The Beginning · 3:37pm Jun 19th, 2016
Today's been quite a day for me.
Outside of some rocky personal issues, I went through my Skype list, realising I have a ton of people in there whom I haven't talked to in a year, or just spoke with once and no more, and suddenly felt this odd wave of languish.
To whomever who's actually reading this, you're one of the few who remained -- one of the few who's stuck around since my general decline of health of about one year ago since the point that I took a hiatus due to extreme personal reasons (history's history, so I won't talk about that, and that's not really the point of this blog, anyway).
The point is, things have changed. After struggling with getting back into the writing game, I finally managed to write something I was somewhat happy with, publish it, and notice a few changes here and there.
Firstly, there was this big old button that said that since I'd published two stories before, I don't need to send my story through moderation. Story'd just go through. And honestly, that one's kind of interesting. I both like it, but it doesn't work FOR me, and this is what I'm going to get into in a bit.
The second thing I noticed is that my story just sort of... disappeared from the popular list. That, in combination with me paying attention to the feature box for the first time in maybe 7 months or so, I also noticed things zipping in and out as quick as a fox.
And I think this is pretty much the end for writers like me.
Let me get it straight, though. With this, I am not criticizing the system, not asking for change, nor am I campaigning against the few who the new system benefits, because some do deserve it and some rightfully do not, but there's nothing that can distinguish the two.
But let's be frank, and let's be honest.
I'm not a writer that attracts a lot of attention very quickly, nor do I garner interest naturally. A lot of the things I write are for a very specific audience who enjoys reading certain things, and especially who aren't daunted by certain elements of long read lengths, certain genres and topics, and while I always have made it a point to try to do right by those genres, it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff around these parts, and more often than not am I instantly pre-judged and not given any trust.
But this has always been the system here at Fimfic due to the climate, and so it is with a lot of other things where product over saturates a market. Nothing new. It happens in anime, food and beverage options, television shows, games, and everything on a mass-entertainment scale.
It's also true that I haven't been around for a while, and so, I'm sort of having to 'try again from the start' in a manner of speaking. I have my already-established fanbase to rely on, and not much else, since everything else I do generally works against me.
However, the point is, that's the most important thing.
Fimfiction is a zero-sum game. Whatever anyone chooses to spend time on, that time cannot be used on other things. The fact that I'm in competition with everything else means that my personal specifics make it harder for me to ever get a good amount of views and feedback for the amount of effort that I actually put in.
Unfortunately, the new system has just made the hill far, far steeper.
You see, the only thing I could ever count on was time. I rarely hit the feature box, and when I do, even under the old system I get pushed out really quickly. Now, I don't even get a chance to feature at all. Within less time I normally even spend in the feature box alone, I'm already out of the popular list, and this story has done BETTER on average than my past first-day release history.
The fact that things pop into the feature box quicker, and leave quicker, and that there is no more moderation process for writers who just have two previous publications, means that this system promotes two types of writers:
1. Writers who already by this point have a huge fanbase.
2. Writers who work on churn and lowest common denominators - those who write a lot, disregarding quality (in however way you wish to interpret this) and post with reckless abandon on stories that are the kind that garner easy clicks from the mass of the fanbase.
Now, again, this is not a post going GRRR fanbase sucks. No, the fanbase speaks for itself. It wants what it wants, but the problem lies in the fact that I basically don't write for 90% of people. The fact that I don't even have a presence of time anymore means that it is a lot easier for me to be ignored, to be pushed away, and not even be given a fighting chance. I've never really had one before, and now it's just stacking up the burgers against me.
So I guess this is it.
I'm not fighting the system, and there's very few choices for me. Either I can turn my stuff into clickbait and start to write things I don't WANT to for empty reads, or I can continue and sort of just feel more and more disappointed with myself each time. And believe me, it's always been heavy on the heart (anyone who's ever published anything before knows what I mean), and I just took a big step back to look at what I've done, even. This whole year, this whole time. My entire life on this site.
It's been a long time coming.
I'm not giving my thank yous and my "I'm sure thankful for X" stuff yet, and if you notice, the title of the blog is very much the opposite of what you'd expect the intent of a post like this to be.
This is because, well, despite what I said here, and I hope there's someone out there who can truly understand, I'm still not going to go down without a proper fight, and maybe one or two last pushes.
