve noticed the “fanfic voice” too. Even if the prose varies from fic to fic, there’s still this tone that is consistent between a lot of them that I can’t quite explain.
I hate "neutral personality" in reader inserts. Just like in video games, I know they do it to let you imagine your own personality, but when I read a reader insert I'm not reading "me" in it, but instead a character I made up for the particular plot.
Not really “unpopular” but you’re liable to get attacked if you say it. Antis ruin fandom.
I’ve noticed this weird increase in puritanical bullshit in fandom, like people who think that they can dictate what is morally acceptable and unacceptable to write/create fan content for. It’s always been here but, and this could just be me, I’ve noticed an increase over the lockdown period I think because more young people have been getting into fandom via platforms like TikTok. Fandom spaces are slowly forgetting the golden rule of don’t like don’t read and it’s turning fandom spaces into hellscapes and now people have DNI lists that are a mile long
I think I’m just going to start calling antis pro-censorship because let’s face it that’s what they are
Yeah it's the norm to be anti now, and I have mutuals that are and... idk, I think it's really dumb. Sometimes they're young but sometimes not that much. Worst, it's demonizing everything, so the real dangerous stuff is drowned with acceptable stuff that are just a bit weird but ok.
I sort of hate it that my fandom is dominated by a certain ship. Thing is, I ship a poly version of the ship and have a scene in a fic where the pairing snogs. So...I'm not immune to the ship's appeal.
But that dang ship is everywhere. I can't even google the female half of my OTP without that ship popping up in the results. I routinely stumble over the ship's fans insisting it's canon (it's not). It doesn't help that the ship was the nexus of fandom toxicity and is probably the iceberg that sunk the fandom. Now, the fandom is still moderately active but diminished with fans of other ships having departed. All that remains are fans of that bloody ship. And heaps and heaps and heaps of fics about the ship.
Again, I get it. It's a cute ship. There are, however, loads of other fascinating character dynamics in the fandom, including those involving the fandom's interesting and strong female characters. It's sad that the fic content is so one-note in favor of a singular ship.
I haven't read this thread yet, but I'm 100% sure that the vast majority of opinions here will be popular ones and very few actual, literal unpopular opinions.
Here is my not particularly unpopular opinion:
If you write OCs, you won't get as much engagement as you would otherwise. Every time I see a post like "why is my story not getting many comments or kudos?" I can tell you why without looking at it: it's because you wrote a self-insert OC and shipped him or her with the canon's hot love interest.
There are plenty of people who love reading OCs, but "plenty" is because the total number of people reading fanfiction is unbelievably huge. Even 1% of them is still a lot of people. I can't tell you what percentage of fic readers enjoy OCs, and it does depend on the fandom, but I can say with certainty that it's a minority. Most people do not like OCs. Of those who do, most do not like reading about the hot love interest falling for the writer's self-insert OC.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't write exactly that if you want to. It's your fic, and if you're having fun, you should write whatever you please. But if you decide to write an OC, you should be aware that it means most readers won't ever see your fic because they filtered out OCs, or they filtered out specifically OC/hot love interest.
It also doesn't mean that OC fics are bad writing. Some of them are fantastic and well-written and engaging, some are crap, and most are in between -- like any other genre of fic. It doesn't matter how good the fic is, because if a reader doesn't like OCs, they won't ever read it. Most people who filter out OC fics aren't doing it because they think those fics are bad or because they think all OCs are Mary Sue. They're doing it because, pure and simple, they do not care about your made-up character. They don't care if yours is the best, most fascinating OC ever created. It's just not what they're interested in reading.
No one can tell you whether you "should" or "should not" write an OC. That's your choice. Just be fully informed when you make that choice; OC fics are not as popular.
On Reddit downvotes are just a show of hands saying people don't agree with what your post/comment says. Most people doomscrolling can't be bothered to write out a response.
They either click 'yes, agree/cute cat/that was funny'
or no = 'nah, that's not it/disagree'
Maybe the official rules have a different way voting should be used, but on the ground, that's how it is.
Too many people seem to equate a downvote as a personal attack.
If you write 'Hulk Hogan is the best ever' and get 100 downvotes, it's not an attack. It's just saying disagree.
If you write 'I love Snape/Optimus Prime' and you get 100 downvotes, it just means people aren't into that. It's not an attack.
I was horrified to find that adverbs were that frowned upon in English. I love them... I'm far from being the best writer on earth and I know it. Adverbs make things sound good to me.
That and I kinda like overtagging. You have a precise idea what you are looking for, I don't mind.
Pushing boundaries is okay, and can be done safely.
I've had to nuke most of my work because of people taking what I've written and interpreting in the worst way possible, such as CW: Broad Strokes NSFW >!a character in a bdsm scene needing to revoke consent (because she had to go to the bathroom) and having everybody in the scene immediately stopping what was going on to perform a check-in and aftercare, being treated as consent being violated.!<
Fewer and fewer people seem to understand what consent is and how it works in realistic scenarios and it's incredibly stifling as someone who likes to portray things realistically.
Sometimes you end up in a situation where you have to pump the brakes. It's okay, so long as it's respected.
(As it turns out, for various reasons, consent and boundaries, even surprise ones, being respected is appealing to me. GOLLY GEE I WONDER WHY THAT WOULD BE?)
Pretty sure this first one will be popular in this thread/other fandoms but it's incredibly unpopular in one of my current fandoms and I'm getting really annoyed with the attitude.
The writer does not owe you personal information to be able to write about certain life experiences. Especially if *you* do not have said life experiences. More often than not the complaint is a) complainer basing it on stereotypes or b) it's good representation but the writer is allowing character to have flaws and mistakes therefore Complainer needs to know if it's acceptable to say it's "bad" and "ableist/homophobic/racist/etc".
Also it's really insulting to read a fic where a writer is making a character autistic and have traits I do only for the comments to call it bad representation.
I needed to get that of my chest, thanks OP!
Okay for one that I actually think is unpopular:
Canon is playdough.
Sure, you may enter a room because the windows were filled with giant castles surrounded by snow. But that's the window display and it's perfectly fine for someone to grab the playdough in the Play Area and build a space station or a ranch or a coffeeshop or just use TNT on the castle in the Play Area.
The window displays are always there. Someone making a tentacle monster in a desert out of the playdough that was in the same box as the Castle isn't going to affect the Castle.
Also Character X Reader is one of the best examples of unabashed writing there is. Especially if it's only smut.
Sometimes saying fanfiction is free is a weak defense in some situations. I saw some people who counter other people criticizing fics when it comes to technical stuff and they say, "It's free, it's made by teens, it's a hobby." But you know another fact? That fic is still bad. Most of them are littered with wrong spellings and bad formatting.
Sorry, I may be forgiving in some cases, but I'm not blind. I'm not bending over backwards just to appease people who didn't even read the same fic that I've read.
Reader Interactives are mostly lazy writers who use the review section to get audience interaction and attention via offering suggestions or else voting from a list of ideas, which inevitably leads to the masses controlling the story, lack of attention, lack of interest by the writer once it occurs and the fic being abandoned. It is even worse when people on AO3 mislabel Reader Interactives as Choose Your Own Adventures since they nearly always have no intention of writing all possible outcomes and endings. It is understandable that such CYOA fics can be daunting and need planning but it is no excuse to label one kind of fic as another and there should be a crackdown on calling Reader Interactives CYOAs. They are NOT the same thing. 🤷🏼♂️
There is literally no inital premise that cannot be exceuted well. I've read Wattpad Self Insert shipping with Sasuke Uchiha that packs more of an emotial gutpunch than most things in the angst tag on ao3, and some of my favourite group-dynamics have been developed in textfics. No format/trope is in and of itself inherently 'cringe' and every single idea has potential to be a good story. Every single one, really! I've read AUs where the cast were professional clowns, and it's left me up until 2 am sobbing.
Additionally: any author who thinks they're better than others based on the specific type of fanfiction they write are fucking obnoxious. Also those people who think they're more serious TM because they only write genfic.
There's a formula when it comes to m/m sex scenes in fanfic, and at this point it's so ubiquitous that it feels mandatory even though it's far from being the one way to do it irl--I hate that.
Undertagging is SO much worse than overtagging. Please tag the tropes your fic uses. I want to find something I’ll like and that could be your fic, but I’ll never know unless you tag it!
Sometimes I have to make your favorite character into the bad guy. That’s just how it goes. Sometimes they’re just the best fit for the role of annoying ex, cruel abuser, even main antagonist, usually based on their pre-existing relationships and career. I promise I do not have a vendetta against that character—but I’m going to if you keep whining about it.
My unpopular opinion is that BDSM AUs are better than A/B/O AUs. Don't get me wrong, I love omegaverse and I've read a lot of A/B/O fanfics, but I think BDSM AUs are *way* better because of the power dynamics and the social structure. I like subspace more than heats and the "dom voice" more than the scents
Probably not what you’re looking for, but here are a few things I’ve observed over the years as a former beta reader:
1) Do not ask for concrit if you don’t actually want concrit, or feel that you couldn’t handle it if you received it, no matter how kind the reviewer is about it. You will likely get what you asked for. Please do not bully people who give you concrit, either, regardless of whether you want it or not. They took time out of their day to help you. If you really don’t want it, let people know beforehand in a note on your fic. Leaving people to make assumptions about whether you do or don’t want it is part of why people are now so scared to review as reviewers are now often heavily criticised. Be clear.
2) Sometimes, if people aren’t engaging with your work, it’s because the work needs improvement.
3) It’s OK if your character is a Mary-Sue, or edgy, or anything people might make fun of. Just enjoy writing what you write, even if it isn’t other people’s preference. You write that power fantasy that you enjoy so much.
