Leaderboard

Have just noticed that when the program was run (or however it worked!) to move tags from the old place in summary box to the new place in their own box, it moved all my “MCD” tags as “MC” and left the D behind. This isn’t the first time I’ve unexpectedly had the D in the wrong place. I’ll get ‘em updated in a few days as very busy today, and apologies to any searching MC fans who hate character death.

I think “biopsy” needs some tags here: [BDSM] [Torture] [Violence] [Gore] [MCD/MiCD] & [Nec] (where that second to the last one depends on the ego of the doctor) Without the internet, I likely wouldn’t be an author as I wouldn’t have discovered fanfic nor would I desired to continue a particular story, and so forth, leading to today where I’ve got (some) confidence because I’ve posted and gotten feedback. Some criticism is definitely *good*, obviously, don’t bludgeon the writer to death with it. If you find a story you otherwise like (premise, setting, etc) and something gets in the way, the author would certainly like to know why. Perhaps it’s fixable (spelling, grammar, some details/construct) or not (ie, premise), but the author can sort that out. Editing, I’ve found, is double edged, you can do a bit to improve, or overdo it and ruin the underlying story; even a rotten editor can certainly get you to butcher an otherwise good story if you’re not careful. I’ve started to relax a bit on the amount of proofreading/editing I’ll do for posting on AFF, figuring that I’d do it more seriously if I publish – the Repair Guy was an experiment there, doing one pass and trying to keep myself to one pass of reading it over, and overall, I’m happy with how the story turned out. Now Jefferey, which I started to “revise/edit” as a means to get myself back into it so I could continue the story, ended up adding 11 new episodes to the story (so far) that weren’t there in the original draft.

With the introduction of the internet, the availability of feedback for new writers and the promise of anonymity creates a lot more opportunities for someone that might not otherwise develop the skill. However, in itself it becomes a vacuum with the blind leading the blind. Betas isn’t a bad idea. I worry about giving critical feedback (for one, what do I know), and worry about how some people will take it. Criticism is very helpful to me, even if it presses out the ego juices. The editing process is so important, too – indispensable. I enjoy the editing process more than the writing sometimes, because after the story dump is finished, I have some boundaries to work within (I think that is what attracts me to writing fanfiction, too). I can improve, expand, and tighten a story to have a better impact rather than free-fall into it. I hope the results of your biopsy are ok, for whatever reason you needed one!

Still be nice about it I get so little feedback that I’m not sure if my writing’s really any good or not. What @CL Mustafic did ages ago, helped, in a review, she offered to read over and provide criticisms to my stories (until she got too busy to do it) – so that’s another way you can give help if you like the story enough, but the grammar/flow/etc is getting in the way.

Editing/betaing is a topic I could discuss for hours. I won’t, though, because I don’t want to hijack the thread. I’m happy you enjoy it. Like ridiculously happy. My favourite people to beta for are the ones who are eager to learn whether or not they take my suggestions. Giving feedback is an art form too, and helpful critiques are not always appropriate. I very rarely give critiques, even sugar coated ones, to people who didn’t ask for it. Like when I review random chapters on AFF, I usually bite my tongue and only put the positive things. Sometimes the best way you can help a struggling writer getting little-to-no attention is to give their ego a boost, and theeeen you can worry about helping them with their issues (if you want to take that on). Let them feel some love and positivity. Let them feel like writing is worth the deafening silences and that someone out there is listening. That will help their passion grow, and when people are passionate about something, they evolve. Some very well-meaning critical feedback can be crushing to someone whose confidence is already shaken and can do more damage than good. I’ve had arguments about this with other betas, but I’m the Queen Beta, so listen to me, not them. But if you’re reviewing someone like @Desiderius Price who has explicitly stated they welcome critical feedback, the gloves very nicely come off. I think it’s still important to not be a dick about it.

Biopsy doesn’t sound fun, kinda like they biopsied the patient and left a toe in change.

There was a profound difference between fanfic #1 and fanfic #2, and I think the writing’s gotten generally better since then (even if there’s been a detour or two through terrible ideas).

There’s nuances when translating, and while Google can get close enough to make sense, it’s way better if the author’s fluent in both languages to simply provide both, since they know their intent better than anybody else (or at least, should know it better).

Oh, the story itself is in English, as is the story’s title itself, and the summary. It’s only the chapter titles.

What Clover said! But really, fan fiction is a terrific way to hone writing skills. The world building and basic character development is done, and you just get to put your own slant on things. Sharing that online brings valuable feedback and yes, the chance to talk to other writers.

