I've been recently trying to branch out and read/join more fandoms, mainly to read more f/f fics. I have a long list of fandoms I want to read, but I just can't get myself to really care about them. I know that I'll actually like the fandom and the content, but it's like somethings stopping me from giving them a chance. I genuinely want to read some of these new ships but I just dont feel a connection to them if you know what I mean. How can I fix this? 

I've never been someone who cares about kudos or comments. I write my fics for myself and I don't need anyone to validate me about it (I wrote one fic with the fandom's preferred dynamic for my friend and it's by far my most popular. And yet I will likely never do it again if not for my preference then out of spite lol).

But recently I wrote a small one-evening crack fic for a very rare pair (mine is the only work so far). And despite the predictably low hits, I've gotten comparatively so much more interaction on that fic that for the first time it made me miss what I had never cared about before.

I know there are plenty of reasons for this discrepancy. The rareness in and of itself probably has readers more likely to interact. It's also in my native language while my other works are all in English so that's probably another reason readers feel more comfortable to interact. And it is a fanfic cliché that the works you put the least effort in are usually the most popular. But still I can't help feeling a little bit discouraged about my usual writing/fandom.

I almost regret writing that crack fic. (But only almost, I had a lot of fun writing it and it had to be done, it's frankly a travesty that there aren't more works for this pair.)

Anyway I made a table because I'm that type of nerd (for my main fandom I added together the stats of all 9 of my fics).

Can anyone relate to my mild disappointment?

Last night I was in some kind of mood, I deleted 6 of my works, and orphaned 11. I have a knack on starting new works without finishing the old ones, as well as just not continuing the WIPs once I run out of brain juice for it.

I tried to force myself in the past to continue working on my WIPs, but now I just can’t do it. Once my love for the media and my engagement in the fandom dies down, so does my will to write the stories. When I used to force myself to finish the fics, the writing was just terrible, I hated every second of it.

I used to think orphaning a work would be so cowardly of me, that I could come back to the WIPs someday in the future, but after years the keenness just never came back.

I learned not to feel bad for orphaning a work. If it doesn’t spark joy, I won’t keep it.

Most longfic writers write and publish chapter by chapter, and as such, we're particularly vulnerable to readers leaving comments about what they think will happen next in the story. Book authors usually only see the public's thoughts once an entire novel is out, but we see a trinkling of reactions throughout. That can be a fantastic motivation to keep going, but it can also stress us out when we see that some of our readers are figuring out the plot/twists.

But the truth is that a good twist is one that is surprising, yes, but also one that can be guessed. If there have been no clues leading up to the reveal, then the twist is only frustrating to readers. It's better if they can think back to what they have read so far and think, "I should have guessed that!"

But of course, then it also means that the twist is guessable. And as such, some people will guess it. That's ok! You don't have to change your story if someone finds out what's going to happen. In fact, it's better if you don't. Paraphrasing George R.R. Martin: "If you planned for the entire story that the butler did it, but then change it to the maid at the last minute because someone figured it out, then you wasted an entire book's worth of foreshadowing and clues."

Foreshadowing and clues can be too obvious sometimes. It's not an easy balance to master. But a reader being smart in your comments doesn't necessarily mean that you've been too transparent. It can simply mean that you did your job right.

I’ve been having problems with ao3 recently, I usually often read on my phone, however when I open an ao3 tab on my phone from a fic I already have selected it’ll show the fic normally for a few secs and then the screen will go completely blank. Like, just a gray screen and I can’t do anything but get out of the tab or google. (The first image is what my screen looks like when it goes blank) I tried logging in in a new tab and I got the second image as soon as I clicked login, is this an ao3 problem or is there something wrong with the way I’m trying to access it?

(The crossed out part just shows my city name)

…. And your friends are most of the other active writers.

I know not everything is for everyone but ouch! Why is everyone saying this lately?

I’m a visual person and an obsessive tinkerer, so I spent way too many weekends reskinning AO3 until it looked the way I wanted. I wanted a clean style, focused on reading and removing all recognizable logos and icons so I can discreetly browse ao3 at work.

It’s called Archive Neue. Lots of whitespace and comfortable text for long chapters. Light and dark themes, or follows your system settings. On desktop you can change the fonts, text size, line spacing, width and accent colour.

• Desktop: needs the free Stylus browser extension (Chrome, Brave, Edge, Firefox). Click the install link and it updates itself.
• Phone, tablet, e-reader: no extension. You paste a CSS file into AO3’s Site Skin settings and set it to be phone (or tablet) only. There’s a light, a dark and a high-contrast version for e-ink.

It’s a work in progress. Not everything is perfectly styled yet, and in Firefox the web fonts don’t load, so it falls back to system fonts. It’s unofficial, free and MIT licensed.

