#but if it looks almost exactly like someones and I unintentionally totally copied it tell me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rallamajoop · 4 years

Text

Inception: A Fannish Retrospective

For a while now I’ve found myself craving a fic of a particular hard-to-define quality – something with a bit of grit and maturity – not graphic or grim, but perhaps the kind of seedy underworld setting you might find in the better parts of Tarantino or Guy Richie’s oeuvre. The kind of fic that lets me believe that if the author toned down the slash and published it as a mainstream crime or espionage thriller, I’d still be enthused about reading it. Cord Smithee’s work is a particularly good example, for the UNCLE fans out there, but you can only reread those fics so many times, and fic of that quality has been especially sparse in the last few fandoms I’ve drifted through, and so the craving lingered.

Then it hit me: hey, you know what fandom used to be really good for that kind of fic? Inception.

And after all this time in Venom fandom, it was hardly a big jump to more Tom Hardy, so.

Maybe the bigger wonder is that nearly ten years on, most of the fic is still just as good as I remember it being. Mirabella’s Towards Zero remains one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read in any fandom, and delires’ chav!Eames AU is better than any idea that cracked has any goddamn right to be, and (at least as long as you’re into the juggernaut ship that is Arthur/Eames) you are spoilt for choice for more.

But revisiting a fandom this much later and binging this much fic, you notice things. We’ll start with…

The Film

Still holds up on rewatching today. It will never be nearly as smart a film as I’ve seen some claim: totems, for one, make no fucking sense (they’re objects with details known only to you, but if Cobb can unintentionally bring a carbon copy of his wife into a dream, why not a top that falls over when spun? And why does it keep spinning indefinitely in dreams, anyway?), and for all the exposition on ‘kicks’, why the kicks need to be synchronised to work under sedation is woefully under-explained, to the point I’m always by distracted trying to make sense of it in the middle of the third act. (Do not even get me started on the ‘it’s actually about filmmaking!’ theory – the mental gymnastics required to explain how Yusuf or Mal fits in or why we’re so fixated on the importance of the set designer, of all roles, is laughable. Some of the parallels are moderately entertaining, but don’t try to tell me you’ve unlocked the secret meaning of the film – Inception is not a movie that makes you work that hard to find its main themes.)

But the film works despite its plotholes because it’s not, ultimately, a story driven by its mechanics: the endlessly spinning top may make no sense, but film is a visual medium, and it’s such a good visual gimmick it’s gets a pass. The practical stunts are still as impressive ever, but what really lifts Inception so far beyond your typical action/heist film – for me, at least – are the characters, and the huge emotional payoffs at the end. Fischer’s reconciliation with his father is no less moving for its falseness, “We did grow old together” has gotten a sniffle out of me time and again, and the final “We’ll be young men together” scene is wonderful in so many ways I could only dream there was the Cobb/Saito fic to live up to. It’s not for nothing I’ve got Inception mentally filed in my very short list of humanist action movies along with Mad Max: Fury Road, Terminator II, and precious few others.

And then there’s…

The Fandom

Film fandoms are always an interesting beast, peaking as they do when the film is still in theatres, when most folks writing fic are working off imperfect memories of having seen an hour or two’s worth of canon maybe once or twice at most. Fanon can go feral in far less conducive environments, is my point here – inevitably, there’ll be the details that get analysed to death or flanderised to the point of parody, and the details that get altogether forgotten. Here’s just one example that hit me on a rewatch: I have lately read god knows how many different theories on just what it means that Arthur knew Eames was in Mombasa – none of them the least bothered by how everything in Cobb’s behaviour in that scene suggests he already knows exactly where he’s going, and may even be right now leaving to catch his flight. We could talk about the artefacts of clunky exposition being shoehorned into the dialogue, or the actual intent of that exchange, but shipper-goggles give you some powerful tunnel-vision (and I say this as someone who ships it like burning).

Binge as much fic as fast as I have in the last few months, and you begin to notice trends. Common themes and popular fanon that have ascended to gospel, and facets of the original film I’d love to see explored that fandom seems to have collectively missed altogether (and the sad lack of decent Cobb/Saito is only one). Below, in no particular order, are some of those observations.