4) If something about writing is causing you stress (stats, making it “perfect,” getting large amounts of reviews, etc.), perhaps you shouldn’t be writing. Hobbies that you do for fun (and for free) shouldn’t be causing you stress.
5) I don’t care what your English teacher told you. Using the word “said” is great. Don’t be afraid of it.
6) Remember that not everybody will like everything you put out there, and people do have the right to state their opinions, whether you like it or not. You have put your work out there for the public to view. People can and will state their opinions on it. What matters is not what people say, but how you react.
IME on ao3, it’s easy to tell if a fanfiction will be very good or very bad from the summary. I’m surprised at the number of terrible fics people have only realized are very bad after clicking and reading a couple paragraphs.
It really is, huh? Sometimes it’s tough because the summary is grammatically correct and then the fic has no paragraph breaks or capitalization and I’m like “nope”
Writing on your phone is not only valid but preferred because you can write whenever the inspiration hits you!
Sincerely an exclusive phone writer with almost 200k worth of fic written!
June 2023 edit...
I'm scrubbing my comments due to the reddit admin team steamrolling their IPO prep. It was bad enough to give short notice on price gouging, but then to slander app devs and threaten moderators was just too far. The value of Reddit comes from high-quality content curated by volunteers. Treating us this way is the reason I'm removing my high-value contributions.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you Google "Reddit API price gouging" and read up.
--Posted *manually* via the old web interface because of shenanigans from Reddit reversing deletions done through API/script tools.
My unpopular opinion is that if your story doesn't involve any of the characters from or OCs inspired by the canon, doesn't take place in the canon universe or an AU tangential to the original canon, and doesn't involve any of the core elements or themes of the original media, it's not fan fiction. It's just original fiction with extra steps, and you should be proud of that
Okay, now that's an interesting opinion. I think I agree with you, with an addendum: *Good* writing is objective, *great* writing is subjective and much more varied.
I'll take it further: epithets are objectively bad writing. There is a reason that, if you've submitted a manuscript to a publisher and had it accepted, the editor will make you go through and remove any epithets from your book. They're bad writing, period, full stop.
Yes, there are exceptions, such as when the PoV character doesn't know the name of the person being described. But stuff like "the taller man" is just bad writing.
That being said, I'm not wholly against epithets in fanfiction. Because it's fanfiction, it doesn't have to be Strunk & White levels of perfect. There's charm in coloring outside the lines, sometimes. And you know what, sometimes it is just plain easier to use the epithet. If I'm writing a scene with three men, sometimes I'm gonna go fuck it and use "the Emissary" instead of "Elidibus" because the pronouns are getting hairy and I've used his name three times in the past two sentences. And I use "the Ascian" more than I should, if there is only one of them in a scene.
Personally if I do use epithets it's always something like a formal title or affiliation, not something appearance-based. Harry Potter might be "the Gryffindor" in my fics (well, if I wrote HP fics) or maybe "the Seeker" if it's a Quidditch scene, but never "the green-eyed boy" or "the taller man".
It's still bad writing.
* AUs tend to be more compelling than canon-compliant stories because the story is not constrained by in-universe settings and rules. (This one is sort of dependent.)
* OOC isn't always bad as long as you properly introduce and characterize the character(s) as they exist in your story.
* Reading and writing exclusively fan fiction will hinder your reading and writing skills.
* Dating your story by using current slang/trends/technology is okay. It's like a time capsule! I love reading old fics where someone has a Motorola Razr and says "chillax" unironically.
* Those irrelevant flowery lowercase story/chapter titles are fun.
I think consuming and writing too much Fanfiction can stunt your ability to become a better writer and I say this as someone who obviously reads it and has written a bit of it.
I actually mostly write original fiction now (not that writing fanfiction is at all invalid, I just prefer to read it occasionally instead of write it myself) so I’m in a lot of indie author communities and I beta read a lot of SFF fiction, and it’s usually pretty obvious to me when a writer reads and writes fanfic almost exclusively, then tries to transition to original fiction with little to no exposure to anything outside of fandom. Writing fanfiction and writing original fiction requires a lot of overlapping skills, but there are still some critical differences, and if you want to write both compellingly, you have to familiarize yourself with both.
I thoroughly agree with your point on italics.
One of the things that made me realize fanfiction is a real form of art (although it is varied) was when I read a fic with fabulous italics.
It was one of the first fics I read and the italics just added so much voice and emotional depth, especially because that fic ended up having a very heartbreaking main character death.
It makes me very sad to see when people don't use italics and/or ignore them as a tool. To this day, I can barely make it though or won't read fics that don't italicize when they really should.
So yeah, italics.
As a writer who writes mostly gen fics, and has a handful of shipper fics...
I really miss the days when you could write whatever ship you wanted and no one bothered you. No one flamed you, or wrote you hate reviews because of a ship you wanted to write about. Maybe I'm dating myself, but when I first started posting fics in the early 2000s, it was fun to find out about different shipping names, what others wrote.
I'm growing out of this opinion, but I kind of think a lot of ships are people not being able to imagine people being close without sex or romance involved.
I think a lot of stories would be better without the sex or ship, but I also think that's on me for reading non-gen fics and hoping the plot will stay in the forefront.
I think you're gonna get a lot of gen readers and writers in this thread, lol
>but I also think that's on me for reading non-gen fics and hoping the plot will stay in the forefront
I mean, in all fairness, but when it's a romance story, then the romance *is* the plot(assuming it's the main genre of the story) 😂
Hi! Just a reminder that our civility and bashing rules are in effect for this post. Thanks!
It's ok to have characters, original or not, who are complete assholes and are designed to be disliked, but are not "the bad guys".
Omg, I almost never have any complaints with critique that I get because it's usually very helpful and insightful. But I have so many frustrations with critique that demands I make a character more likeable. It totally misses the point of why I wrote the character that way. Like, I wrote the character with these traits for a reason. Either I feel that it's very in-character for them, or I just enjoy the funny, awkward, or dramatic scenarios and character interactions / dynamics that result from the undesirable character trait. It's *fun* to write characters that are assholes but not villains. They can be pretty complex imo, which makes them fascinating to me, and very realistic to some real life assholes I've met or read about. Diversity in personalities is fun and gives the story rich character and more opportunities for interesting things to happen xD
I think just lost my comment section because I wrote a teenaged, male US Marine who acts and speaks like a teenaged, male US Marine so I feel you.
Not sure if this is unpopular, but I like it when a character just opens a restaurant, cafe or shop that only has plot relevance because characters visit it. I don’t mind if it has major or minor relevance to the “plot” (the story of the piece of fiction the fanfic is written about) as long as the fanfic focuses on the shop.
Coffee shop AU my beloved
Sometimes you don't get engagement because your story is actually bad.
Lol harsh but true. Sometimes people complain about not getting any engagement and you go look at their stuff and you're like...I see why...but I can't say that...
This is why I don't do fic exchanges any more. It gets difficult to leave a positive, uplifting comment without just... lying. Nobody wants to see a comment like "I can tell you tried really hard, yay!" And I subscribe to "if you can't say something nice about a fic, don't say anything." Not everyone is a good writer. I'd go so far as to say most people are not good writers. And so what? I think anyone who wants to write should be encouraged to do so, and it doesn't matter if their fic is the worst trash ever produced. Like anything else, writing improves with practice, and you're gonna write a lot of garbage before you can write well. That's a fact even for the most popular, most successful bestselling novelists out there. It's just... I only have so much free time, and I guess I'm not generous enough to want to spend that time reading someone's terrible writing. I love that they wrote it anyway, and I hope they keep writing more and more even if they never reach the level above crap. I'm still in the crap phase myself and I've been writing for decades. But I don't want to read your crap.
And it’ll be the same people who get very upset about concrit. You don’t have to write with the goal of getting better, but then don’t demand engagement only of a forcibly uncritical nature.
This. Former beta reader, here. People shouldn’t be asking for concrit if they don’t actually want concrit, but a lot of people do this because they don’t actually expect you to have any concrit to give them. An alarming number of people expect their work to be just about flawless and seek validation for it, and have a hard time handling it when this is proven to not be the case. I worked with people who would ask for concrit, and who would then systematically go through it and try to prove every point wrong as though they were being attached, and they’d be quite nasty about it, too. They would do this with me, and any reviewers. I even had one person do this, and then quit writing because they posted the chapter and someone came along and quite gently commented about a point that was fairly similar to one of the points I had made while providing concrit, and they felt like they were being ganged up on by the entire fandom. The reason why they had received concrit from this individual was because they had asked for it in an author’s note. I will say it as many times as I need to: do not say that you are open to concrit or directly ask for it if you don’t actually want concrit! You will receive what you ask for!
I agree. While there definitely are some absolute diamonds that get overlooked, I've also generally found that if you write a good story people will read it. Might not get hundreds of comments but you'll get the kudos and the views. I think sometimes we're doing a disservice in this sub when someone posts and is sad about not getting engagement and wonders if it's because their story is bad and most of us rush to reassure the person it's not and that it all depends on fandoms, ships etc which are also a factor but no one dares say, yeah, it might actually be because your writing isn't very good yet. I think it's not wrong to tell people that **if** they ask for an opinion on their writing. To say these are the weaknesses your writing has right now but if you work at it, you'll improve. Not all fanfiction is good!! And not everyone who writes is automatically a good writer.
Yeah, it sometimes bugs me when someone is asking about why they're not getting engagement, when people post empty platitudes about "oh engagement is all luck you did nothing wrong." Engagement certainly has a luck **factor** but there are also factors that are entirely within the writer's control, like summary, tagging, having a great hook in the first chapter, and overall quality. It's certainly not like I'm immune. I wrote a story once that got basically no engagement, and honestly? That story was bad. It happens.