But as of this moment, I've left redundant pony groups I don't contribute or care about it, I've stopped being interested in thinking of how to portray myself better, and I feel that FimFiction is pressuring writers like me into redundancy, and that is where I am about to end up pretty soon.
I'm going to give this a last chance, maybe.
But let's be honest, here. I'm never going to change anything around here. Not even for myself.
Sorry to hear that's how things seem to be turning out for you. Glad to hear you're still about though.
I don't think this makes sense.
Re. moderation--what's the connection between not needing to wait for mod approval, and supporting one kind of author over another? It's not like people ever got rejected by moderation for poor quality. They only check for rules violations. Instant approval increases your chance of getting featured, because you can control when your story comes out.
Re. the featured box, stories don't zip in and out; they stay in it for about 3 days. Staying in less (if they did, which they don't) would be better for you, as it would give you more chance of getting featured. You may be looking at the bottom 3 slots, which are for updates.
"Popular stories" has a long lifetime. A story that was featured can stay in "Popular stories" for about a week.
Re. the zero-sum game, I think writers would be better off if the featured box were eliminated, since it focuses about half of all the views on the site onto a few stories that are mainly selected for being clickbait.
I'm not sure what to say.
All I know is that people are more fulfilled by reading the kinds of things you usually write than the kinds of things I usually write, and the ability to affect someone that deeply is a pretty good feeling.
4033720
Well, the way I interpreted it, and feel free to tell me otherwise because I certainly am only interpreting it from my perspective:
Mainly being able to 'evade' the system just sets about a mentality. The people who care less about worrying about quality and just wanna throw out a bunch of samey stuff can just keep doing that with even MORE reckless abandon. It's not about the fact that the system is ACTIVELY encouraging it, but it just encourages it in a rough way.
Not to mention that I personally find this a step in the wrong direction. But this is not something that I can fairly complain about, because there really shouldn't be a gate on specific things. But it's just sort of like, where there were very little barriers to entry before, there are ZERO barriers to entry now, and that perspective is gold for the capitalist writer.
The up side, however, is exactly that -- that now we can control when we want to post. I didn't touch on this a lot in the blog itself because it's kinda greyish, and honestly, there's not really much to complain about because the system is just the system.
And no, I know about the last three slots. I've been looking at the rate of decay (notably, Cold's most recent story) and how FAST newly posted stories get into the feature box. It's been a LOT more turbulent than before, and I definitely believe that some values have been tweaked behind the scenes to increase a far faster decay. If you'd been watching the box like I had over this day, the term 'zipping in and out' actually kind of applies, and I would not have said that for it in any other circumstance in any other time. 3 days is kind of short, even. I remember a while ago when top contenders could be up there for a whole week, and my personal average is little under 2 days trailing at the bottom of the box, although there have been times I've reached middle levels. Still, though, I've never gone over a couple days myself, and that was back when things had more lasting power.
Also I'm not sure I understand what you meant by 'staying in the feature box less gives you more chance of getting featured'. Sorry, could you clarify?
Regardless, getting into the feature box is not really a specific goal. I'm kind of happy being in the popular box, but even now it just disappeared in 2 days with better stats than my previous works, which could stay there for a week (and more?) with less trickle-in (This is based on the first day takings, not overall averages across days).
Basically what this means is that comparing the new behavior of my stories VS how they used to behave in the past, the site is now making it FAR more difficult for me to get any sort of exposure AT ALL.
Because once you're out of the popular box you're dead. My latest fic? Dead in 2 days. Two.
It's ridiculous.
This is the other part of the 'problem', which I say very cautiously because people should be allowed to read what they want. Things go into the feature box BECAUSE people WANT to read them, and are ATTRACTED to them. So their existence in a way, is fair game. This is why I'm not fighting the feature box slots. I think the popular box is where I can only survive. But now I can't. So that's the issue, yeah?
Although I do agree with you. I'd prefer a larger pool of trending popular stories, and even like, something split into genres (just primary ones). definitely, splitting mature and safe stories also is a necessity, because mature really just takes up space that non-mature stories should have by virtue. I think just having a bigger selection of stories that decay slower would be a better ideal, but that only works specifically for my situation, too, so maybe I'm just being selfish.
Ah well.
4033746
Yeah, I've been struggling with that.
It's a bit like this. I'm happy with my audience. Don't ever, ever get this wrong. I love everyone who spends the time to read what I write, and I'm overly appreciative to the point where people don't believe me anymore.