Since most of these come across as critical, I want to emphasise that I have had a ball revisiting the fic in this fandom, and there are probably multiple fics guilty of everything I touch on below which I have loved to bits. It’s only the repetition that really starts to make you sit up and notice.

1. The Cobb-bashing, oh my god the Cobb-bashing! I had forgotten just how much this fandom hates Cobb. In the film, Cobb’s plan is the only reason Arthur and Eames ever end up in the same room at all – yet in fanfic, Cobb has been recast as the only thing keeping them apart. I’m not kidding there – fic with that exact premise is almost its own genre. In Inception fanon, Cobb is crazy and cares only about himself, and Arthur has wasted years of misplaced loyalty keeping him alive. Fanon!Eames hates Cobb for monopolising Arthur’s attention (in the film, Eames seems underwhelmed to learn Cobb is still working with Arthur at all). Fanon!Eames only works with Cobb at all because it’s an excuse to work with Arthur (in the film, they’re barely capable of having a civil conversation). Fanon!Eames never forgives Cobb for concealing the level of sedation they were under Inception job, and nor does Arthur (in the film, no-one even mentions Cobb’s deception after they leave the first level, and Eames’ main disappointment at the end is that he won’t get to see the Fischers’ big reconciliation, but why let that douse a good hateboner?) Meanwhile, Yusuf’s corresponding betrayal and Arthur’s equally-disastrous research-fail are rarely referenced. It’s not every fic, but the base level of Cobb-hate around these parts is pretty astounding. There’s nothing new about fans bashing the main character for having the gall to take screentime away from their OTP, and I’d be the last to play down Cobb’s real failings. But when one finds oneself tempted to leave enthusiastic comments on decade-old fic, praising the author for giving Cobb a minor scene or two where he gets to be a total bro to Arthur for a change… I promise you, it’s not me, it’s this fandom.

2. For all that Eames is basically the single biggest reason I’m reading in this fandom, his fanon characterisation leaves something to be desired. I do get the appeal of flirty!Eames or pining!Eames – it’s just that once in a while, you find yourself longing for fic about the guy who was actually in the movie – y’know, the one who’s first response to Arthur’s name was, “Arthur? Are you still working with that stick-in-the-mud?” I am totally down with the idea he was feigning indifference– maybe for Cobb’s benefit, maybe he’s actively in denial himself, whatevs. But fanon!Eames characterisation typically ranges from “hopelessly in love with Arthur from the moment they met” to “a walking sexual harassment lawsuit in action,” and neither of those guys could convincingly feign indifference to save their lives. It’s also a shame we don’t see more of the side of Eames that got so genuinely, unashamedly invested in what they were doing for Fischer – quite beyond the money and the prestige, Eames loves that they get to fix Fischer’s relationship with his father and reveal Browning as the rat that he is, and it’s a wonderfully humanising side to such a shady character. There should be so much scope in there to cast Eames was a guy with a real idealistic streak, or more conscience than he’d usually admit to, or just an abiding love for melodrama – the possibilities go on and on (and if you can’t think of a dozen ways to tie any of those in as fuel for his rivalry with Arthur for bonus shippy fodder, you aren’t even trying). But that part of Eames never does seem to have found a place in the fandom’s collective headcanon, because hell if I can find any exploration of it in fic, le sigh. (Cynically, I have to wonder if it’s because it clashes with the fanon where Eames spent the Inception job furiously hating Cobb and focused on Arthur, but even that seems somewhat lacking as an answer. Who even knows?)

3. As a corollary to the above, remarkably few fics make any attempt to deal with the fact that Arthur and Eames a) basically hate each other, b) for reasons that do not entirely revolve around how Arthur won’t put out. Obviously, this is a ‘hate’ that covers a much deeper well of underlying respect, but these are two guys who only stop taking potshots at each other when they’re being shot at for real, and to me that is 95% of the fun of the pairing – why does no-one even seem to try to recreate that dynamic in fic? Even 99% of Eames’ infamous ‘flirting’ would be better described as him pulling Arthur’s pigtails. Yet virtually no-one seems to want to tackle their antipathy head-on – even fic that acknowledges it as a past phase of their relationship isn’t set during that phase. I’m all for seeing them eventually end up friendlier, but you’ve got to show me how they get there first – that’s the good bit! Why does everyone skip over it? :((((