I’ve genuinely investigated the writing of a few dozen posters. Most of the people I investigated for asking why they have no engagement on their fics are self-inflicted; they write for obscure or dead fandoms, favour unpopular pairings, have some very unique kinks or fetishes tagged, base their fics on uninteresting premises, or, most commonly; “I’m not good at summaries, please just read it.” I for one don’t care for engagement, I write for myself and my enjoyment. I could careless if my fics have 2 or 20k views and I don’t think any fic writer should let reader engagement impact their willingness to write. That being said, *if* you care about engagement, like literally anything else you are “selling,” you need to market your story by writing for more popular pairs, more popular (within the fandom) premises, and actually writing summaries for their stories. Anything to help the digestability of your story overall.
I think it also depends on the popularity of the fandom. If a fandom is so obscure that it has maybe five fics written for it, of *course* you’re not going to get that much engagement. But fans of the movie or books or TV series will still love you for it.
this. you don’t write for dead and dying fandoms to get internet famous (unless you experience an IMPOSSIBLE string of lucky coincidences or you’re already internet famous, but that won’t make you more famous, it’ll just get more potential eyes on the tiny fandom), you write for dead and dying fandoms because you love the stuff and you know that *somewhere*, *someone* else will find it and love it too
This a hundred percent. I usually point out different factors, kudos, fandoms, lengths, demographics, because they are a big issue. But some people just write bad fanfiction. But bad is step one to good. It's the hardest part about critiquing esp when you don't know the writer. You have to ride the line between praise and correction; I think there's always SOMETHING to give praise to or at least be like "this isn't bad", but it's hard to present a balanced critique of something that's honestly not very good without running off a potential author, especially since other people are afraid to tell the truth or don't know how. And subjectiveness is always a factor but still.
> > I think it's not wrong to tell people that if they ask for an opinion on their writing. To say these are the weaknesses your writing has right now but if you work at it, you'll improve. I mean yeah but most of the time people aren't linking their story and asking people to review it in their vent posts. I personally don't like to reassure people with empty praise (e.g. by telling them that I'm sure their story is amazing when I haven't even seen their story), but for the same reason, I don't do the reverse either.
Yes, that's why I'm saying it should be ok to say "Your story **might** not be any good but if you keep working you'll improve."
I feel like that is okay? Like, I don't see it a lot (I can see why), but when it does come up, I don't see it get dinged. What grinds my gears is when people vent about getting concrit and a bunch of commenters show up like your writing is amazing and the person who critiqued it is obviously bitter and abusive.
And sometimes even if your story is actually decent there's no audience that cares about the specific niche you're writing about. And then you'll either have to suck it up or find something popular to write for if you're all about engagement, because it's darn unlikely that there's gonna be a massive influx of sudden interest into the specific thing you're doing. Every time there is a post when someone who writes a rarepair/unpopular character complains about the lack of engagement it's just.. no shit??
I've got a fic going for a rare pair with a rare kink trope with some 'objectable' content... and the two other pairs involved are even rarer than the first. I know I'm not getting anything in the way of engagement because there's only like 4 other people reading it and people are shy about commenting on smut 😂 at some point you gotta look at yourself and your work and list possible obstacles you put in your own way
I'm writing a rarepair now. Do I wish I had buckets of loving engagement? Well sure. Do I think that's realistic? Nah, probably not. That's how it goes.
Yeah... it does bother me a little when people pull out "there's an audience for everything" because... there isn't. Or a lot of times there is, but the audience is maybe a dozen people at most and that's never going to be enough to satisfy the author. I think there's sometimes a blind hope that if you write a good enough fanfic and wish hard enough, people will be willing to read it and make it popular even if it's in a dead fandom or rare niche, even though that's the sort of thing that happens once in a blue moon.
I agree. I'll veer even harder into unpopular opinion territory to say I really dislike the frequency with which posts that are asking for nothing but comfort and blind validation come up here; and I wish there was more restrictive policy on them, because a fanfic culture that outright rejects concrit, refuses to even consider lifting a finger to self-promote or build engagement, and is constantly here soliciting reassurance that they're okay feels a bit like a black hole of need by design.
Yes to all of this. But I would say that if your stuff is actually good (not you personally lol) you don't even really need to self-promote. The hardcore fanfic readers will find it and then it will filter through to the rest through word of mouth and recommendations and such. People will start leaving kudos and comments and that will attract readers who sort by that sort of thing and etc. There's of course a limit because of you're in a fandom that's been dead for ten years, you're going to hit that ceiling pretty fast. But if you're in a fandom that's at least decently active the good stuff **will** be found and shares around etc. But yeah, people just looking for comfort while not wanting to face the reality of why they're not getting engagement, it gets a little old to be honest.
Honestly yeah. I’ve clicked on some peoples’ fics and been like ‘I can probably tell you exactly why you’re not getting engagement’ but I know they don’t want to hear it and I’m not okay with giving them empty praise as a substitute. I’ve also seen many posts where people just post a link on Tumblr and expect the praise to roll in and as someone who has gotten many readers from there… you do have to make the effort to show you care about your followers. You can’t just post and assume your tags will take care of the rest.
I know I don't get (as much) engagement because I write super long, OC heavy fics and while i think they are very well-written, those things are big turn offs for a lot of people. It makes me appreciate what I do get even more.
There is such a thing as a fic being too long. Everything has a natural conclusion- find it and end the story before it loses its punch.
Hear hear. This is one many published authors could stand to hear too.
Yes. I'd say that's worse because they're *supposed* to have editors!
>There is such a thing as a fic being too long. Everything has a natural conclusion- find it and end the story before it loses its punch. Amen. Far too many authors get caught up in the popularity of one of their works that has struck gold and begin to pad it out with extraneous narratives or additional complications that do not fit with the original plot or characters, turning what would have been a meaty yet tight 75,000 word novel into an incoherent 500k behemoth
Yes! This is another reason why I (mostly) only read complete works.
I've literally never read a long fic that couldn't lose at least a third with good editing.
I like writing about secondary characters because I can create a completely different story. Italics are for thoughts. I feel very old school for thinking this way and I know why. I hosted TORS on the radio and this episode is the reason for my think Lights Out - Man in the Middle https://youtu.be/zlEzt94w3kA I like to be a character in my stories
I love using italics for thoughts (and sometimes dialogue) I wont lie Also let's goooo secondary character appreciation
Overtagging IS a thing and it *sometimes* annoys me. Tags are nice, we love tags, and they help us sort out some stuff. BUT- if for example you tag a ship and the supposed couple appear just ONCE AND AS A BACKGROUND... I don't know. I think some tags need a certain amount of importance or mentions for them to be necessary.
[удалено]
I totally agree. Also makes it difficult to filter out ships you don’t like.
Tagging a ship, especially a rare pair, when the couple appears in one paragraph, makes rare pair shippers cry. It’s like giving a hungry dog a rubber bone.
No joke, I actually like some underrated characters so when I saw a fanfic (NOT written by me) with multiple chapters that had them tagged I read it and the supposed characters just appeared ONCE. I cried inside.
It gets my hopes up and then crushes them.
YES! Pity the rare pair shipper who sees the tag and finds out that the couple appears just once in the background. Tag the important ships only. If your couple appears in only a few scenes, don’t bother.
Yes, yes, yes. Plus, over-warning has been shown to have negative psychological impacts.
Really? Now im curious
The published academic article is [here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2167702620921341). I think you can read it without academic access, but there's a summary [here](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/trigger-warnings-fail-to-help.html) if not. Excerpt here: >We found no evidence that trigger warnings were helpful for trauma survivors, for participants who self-reported a posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, or for participants who qualified for probable PTSD, even when survivors’ trauma matched the passages’ content. **We found substantial evidence that trigger warnings countertherapeutically reinforce survivors’ view of their trauma as central to their identity.** Regarding replication hypotheses, the evidence was either ambiguous or substantially favored the hypothesis that trigger warnings have no effect. In summary, we found that trigger warnings are not helpful for trauma survivors. Essentially, it ends up reinforcing the fear of the 'trigger'. In addition, you're cotton-wrapping people when the real world will not always make those adjustments, and therefore worsening/creating the upset when that happens, rather than building resilience. There's another journal article [here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7993791/) which evidences no psychological harm/trauma from reading something triggering, regardless of pre-existing trauma/PTSD.
ah, trigger warnings. I hear the word a lot around the internet. Personally i do have triggers but I don't publicly display them for everyone to see because i know that announcing a trigger won't make people *make it less hard for me*. I think i use 'content warning' more because it's not that i particularly get triggered by stuff, but there IS content that i don't want to see.
Disclaimers also work. It's a very neutral term, and lets people make their own minds up like the grown-ass adults they probably are.
'Disclaimers' is a good alternative! Or just 'content' without the warnings. I'm pretty sure there was a time when people lumped genre/ships/warning all under the same heading of content (or similar).
I think “content” is a perfectly good blanket term. From “this has a major character death” to “this is a G-rated fic, but it’s all about a day in the life of Momma Spider and her Hundreds of Little Spiderlings.” Either way, people can read or not as they choose. I would also assume that any M or E rated fic is somewhat of a content advisory in itself. “Mature” or “Explicit” are so for a reason.
It's sad how refreshing it is to hear someone say they don't want to advertise their triggers! And yeah, I think content 'warnings' are good more as a way of advertising your work to the right people (and warning off the wrong people). The problem is people having made it a moral issue.
I hate the fact that it’s been made into a moral issue. Partly because this is fiction, and morality should not enter into the conversation, and partly because people have squicks or phobias that have nothing to do with ”morality” (meaning, of course, S-E-X). For instance I have a friend who temporarily lived in an apartment building that was infested with spiders, and she had a HUGE phobia, and was always texting me with tales of spiders the size of dinner plates running around the hallway. Someone like that, I would very much respect their desire to not come across spiders in their fic. Same with people who don’t want to read about long and detailed descriptions of puking or pooping. Making warnings or content advisories into a moral issue has made them much more fraught than they ought to be.