But the issue is, what I write is for the purpose of being seen. I don't write TO be seen, which is a different thing that's only a few steps away. But I guess I demand of myself a certain amount of exposure before I feel that my story has become worthless, which is a reflection of myself. It's like watching a child being ignored in the streets.
It's from an egoistic place, I've never been shy to avoid that truth. But it's somewhere in between 'selling out' and 'writing completely for the self'.
Bottom Line tl;dr:
I'm happy with what I have, but I'm just frustrated that the site continues to evolve in a way that makes it more and more difficult for me to function.
Also, you make people smile. Don't discount the simple pleasures.
I'm by no means an expert on the behavior of communities, so take this with a bucket or two of salt.
But it seems kind of odd to me to treat the entire Fimfic user base as one entity, or as two types of users. A musician doesn't write music for 'music listeners,' you write it for listeners of a certain genre, usually. Or for a core group of friends who you coerce into listening. :P
The feature box is sort of an analogy for pop music radio. It's the most popular out of everything, which naturally means that one (or a few) core 'genres' (used very generally, i.e., Halo crossover could be a genre itself) will be there more often, just because those genres have more viewers.
Isn't this what groups are for? To target more specific audiences? I don't think they do a very good job of it (just my personal experience; I could be wrong), but they're there. (Maybe a good new feature would be to have a mini feature box for each major group? So you go to the sci fi group and get the featured sci fi stories, etc.)
I may have missed your point because I'm in a rush and I'm not sure if you're bothered by (1) a difficulty in gaining new readers, (2) a difficulty in catching the attention of readers you have, or (3) some issues with disappointment in the reception of your work.
1) I'll come back to this
2) For what it's worth, I consistently ignore the feature box. When I want a story to read, I look at my Read Later list, which has grown through browsing for specific things I like in stories. Groups, especially. Authors I follow. Friends of those authors. So maybe the audience you're going for is an audience that doesn't care about the front page stuff, anyway.
3) If this is the case, I'm assuming you're worried more about appreciation and comments than numbers and icons...
I'm being pulled away. I'll try to come back to finish this thought later. Sorry! D:
4033782 Oh yeah, I agree completely.
At some point you get used to a certain amount of exposure and anything less than that feels like failure. I get that. Also the site is certainly acting rather unusual. Don't think you're the only one that's noticed.
The way I handle that is to lower my expectations considerably. I know that feeling when a fic far underperforms your estimates. The only way I've been able to handle that is by being grateful for people reading at all, which I can vouch is an incredibly hard thing to train oneself to do. You're not the only egotist here.
But yeah, I can relate to that sort of thing knocking the wind out of your sails. It gets me every time it happens.
4033810
What you described is honestly part of the whole issue.
You are absolutely right in this, that this is how it generally works. But it's a problem that plagues a lot of different things, not just FimFic, so the solution is not very... clear cut.
In essence, it is BECAUSE Fimfic is not one huge mass, but the site TREATS it as such, that fringe writers such as myself have a hell of a harder time working in the environment.
Let me put it like this :
Without exposure, I can't be found. So even those people who WANT to find me, or LIKE what I do, have a lot of trouble sifting through a lot of everything ELSE in order to get to me. But the fact that I am allowed even LESS exposure than BEFORE means that the system now only benefits those that can get a lot of views VERY fast for whatever reason, and it promotes those stories, while allowing stuff like mine (with slow trickle-in) to just fade away.
Groups ARE one of the few things to get around stuff like this, but even then, over the past year, groups have also somewhat turned into a farce, because again, with lack of respect of quality, everyone is using it for self promotion. That's the game. In my own observations and experiments, there has never been any appreciable difference between if I submit a story to a group or not, even upwards 4 groups.
And let me lay out my case on the line for you.
I have always have had difficulty in gaining new readers. This is something I've worked with, and have come to just accepted over the past 4 years I've been here. It's honestly something that I just know I'll have to contend with, and it doesn't bother me much PER SE.
My problem lies more in point 2. I have a certain very VERY select readership base. I write all over the place, and I write an incredible variety of things that usually only appeal to small subsections of the respectably moderate base I already have. I've been playing the game for all these years, and I've been pretty okay with it so far. It's been tough going, I'm not going to lie, but ultimately it was something I'd always just accepted in the end because I just do not want to write anything else. So obviously, I have to play by the rules if I'm unwilling to budge. I'm fully aware of this.