4. This fandom has SUCH a thing for underage!Arthur. Fics will go on and on about how young he looks, or theorise that he was actually underaged when he first got into dreamshare, or at least looked it. Seriously, the idea of Eames having mistaken Arthur for a teen when they first met is, like, the accepted pan-fandom headcanon as to why they don’t get on (unless we’re in military-backstory land, in which case it’s that Arthur had to deal with Eames hitting on him during the time of DADT). Then there are the many (MANY) AUs where Arthur really is a teen, hitting on the much-older Eames – there’s that one semi-parody where even twenty-something!Arthur gets cockblocked by his own looks, and there’s even at least one that flips things so that Eames the one who was underage when they met, just for variety.

It’s a real Thing, and I only wish I understood where it comes from, since (to me) Arthur has always looked like the 29yo man JGL legitimately was back when Inception hit screens – I don’t think he’d even passed as a Hollywood!teen for a solid half a decade at that point. So… are there really that many people who thought JGL looked that young when the film came out, or is this just one of those fannish meme things? I may never know.

5. No-one (by which I mean almost no-one) gets how limbo works. Fic after fic treats it as basically just a garden-variety coma, and colleagues can spend days or months moving the victim, gathering a team and planning a complex rescue. Rarely is it ever remembered the whole point of limbo is that you can age and die trapped in your own mind in no more than hours in the real world. When Eames talks about being ‘trapped in limbo until our brains turn to scrambled egg’, I think it’s safe to assume he’s being pretty literal. Basically, if you’re not treating limbo as the temporal equivalent of the Total Perspective Vortex, you’re probably doing it wrong.

6. No-one does anything interesting with Ariadne. This, I have some sympathy for: it’s hard to know where to go with someone who ends the film where she does – her push-pull relationship with the world of illegal dreamshare is not a contradiction that can be easily resolved in a subplot, if at all. But the Ariadne who so quickly had Cobb picked as a loose canon never seems to appear in fic either, and nor does the Ariadne with the guts to sneak into his dream to find answers, or the prodigy whose last-minute moment of inspiration saved the whole job. No, Inception fic is more likely to give you an Ariadne who giggles and drags her teammates out partying than any of that, which is absurd to the point of being genuinely offensive. Seriously, that is some A-grade “all we remembered about her is that she’s female”-bullshit. Even when she’s not saddled with OOC giggle fits, fic!Ariadne also remains frustrating static: years after the film, she’ll still be doing extractions with the Inception team, despite seeming no more at home in their world. Where’s the Ariadne who embraces the underworld wholeheartedly and reaches Arthur or Cobb levels of badassery? The Ariadne whose natural gifts and overconfidence get her into Cobb-levels of trouble? Who takes the Inception job as inspiration to go into therapeutic uses of dreams? Who finds legitimate dream-related work through Miles or Saito, but still lets the old team drag her back into extractions every once in a while (because she’s easily one of the most reliable architects in the whole shady business, and there’s a part of her that still kind of loves it)? WHERE?

The obvious rejoinder to all this is that it’s hardly surprising Ariadne doesn’t get much play when you’re mostly reading Arthur/Eames fic. So (because the land of fic is still terrible at cataloguing character-specific gen) I had a dig through some Arthur/Ariadne fic for comparison – only to run into much the same frustrations all over again. No-one takes her character anywhere very interesting.

So you can imagine my surprised delight when I tried a couple of Arthur/Ariadne/Eames fics on a whim, and almost immediately found not one but two different stories willing to dive headfirst into the questions surrounding Ariadne’s future in the world of illegal dreamshare (plus multiple stories which made a very convincing case that Ariadne should absolutely celebrate their successful Inception by having a threesome with her colleagues, I mean, damn).

I have absolutely no idea what it says about fandom that I had to go looking at threesome fic to find real character development, but at this point, I’ll take it.

