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Just as a heads-up for all our members and guests, we’ve been getting a number of dubious posts lately on the forum. We’re removing the posts, of course, but we don’t always get to them instantly. PLEASE exercise caution, and don’t click on any links you see in these posts. Trust me, there’s nothing good waiting for you at the other end. Practice safe surfing, okay?

For October, I’ve been quietly rolling out small bug fixes, most are just performance based. Two user side ones -Site based e-mails are now fixed (turns out this was not a code based bug, fixed as of this post) - Bold text has returned to stories. DG is going to be doing some proofreading and squishing typo gremlins.

We’re also banning the spam IPs, as fast as we can

Story info editing has been fixed.

Not exactly a fandom but a book. I won’t read it. I live on my own these days and nobody makes the long trip up the hill to visit anymore so I have a pretty good idea what I’ve got in the house, and I know for a fact I did not buy that book. I certainly didn’t borrow it from the library. (They are good people there, the librarians, dedicated, and they have standards even in these days when their power and their glory is unknowingly ignored by so many). Sometimes it’s on the shelf. Sometimes it’s on the table. I’ve seen it in the kitchen cupboard and I found it in the attic when I went to investigate the noise (a swallow had got in, and driven to panic by the tome wished to get out. I helped it. Of course I did. I’m no monster no matter what the villagers said). The cover has a nice blue, though the face that gazes from it is not appealing and speaks of an unhealthy appetite, of wealth gained too young. The pages rifle pleasingly in the breeze, even in a still room. I don’t care. Offer me what you may. Tempt me, taunt me. I can’t be bought, or broken. The line is drawn, underlined, surrounded by unevenly doodled pentagrams, in both black, and in red. I’m never gonna fucking read "May I Have Your Attention Please?" the autobiography of James Corden. This I swear by the old gods, the new, and those yet to come.

It doesn't sound like a problem to me. In my experience, people care about the consistency of characters, more than anything else. As long as you retain the consistency of your characters, there should be few, if any, objections about the path they follow and it's outcome. Of course, people would have a problem with a path or ending, that seems out of line with what is considered reasonable for the world in which your story takes place. But that really goes without saying, usually. So, if the ending is one that you believe your characters would naturally arrive at, then that ending should be fine.

Apotheosis One women decides to go all in on Christmas Eve. Ascension is an all or nothing game. Succeed and the godhood is thine… Fail and being utterly erased from existence Tags: Pending

Everyone is welcome to the winter festivies

Ay Yo! Beat me to it lol.

Quotation marks and parentheses will stay disabled in those for the time being due to site security. Colon and semicolon I'll try to enable this weekend. Also you can minic " with '' if need be.

@GeorgeGlass could you check if you can edit other fields? It will help narrow down wherr to look for the bug.

Yeah, I just had 3 different things happen at the same time and it was extremely frustrating. There are a couple weird things in the past few weeks. If I could post under my own profile, I would have posted that way. But for whatever reason I don’t have that here. But I’m not necessarily as upset about that. I just needed a place to say it where I wouldn’t get problems.

Whatever it is, it's really gnawing at my obsessive side. >.> It seems that the problem only happens to things that are edited. But whatever is added in the very first instance, seems to work properly. Anyone who wants to have a clean description or tags, be sure to make the first post count.

Honestly, I think we’re WAY beyond that point by now… I think they’re in the fucking software… they’re in the fucking closet, trying on our heels, sparkly dresses and our favourite lipstick at this point.

Guessing that’s what caused the issues in the first place!

You know the old adage: “Do not invoke that which you cannot banish.”

Don’t we have a whole bunch of writers who are obsessed with gremlins and other magical creatures that cause chaos? Maybe they have some kind of magic spell?

I am so in accordance with this. All of this. (Except the living on my own, which is something I aspire to with all my heart.)

This is more of an issue for me on the reader side of things. There was a story I was curious about which I kinda wanted to read but the formatting of the first couple chapters is off. I looked at some of the later chapters and they seem to fix it later but I’m a little put off by the first several chapters. Would it be considered bad of me to point this out to the author? I feel it’s probably better to do one on one but I’m not sure how to go about doing that. Rather than get a moderator or admin involved in it directly. I could write a review but that feels too public and somewhat mean.

Hello, sorry, it’s still me, I have a problem: I posted my fic but although i select S through Z ‘YOU’ it appears in ‘1 through F’ why??? I already tried to fix it twice.. should I delete it? I don’t want it to appear in the wrong section, sorry! edit: it seems the problem is fixed now, sorry for annoying you!

If the author has a forum account as well as an archive account, you could PM them. Otherwise, unless they've put an email address or something in their profile, a review might be your only recourse. If it were me, I'd be glad for someone to point out a problem like that, even in a review. Remember, the author can always delete the review if they take offense -- or after they have fixed the problem you pointed out.

My take is that brilliant non-linear stories you here talk about get their fame from being good despite not being linear. A possible comparison is the Westworld tv-show season 1 that had a big reveal when you realized what you had been watching. In season 2 they wanted to repeat the trick and made things just as non-linear and in the end it was barely watchable. I have avoided the later seasons like plague. My point is that for every successful non-linear storytelling there are many more trainwreck attempts. Doing non-linear storytelling that manage to capture the reader is seriously difficult.

For the most part, yes. There are a few places where things transition from one room to another or other things. So in theory it works as a transition point.