This blog is just to highlight the fact that the site, and the way it has changed, has made it even MORE difficult for me. So it's just going to be more stressful, more problematic, and more divisional of stories than ever.
It's like working in a bad work environment. Sometimes you just decide that it's better that you find a different place to work at for the sake of peace of mind. My self-actualization is not being met. I myself do not feel as if I've accomplished what I want to do.
A part of this is ego. But that is the nature of any sort of artistic work. Movies, writing, pictures, paintings, drawing, music -- all of this needs an audience, because I don't do this for money.
And because I don't 100% write FOR attention either, that is, I could easily just write the next big porn fic that everyone wants to read and get a hundred thousand views and comments and whatever... no. Never done that, never WILL. Because the point is that I write what I want to share, and what I want to share is finding a hard time fighting against all the other big porn fics and human superhero crossovers and what have you.
So in a way, I am worried about identity. It's not about the numbers 100%. It's not about the attention 100%. It's about what I feel I have accomplished, and everything else, the numbers and attention et al., are part of the bigger picture.
And the biggest grievance I have is the thing that I will repeat once more just because I need to drill this point home as clear as I can -
I'm happy with what I have, but I'm just frustrated that the site continues to evolve in a way that makes it more and more difficult for me to function.
4033951
Hey! As I said, I'm not leaving without a fight!
I'm working on a new fic right now as we speak. Rather, what I've been doing lately is just finishing off old projects (and you can bet Dust is one of them) and we'll go from there. =)
I don't want to leave.
But the site seems very eager for me to go.
It does feel like that, don't it?
I do wish it were some other way, but damn if I can think of something.
At least you know for yourself that you're a excellent writer.
~Skeeter The Lurker
This comment is here to let you know that I read this blog and I don't know what to make of it so I don't know what to say but you are still a friend D:
If worse comes to worse and you eventually find this place untenable, you could take a crack at original fiction. I've been considering it myself. But still, it's good that you're not giving up yet, as the system may change for the better yet. Not to mention, fimfic is still better than all the other fan fiction sites out there, as I recently discovered.
4034021 You do make a good perspective on the problem of feature box, i agree with you and think it is going too fast. Im new to the site and only a reader soo idk how it is for writers right now or how it was before but i saw a comment on this comparing the feature box to pop radio, the thing is that in pop radio they play a song till people start saying they get bored of listening and that means that the radio its doing its purpose because there is no way people wont notice a song that they got bored of listening while feature box goes soo fast that i barely or dont notice at all the stories that have been featured because of the little time they have to get people attention
4033774
People are attracted to them by the pretty picture or the clickbait title or description. There's a difference between stories people want to read, and stories people are glad to have read. The featured box features the former. It's not an easy problem to fix. Ratings, for instance, are a poor indicator of quality, because stories with very high ratings are usually saccharine sweet inoffensive stories, not great stories. The featured box may use number of favorites and comments, but these are also problematic. Particularly since there's no longer any way to know whether a bookshelf means "favorites", "I hated this story", or "This story has zebras in it".
If the average story stays in the box for less time, more stories will get into the box.
You know, one thing I could see, perhaps?
Allow one to tag-filter the feature box at any time. Like, as in, let me choose the current top 7 Mystery or Horror or whatever stories to show as my featured list, so when I'm in a certain mood, I can focus on that mood.
But for an author like you, as you put it? I'd argue the feature box was never really the optimal way to get new readers. Groups and social networking was - you have a fanbase that is, arguably, more concentrated amongst the literati or whatever you wish to call it among fimfiction. Smaller, less mass appeal, but then - I see yet another dull Post-Conversion Bureau story that's a sequel of a sequel of a sequel thats in there because a huge group really really likes stories where humans beat up invading ponies, I guess.
Most of what gets featured these days I ignore or end up downvoting.
The system has always been a bit fucked, and it's just gotten worse and worse, good on you for pushing through it and still trying, you're a great author.
I'll never forget the first story I found you with. It was babytails. Remember babytails? I sure as heck do. I've read it about 4 more times since then and I still throw it at others when I hear them complain about no depth or spine chilling ambiance. It was funny too, I didn't see it from the popular stories box or anything like that. I actually found that story through Titanium Dragon's review blogs, hilariously enough I gave it a look even though it was "Not Recommend". Then again what isn't on his reviews, Heyoooo!