7. So, I get why everyone reads Eames as queer (duh), but having discovered two quite excellent straight!Eames fic (which is to say, fic which utterly sells the idea that Eames considers himself straight or had no experience with men until long after meeting Arthur), the fact no equivalent seems to exist for Arthur baffles me. Sure, there’s one or two stories where one smile from Eames is about all it takes to make him change his mind, and one great kink meme fill that might have been just what I was looking for if it had ever been finished. But otherwise, the idea that Arthur (a guy who snogs Ariadne and is given no other obvious sexuality) -- the same Arthur whom every other fic portrays as seriously emotionally repressed – the idea this guy might not be experienced and comfortable dating men just… doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone. Which is so weird.

Is there not enough RL evidence that Tom Hardy can and does make straight guys reconsider their preferences? Is the idea of an Arthur who’s repressed that side of his own sexuality not a juicy enough explanation for the tension between them? How on earth did we wind up with a fandom where Eames is more likely to be the designated “straight” one at the start of the story than Arthur? The mind boggles.

Holy shit, you’re still reading? Damn! Have some more recs as thanks for listening to me ramble at so much length.

Recs!

Here’s those two from the top again, because I really do love them that much

We Can Do This Until We Pass Out by delires Disturbing London, baby, we about to branch out. (The one where Eames is a chav)

Towards Zero by Mirabella Five levels down, and five to dig yourself back out. Arthur met Eames' projection long before he met Eames.

Where the Dead Live also by Mirabella There's a monster in Arthur's basement. Maybe he shouldn't have invited it in. It’s the vampire!Apocalypse, and this one is intense. Utterly brilliant, but equally unapologetic about the implications of its premise. So, for a somewhat-lighter take on monster!Eames, I will also throw in:

Cthonical’s demon!Eames verse Unfinished -- arguably never even properly started, just a series of ficlets from a ‘verse that never quite got written, but they are scorching hot and still well worth a look.

That’s a lot of darker fic though, probably time to lighten the mood a little.

Anal [Inception] aka Not Now Cobb We're Doing BGs also by cthonical Arthur and Eames both play WoW. They kick ass at Warsong Gulch, and when they team up they’re nigh on unstoppable.They don’t know they’re playing with each other.

Champion Sound by pyrimidine Prompt: Arthur is a DJ, Eames is a bartender.

London Bridge by sorrynotsorry Arthur loves whiskey, and maybe strippers.

My two favourite Arthur/Eames/Ariadne fics

How to Cure Insomnia by wonderfulwrites When she called Arthur for advice on how to deal with the unexpected insomnia - okay, fine, on the pretense of asking for advice – she hadn’t expected to have to wade through a sea of bodies to see him. But then, she also hadn’t expected Eames’s cheerful but surprising, Just come, Ariadne. You can sleep when you’re dead. Or Eames, at all, really. The Wind on the Mountain by Starlingthefool Something in her rebels against this casual, passive seduction. God knows why, but she’s sitting up in the water, taking her foot back from Eames and dislodging Arthur’s hands from her back. She stands, wet underwear clinging ridiculously to her, and says to Arthur, “All right. Your turn.”

Aaand let’s have a few more straight Arthur/Eames to round it out.

Untitled and Untitled, redux by Helenish -- two variants on a theme, and do not let the lack of proper titles put you off, they’re both great.

Unexpected Plot Twist by ethrosdemon Post-Inception -- long and (as promised) twisty, and a very solid read.

Four Corners by Mithrigil In Eames’ line of work, a first impression means nearly everything. It’s always a pity when he doesn’t get off on the right foot.

Kiss With A Fist by cmonkatiekatie Because apparently, to find real Arthur/Eames antagonism, I have to go looking for hate sex. (Not complaining, this is some amazing hate sex.)

And also basically Everything by Wiltling There’s a darker vibe to their work, but it rarely gets oppressive -- just generally a lot of great fic.

#Inception #meta #fic recs

13 notes · View notes

hemsworths-chris · 7 years

Text

do you wanna be a member?

JILY CHALLENGE | @howlingremus vs @queensaphrodite lonely hearts club (marina and the diamonds) + muggle librarian!au

for my amazing partner, @queensaphrodite! and for elena (@meraudurs) and nai (@hiddenpolkadots), for inspiring me to write and create (and for helping me edit this <3)

The library closes far too early, in her opinion. Sure, it closes at eight, and sure, maybe she ought to try just showing up earlier, but in her defense, it isn’t solely her fault. She only gets off work at five, and there are just so many books to read. How are three hours anywhere near enough?

