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In my time here, I’ve seen very few instances of severe trolling or flaming. I really believe it occurs in certain subdomains more than others (and in some not at all) and generally revolves around someone daring to write something other than the OTP of the reader, or in some way bashing (or failing to bash) a specific character. Think Weasley-bashing in the harry Potter subdomain, or the fixation on Sasuke cuckolding Naruto in that subdomain. Aside from those instances, the flaming and trolling has been minimal here, maybe because we tend to moderate actively and we deal with flamers and trolls quickly. We do have limitations here that other sites don’t have, such as not allowing authors to reply to review on their review board, but one advantage to our forums is that only the author needs to be a member to create a review reply thread. Non-members can read and reply freely, and we’ve completely fine with including the url to your review reply thread in the story. I sometimes include it as a footnote AN, just a quick lime letting readers know (right above that handy link) that I do like reviews, so please drop me a line. I do allow anonymous reviews, and I’ve never really regretted doing so, even given that I’m sure to piss people off on a regular basis as a moderator who might have warned their story or even hidden it. But concrit? Good solid concrit is my favorite thing in the world, and I still haven’t forgiven Shadowknight12 for vanishing and not leaving me his wonderful, and very useful concrit. Snarky paladins aren’t what they used to be, that’s for damned sure.

Hey there, I’m curious how other writers develop their ideas into a full story. What is your process? When I was a teenager, I was daydreaming all the time and stories ran though my mind like films non-stop. I could only write via computer or typewriter because handwriting was too “slow”. One of my favorite instruments was a handheld word processor that I got from a library (does anyone remember those?). I didn’t have access to a computer unless I went to a public library, so often times a story would be stewing in my head for weeks and when I finally had a keyboard in front of me it would spill out in one go – then the editing process could begin with a wealth of material. When I have access to a computer to write whenever I wanted, I barely wrote at all. I realized a story must sit in my head for a long time before I can write it. I can’t write character sheets or outlines or summaries, otherwise the story dies. It seems like everyone is going to have a different method to get their ideas out. It’d be interesting to hear how your methods developed over time or how you discovered them!

When I started my potter fic many years ago, I did make some notes, etc, including “behind the scenes” shorts to the other side. Now that I’ve decided to restart that story, fifteen years later, I’ve been finding those notes useful, invaluable actually, in restarting it with some consistency. Overall, if it’s important to the story, or good backstory, I do write it down, either on paper, or in the computer. I even have a database for my original works. Another invaluable file I have, from years ago, is a spreadsheet for the potter story. Given its size, I had columns for each of the major/significant charactors, a row per day of the story, and for those interesting days, a thing or two about what was happening – useful, very useful, to refer to. (And, now that I’m revising, I’ve got some of the older drafts too.) As to writing the story itself, words definitely flow more easily at a keyboard, especially if I’ve got “inspirational pictures” up onthe rest of the computer monitor. Now, I don’t start with a comprehensive story outline….NO! I will write any key scenes, have a rough idea, and refine it as I write. So, this next section to the current chapter I’m working on, yesterday, I came up with a few points to write to, so I give one sentence snippets, and I’ll likely write to those goals as I work tonight/tomorrow at it. Any “later” ideas that I don’t have a spot yet, will loiter as one-liners in the rough order I intend, until I reach them.

Honestly, I wasn’t hoping for an apology. I’m really glad I read it and I like experiencing emotions! /* (I swear, I am not just a poorly programmed AI.) (Honest!) */

For Indigo: First of all, thank you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This has always been a favorite of mine, maybe because it does tug a bit at one’s feelings. I was deliberately vague about what precisely was wrong with her, although the consensus seems to be dementia, and I won’t say it’s not. And you did actually catch the paradox of their lovemaking—for him it’s most definitely a bid to recapture their old intimacy, while she is merely trying to cling to what she remembers of their past. I won’t apologize for the feels, however. It means I did my job as a writer, because I was able to coax forth that reaction, and I’m pleased I pulled it off. But thank you, again, for the read and the review.

Bawk!

I remember those word processers. My parents hHad a similar one in the house until we got our 486 PC in about ‘94/95, and then it probably went into a cupboard or classified ad. With my shorter flashfics up to 1000 words I often just have a rough idea, or a bit of word play, or a shit joke, and start typing to see what happens. Sometimes something pretty good happens. Other times it’s a load of horse cock. With my longer stories I’ve tended to come up with as many ideas and concepts to use, type ‘em in a text file, and then try and get them into a rough chapter plan order to work out how I’m going to do it, the plan will often include turns of phrase I’ve thought up to use. The plan will also sometimes get mixed around a bit with things being moved to other chapters or deleted. My current story plan is messed up a bit because I’ve found I can’t fit everything I wanted in part 3, so I’m rejigging part 4 and so on. Even with all that I sometimes have a really hard time getting things down as they are in my head. I sometimes sit here for minutes trying to find the right frigging word that’s on the tip of my tongue – sometimes I try and google for it. I don’t have any character sheets either, which probably means I’ll contradict the shit out of myself one of these days. Another thing with me was I did a lot of request stories for other people, and for some of those they had a paragraph or two about what they wanted to see so that part of the work was already done, in a way. To take an example from the forum – If I did one of T_B’s requests, say. These usually have a plot outline, a few details of characters to be included, and indicate the main fetish or fetishes involved. All I’d be doing there would be hanging the descriptions and whatever perversity occurs to me off that skeleton, and crediting T_B for it. I guess with requests like that, it’s like someone’s dug down three feet by six and you the author just have to dig another three by six. Sometimes it could be difficult because I’d say to the requester, “What about if X does Y?” and they’d say that they would never know arousal again, you monster, Harry would never felch Amelia, but otherwise it’s basically easier developing someone else’s story idea with those.