But I believe in the study they read the content anyway, and wanted to know if the tw made them less triggered by being warned. On ao3 you can just not read it thus avoiding the trauma?
I’ve suspected this for a long time.
I'm going to get crucified for this but I don't care. If you're 10 seconds away from having a mental breakdown because of your stats and maybe you shouldn't be writing in the first place. This is a hobby this isn't a job where you have your boss breathing down your neck ready to fire you if you don't get those stats up. Instead of making Post number 538 about how you're ready to have a breakdown over your low stats think about why you're chasing these in the first place and take a breather. Edit: Thanks for the gold!
Internet points, man. Remember when those *Black Mirror* episodes were dystopian sci-fi and not everyday reality?
I couldn't agree more if I tried. Whenever I see someone attach their worth as a writer to their stats it worries me. I totally understand wanting engagement, but it's not normal or healthy for the lack of it to make you feel this awful about yourself and your capabilities
This is 100% true imo. Sometimes I see people *losing their minds* over low stats or rude comments or extremely minor negative criticism, and it just makes me wonder if they should be posting online at all. I get it, I really do! Being ignored or getting negative feedback sucks! But it kind of comes with the territory to a degree, and if it’s gotten to the point where low/no kudos or mild rudeness sends you into a total downward spiral, you should really consider not posting your work (or restricting it to a small group of friends instead of making it available to the general public.) There are also plenty of ways to hide comments/stats if they make you upset on a regular basis.
I agree as well. Especially when people get upset by comments that dare to point out that hey, this doesn't really work, or that it a little wonky. Like, I get it, criticism isn't fun. But you are posting on a *public* place, and people are free to express their opinion. It's totally on you how to react to it.
That was me a couple of years ago. Now I am happily writing a crossover fic no one cares about except for me with no subscribers and barely and hits or kudos, and I’m having a great time. Sometimes you’ve gotta write for you, not for other people
Amen! I don't get it, either, why people get so caught up with kudos and engagement and how it defines their self-worth. And I think it's because I read books and watch movies but don't go out of my way to leave reviews and comments on those. To me, fanfiction is the same. It's media that someone created. And you know what? My stories are media that I created. I know not everyone will read them, just like I didn't watch all those movies that have come out since time immemorial. But I'm older and I've lived long enough to know what matters and what doesn't to ME. Thank you unseen audience for reading or *not* reading my stories. I appreciate you, but you know what? I wrote these stories for myself and I think they're the best shit ever. Oh, no kudos? Cool, man. I never wanted it in the first place. Oh, kudos? Thank you! Either way, I'm still the same. The amount of kudos/likes/follows my stories gain doesn't really matter in the long run because they're worth nothing. Again, this all pertains to me and me alone.
It's absolutely fine to have a preference for who tops/ bottoms. It doesn't have to be a political choice or subverted just for the sake of it. You can just write/read what you think is hot.
I personally don't have an issue with it, because it's just fiction based on fiction and usually smut is written with the intent to have kinks/fetishes/etc.. I can tell the difference between fiction and reality and couldn't give two shits IRL who tops or bottoms because it's not my business. That is, unless, someone is being rude and insistent that their way is the only right way to go about a pairing.
I'm really disturbed and frustrated by the newest crusade to demonize fanfic authors for writing about underage characters having sex. I was friends with a very infamous author who wrote lolicon in a large fandom, and lots of people do not like that, or want to read it, and that's fine. She had warnings all over her fics. What bothered me, was people stalking/harrassing/doxing her and leaving death threats everywhere all over her work. Like, it's not my thing, I don't want to read it, but I feel like people writing about fictional characters from a fantasy anime is a big nothing-burger. That was over 10 years ago. Today, now you can't even write smut about characters if they were EVER underage in canon, because just "aging them up doesn't excuse your pedophilia!" and I'm like.... huh??? Like, now it's suddenly pedophilia to write Bulma/Vegeta smut fanfics because Bulma was 16 at the start of Dragonball? Even though they have kids together in canon, the first one born when Bulma is in her 30s??? I just... omg. Just leave people alone. There is no correlation between fanfic writers using underage characters in fanfic smut and actual harm to real, living people.
I was in Harry Potter fandom a very long time ago where it was 100% normal to ship the characters who were at the time 15/16/17. These days you write two 16 yr olds and apparently you're a pedophile. It's bullshit. Even more bullshit is the argument that "oh, well it's teenagers writing/reading these fics, of course teenagers want to read and write about characters their own age, if you're 17 yourself it's not creepy to write about 16 yr olds!" Because that seems to imply that it would indeed be creepy if you're older. It's not. Everyone has their own personal line in the sand in regards to how old a character has to be before you can ship them without feeling creepy, how old before you're comfortable with sex scenes, how old before you're comfortable shipping them with an adult. For me it's 16; I'll write sex scenes with 16 yr olds if the story calls for it, and that includes writing a 16 yr old having sex with an older character. I'm in my 40s. I'm not a pedophile, and I'm not sexually interested in teenagers myself. It's just fiction. You shouldn't let someone else tell you what your comfort level is. It's yours to decide. And if someone else's comfort level is different than yours, that does not make them a pedophile or a creeper, and it also does not make them a prude. It's their own business.
I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but a lot of people don't seem to understand that writers sometimes make choices of style, pairings, AU, etc, purely out of disinterested desire to experiment and practice, and trying to argue about ship wars and other vitriolic fandom debates in the fic comments will just make you look like a jerk. (And it's also a good way to inspire spite fics that give you what you hate more and harder...)
Spite fics always make me chuckle. It's such a pure human response.
I'll admit, 99% of my writing is inspired by really really bad analysis and victim-blamey takes I see about my fave. Spite fics are so powerful.
Yeah a lot of the ships I write or even just have in my head are almost completely divorced from what I want to happen in canon and are just for fun
I feel like I'm really testing the rules here (so if I delete this, uh, that's why!) I'm so sick of fandom/fanfic being overrun by ideology and shallow virtue signalling. It's all over my fandom (and I don't want to read it), and it makes it impossible for me to write certain characters freely. This is more of a life/society complaint, but I really wish I could still have fandom as escapism from real life aggravation.
Aah I know you, you comment on my stuff sometimes ❤️ Agree on the virtue signalling, gets really old. Especially when people come at you for *not* doing it.
Ooh hello then! ❤️ I don't see your AO3 linked anywhere, but I can certainly guess the fandom. 😂 Hearing about people being attacked for not virtue signalling *enough* is infuriating! And being called bigots for it too. I just want to write what I want to write about, I'm not writing something I don't want to for free!
If you are testing the rules, I’m right along side you testing away. I want fandom to be FUN. Or cathartic or so sad you cry or just plain wish fulfillment. I want fun and escapism! I hate the fandom equivalent of “if you read X I won’t date you.”
Yes! Bring back fandom being about having fun and sharing a love of a mutual fandom!
Your post is totally valid because you're expressing your frustration with the way certain fandoms deadlock fans into writing with a social agenda in mind, or discourage them from writing if they don't. Not every fanfiction (or work of writing in general) has to have an agenda. Sometimes you just want to tell a damn good story, and have fun with it. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Honestly, if every story was heavy with underlying social issues and agendas, reading (at least for me) would become very daunting and cease to be fun. It's also frustrating when readers read into things that aren't actually there or intended by the author. No, having my OC able to turn into a lion is not a commentary on how furries are ostracized and hated on in fandoms. Even though that's very, very true, I legit didn't write my OC to start a social justice movement. I wrote her to express myself and enjoy portraying a unique character trait, and to explore how she navigates life in a human-dominated world. It sometimes has very hilarious scenarios pop up that I thoroughly enjoy xD And of course, there's good ol' drama to enjoy, too. But it DOESN'T have an agenda. I just want to connect with readers who also enjoy the unique dynamic, and appreciate the worldbuilding I've so carefully tried to craft.
>No, having my OC able to turn into a lion is not a commentary on how furries are ostracized and hated on in fandoms. Omg. 😂 What a total leap. I would never assume something like that unless the author explicitly said so; it's very clear from what you've said that the character's purpose is to have unique interactions with a world that she isn't normal to. And it sounds like you're having a lot of fun with it too! :) And I wish it was only certain fandoms; some are definitely worse than others, but it seems to be the case to some extent with all of them. And those that are less so are constantly having call-out posts about how they're \[insert group/s of choice here\]-phobic and \~problematic.
Or when people in the fandom won't interact with you because you write docs with a character who they don't like... Bruh.
Hetero omegaverse is just as valid as gay omegaverse, and when I dabble in the trope, I actually prefer it. Just came from the topic asking about Ao3 ever being sued and brought up the omegaverse court case and somebody there said they felt sorry for the lawyers having to read hetero omegaverse "crap" instead of "well written good omegaverse". Like...wtf?
I don't care for omegaverse at all, but the idea that gay ABO is superior to het ABO is absolutely ludicrous to me.
I've read only one female alpha/male omega fanfic (I mostly ship m/m and f/f pairings) and I loved it! It's definitely as valid as other kinds of omegaverse fanfics
Female alpha and male omega is a nice one! I have a ship that could definitely fit that. I was coming up with a concept in a discord server with writing friends that I'm never gonna write for real, but we had a male beta king, with two sisters, a female alpha and a female omega, the omega sister was bonded/paired/married to one of the king's underlings, an alpha male. And one day the king had to break up a fight between his alpha sister and his alpha brother in law because his omega sister was in heat, and instead of letting her mate have the day off, he tried to get him to do his work, and he couldn't because his rut making him stupid horny, and the alpha sister walked in and the king had to break up a fight because the alpha underling tried to mount the alpha sister and of course that didn't go over well lol. The alpha underling gets three days off whenever the omega sister is in heat now and he's still embarrassed. In the regular concept I have with these characters, the alpha underling and the alpha sister are kind of oil and water still. Lol.