She frequents the place almost every day, knows it like the back of her hand. But there’s something off about it today. Maybe it’s the fact that the historical fiction section switched places with the biography section, but that was last week.

Lily grabs her books and walks up to the counter to ask Peggy whether or not there’s a copy of Everything, Everything available and oh shit that’s what’s different.

There’s a different librarian - a bloke - at the desk, with hair too messy to be legal, glasses too outdated to be unintentionally bought, and a shirt too wrinkled to ever have come in contact with an iron. He’s the kind of fellow who’d be perfect as the main character as one of the books Lily wants to check out - maybe a Peter Pan or a Percy Jackson kind of fellow.

Lily blinks.

Well, fuck.

He looks up from fiddling with the cuffs of his button-down, meets her gaze for a moment, and cocks an eyebrow.

“You’re the first person under forty I’ve seen so far.” His voice almost seems to echo, and it’s much louder than most librarians tend to be.

Lily can’t even tell if he’s being dense or just kind of cocky, but she’ll place her bet on the latter. It’s clear as day in the way he holds himself - self-assured, unashamed, even a bit arrogant but still good-natured.

She crosses her arms. “That’s not true, and you know it. You’re literally right next to the freaking children’s section.”

The bloke laughs, a sound almost out of place in this quiet library. She owes herself twenty dollars.

“Check and mate, I guess. But then again, it’s not like I can really see them.” He taps his glasses with a ridiculously long finger. “They’re getting smaller every day, I swear.”

Lily even smiles at that for a second, before stuffing it back where it came from. This arrogant, loud-mouthed (they’re in a fucking library, has he no sense of volume?), far-too-handsome idiot has no place in this library of hers.

(All the same, she wouldn’t mind reading about someone like him.)

“Yeah, sure” she says, quickly, trying to get to the point. “Listen, do you guys have another copy of Everything, Everything?”

He shrugs. “Hell if I know.”

Lily is done with this bloke. She makes her way around the desk to where he’s sitting, pushes away his chair (“Oi, what d’ya think you’re doing?” but he doesn’t sound particularly annoyed, just curious), opens up the catalog page on the monitor in front of him (the first thing she sees when she opens it up is a March Madness bracket - she now kind-of-sort-of-really wants to punch the guy), and soundlessly types in the words Everything, Everything.

No more copies available, but there’s one currently on hold. And it’s not hers. Damnit.

The guy standing behind her takes a look at her screen, and she can hear him let out a breath. “Oh, shit, that book? Isn’t that the one with like the mysterious guy and the girl who’s supposed to be sick but - “

Lily hastily shoves out her hand, as if to slap it over his rambling mouth. “No spoilers!” she all but yells. And she realizes that she’s being such a hypocrite right now, so she adds, a little bit more quietly, “Please.”

The bloke smirks, like he knows exactly what she’s thinking. “Alright, then.” He peers over at the screen once more, and Lily presses the power button. She gets up, and moves over to the side of the desk that she ought to be on.

“Well,” she says curtly, trying not to smile (for some reason) at this endearing annoying stranger. “Thanks.”

He grins at her. “Don’t mention it.”

Suddenly, something occurs to Lily. “Hold on,” she says slowly. “You’ve read this book?”

For some reason, the bloke turns red. “Er - um, no? I got it for my friend…Marlene? And like I read the summary on the back -”

Lily smirks. “Liar. You’ve totally read it.”

If possible, he turns even redder - it’s quite a funny sight. “I was bored, alright? And it was lying around - I really had bought it for Marlene - and I…may have skimmed it?”

Lily laughs and tucks a strand of red hair behind her ear. “Why are you acting so defensive? It’s just a book, relax.”

“Well, it’s not as good as the Percy Jackson series.” Besides the point, but Lily can’t deny that it’s true.

“Fair,” she admits.

She notices a watch on his hand (it looks extraordinarily beat-up, made of old leather and a face of cracked glass), and checks the time. Crap, the library closes in a few minutes. “I really should be going,” she says, making sure she has all the books she wants before turning around.

(She’s not sure if she’s imagining it, but the librarian’s face seems to fall slightly.)

Just as Lily’s about to head back, she hears a quiet “Wait.” She turns around.