Hm – I have to challenge this a little bit. It does create another barrier because in order to leave a review, a person without an account must sign up for one, log in, find the story again, and then leave a review. That is a lot to ask for someone that might not be in the habit of reviewing fiction. I’ve only had two reviews, and for one of them, I am sure the person created an account just to leave the review. They have no work on AFF, and created the account the day they left the review. That is impressive to me that they went to the trouble – of course, I have no way to thank them except via the review thread on the forum, but who knows if they would even know to look for that or see it. I would need to advertise within the text of the document, which I didn’t quite understand for posting a first story. We are all sort of working against the limitations of the website (no fault there, just maintaining this database on a shoe-string budget is impressive). Anyway, I realized most of the dragon prints are likely from people without accounts and no desire to sign up for one. I don’t judge them for that. More on topic: Lack of feedback means I’ll keep doing how I do. It doesn’t de-motivate me not to get it, but skilled, constructive feedback would likely improve my writing. However, I have no expectations that I should get such feedback unless I hire an editor or get a beta reader.

“You know, I guess one person CAN make a difference. Nuff said.” RIP Stan Lee

This is Canada, DP. Our angry mobs favour the hockey stick.

There’s a very strange correlation I’ve noticed over the years when it comes to reading on a free archive. Unless you make it almost stupidly easy and nearly unavoidable to leave feedback, readers won’t bother. I’m going to hazard a few guesses as to why. First, I think most readers don’t really know what sort of feedback to leave. They see writers grumbling about the “Loved it! Write more!” reviews which don’t offer the writer a clue as to what the reader loved about a story, or chapter, but at least affirm someone read it and liked it. Second, it could be where and/or when the reader is reading your work. On the way to work? Right before bed? Maybe it’s not a good time to leave a comment, and the reader plans to come back later and review, and… I am personally guilty of this one. Third, the Review [insert story name] link is at the bottom of each chapter, but it’s small, and easily missed. It’s also frequently confused with the Report Story link, as I can attest based on the number of reviews I get in the guise of abuse reports. And yes, I do ask the reporter to leave the comment as a review for the author, but I can’t do it myself, sadly. And finally, people like quick buttons. The “Like” buttons on FB and Twitter have conditioned people to want to be able to just leave that instant feedback. It’s fast and requires no thought. We had a ratings feature here, but because it was scaled, it was abused more often than it should have been by readers voting down a story because it wasn’t the One True Ship, or other nonsense. I personally would be fine with a button which only records a “like” or “recommend” on a story. If you don’t like it, there’s no option for abuse. You simply don’t click. One factor I don’t think really matters is the notion of allowing anonymous reviews. It’s an account-wide choice here, so you can’t cherry-pick which stories on which to allow anon reviews. Allowing them opens you to trolls and flamers, and disallowing them discourages readers who aren’t logged in, or who might not even have archive profiles. But I think it is probably the least relevant factor in getting feedback.

I’m going to be the fly in the ointment here, and comment on the notion of skipping an editor when self publishing. Unless you are supremely confident you can catch POV shifts, and have buttoned every thread up, unless you know you haven’t slipped in the chronology, and events take place in a reasonable/explainable span of time, unless you are self-aware enough to pick up on repetitive phrasing and overuse of certain words and phrases, you need an editor. (I tend to be vague about time lapses, and I’m insanely obstinate about abusing certain words myself. I try to make it up to my editor by being quick to turn around the comments, and not whine a lot about the work I need to do to fix my mess. ) I like to check out new authors, and I do a lot of poking about on blogs and review sites, where I can see a bit of an excerpt. I might be captured by a summary, but when I read the excerpt, if I hit that wall because even in those roughly 500 words I encounter sloppy editing, I don’t buy that book. Why? Because sometimes the poor editing is enough to take me out of the story, and I wind up wanting to leave the author a review begging them to pull the book, and have it edited as a mercy to readers. I’m far less forgiving when I’m asked to pay for work that hasn’t seen a beta reader, much less an editor and proofreader. It’s unprofessional, and it’s sloppy to put a book out there, ask for my money, and give me something that looks like a first draft of a manuscript. I can read better here for free, thank you. The preponderance of us in this thread write original work, which is why I’m sort of focusing on this. Self publishing is not a bad thing, but having a bad review or sharp concrit here is one thing. Having it happen on Amazon is crushing for authors who could be really good, with some editing and polishing.

Definitely! I’d say that not getting feedback will affect not only ur motivation but ur writing skills too. If u don’t get constructive feedback you will never know if u did anything wrong or if u overlooked something or how to improve. I have to say that getting a beta improved my writing skills a ton! (thanks clovey and tcr) Not only cuz they fixed ma shit but they pointed out my mistakes and I could learn from them. But yeah not getting any feedback has done a number on my motivation and I am no longer in any rush to finish any of my work or post it. I thought about the hook in my 1st chapter but I have to say I think it is sufficient enough for the story itself. The only other option would be changing the story which is the road I refuse to travel down. It’s not worth it for me. The only advice I can give is check out if the summary and the hook in ur 1st chapter is sufficient I gotta say it’s really sad that a lot of readers just don’t care enough to leave reviews. I’m was often guilty of this myself but now I try to be more active with stories I really like.

I actually changed a story I was publishing because my editor thought it needed some things to make it more, I don’t know, appealing, or relevant, or engaging. I forget the word exactly. But the changes never felt right to me, and now that the book’s been accepted for republication, I went back and deleted all the stuff I added at that editor’s urging. The thing is, I never really got feedback from readers non this book, so I have no real idea if they liked those bits or hated them, but I’m much happier with the manuscript without them, so… I’m taking a deep breath and going with my gut.