Nanowrimo Day 12 (complaining about stuff) · 11:58pm Nov 12th, 2022
Yesterday’s Writing Stats:
Novel: 1,709
Species Swap Contest: 485
Other Original: 149
Other Pony: 201
Total Words Written: 2,544
***
Always a sad day when a story flops. Especially that hard! Feeling Blue is now by far my worst story in terms of likes to dislikes ratio. I think I miscalculated. Because Spike and Thorax have such confusing ages instead of people agreeing that they’re the same age (like I thought they would) instead I had people who thought Thorax was a kid and Spike an adult mad at me and people who thought Thorax was an adult and Spike a kid mad at me. That’s double the downvotes! I guess I’ve been living in a bubble because to me Spike and Thorax is like… THE SHIP. It’s like Fluttercord in my head, everything else is a almost silly when that exists.
I am sad because I think the story itself is really good. I thought I paced it well and had some good emotion happening without it being too confusing or dull. I’m proud of the story. Which I guess is why I assume the downvotes are people mad at the ship but idk maybe the story just sucks in its own right and I just can’t see it. (And everyone is very nice here so no one commented anything mean. So I’m only guessing the reasoning.)
This blog is kind of seems like I’m just complaining that I didn’t get more internet points but that’s not really the case. I don’t really care how many upvotes it gets (My last one got super popular so I have no room to complain) but like… I think it’s good and now I’m just bummed that more people won’t even get a chance to read it because that downvote ratio will send them running to the hills. (I know I would be hard pressed to read a story that has almost half as many downvotes as upvotes).
And man writing was like pulling teeth yesterday. The middle of a book is always the hardest and it was grueling getting the 1.7k words. I don’t even know if I’m gonna be able to get today’s in!
Sorry about complaining! I’m trying to not be so self conscious in my own blogs and that means not always talking about good feelings. I know it can be a bummer to read though.
Writing Tip: You gotta give yourself time to breath and take a step back. Don’t get burnt out!
Okay, love you all, bye!
M/M stories tend to get heavy downvotes purely for being that kind of relationship from trigger-happy folks. Who evidently are willing to accept F/F stories because the show's cast is overwhelmingly female, but not M/M ones when there's plenty of options to 'avoid' that. Very sad, I know. I see M/M stories frequently incur close to 1/3 of their votes as dislikes, and given that's from folks who don't even read the story, I'll bet the age gap between the two characters, in either directions, has very little to do with it.
Sorry that explanation doesn't offer a solution, my friend. Hopefully your story has nothing to do with it helps, though.
5697601
Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that part of it too! I was gonna talk about it and everything...
The fact that M/M is so heavily frowned upon is also totally true and absolutely bonkers. Because every other fandom it's the complete opposite. M/M is the most popular stuff and F/F is seen as lesser. I guess it's because homophobes are trying to sneak in anyway they can and, like you said, F/F is almost impossible to avoid in this fandom. A very weird phenomenon.
Sorry if it feels like I'm pointing fingers randomly
I'm just bummed and thinking and talking about it always makes me feel a lot better!
You're allowed to be upset, so don't worry about that. And I totally get writing something you're really happy with and proud of and it just not getting traction. So having it actively criticised can only feel worse, really.
I'm in that somewhat-safe F/F bubble and only once got real criticism for a premise - one that wasn't even shipping at all - so I suppose I'm lucky I like writing the popular stuff?