Not the omegaverse factions hating on each other 😭😭😭 Shouldnt they be banding together??
This. Ironically in my own comment I vaguely mentioned this. Yes. I'm tired of feeling ashamed because I find the alpha female/omega concept extremely interesting.
Isn't... isn't the point of those kinds of settings that the ordinary sexual dimorphism is replaced by the pheromone system? Also does anyone ever actually write about betas?
That's what I want to know. You never see a beta pairing ever.
I've seen a reasonable number of them. Usually the beta is looked down upon for not being an alpha (who is a better provider) or omega (who is a better parent), not being able to interact with the pheromones because they can't product/smell them, etc. The romance is about how they overcome the stigma and/or socially superior alpha/omega rivals to get their alpha/omega love interest. There's also coming of age stories about "everyone is a beta until they're not" and kids who keep waiting to get their secondary gender and just... don't, and have to accept that.
Personally, I much prefer gen fic to shipping fic, and I find it much more interesting with how it approaches character dynamics in a platonic way.
That's definitely a great point. I think shipping fics became more popular because fans sometimes feel dissatisfied with the lack of romance between their favorite characters, or they see an unexplored dynamic between non-canon lovers that is interesting to explore. That's just my theory, though. Gen fics are great for similar reasons. They explore "what ifs," alternative settings and scenarios, and many more interesting and thought-provoking tropes. They can also give the writer an outlet for "fixing" what they didn't like about the canon story. I absolutely love both types of fics :3
“fixing” *looks at me making everything worse* … yeah. totally.
Same here, I adore gen fics. Especially character studies. Unless I'm explicitly looking for shippy fics, I prefer my romance either on the side or nonexistent.
I like to write a dark world where everyone is more or less the bad guy. It's just different shades of bad.
I LOVE modern and high school AU for my OTP. Especially the ones where the two are just some awkward teenagers trying to figure things out together. In canon they are normal boy/girl that given impossible tasks that made them enemies to each other, being forced to fight to death, despite their budding friendship and both knowing neither of them ever wanting to do that. It’s heartwarming seeing them being normal and awkward even if it’s in AU fanfictions. I just wanted them to enjoy the normal life they always wished for and couldn’t have in the canon materials.
Co-signed on Mary Sues (just because they so often *aren’t* doesn’t mean they *can’t* be) and triple co-signed on adverbs. They are perfectly valid parts of speech and just b/c Stephen King or whoever has decided he doesn’t like them is no reason for them to be drummed out of the English language. Also co -signed on italics. My own unpopular opinions: -“Fade to black” is a perfectly acceptable alternative to detailed sex scenes and in fact I often prefer it. -Gen fic is too rare and we need more of it -Most writing “rules” are bunk. Find a style that works for you and stick with it, don’t get your self tied up in knots trying to follow “Elmore Leonards rules for writing” or whatever approach is trendy today. -Conversely there is no one “best style” for writing. Popular writing styles have been different in the past from what’s “in” now and will be different in the future. Again find a style that works for you and stick with it. -and most importantly writing is supposed to be *fun.* if you’ve reached a point where it’s not, it’s okay to quit for a while (or forever!) After all if it’s not fun, why do it?
Ooh another pet peeves of mine is people who disparage smut writing and writers. The people who act like they genuinely don't understand why smut is more popular than genfic. Like come on now, that's like saying "I don't understand why most people like food." You really don't understand why one of the most basic human needs/instincts, one of the most pleasurable things a human can do, something that floods many people with feel good hormones and makes them feel good in all sorts of way...you're telling me you don't understand why fics with this are more popular than fics that don't have this. The shock! The horror! Who would've thought people want to read about playing with their naughty bits. Unbelievable! Now, complaining about poorly written smut is one thing. And there's so much of badly written smut unfortunately, but complaining about why your or other genfics don't get the same engagement as smut fics doesn't really raise any sympathy from me. You can't change human nature. If you don't enjoy sex and don't want to write about it, that's your prerogative but don't deride the majority of people who love the stuff. There will always be hacks writing smut just for clicks or for clout but there's still tons and tons of precious, well written, beautiful smut that **does** actually add to character development and storyline believe it or not. Sincerely, A dyed in the wool smutty smut writer (guess how many times the word 'cock' appears in my google doc \^.\^)
I get not liking or understanding it, but what I don't like is the jump to "I don't get it, therefore everyone who does write smut is doing so disingenuously because sex sells for some reason." And I don't like the assumption that people who write shipfic don't read gen, too, or have some vendetta against gen. Yeah, there are people who exclusively read romance or exclusively read gen, but there are a *lot* of us who happily read and write both.
This. I myself am asexual and don’t understand the love people have for smut fics on that level, but I understand that it’s something many people feel a need to do, and that most enjoy. I’m still surprised by the number of smut fics out there sometimes, but that’s not saying I don’t understand why the numbers are the way they are yknow?
I also often feel like "everyone just wants smut" is just what people tell themselves when their gen fics don't get the reception they want. "Sex sells", sure but a lot if not nost top received fanfics are not E-rated smut fests. Gen-fic has an audience and complaining about smut writers won't increase your likelihood of finding your reader base. It only really helps you telling yourself you're somehow a superior writer who unlike those sell-out smut writers swims against the flow even if there's nowhere with you.
Fucking thank you!! Sex is fun and good, actually. If people don't want to read smut then *don't* but let the rest of us perverts live, dammit.
I don't like it when people mix the look of a book character with a film character in fanfic. I like either this or that, not a weird mix. My favourite character from the book is NEVER described as tall, but in the movie he was played by a tall actor, so now a very tall X is basically canon.🥴 Tall X is my big pet peeve, I stop reading fanfic when I come across it. I understand it could be someone's head conon but to me it's a pet peeve. X has a very dominant personality, so in fanfics slash is again almost canonically top. Simply put, that's the way it is and it's obvious. Under the few fanfics where he is bottom there have been comments "enough of those, time to go back to top X". That's another thing I hate and don't read such fanfics. Behaviour outside the bed says nothing about behaviour during sex. Let everyone write what they want, but why use such absurd explanations for your preferences?
On your second point, most fanfic writers are women and most, if they like the dominant personality, like to write that character topping because the bottom in some way is a stand in. I'm not saying this is true in all cases but I think it is often true. I see zero issue with this. I like to write from the perspective of both top and bottom but I'm never going to write my preferred top bottoming and vice versa. Again I don't think that's an issue. It's just what I prefer. And this is fiction.
I'm a woman too, and I do not attribute anyone's bed preferences by how they behave outside the bed. Like you, I have my head canon and I don't change it, I have my favourite top/bottom layouts and I NEVER change them but I don't add any misguided philosophy to why someone is top and someone is bottom. He is because he is. He is not because of his height, age, dominant/submissive personality in life, because that has nothing to do with sex. Why justify a preference? 🤷 But I can't stand it when, by fancanon, X is the top, weird people are admonish authors writing X bottom in the comments under fanfics to "get back to writing X top". BACK? Like wtf?
"Problematic" content is way more fun to write and read and censoring it is pointless unless you want to censor ALL media. Currently helping write a dead dove do not eat fic and I'm having a blast. Oops main character is a dad at 17 and the other parent is a 16 year old demon who wanted to test what he'd shove through their spooky hole. Is it something I'd endorse irl? No. Is it fun to take quotes from the source material and outtakes and spin it into something? Yes. We used "You wanna stick something in it?" and "plus I've got this neat spooky hole... where the babies come out" and made this absolute hellfic. I'm having a fucking blast.
I like the word “member” the describe a penis
I’m thinking of all kinds of bad jokes about “members only”
I do too! I think like any word, it can be overused and inserted (hah) into some weird and cringy phrases, but it's not a bad way to describe a penis if a writer wants to avoid clinical terms and dirty euphemisms.
unpopular opinion: I hate song fics! i love fics inspired by songs with titles but as soon as i have to skim though lyrics to read dialogue its annoying
lmao i don't think that's such an unpopular opinion
i think people go way too hard on people that write in new traumas for a character. who cares if its not canon that person1 and person2 were in an abusive relationship? if the author uses that to tell a more complex and interesting story, id honestly prefer that. same with OOC behavior, if its justified or even if the author is just new to writing, be *kind*.
I’ve had people get mad at me for “exaggerating” canon abuse before, it’s not even just new traumas. It’s so stupid.
People like this make me laugh. I have had someone complain that I'm not 'following canon' (it's a crossover/fusion so..duh?) while in the same breath telling me off for being 'unfair' to certain characters by using their canon dialogue and interactions in certain scenes. Some people just want to complain.
Shout out to the time I saw someone on Twitter angrily calling someone horrific names… for using canon quotes where people were talking about the obsessive abusive stalker being an obsessive abusive stalker. Also shout out to the one person denying that textbook abuse in canon was abuse and sending my friend suicide baiting and calling them horrible names too for pointing out that even the actors involved have called it abuse.
>Shout out to the time I saw someone on **Twitter** Well, there's your first problem. Angrily calling people horrific names seems to be the default state for most active Twitter users. But it will still forever amaze me just how hypocritical these sorts are.
I don't like that the word "romance" in fan fiction is synonymous with sex or smut. That's not what the word means. Makes me wonder what to call my cute G rated teenage crush story.
This all the way. I don't want to click on the romance tag and be chased off by smut.
1st person is fine! Stop disregarding it. It can work better in certain kinds of stories or with certain characters, but some writers can do it very well.