My writing has absolutely evolved. A few things factor into it. I very much credit my years in fanfiction as a powerful foundation. Though my writing sucked back then, it was an excellent training ground for character development and crafting interesting stories using elements everyone involved was already familiar with. Also formal education played a part. I'm a high school drop out but I went out of my way to teach myself as well as seek out others who could teach me: take classes, read writing books, write essays and long discussions with my english professor mother. Plus there's the natural improvement that happens just online from writing a lot and communicating with other writers that I 100% believe has the biggest impact out of all the things I just mentioned.

Me? With fear, loathing and the occasional chuckle at a forgotten joke that came out quite well when I look at it again. Also trying to work out what the hell kind of obscure reference a name was likely referring to or punning on. Sometimes I think “hey this wasn’t so bad” and sometimes I think “Eh, s’ok.” With my re-writes of some of my old stories there are bits I’ve felt should have been expanded on more than in the original, so expanded ‘em, and also bits I’ve felt were needlessly mean spirited (in rape/snuff fics! It took some doing!) almost as if I 2007/2008 me was trying to provoke non-perverts who probably were not even reading rather than entertain peverts who were. Long time ago now. If you do go back you can certainly make something worthwhile out of the half-finished, or take scraps and turn them into something new. Good luck if you do! I really don’t remember everything I wrote at all. Sometimes someone says something to me about something I wrote or an old story and I’m like “Really? Ok!” When I had a review on an old original oneshot recently I had literally forgotten everything about it except that I had thought it was terrible at the time, and why I wrote it, and I finally re-read it after the review. Sympathy for the reviewer there. Another thing, reminded by your home-brew experience, a few weeks back I was looking at an old file full of bios and scenery descriptions I wrote for a non-erotic play by email type RPG game in like 2000-2001. Some of those characters were pretty engaging! At least one is like a proto-Kizurial with an alcohol problem.

Ahh, well to be fair in 2007 or whenever I originally uploaded it streaming was still in its infancy even for porn and broadband still not as widespread. A lot better than downloading 30 second clips on dial up though I guess! He just said it would be through the power of love, as I recall. Probably something like the kid from Captain Planet with the power of Heart, backed up by Hughie Lewis. Anyway Eparlegna got bested by a human champion at the end so no doubt someone could write a story where his magic got overruled too – my policy whenever anyone asked to write something based on my stuff was “Sure!” I remember getting one review about six-seven years later along the lines of “I’ve been enjoying this story for years and I only just got Eparlegna’s name.” It’s never too late! I absolutely understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Lotta weirdo stalkers out there don’t though and some of the feedback I got on my celebrity stories was pretty worrying. I’ve said it before but for me I guess the overriding factor today is pretty much that it is so so easy on the modern internet for someone to show the celebrity of their family/friends the story featuring them as a person. It’s nowhere near as bad if, say, it’s “This is the story about me holding hands with X!” but I find thinking about how they might react to “This is my story about raping the shit out of X.” when it’s something I wrote unpleasant, and feel for them too. I think there’s a degree removed with portrayed characters – I’d even argue a number of, say pro-wrestling stories could easily go in TV rather than celeb because shockingly Papa Shango had no magical powers so any story about him with magic is based on the character rather than the wrassler. Another factor is that there was an obscenity trial in my jurisdiction that only happened because the writer wrote celebrity fanfic – they weren’t convicted or anything, but it still fucked their life up. Plus, you know, I am a big ol’ hypocrite myself. That helps with decisions on content I read and write and while I don't read or write celeb fics now, I don’t critise folks for writing it or go around leaving flames or whatevers. While there is an absolute shitload of Harry Potter works, there’s also a load of fans, many of whom seem eager to read anything in the setting. I literally have an unfinished one chapter scat fic with near 20K hits and 3 reviews. I did a necro story with a rampaging sex dwarf in one part and got 31K hits and 16 reviews.16! Big numbers for me. These are niche topics. You get into something popular like harems and you’ll be beating off the fans with a broomstick. You might even hear some readers beating themselves off with a broomstick. Swinging back round onto topic, you’re pretty much guaranteed they won’t go unreviewed! I don’t know much about the Amazon market so cannot comment there – there’s a few users who have followed the road of AFF originals to Amazon or other epublishers and do make a bit of a go on it though, that could be a topic for another thread if it isn’t one already! I know there’s some pretty extreme stuff on there (Black Melt by Indy McDaniel comes to mind) but I dunno how much money it makes tbh compared to the tamer stuff. Good luck with whichever path you take and if I am around and on here I’ll absolutely take a look!

I’m glad. Writing an alternate ending was an interesting experience for me.

Oh, you know there is. Dipper ain’t done with her yet.

Thank you! It’s not actually over, though; it’s just taking me a while to write the next chapter.

Glad you’re enjoying “Multiversity.” I’ve been a bit stuck on that one since chapter 8, but I recently had a discussion with my friend and collaborator Eh Steve that I think will help me with the next couple of chapters.