“What is it?”

“Er.” The librarian looks…pretty sheepish, and he rubs the back of his neck. “What - what does it say on your shirt?”

Lily almost rolls her eyes, and she pulls back the cardigan she’s wearing.

“I left my heart in a book,” the guy reads. He looks back up at her.

“Is that, like, for a book club or something?”

Lily stares at him in confusion. “Sorry?”

“The shirt - you must’ve got it from some sort of club.”

“I…got it from Macy’s? So no, not a book club.”

He looks quizzically at her. “You know, you should probably make that shirt a book club, then.”

Lily raises an eyebrow. “For hearts in books?”

“Yeah, something like that. Like, aggressive bibliophiles or something.”

She perches herself on the desk, her legs starting to get tired of standing, and almost ends up knocking over a stapler. “Who’d join?”

“I would.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, and I’d grab some friends, too. Get some drinks, maybe some fries, and master the art of abandoning our poor, forsaken hearts in some dusty old books.”

Lily actually lets out a laugh. “I - don’t think that’s what it means.”

“But wouldn’t that be more dramatic?”

Come to think of it, it would be. Lily tries to envision it, but the only thing that really comes to mind is some sort of cult with an obsession for Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley. And they, of course, take their fries with a small cup of blood.

Anyways. She shrugs, and gets off the desk. “You do have a flair for the dramatics, then. Say, who the hell are you?”

His hands fly up to his hair - for what, to make it even messier? - and ends up almost knocking his glasses off the bridge of his nose.

“Stop giggling, bloody hell. And it’s James.”

Against her better judgement (sod it all, rational thought), she reaches over and pushes up his glasses. His hazel eyes follow her fingers, and he looks a little bit cross-eyed. It’s all a little bit sweet.

“James, is it? Well, I’m Lily, founder of the Hearts in Books Club.” The bloke - James, now - snorts at that, only causing to Lily to giggle even more.

James looks down at his watch . “I think the library closes right about now, you’d best be off.”

Lily swears under her breath, and James raises an eyebrow.

“Now, what was that?” The accent he’s putting on sounds a bit like some old-fashioned English professor, which kind of goes with the button-down, but not with the hair. “You do know you’re near the children’s section, next to so many impressionable young minds - you wouldn’t want to give them the wrong idea -”

“Oh, sod off,” she says, but not before glancing over to see if there’s anyone under the age of ten watching them. She checks to see if she still has all her books, and actually turns to leave.

“See you, Jimmy.” She smirks.

“OI, WATCH IT!”

Once she turns the corner, she can’t stop smiling. And even once she gets home and picks up her books and tries to - tries to lose her heart in them, damnit, she can’t stop thinking of James and the Hearts in Books Club and that damn hair.

Fuck, she thinks.

Lily returns to the library the next day, of course - she needs to pick up the sequel to Six of Crows, the novel she just finished.

(And she may or may not want to see if James is there.)

(He isn’t. Peggy is back, and though she loves Peggy, she’s a bit disappointed.)

(What is wrong with me, she thinks.)

After finding Crooked Kingdom, finally, she traipses over to the holds section. As far as she remembers, she doesn’t have anything on hold, but it’s always good to check.

There’s a book in her slot.

Furrowing her brows, she reaches up (and, quite embarrassingly, has to get up her tippy-toes; damn her lack of height), and grabs it. It’s hardcover, feels pretty new, and strangely enough, it doesn’t have that clear library binding around it.

The cover reads Everything, Everything. It’s the book she wanted yesterday - the one that the library shouldn’t have an available copy of. Confused, Lily opens the front cover, and the first thing she sees is a little note on a yellow Post-It, scribbled in Sharpie.

Lily,

Can this be the first book of the Hearts in Books Club?

See you Thursdays and Tuesdays.

- James.

There’s a little smiley face doodled next to her name, and Lily feels a strange, swooping feeling that she normally only feels at the end of a really good book.

And oh, fuck, she can’t stop grinning.

(But maybe, when she gets home, it’s something more than the book itself - something having to do with the note on the inside front cover - that prompts her to read it over and over again).

(Maybe. Just maybe).