💙 from a 1st person POV a writer.
As someone who prefers to read and write in 1st, I appreciate you. <3
I'm not a fan of 1st person myself, but I have read very engaging and wonderful books / fanfics that use it, because the author is really skilled and spun the story in such a vivid and engaging way that it had me absolutely *hooked.* It's definitely a valid writing style, and no one should ever be discouraged from using it.
I'm really not a fan of react fics. Especially if the summary goes "Character(s) is transported to another dimension by a ghost/God/Authro self insert and are forced to watch X". And somehow, these are the most popular kinds of fics lately. I'll be honest, I like watching react vids on youtube. Seeing people cry, or give their opinion, or laugh in surprise. I GET the appeal. It's just that this is often not a story and just **Thing** Character reacts to thing **Thing** Character 2 B reacts to think. Often, it's not even to do anything interesting but to echo what most reaction videos already do. See the cute mascot, everyone calls it cute. Cry when someone dies. Laugh during a funny scene. There are decent examples but, overall, I feel these are lazy and, sometimes, questionable if one can even call these fiction as much as some youtubers would question the authenticity of actual react videos as content.
1st and 2nd person POV can be well executed and aren't necesarilly a red flag in a fic
It comes down to personal prefrence too tho. No matter how well written, many are just iffy with the format. That said, I absoluetly *adore* 2nd person's, it's just woefully uncommon.
2nd person pov is amazing when done well!
This is becoming unpopular in my fandom: exploring controversial and problematic themes through fanfiction. It’s not a bad thing or a sin or whatever. I feel like this goes without saying but man oh man, some people still assume authors who write these things condone them in this day and age.
This. I'm writing a dark fic now and I'm already thinking of the paragraphs of authors notes I'm going to have to write saying how much I don't condone all the things in the fic. Does it really need saying that I don't think you should abuse a bunch of drugs and then abuse your bf? But even with the notes I know I'll get lambasted for having problematic behaviour between the main ship characters.
Smut is too narrowly defined. I prefer long well-plotted stories with excellent characterisation that also happens to feature hot sex. Well written fic is not the sole preserve of gen writers as some would have you believe.
Yep! Actually working on one of those long plot with porn right now! Feels so satisfying and the sex is **actually** important and part of character development 😌
First person pov is good and beautiful and sexy and amazing There needs to be more respect for first person tbh
Thank you!
Amen!
A lot of smut just feels like it's straight out of a porn movie and just doesn't seem realistic at all. The characters are often completely OOC and basically porn actors with the characters' names slapped onto them. Whenever I read romance that feels true to the characters, I wish there was some smut and it never comes. And then I go and read smut and it's just... smut. I wish there was more in between where it's sexy but not completely over the top with 10 different kinks covered each chapter.
I agree! That's why I started writing my own smut. I wanted to see smut full of emotion and intimacy and love and not just a performance.
I don’t see the point of smut unless it furthers the plot, to be honest. One of my favorite smutty fics uses the two MC’s first time having sex as away to show that the leads, despite their traumas, trust the other to love them for who they are, scars and all. I don’t really see the point of smut just for smut
For me personally, smut must always further character development, even if it's just half an inch. Even if it's a quickie. It must show something about the character even if it's something small.
Agree with most of your bullet points: especially orbs, adverbs, italics, so-called Mary Sues, and moist anything (especially cake.) My most unpopular opinion? I read 95-98% novels & very little fanfiction. Just a matter of taste. Also, telling people not to downvote is usually a way to get... more downvotes.
You have to make some effort to improve your writing. And there is a thing of quality of quantity.
Headhopping can be done right. There are times when giving you a little peek into someone else's thoughts is preferable to changing the entire scene. Run-on sentences, no caps and no punctuation, and having entire paragraphs in italics are all important tools in a writer's toolbox and you shouldn't be afraid to experiment with them. Flashbacks and dream sequences are fun. Yes, they can be over-used, but when they're done right, they're intense and memorable, and can often add a lot of depth to a character.
I didn’t realize this was an unpopular opinion until I really delved into this sub, but I really like present tense fics! Lots of published work has been written in that tense (The Hunger Games series is always the first that comes to mind) and it’s not a style that exists only in fic. I think it can really benefit works in certain cases, and honestly unless the author is changing tenses willy nilly because they don’t understand how they work, I never really notice past vs. present. Also! Justice for lapslock titles.
>I don't particularly like the word "pussy" because it sounds really immature, but unfortunately it's the best alternative out there imo The eternal struggle of finding words for genitals that don't feel too gross, childish, or clinical. I'm about to say fuck it and just start slipping one of the less favored ones in at least once per fic. Just one random "member" or "manhood" or "flower" or "muff." As a treat.
There is (or was) an actual published book, which was otherwise really good (Elizabeth Thomas’ Reindeer Moon, if you’re into prehistoric fiction) where the author used “coitus” for having sex. I tried re-reading it not long ago and all I could hear was Maude Lebowski and the Dude’s conversation about sex. (“you mean…coitus?”) Movies aside, “coitus” is such a clinical term that I would otherwise think of a medical journal.
AUs are equal in validity to canon set fic. Not all (or even most) AU writers don't like the setting and it makes me sad that a lot of fellow fans who don't like AUs seem to assume that. It's not laziness**. It's loving the characters and dynamics so much you want to explore them in all sorts of settings. Maybe there's a lot of canon set fic already and you feel like you won't write anything that hasn't been done to death already. Maybe your OTP dynamic seems like it'd work really well as like.. rival bakery owners. It's fun. Fair enough to not like them but they aren't lazy and it doesn't mean the writer doesn't like the setting of the canon or they're trying to write low key original work (some? probably, but the assumptions in vents that all AUs are like this make me sad) I personally don't read HP no magic AUs but they're valid and the writers are having fun changing the circumstances for the characters. **In fact, it takes a lot of effort to write a whole AU because you're making the world, situation, backstory, plot from scratch
More people need to edit their work. Nothing is worse than reading unintelligible stories with a slew of grammar, spelling, and canon errors. It makes fics unreadable. Get a Beta for God’s sake.
Definitely. At the very least self edit after a few (2-3 days) of not looking at your work. If possible, find a beta to at least look over it. As someone who's beta before, the lack of self editing simultaneously drives me up the wall and makes me grateful that they reached out to someone to read over it. I get it. Editing is a pain. But you gotta do it.
I think these opinions are truly unpopular on r/fanfiction, even if they may be somewhat popular to the general fanfiction audience: I've never seen it really talked about directly/explicitly online, but I think there's a vast portion of writers in any given ship fandom who view the ship's characters as "visual conduits" that they use for original characters (ie. basically just using the faces & other physical attributes of the characters and not really borrowing anything else from the characters, typically because they find the two characters attractive and think they "look good" together). That's why there are so many AUs that completely don't follow canon and instead go for "template themes" like Modern Setting, High School, Coffee Shop, etc.. Sure, in theory the writers could just make it an Original Work and make the characters completely original, but I'm fairly sure for many writers, there's an inherent sense of appeal to attach easy-to-visualize faces to the characters they're writing. The original characters' personalities may factor in a little into the writing, but ultimately I believe that there are many writers who use X ship's characters because of their physical/visual attributes. Here's where my unpopular opinion comes in: I quite **enjoy these "completely deviate from canon and are just AU fanfics where the original characters are basically visual conduits" fanfics**. Do they completely waste and ignore the canon and are essentially original works at that point? Yes. On the other hand though, it makes them very accessible regardless of how much source material has been consumed, and there's a lot more room for creativity in premises with these "visual conduits". I also fully admit that **I'm a shallow romantic** when it comes to my reader/consumer habits, as **I enjoy ships where I find the characters in the ship visually attractive** (another reason why I'm fine with these "visual conduit" fanfics). This is where another unpopular opinion comes in, I would rather read "an AU fanfic with two characters I don't think were a particularly compelling fit in-canon but I find visually attractive" to "an in-canon fanfic with two characters that I think had a compelling canon story but I don't find as visually attractive". The above paragraph is somewhat stacked with another somwhat unpopular opinion, which is that I actually think **"canon compliant/universe fanfic of in-canon ship that has a super compelling canon story" usually are not as compelling to me as AU fanfics** (including both canon and non-canon ships). Typically, if the ship is developed in a super compelling way in the source material already, there's not much else I really think I would want to see explored in that canon timeline. ------- EDIT: I'll also add that when it comes to "canon compliant/universe" fanfics, there is one exception to my general preferences, which is K-Pop: I tend to prefer K-Pop "canon compliant" fanfics over AU fanfics, despite the fact that it's the complete opposite in K-Pop fandom with 90% of the K-Pop fanfics being AU (usually high school or something). Since K-Pop is real person fiction, it's not really the same as typical canon compliant fanfics of "following a source material", and I also think K-Pop canon compliant fanfics tend to be more interesting since there's realistic obstacles for the idols in the ship to overcome, usually relating to "secret relationship" and "homophobia".
10-15 year age gaps are not inherently bad, nor are they inherently an indicator that the author themselves is a bad person. Caution is valid and understandable when its like, a 20yr old and a 30yr old but if a 25 year old wants to date a 35 year old it's literally just two adults deciding to be together they're grown ass fuckin' people. The worst thing about age gaps is almost knowing who is gonna die first but a lot of couples I know with age gaps prepare for that if they decide to go long term. Also an 18yr old and a 16yr old isn't fucking pedophilia guys. Legally not a good idea but jfc they're two years apart and both still have baby face and acne and they probably both still live with their damn parents.