Anyway, I remember just how refreshing it was to read something like that. I was in my office at the time and was completely entranced in the screen, felt good to be pulled in like that. 10k words just skated by and I loved every moment of it. Of course I chose to follow you right then and there. I didn't care what else you wrote, you wrote something like that. But then I browsed through and just kept clicking links. Just like that ten hours flew by and half your library had check marks next to them. Then you released another story that got put on my top shelf immediately. It's a shame really, I understand what you're talking about with the niche audience when it comes to what you enjoy writing. Though I'm glad you do appreciate us just as much as we appreciate you. Some who feel they are losing their way sometimes forget about the people standing around them waiting for the next installment.
As I'm only just getting into the writing game I'm running into a different section of problems myself. I'm not so worried about heavy traffic so much as wondering if I started too late to begin with. But I'm glad you're going out fighting, those last couple of punches are sure to be knock-outs.
Now if you'll excuse me. I been waiting on that new story. I can't wait to dive in.
Wait...Did I just do that...I did didn't I
Also between you and me. If I get more confidence, and you do (regrettably) decide lay down your arms. I'll be snaking one of those ideas of yours and fleshing it out. With your permission of course, maybe >.>
I think you're a pretty rad dude, as in, I recently followed you, due to thinking you're a pretty rad dude.
Here's hoping.
The popular stories box order is 100% random. All stories that qualify for popular stories are in the popular stories box in a random order. Your story is still in the popular stories box.
This is not a change. It is how it has always worked.
The number of stories submitted hasn't changed at all since the bypass button was implemented. The new process only really matters insofar that it is possible to choose when your story is going up.
Nothing has really changed much except the prereaders have to do less work.
The reason your story didn't get many views is because you've been inactive for a while (reader decay) and, well, I don't think Mystery and Horror are very popular genres to begin with.
4033720
Honestly, it is one of the best parts of the site design. By flashing up a group of ten hot new stories, there is a constant churn of content on the front page of the site. This encourages readers to come back every day to see new stuff. Stuff stays in there based on how hot it is. It introduces people to different authors and exposes them to a variety of stuff that they might not have seen otherwise. Blog promotions are extremely rare and unless you luck into one of the reviewers (even more unlikely without a featured story box) you're only going to see a tiny number of those - and how do you find people in the first place?
The featured story box is immediately accessible and throws up seven popular new stories plus three popular updated stories (which are likely to be long). It captures new readers (seriously, going to fanfiction.net says "You don't want to be here or read anything" from its front page), and a lot of people just casually browse the front page for something to read because they're lazy.
All those lazy reads aren't being diverted away from anything else - they're reads that almost uniformly wouldn't exist at all without the featured story box.
Also, it creates a sense of community and a common core of discussion and such - people are likely to read feature box stories, meaning that there's more recent stuff to talk about all the time with people.
4034156
Marketing is important. People have limited time; they want to spend that time reading stuff that is interesting to them. Marketing is the way you make people aware that they want to read your stuff.
A good summary/story title/cover image all helps push people towards your story. And it is part of being a writer; I mean, if we can't get our stories in front of people, all our awesome writing skills aren't going to do us much good.
Estee gives up tons of views by not having cover art at all; it looks lazy and low-effort, because not having cover art basically says "I couldn't be bothered to spend the time looking for something appropriate for this story." What does that say about the quality of the story?
Probably nothing good.
And writing for an audience is not a meaningless skill. Heck, a lot of it has to do with the hook.
I have hundreds of story ideas. I think of random crap all the time. I don't ever even bother with most of it after I outline it (if I even go that far - sometimes I just run through it in my head) because I realize no one is going to care/want to read it. If I have the choice between "Crossover story about Passepartout and Mr. Fogg going through Equestria as part of their journey around the world" and "The reason why Flurry Heart is an alicorn," I'm going to go with the second story, because a lot more people are going to want to read it (also, it is a better story, but that is neither here nor there).
The first story is probably not worth the time for me to write when I could be writing stuff that people want to read. I've got dozens of better stories to write.
This may seem cynical, but in the end, the purpose of me posting stuff on FIMFiction is for other people to read it. If no one is going to read something I write, what's the point? I can tell myself stories in my head. I might write something for practice or whatever, but if I'm writing stuff for the site, I'm actually going to be trying to write something people want to read. I have plenty of ideas, after all; my shortage is the time I spend developing them. So why not write the stories amongst my ideas that people are most likely going to want to read? After all, if the ideas are all equally good otherwise, the story with the best hook is going to be the best story.