Hope someone else gets some use out of it!

I’m a relatively new/casual a03 writer and I recently got this comment on a request fic. I’m sorry if this is stupid but I’m genuinely so confused 😭 what borders??? I checked the fic from a guest account too and it didn’t seem to have any weird layouts or strange symbols or anything?
Please does anyone know what on earth the commenter is talking about? I would fix whatever it is if only I knew what they were on about 🥹

this two fics of mine have similar- ish hits and completely different stats counts, i admit the one below is very niche but i had never hear of of a 1:3 kudos to bookmarks ratio lmao.

Is it just me who doesn't appreciate this type of comment and am I a jerk for that? I mean, I would've appreciated it if I’d mentioned that I was hitting dead end and needed help with an idea(which I didn’t)

I’m guessing the next thing they’d do had I agreed with them, it'd be discord name dropping and them offering to turn my fanfic into art/comic 😒

I tried my best not to come off as standoffish or arrogant and retain my friendliness and politeness

Does anyone have the seungbin fic "begginer's luck" by mrehk downloaded or know where to find it since she deleted it from ao3? Please help a desperate girl out🙇🏽‍♀️🙏🏻

Idrk if this is the right flair but nvm that. Say, I've seen people who get demotivated after seeing harsh comments on their fics and not want to write anymore. But in my situation, it's kind of the opposite. I got a regular commenter who keeps praising my fic. I get really scared that the next chapter I write would be horrible and the commenter wouldn't like it anymore, so I kind of get demotivated in writing a little. [No hate to the commenter, I know their well-meaninged.] Has this type of thing happened to anyone else or is it just me?

What is something you like that you've seen people just really misunderstand? And where the answer to "why not just write Other Thing then?" is simply "because... I wanted This Thing??"

Like au's, where people ask why not just write original characters. Or reader insert, when they ask why not make it an OC if you write it a certain way.

Guyss I NEED the ao3 flag on my wall

But I can't find it so plss helpppp😭😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Even after quitting that fic which you once started writing, when readers keep loving it, writers what do you make out of it? When y'all see the love, what do you plan? Do you have wishes to see if they could actually buy your book or ideas or something? I mean how can we make use of all the 'kudos' and love we get?

I have a fic I want to gift, but I have some questions first, because I've never actually gifted someone a fic before.

1. Do subscribers still get notified if I post a gift fic?

2. Can I still add a gift fic to one of my series?

3. Can I still go back and edit grammar mistakes if I see them later? Like... I still own the fic, right?

Yesterday I was thinking about the smut I've written and I had a thought that's been rolling around in my head. Im pretty sure Im a decent smut writer? I struggle being nice to myself but I'm pretty sure lol. All three ive written had very positive reception and by hits are definitely my most popular works. Anyhow I started to wonder how many indirect climaxs my climaxs have caused lol. Like I never considered it but its bound to have happened right? Am I crazy?

Besides that I wonder how many people have rolled their eyes at my puns. Laughed at my better jokes. Smiled and were happier for reading my fics. Im suddenly like so curious. All together my works have 12,165 hits and 434 kudos. I need to know how many people out there where touched by my work (literally or not lmao)

23 bookmarks including private + 37 subscriptions

I don't know if it is the right place to post though😅

Hello, I am relatively new to writing fanfics, and I was curious about something: How often do you guys recommend updating? I enjoy writing, and can end up with several thousand words per day, so I thought of posting the chapters as I finish each one, but would that be too frequent? Having a chapter update every 2-3 days?

It honestly does not matter really, as I am writing rare pairings, or even outright dead pairings, so it's not like scores of people will read those, it is more of a theoretical questions I suppose for the future, as I do have some more mainstream fandom/pairings planned out?

I dont know the proper title it goes by on AO3, but does anyone else get a little aggravated when a author's work gets put on private either via they are entering a writing completion or something or thwy jist private it and you dont remember what the fic was but you know it was good and you can't reread it, and it just gets on your nerves cause you know it was a fantastic fic?? And not aggravated to the author jist aggrevation at wanting to reread it but cant and it just taps on your nerves lol.

Hi, I’ve been posting my works on ao3 and was curious about something.

I mainly write in Wattpad (I know, but it’s familiar and easy for me to use) and have had some (more like a lot) struggles getting my italics to transfer over to the ao3 site. I have to manually go into my story after I’ve pasted it into the site and put all my italics back in.

I’ve seen a few posts in my digging about how to get ao3 to do it automatically, but I cannot figure it out. I am a very baby writer and do it mainly for my own enjoyment, but I want my fics to be the best they can be (with my very limited skill)

I like Wattpad cause if the word counter, and don’t have a laptop or anything so I write purely off my phone.

Any tips would be appreciated!