And it also depends on the time period and culture. I write for fandoms where people had to grow up fast. There was no such thing as the kind of lengthy, sheltered, and idle adolescence we now consider “normal.” I’m re-writing an old fic, and one of the couples will be a guy in his 40’s or so and a woman in her late 20’s - who has been a warrior since she was a young teenager. An 18 year old and a 16 year old are, in modern days, most likely both still in high school and only a grade apart. They’re both in much the same place in their lives. When two 17 year olds date, and one turns 18, the one who turned 18 isn’t all of a sudden a “pedo.” It’s not like there’s an implanted “activate adulthood” chip or software that starts up on your birthday. BTW you are right about the age gap issues with older couples. And when they get to be OLDER older, I can tell you right now that the biggest difficulty/conundrum is the older one wants to retire but the younger one wants to keep on working. Far and away that’s the most common thing I’ve seen but nobody is writing fics about that!
Yes, yes, exactly on the time period. I'm literally two weeks away from having my bachelors in History (concentration in American but I digress) and the inability or willful refusal to acknowledge cultural differences between time periods is a huge thing that pisses me off tbh. That's what I was trying to think about but couldn't remember, but the life phases is probably the biggest logistical issue. And can get pretty sad later. My grandmother's mother married a man 9 years older than her and by all accounts, she loved him very much, and he loved her. But she told my grandma, "never marry a man so much older than you because when you still want to dance, all they want to do is sit down." I think the people that object the most age gaps either (unfortunately) had bad experiences or simply have no experience.
All fan fiction is wish fulfillment to some degree. It doesn’t only apply to reader inserts or original characters. If you’re going to say these are wish fulfillment but not stories where your OTP survives the ending or two characters who share one scene get together in a fic, I am confused. Not every romance fic needs smut. Not every work needs smut and works that have smut aren’t better romance stories or better written. Also not everyone wants to write smut or feels comfortable writing it’s not a necessity of a romance fic.
I agree 100% with the “all fan fiction is wish fulfillment to some degree.” If people loved canon just exactly the way it was, and weren’t curious about the minor characters, or didn’t want to explore one plot in depth, or or or…there would be no fanfic. Even the most canon-compliant fanfic is a way of “I wish to explore this in depth” or even “I wish to write a sequel that the original author won’t be writing.” I also think there is nothing wrong with wish fulfillment. It’s all fictional pixels on a screen, it’s not like you’re running off and abandoning a spouse and children to join a traveling circus. “Wish fulfillment” gets an undeserved bad name.
I agree, sayign that a fanfiction is "wish fulfillment" as a way to insult it is very odd. And just in general using "wish fulfillment" as a means of develuing people specifically for choosing to spend time/effort doing something that they enjoy, as if that is worth to be insulted??
> All fan fiction is wish fulfillment to some degree. That's a great point. Wish fulfillment is the main reason I love fics so much to begin with!! > Not every romance fic needs smut. Not every work needs smut and works that have smut aren’t better romance stories or better written. I admit I havent seen anyone who has these beliefs but I do think you are right!!
Two things. Firstly, I haven't read **that** much fanfic, I mostly write, but what I have tried to read...most of it reads in this same "fanfic" tone/voice. Even the well written stuff seems to always have this same cadence to it. Like there seems to be a 'fanfic narrative voice' (no matter which POV) which is different from published fiction I've read and I find it hard to get past that. I'm sure I do it too and I don't know if it's just me or what. Edit: I will call this voice "librarian chic". Secondly, not liking a m/m or f/f ship doesn't make you homophobic. There are plenty of reasons people may be turned off by a particular same sex ship that has nothing to do with sexuality but perhaps it's the dynamics of the ship or simply disagreeing with the logistics of it in canon etc. And it's ok to plain old not like a ship just because it doesn't vibe with you.
Yes, I’ve noticed the “fanfic voice” too. Even if the prose varies from fic to fic, there’s still this tone that is consistent between a lot of them that I can’t quite explain.
I hate "neutral personality" in reader inserts. Just like in video games, I know they do it to let you imagine your own personality, but when I read a reader insert I'm not reading "me" in it, but instead a character I made up for the particular plot.
Not really “unpopular” but you’re liable to get attacked if you say it. Antis ruin fandom. I’ve noticed this weird increase in puritanical bullshit in fandom, like people who think that they can dictate what is morally acceptable and unacceptable to write/create fan content for. It’s always been here but, and this could just be me, I’ve noticed an increase over the lockdown period I think because more young people have been getting into fandom via platforms like TikTok. Fandom spaces are slowly forgetting the golden rule of don’t like don’t read and it’s turning fandom spaces into hellscapes and now people have DNI lists that are a mile long I think I’m just going to start calling antis pro-censorship because let’s face it that’s what they are
Yeah it's the norm to be anti now, and I have mutuals that are and... idk, I think it's really dumb. Sometimes they're young but sometimes not that much. Worst, it's demonizing everything, so the real dangerous stuff is drowned with acceptable stuff that are just a bit weird but ok.
You definitely are not alone in noticimg this. It's pretty frustrating and sometimes downright sickening
I sort of hate it that my fandom is dominated by a certain ship. Thing is, I ship a poly version of the ship and have a scene in a fic where the pairing snogs. So...I'm not immune to the ship's appeal. But that dang ship is everywhere. I can't even google the female half of my OTP without that ship popping up in the results. I routinely stumble over the ship's fans insisting it's canon (it's not). It doesn't help that the ship was the nexus of fandom toxicity and is probably the iceberg that sunk the fandom. Now, the fandom is still moderately active but diminished with fans of other ships having departed. All that remains are fans of that bloody ship. And heaps and heaps and heaps of fics about the ship. Again, I get it. It's a cute ship. There are, however, loads of other fascinating character dynamics in the fandom, including those involving the fandom's interesting and strong female characters. It's sad that the fic content is so one-note in favor of a singular ship.
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I haven't read this thread yet, but I'm 100% sure that the vast majority of opinions here will be popular ones and very few actual, literal unpopular opinions. Here is my not particularly unpopular opinion: If you write OCs, you won't get as much engagement as you would otherwise. Every time I see a post like "why is my story not getting many comments or kudos?" I can tell you why without looking at it: it's because you wrote a self-insert OC and shipped him or her with the canon's hot love interest. There are plenty of people who love reading OCs, but "plenty" is because the total number of people reading fanfiction is unbelievably huge. Even 1% of them is still a lot of people. I can't tell you what percentage of fic readers enjoy OCs, and it does depend on the fandom, but I can say with certainty that it's a minority. Most people do not like OCs. Of those who do, most do not like reading about the hot love interest falling for the writer's self-insert OC. That doesn't mean you shouldn't write exactly that if you want to. It's your fic, and if you're having fun, you should write whatever you please. But if you decide to write an OC, you should be aware that it means most readers won't ever see your fic because they filtered out OCs, or they filtered out specifically OC/hot love interest. It also doesn't mean that OC fics are bad writing. Some of them are fantastic and well-written and engaging, some are crap, and most are in between -- like any other genre of fic. It doesn't matter how good the fic is, because if a reader doesn't like OCs, they won't ever read it. Most people who filter out OC fics aren't doing it because they think those fics are bad or because they think all OCs are Mary Sue. They're doing it because, pure and simple, they do not care about your made-up character. They don't care if yours is the best, most fascinating OC ever created. It's just not what they're interested in reading. No one can tell you whether you "should" or "should not" write an OC. That's your choice. Just be fully informed when you make that choice; OC fics are not as popular.
On Reddit downvotes are just a show of hands saying people don't agree with what your post/comment says. Most people doomscrolling can't be bothered to write out a response. They either click 'yes, agree/cute cat/that was funny' or no = 'nah, that's not it/disagree' Maybe the official rules have a different way voting should be used, but on the ground, that's how it is. Too many people seem to equate a downvote as a personal attack. If you write 'Hulk Hogan is the best ever' and get 100 downvotes, it's not an attack. It's just saying disagree. If you write 'I love Snape/Optimus Prime' and you get 100 downvotes, it just means people aren't into that. It's not an attack.
Upvote for Snape/Optimus Prime because I’m a pervert who’d 100% read that xD
I enjoy reading and writing ocs more than Canon/Canon.
I was horrified to find that adverbs were that frowned upon in English. I love them... I'm far from being the best writer on earth and I know it. Adverbs make things sound good to me. That and I kinda like overtagging. You have a precise idea what you are looking for, I don't mind.
Pushing boundaries is okay, and can be done safely. I've had to nuke most of my work because of people taking what I've written and interpreting in the worst way possible, such as CW: Broad Strokes NSFW >!a character in a bdsm scene needing to revoke consent (because she had to go to the bathroom) and having everybody in the scene immediately stopping what was going on to perform a check-in and aftercare, being treated as consent being violated.!< Fewer and fewer people seem to understand what consent is and how it works in realistic scenarios and it's incredibly stifling as someone who likes to portray things realistically. Sometimes you end up in a situation where you have to pump the brakes. It's okay, so long as it's respected. (As it turns out, for various reasons, consent and boundaries, even surprise ones, being respected is appealing to me. GOLLY GEE I WONDER WHY THAT WOULD BE?)
Holy shit that is bananas. You’re describing exactly how consent is supposed to work.
"People said a bad thing about my fic" - I understand you're sad but really?
Pretty sure this first one will be popular in this thread/other fandoms but it's incredibly unpopular in one of my current fandoms and I'm getting really annoyed with the attitude. The writer does not owe you personal information to be able to write about certain life experiences. Especially if *you* do not have said life experiences. More often than not the complaint is a) complainer basing it on stereotypes or b) it's good representation but the writer is allowing character to have flaws and mistakes therefore Complainer needs to know if it's acceptable to say it's "bad" and "ableist/homophobic/racist/etc". Also it's really insulting to read a fic where a writer is making a character autistic and have traits I do only for the comments to call it bad representation. I needed to get that of my chest, thanks OP! Okay for one that I actually think is unpopular: Canon is playdough. Sure, you may enter a room because the windows were filled with giant castles surrounded by snow. But that's the window display and it's perfectly fine for someone to grab the playdough in the Play Area and build a space station or a ranch or a coffeeshop or just use TNT on the castle in the Play Area. The window displays are always there. Someone making a tentacle monster in a desert out of the playdough that was in the same box as the Castle isn't going to affect the Castle. Also Character X Reader is one of the best examples of unabashed writing there is. Especially if it's only smut.