Maybe that's not true for other people. Maybe they don't have a huge document containing 100+ story ideas. If you just write whatever you want, or write whatever comes to mind next, that's fine, and there's nothing wrong with it. But you're always going to be at a disadvantage compared to someone who has 10x as many ideas and selects the stories that have the strongest hooks out of them.
The hook is not an irrelevant part of a story; in fact, it is probably the most important thing, because if you don't have a good hook, no one is going to bother to read your story, so the rest is pointless. It is only when you have hooked someone successfully that everything else matters, because without the hook, no one is going to get to experience the rest of it.
Just keep writing what you want to write, popularity be damned. It's what I do. You'll feel better, even if only three people end up liking your stuff.
Anyway, welcome back to the site! I was glad to see you release a story, and I stuck it on my Read It Now list, so it will likely end up in a review post in the nearish future.
4034476 I don't disagree, but within the context of the discussion we were having about the featured box, my point is that the featured box selects clickbait stories that people think they would like to read more than it selects stories people would be glad to have read, and therefore defending the featured box by saying it features the stories people "want to read" is insufficiently specific and not as good a justification as it sounds like.
I just read your story 'Entry #649' last night. Properly spooky psychological horror. Absolutely loved it. Currently working on reading Table for Two, and after that I'm going to read Babytails.
I've read a few of your stories before, but never thought to actually watch you and check out everything else you've written, and I regret not doing so sooner. You truly write great fiction here, and I hope I'll be able to read stories from you for years to come. I hope you find the motivation you need to continue on.
Welcome back!
Sorry you're feeling down about the site. As others have said, writing for you is important, but so is having an audience. It might feel like you're starting over, but I don't think it's that dire. Escaping the shadow of inactivity will be a whole lot faster than starting from scratch. Case and point: all the atttention this blog post has gathered. Your latest story might not have scaled the featured box, but I'm sure it's sitting in a lot of Read It Later lists, mine included. You're not fizzled out, it's just a slow burn for now
The feature box should have separate genre tabs. That'd clear up a lot of this problem you and many others have.
4034244
Yeah, But the solutions have always been hard to implement. Either way, thanks for the support, man. Gotta keep trucking.
4034331
Gotta try. That's the only thing we can do. It's only once we can't breathe anymore when we finally die.
4034470
Hey man! Thanks for the look at the fic! As always, I appreciate it regardless of the outcome, haha. But yeah, what you said about the popular list, I actually have always understood it to work the way you described. I know it bounces up and down, but there was a time yesterday when my fic was just straight up OUT of it. And then someone else (before you) alerted me that it was back. And then it disappeared again, and it's back again. If there was any proof of the heat being more sensitive, this is really it. But regardless, point still stands. Fluctuations like this still kinda hurt the specific author.
Is someone joining a certain competition?
4034479
That's how it's been for me at the start. Maybe I just grew too greedy. Sigh. I dunno. :\
4034587
I think I have to agree with you here. It's kinda like, the point is, the feature box is kind of a self-perpetuating hype machine based on very shallow indications. There's no way to kind of... stop that, because it's actually driven by the users. Sometimes a hook isn't enough. Again, doesn't help writers like me who tend to write poignant things that are based on very simple situations or things that just don't necessarily gel with the user. Case in point, people around here still use the Horror, Dark and Gore tags interchangeably.
4034336
Hey, I take whatever little exposure I get, even the bad. There's no such thing as bad publicity, as they say. It's... not always true, but it seemed to work here!
Thank you so much for your continued support. It means a lot to me. I really hate to have written this blog because it really makes me sound like I don't care about what I have, but I honestly do. Believe me when I say that if it wasn't for you guys, for the little notes, for the little engagements and comments, I'd have left long, long ago. It's not always about that, but it helps. It helps to know that everything has a point, and I'm so happy to have been able to entertain you and as many others who have allowed me.
I hope to continue, too. As long as I can. That uphill climb... can be daunting, though.
As for writing yourself, go for it! You have a good command of it already, if your comment is to go by, so by all means. It's never ever too late. If it was, then what's books still doing being published in 2016? Right? There's always room for new fiction, for creative ideas, and for people to soar. Never let time or circumstance stop you from trying. Things come in waves, true, and people get tired (superhero fatigue, anyone?) but it never should stop you from TRYING. With enough innovation, everything old is new again.