On the practical side, I’d suggest against super long chapters too. I’ve tried that on my potter fanfic years ago, reorganized/rewrote thinking it was a “good thing” with my highest being like 107k… nope! Not only did I lose some details in that consolidation, I also lost focus to the chapter too. Small details/scenes were now one/two sentences in basically a wall of text. (Which it became as FFN.net somehow seemingly lost all my carriage returns, so it was one big “blob”; and a fast re-insert of them is how I uncovered FFN’s new 65k max per chapter limit.) I’m still pulling that 107k old chapter apart right now with my “rewrite” … though I’ve now got at least 121 in its place, which is probably close to 1M words itself as I now hover around the 6-7k words per chapter average, and if the chapter nears the 10kword mark, I seek to break it up. Even in my Jefferey episodic story, I’ll effectively do “part 1” and “part 2”.

Fanfiction *is* a spot to experiment with writing, so try it out, and see if it works!

Another idea, maybe this is what you’re going for. First chapter is a scene of that party (or whatever it is), with your last lines being “This is their stories.” And your next chapter be like “A year before that party, the awkward Name was sitting in the library.” Making it abundantly clear to the (typical) reader what you’re up to here, because as you noted, readers generally expect chronological (or near chronological) order.

It’s still backstory if it’s “for context.” Maybe better done as separate oneshots, or an episodic serial? Out-of-order is going to confuse the reader IMO, (and in my case, myself too.) This is especially true if there’s something where a character dies, and now you’re talking if they’re alive. Another slight exception here is when I’m doing multiple POVs, so I want to cover character “A” in a dedicated chapter, and “B” in the next (but, the events should be sufficiently disassociated/separate for that to make sense). To me, the strong “out-of-order” means there’s a structural issue to the story, maybe you’re starting in the wrong spot/incident? Hope I’m making sense here.

Simple, have a quick conversation chapter one of the sequel. “Where’s Joe?” “Six years in prison, because when they say NO PARKING, the really mean NO PARKING.” or “Got transferred to far, far, away.” or “He learned why there’s safety bars on woodchippers. Coroner estimated they recovered 60% of the remains.” And if you want the villain to be a surprise, have his whereabouts accounted/dismissed for in this conversation too.

I’m not exactly a master author myself, but that said my advice is that to get everything across you need depth. For that, you need more than just 1 chapter. Which, unfortunately for you, means more work.

I think a lot depends on the relationship status of everyone involved.

Feeling jolly? No? Well let’s fix that, shall we? Welcome to AFF’s 2024 Winter Holiday party! Contributions to this festive anthology must be: A complete oneshot (less than 45k words) Original fiction Holiday themed (any December-ish holiday: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, you name it) Tagged with all applicable warnings at the top of the story So grab a hot beverage and anything with a keyboard, and let’s story-party! https://original.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600110499

Ah, okay. Well, I’m glad you’re using the medium of fanfic to take the story in a direction that the show probably won’t.

As it is New Year’s Eve, I’ll get a review for one of the holiday party stories up tonight. Unfortunately, I’ll have to delay reviewing InvidiaRed’s story, because as it’s part of the Holiday Canon, I need to go back and look at last year’s Christmas story before I can read this one. It may not be required reading exactly, but it can be kind of hard to read these things out of order.

And, it’s up! A Fairy Merry Christmas: When the Tooth Fairy retires, the Fairy Council decides against passing the torch to her hard-drinking slacker daughter, Beagan. But they have to give Beagan SOME kind of job, so now she will learn what being a “maturation fairy” is all about. Tags: NoSex, TF, Holiday

I think I messed up; I now dimly recall that you’re not supposed to put the story in the archive until there’s at least 1 actual story to put in it. So @Deadman, if your piece will work at all as a standalone story, I say go for it.

Hmm, I almost want to post my story here even though it’s not totally finished just for the heck of it. Mainly because it has Santa in it. I am on Chapter 6 of an 11 part and the first part does focus on Christmas.

44469 Woo, finally I got me some 69!

Apostrophe… it’s ASCII number is 39.

@GeorgeGlass what sort of punctuation? The filter code is pretty strict in order to stop malicious stuff.

That’s exactly right, BW. You can only be logged in on ONE device at a time.

I don't know... I think Deadman 'really fell off' as they say... I'm kidding of course; Just remember you aren't beholden to anyone when it comes to your own life. Hope you feel better later.

The harvests of fall are grand indeed crowned by autumnal hues! Life is to be celebrated, the harvest bounty to be shared wealth is more than glittering gold Strangers to thy hearth can be more than they appear. Come All, Come One to the communal festival! One Shots Under 50K Include all appropriate tags at the beginning of the story Horror/ Halloween theme Original Fiction As we give thanks for the fruit of our labors! The Hearth is warm, the fire bright, the shadows long and dancing. The night yet bequeath welcome tender veils with hint of winter’s delight Eat. Drink and be Merry! For oft the horrors of day, surpass the crimes hidden by starlight.

Thank you.

Like I said, I sometimes use it for emphasis, mainly when the text is already italicized (eg, because it’s a character’s thoughts). Also, chapter titles.

Hi, Deadman. GeorgeGlass would have no choice but to switch bold to ALL CAPS text. Using an “all-caps font” would see the font stripped and substituted for whatever font is actually used. Capital A is unicode 0041. Lowercase a is unicode 0061. So, the “lower case a that is a capital A in font x” will go back to a lowercase a. Thanks.

Should we be worried that the Gremlins might get into the wires and eats the connections?

More gremlins. I’ve tried to edit that myself, and even I can’t fix it.

Just a reminder for our guest alliremember: You can criticize writing technique, or even a total lack of logic in a story, but remarks about the author on a personal basis violate our Terms of Service. Keep it less toasty, please, unless you’re willing to bring enough marshmallows for everyone.

Magic does have consequences I suppose.

I wish there was a workaround. Unfortunately, no one’s found one yet, so we have to wait for whatever coding gremlins have infested the archive to be properly banished (which is impossible when a corgi decides we’re supposed to give her all our supper).