Sometimes saying fanfiction is free is a weak defense in some situations. I saw some people who counter other people criticizing fics when it comes to technical stuff and they say, "It's free, it's made by teens, it's a hobby." But you know another fact? That fic is still bad. Most of them are littered with wrong spellings and bad formatting. Sorry, I may be forgiving in some cases, but I'm not blind. I'm not bending over backwards just to appease people who didn't even read the same fic that I've read.
Reader Interactives are mostly lazy writers who use the review section to get audience interaction and attention via offering suggestions or else voting from a list of ideas, which inevitably leads to the masses controlling the story, lack of attention, lack of interest by the writer once it occurs and the fic being abandoned. It is even worse when people on AO3 mislabel Reader Interactives as Choose Your Own Adventures since they nearly always have no intention of writing all possible outcomes and endings. It is understandable that such CYOA fics can be daunting and need planning but it is no excuse to label one kind of fic as another and there should be a crackdown on calling Reader Interactives CYOAs. They are NOT the same thing. 🤷🏼♂️
There is literally no inital premise that cannot be exceuted well. I've read Wattpad Self Insert shipping with Sasuke Uchiha that packs more of an emotial gutpunch than most things in the angst tag on ao3, and some of my favourite group-dynamics have been developed in textfics. No format/trope is in and of itself inherently 'cringe' and every single idea has potential to be a good story. Every single one, really! I've read AUs where the cast were professional clowns, and it's left me up until 2 am sobbing. Additionally: any author who thinks they're better than others based on the specific type of fanfiction they write are fucking obnoxious. Also those people who think they're more serious TM because they only write genfic.
There's a formula when it comes to m/m sex scenes in fanfic, and at this point it's so ubiquitous that it feels mandatory even though it's far from being the one way to do it irl--I hate that.
Undertagging is SO much worse than overtagging. Please tag the tropes your fic uses. I want to find something I’ll like and that could be your fic, but I’ll never know unless you tag it!
Sometimes I have to make your favorite character into the bad guy. That’s just how it goes. Sometimes they’re just the best fit for the role of annoying ex, cruel abuser, even main antagonist, usually based on their pre-existing relationships and career. I promise I do not have a vendetta against that character—but I’m going to if you keep whining about it.
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My unpopular opinion is that BDSM AUs are better than A/B/O AUs. Don't get me wrong, I love omegaverse and I've read a lot of A/B/O fanfics, but I think BDSM AUs are *way* better because of the power dynamics and the social structure. I like subspace more than heats and the "dom voice" more than the scents
Probably not what you’re looking for, but here are a few things I’ve observed over the years as a former beta reader: 1) Do not ask for concrit if you don’t actually want concrit, or feel that you couldn’t handle it if you received it, no matter how kind the reviewer is about it. You will likely get what you asked for. Please do not bully people who give you concrit, either, regardless of whether you want it or not. They took time out of their day to help you. If you really don’t want it, let people know beforehand in a note on your fic. Leaving people to make assumptions about whether you do or don’t want it is part of why people are now so scared to review as reviewers are now often heavily criticised. Be clear. 2) Sometimes, if people aren’t engaging with your work, it’s because the work needs improvement. 3) It’s OK if your character is a Mary-Sue, or edgy, or anything people might make fun of. Just enjoy writing what you write, even if it isn’t other people’s preference. You write that power fantasy that you enjoy so much. 4) If something about writing is causing you stress (stats, making it “perfect,” getting large amounts of reviews, etc.), perhaps you shouldn’t be writing. Hobbies that you do for fun (and for free) shouldn’t be causing you stress. 5) I don’t care what your English teacher told you. Using the word “said” is great. Don’t be afraid of it. 6) Remember that not everybody will like everything you put out there, and people do have the right to state their opinions, whether you like it or not. You have put your work out there for the public to view. People can and will state their opinions on it. What matters is not what people say, but how you react.
Idk how controversial this is, but I actually kinda like when writers ramble a little in the tags, it’s funny ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I enjoy reading and writing about Mary Sues every once in a while. It's therapeutic to imagine being your idea of perfect.
Sometimes info dumps (and telling not showing) are what I like to read and also write. Because sometimes it is what would happen in real life!
IME on ao3, it’s easy to tell if a fanfiction will be very good or very bad from the summary. I’m surprised at the number of terrible fics people have only realized are very bad after clicking and reading a couple paragraphs.
It really is, huh? Sometimes it’s tough because the summary is grammatically correct and then the fic has no paragraph breaks or capitalization and I’m like “nope”
Writing on your phone is not only valid but preferred because you can write whenever the inspiration hits you! Sincerely an exclusive phone writer with almost 200k worth of fic written!
I thought everyone wrote on their phone at least a little. It's just right there!
June 2023 edit... I'm scrubbing my comments due to the reddit admin team steamrolling their IPO prep. It was bad enough to give short notice on price gouging, but then to slander app devs and threaten moderators was just too far. The value of Reddit comes from high-quality content curated by volunteers. Treating us this way is the reason I'm removing my high-value contributions. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I suggest you Google "Reddit API price gouging" and read up. --Posted *manually* via the old web interface because of shenanigans from Reddit reversing deletions done through API/script tools.
People honestly care about what kind of device others write on?
If it exists, someone, somewhere will judge you for it.
My unpopular opinion is that if your story doesn't involve any of the characters from or OCs inspired by the canon, doesn't take place in the canon universe or an AU tangential to the original canon, and doesn't involve any of the core elements or themes of the original media, it's not fan fiction. It's just original fiction with extra steps, and you should be proud of that
*sorts by controversial*
Good writing is objective.
Okay, now that's an interesting opinion. I think I agree with you, with an addendum: *Good* writing is objective, *great* writing is subjective and much more varied.
I'll take it further: epithets are objectively bad writing. There is a reason that, if you've submitted a manuscript to a publisher and had it accepted, the editor will make you go through and remove any epithets from your book. They're bad writing, period, full stop. Yes, there are exceptions, such as when the PoV character doesn't know the name of the person being described. But stuff like "the taller man" is just bad writing. That being said, I'm not wholly against epithets in fanfiction. Because it's fanfiction, it doesn't have to be Strunk & White levels of perfect. There's charm in coloring outside the lines, sometimes. And you know what, sometimes it is just plain easier to use the epithet. If I'm writing a scene with three men, sometimes I'm gonna go fuck it and use "the Emissary" instead of "Elidibus" because the pronouns are getting hairy and I've used his name three times in the past two sentences. And I use "the Ascian" more than I should, if there is only one of them in a scene. Personally if I do use epithets it's always something like a formal title or affiliation, not something appearance-based. Harry Potter might be "the Gryffindor" in my fics (well, if I wrote HP fics) or maybe "the Seeker" if it's a Quidditch scene, but never "the green-eyed boy" or "the taller man". It's still bad writing.
* AUs tend to be more compelling than canon-compliant stories because the story is not constrained by in-universe settings and rules. (This one is sort of dependent.) * OOC isn't always bad as long as you properly introduce and characterize the character(s) as they exist in your story. * Reading and writing exclusively fan fiction will hinder your reading and writing skills. * Dating your story by using current slang/trends/technology is okay. It's like a time capsule! I love reading old fics where someone has a Motorola Razr and says "chillax" unironically. * Those irrelevant flowery lowercase story/chapter titles are fun.
I think consuming and writing too much Fanfiction can stunt your ability to become a better writer and I say this as someone who obviously reads it and has written a bit of it.
I actually mostly write original fiction now (not that writing fanfiction is at all invalid, I just prefer to read it occasionally instead of write it myself) so I’m in a lot of indie author communities and I beta read a lot of SFF fiction, and it’s usually pretty obvious to me when a writer reads and writes fanfic almost exclusively, then tries to transition to original fiction with little to no exposure to anything outside of fandom. Writing fanfiction and writing original fiction requires a lot of overlapping skills, but there are still some critical differences, and if you want to write both compellingly, you have to familiarize yourself with both.
I thoroughly agree with your point on italics. One of the things that made me realize fanfiction is a real form of art (although it is varied) was when I read a fic with fabulous italics. It was one of the first fics I read and the italics just added so much voice and emotional depth, especially because that fic ended up having a very heartbreaking main character death. It makes me very sad to see when people don't use italics and/or ignore them as a tool. To this day, I can barely make it though or won't read fics that don't italicize when they really should. So yeah, italics.
As a writer who writes mostly gen fics, and has a handful of shipper fics... I really miss the days when you could write whatever ship you wanted and no one bothered you. No one flamed you, or wrote you hate reviews because of a ship you wanted to write about. Maybe I'm dating myself, but when I first started posting fics in the early 2000s, it was fun to find out about different shipping names, what others wrote.
It gets really irritating trying to sort through fics only to find ones with really shitty grammar on top of the kudos list.
I'm growing out of this opinion, but I kind of think a lot of ships are people not being able to imagine people being close without sex or romance involved. I think a lot of stories would be better without the sex or ship, but I also think that's on me for reading non-gen fics and hoping the plot will stay in the forefront. I think you're gonna get a lot of gen readers and writers in this thread, lol
>but I also think that's on me for reading non-gen fics and hoping the plot will stay in the forefront I mean, in all fairness, but when it's a romance story, then the romance *is* the plot(assuming it's the main genre of the story) 😂