Also if you wanna snek my ideas you're gonna have to pry them from my cold dead mind.
Or ask me in a PM, whichever is easier.
4034834
Thank you for the support! I like how you're sneaking a little bit of high metafantasy slice of life in the middle of your horror sandwich there. I liked Table for Two. It was a blast to work with other great, great authors and I really had a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it as well!
Anyway, I'm working on a comedy next, so I guess it should be easier to penetrate than a dark horror story!
4035014
Well, we'll see. I'm going to redouble my efforts, as I always do. Gotta keep trucking. Gotta keep swimmin'. Keep swimmin' keep swimmin'~
And yeah, Finding Dory. I watched it. Was good. >_>;
Not as good as zootopia though >_>;
4035454
That'd definitely help, I think. But then you'd also have to make 'Displaced' its own genre.
4035460
Probably not, because I'm not terribly happy with the story idea I have. It feels like it has the same problem the game does in general to me.
4035460
On the last point - Horror and Dark - it's definitely hard to pick sometimes. I have one story I know is Dark, and another that could go either way. I go Dark because it's not meant to horrify so much as it's meant to just be, well - it was an experimentation with writing a story in two-layers, with the idea being that when the revelation comes, everything before it takes on a completely different, distorted, and darker light.
But it can be horror, too - I know some people were freaked out by it. The hard part is my optimal would be 'Slice of Life' because it is most potent when one goes in totally blind, and the Dark tag primes someone for the revelation - but I've had a few people I'm close to get hit bad enough that I won't change it.
4035476
Which is?
4035483
Well, personally, I've always been against tricking people like that. I understand completely why it's tempting! But if you make people read it without knowing what they're getting into then they're going to be upset.
I keep a rule of thumb as this - if the surprise is delightful, then people will be happy for it. If it's going to shock or disgust, then don't do it. Besides, especially for horror, you kinda have to be in the right frame of mind to tackle it, and sometimes it makes it better. My latest story, Entry #6something, worked only by the virtue of everyone knowing how it was going to end from the very start. I'd argue another one of mine, The Incandescent Brilliance, worked the same way. So knowing what they're getting into isn't always bad; it helps people get into the frame of mind to accept it, and it can make it more powerful for the experience.
Also to be honest, the dark tag is fairly redundant now that there's a horror tag. They should remove it and add the Thriller, Psychological, and impress on the Gore tag more. Dark is as effective as bunching up avdenture, scifi, romance and comedy under a single umbrella called 'light'.
4035521
See this post.
4035525
Dark is a tone which can be applied to a wide variety of genres, rather than being a genre unto itself. I don't think it is a useless descriptor, though; a dark adventure story is rather different from a non-dark one.
Psychological is another thing which is more of a descriptor than a genre.
That being said, there's a large market for people who like dark or psychological stories, just as there's a genre for sci-fi or fantasy. There are people who like all sorts of sci-fi stories, or who like romance stories of sci-fi, contemporary, or fantasy.
At some point, you've got to set aside eyeballs as the measure of whether or not you've succeeded with your art. If I followed that measure, the time I threw up in a trash can and someone posted a text message about it on the Internet would be an order of magnitude more "successful" than any story I have ever written or likely ever will write.
Personally, I think the best thing you can try for is to have an impact on the people who do read your stories. Whether that's horrifying them, enthralling them, or making them chuckle for a couple minutes is up to you.
4035525
Yea. I mean, it's definitely less ethical, but - well, that's where the Writeoffs are kind of nice. You can do horror there without any warning and in fact can't provide warning because that'd break the rules!
Whatever else is going on, however you feel about your stories and the system at FimFiction, I will look forward to anything you write. I hope to see more, though I will understand and support your choice if you need to move on.
For me, at least, you're an asset to this site, and I hope you find peace with what you want out of your writing and the reactions here. Thanks for sharing your time and stories with us!
Light and laughter,
SongCoyote
Eh, even if you don't get mass views, you know you're really affecting the people who follow you. Hell, I go to this site only to read you and a couple of other author's stories. I'm at fault for not voicing my pleasure with your stories more. I know how incredibly satisfying even the smallest nugget of acknowledgement can be. I'm always more of a lurker though, so sorry for that.
But hey, even if you quit FimFiction, that's fine. Just make sure you're doing something to put your creativity to good use.