Leaderboard

Anon reviews are disabled for site security. After 4 months in read only, we did not want to leave any opening for another round of injection attacks.

Curious about how many stories you’re writing and/or posting. I have a few stories that are WIP and I’ve been posting some of it. I also have a few stories that are finished. Wondering how many you try to post at one time? How often do you post as well?

I’m not an English major, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express recently, and my verbal SAT score was… maybe it reached average, if that? I’ll try something, fumble, and learn from it (well, more often than not). My first story/fanfic was written in 2-3 months at the start of my writing habit (two decades ago!), and while style improved, it’s ALL in present tense. It wasn’t until I was a fair way into the sequel a month or two later that I understood the (major) pitfalls and decided to switch to past tense. (POV’s messed up too.) Now that the sequel has passed the million word mark, rewriting into present/future tense would be murder.

At the start of WIP, I generally bank up a few chapters/episodes to make sure the story idea’s decent. But after that, I’ll usually post when the chapter’s ready to be posted.

I’ve been mixed on the anonymous review capability. On one hand, its one less hurdle for a reader to actually submit a review. On the other, a forced sign-in-to-review at least makes sure said reader has to attach an account to the review which helps keep the vitriol ones away.

Funny enough, I’m at four posted WIPs too. 1) My potter fanfic, 2) Jefferey, which is backstory to 3) Dolbourne Chronicles, which is backstory to 4) Fiends, which is, itself, backstory to the initial (unpublished) smutty oneshot. Got some dabblings on the sequel to Demons, another one focusing on Kent after he departs 2) and rejoins the narrative later. That ignores the software I’m writing at the same time to help keep all those details ORGANIZED!

I try not to have more than about 4 different partially posted stories going at the same time, because I don’t want to keep the readers of any given story waiting ages while I work on the others. In fact, the only reason I make the limit as high as 4 is that, with my ADHD writing style, I usually have at least some of every chapter of a story already written by the time I finish and post chapter 1. I also limit myself to having no more than 20 stories in the writing stage at any given time. Only when I finish a story do I allow myself to take a new one out of my Ideas file and start writing it.

Past tense is the more popular one when it comes to story writing. While present tense is slightly more “immediate” to the engagement, past tense is way easier to be consistent when you’ve got multiple POVs that you’re exploring. (A challenge would be to write a story completely in future tense ) A short while ago, I had to reformat the first chapter to my first fanfic (as I was checking its reviews, I noticed that website, that shall-not-be-named, had deleted/lost newlines leaving a big ugly blob of text). Still, that left it as a wall of “Harry says… Lupin says… Dumbledore says… Ron says…” dialogue – I’d like to think my writing’s improved these last two decades! I do use a lot of dialogue, a bit more description than writing of old – hints to wardrobes, weather, the environment, etc. Your blurb… “I really shouldn’t...” She mulled it over. “Maybe it’d be better if—“ But yep, you can mix in action with dialogue… Don’t go overboard, should be light. If it’s heavy, new paragraph. So, this would be too much: “I really shouldn’t...” She pulled the trigger, he squirmed in agony as he convulsed, the life drained from him. “Maybe it’d be better if—“ So more of… “I really shouldn’t.” She brandished the semiautomatic. “Maybe it’d be better if—“ She pulled the trigger. Also, that short action paragraph can break up a wall of dialogue too. Obviously, writing’s an art form, no true right or wrong, unless it descends into revoltingly bad—even that can be occasionally justified

I can understand that. I have done some writing in Third POV, though I tend to go more omniscient in those stories to showcase as many points of views as I can. But the thing that I enjoy about First POV is that the reader can imagine themselves in that scenario. It’s actually part of how I got into writing in the first place. I used to imagine what I would do in whatever scenario the character was in and write that. So I feel like there’s more emotional connection people can get through a First POV situation.

Right now, I’m typically jumping between two, as the mood strikes. The potter fanfic, and the Jefferey story. (And the Jefferey story mostly because I need to get it to the point to support my other originals.)

TBH, I’m a foreigner to screenplays. In stories, I’ve found that past tense flows & reads easier, and first person POV makes head-hopping confusing, even if I qualify who “I” is for a chapter/scene. Thus, my writing style is now generally past tense & third-person (limited) POV—treating that person as the “camera” to the scene/action.

See, I don’t really get the need for past tense. Partly that might be because I’ve written some screenplays, nothing that’s been made, but in that format you’re supposed to be writing in the present tense because it’s about taking whoever the reader is along. As if it’s happening in real time. Which made the fact that I wrote in First POV when it comes to fanfic an easy transition to screenplays. I try to limit myself to writing only one story at a time, but more recently it’s been difficult. I have chapters in the 10k words or more category so I focus pretty much entirely on that one story before switching to another story. However, now I’m working on a story where one has over 10k words, but the other each chapter is only around 1,000 if that. So it’s a little weird to be shifting and realizing I don’t need a 30 page story to play out. That being said, I have a bunch of story ideas piling up in the 10k or more category that just keeps getting longer. I have about 6 different fandoms I want to cover all with multiple chapters that are going to be in the 10k words per chapter range. Part of me just wants to start in on them but I gotta be disciplined.

Hi, Desiderius Price. “Sweating it” would be excessive to describe my concern. And, “lowering the bar” too much would only serve to wear out my “delete” key. Just the same, giving the (potential) reader one less excuse to comment would be nice, if the genuine trash-typers and Cheap-Ass Rat B?????d hackers could be kept from causing excessive trouble.

Hello, Deadman, Desiderius Price, and all. How many stories do I have going at the same time? Hmmm… I don’t abandon anything. However I have a few stories under my other pen-name that haven’t seen attention in a long time. Under this pen-name, I have three WIPs. That’s just how it turned out. I work on each one when I’m “inspired” to write that particular story. Of course, the biggest down-side to having more than one story going at the same time is that you can get writer’s block or write yourself into a corner in multiple stories, for multiple the frustration! The benefit side of that coin is that if you get into a log-jam on one story, you can write another, and your working on “another” story might help you solve your log-jam on the first. Some authors will work multiple stories, others only one at a time. Likewise, some authors (including me) will start posting with few or no “reserve” chapters and post when they’re able and willing. Others will only ever start posting once the entire story is entirely written. Once again, that’s up to you. As for the tense of your writing; outside of character conversations and experimentation, you will typically write in past tense. You are, after all, recounting something that has already happened, even if the occurrence you’re describing has only happened in your imagination. Writing in present or future tense in the body of your story can be and has been done without coming off as certifiably insane, gaining undesired governmental attention, or being utterly unpleasant to read. However, this is not even remotely easy to do while still creating an enjoyable story for your reader. It also gets exponentially harder to pull off the longer your story gets. Even the critically acclaimed examples of present/future tense literature can be an almost painful drudge to read, even when the underlying story is good.

TBH, I wasn’t going to sweat it. I was thankful enough to be able to post stories (even though that eliminated one excuse to not updating quicker), I’m tolerant of a a bug or two as that’s quite understandable.

Fair enough, and thank you for the quick answer.

If you received our email with the links, and you were able to successfully validate, you would have gotten a message saying that you had validated, and you then would have been able to reset your password. I did go and look in my database, and I show you as validated, with a reset password. If you hadn’t validated, I would see an unused link or an unused password reset link. As far as telling if you’re logged in, the fastest way is to look at the upper right corner of the archive home page. If it has a LOGOUT link, you’re logged in. You can also click the three bars on the upper left corner of that home page, and the dropdown menu will have your pen name at the top, with either a logout link under the edit profile link, or it will have the fields to enter your email address and password, and a link to click to log in.

Okay so you’re cool with having more than one story being posted at the same time I guess. Good to know. I have a story I’ve started posting now that the site is back up that’s got 4 chapters, trying to space out the chapters for being posted. And I have a 7 part story that I wrote mostly while the site was in read only. Trying to decide whether I should start posting that or wait till the 4 part story is posted. Also got an unfinished story that I posted 6 chapters of before the site went read only and managed to write 4 chapters while it was in read only but still have 6 chapters to go at least before it’s done. Partly because I added chapters I hadn’t intended to.