424 notes · View notes

samiam03x · 7 years

Text

3 Copywriting Mistakes That Could Be Hurting Your Free Trial Engagement (And How to Fix Them Right Now)

Find a box with a CD-ROM in it, buy it, then learn how to use it.

That’s how I bought software as a kid. So when I first started working, I assumed that if I wanted to start using work-related software, I would have to pay for it the same way: upfront — site unseen! — just like the software of my youth.

I worried that I would have to justify the cost with only the specs, reviews, and sales guy’s word to make my case. (And if I was wrong, it would be my butt on the line.)

So I’m not exaggerating when I say that discovering I could try software for free actually improved my job performance and reduced new-on-the-job anxiety by ~62%.

Using a tool BEFORE I had to recommend it to my colleagues and pull out the corporate credit card gave me a chance to see which tools actually did what we wanted them to do.

All of a sudden, the risk that we’d pay for something that didn’t have a key feature or turned out to be a user-unfriendly nightmare shrank to almost zero.

What’s the Point of a Free Trial, Anyway?

Your serious prospects approach their free trials of your software with a mindset similar to mine circa 2000-something: they want to reduce the likelihood of buying something that doesn’t work.

They’ve got a problem to solve, they’ve discovered that your app might solve it for them, but they’re not yet certain that your app will be quite right. The free trial is a chance for new users to see for themselves what it’s like to use your app.

But. It’s not up to your free trial users to figure out how your SaaS app actually works. It’s not your new users’ job to figure out how your app will turn them into a better version of themselves.

It’s yours.

Too many SaaS apps lose free trial users with erratic, boring, or vague lifecycle emails.

If you run a SaaS app in pretty much any niche, you have an enormous opportunity to outmaneuver your competitors during the free trial process.

I sign up for free trials all the time to see how they onboard new users, and most don’t do a good job. Most onboarding emails don’t make it easy to understand what to do next. Most apps leave it up to me (the brand new user) to figure out how to get started.

Why is this a problem?

Because every time you make your new readers pause and try to figure out what to do next, you create an opportunity for them to give up and just do nothing instead.

What should you say to new free trial users?

Alas, there is no single hard and set rule. Every SaaS app is unique. What you say in your free trial, how you say it, and when you deliver your message will be specific to your app.

But if your biggest problem is that you’re sending triggered emails to new free trial users but they still aren’t signing back in after the first 10 minutes of using your app, there’s a strong chance that the copy in your emails is to blame.

To fix it, pull up your emails and see if they’re are suffering from one of these 3 engagement-killing mistakes.

Mistake 1: Your emails ask people to do too much.

When you offer more choices, you inspire less action.

The famous jam paper that explained the paradox of choice (and the TED talk that made it famous) showed us how we may be unintentionally taxing our prospects’ decision-making resources by offering too many choices.

But that’s not the whole story.

A 2015 meta-analysis of the research found that the total quantity of options is just one of many factors that can contribute to decision fatigue.

Another factor is the way that options are presented to us. When the presentation of options makes it hard to determine what choice is right for us, we’re likely to defer making a decision.

So if you’re sending your free trial users emails that look like this one, then there’s a strong chance you’re causing some serious decision-deferring choice overload.

It would probably take all afternoon to do everything this email mentions, and I might not get any closer to my goal.

This message tosses out 9 links (including one that’s hidden by my redaction) without a clear messaging hierarchy to help me figure out what order I should click on them.

This email provides login info, asks me to read help articles, watch help videos on 3 separate channels, ask for help via email, read interviews, or read a blog that might be helpful–all under the umbrella of “important information”.

But for your trial users, the real important information is the information that helps them decide what to do next.

The Fix: Write each email for the sole purpose of getting your users to complete a single action–and remove text and links that don’t support that action.

This particular message might be rewritten to focus on getting a single reader to respond to the important request hiding at the bottom of that email:

In the now-famous experiment, sending a welcome-why-are-you-here email helped Groove get response rates of 41% while also providing juicy voice of customer data to power future messaging development and laying the foundation for more personal relationships with new users.

Whether you’re following Groove’s lead or not, your free trial emails should all follow the Rule of One for best results: get one reader to take you up on one offer.

One email, one action. That’s it.

Mistake 2: Your emails don’t ask readers to do something specific and measurable.

When you rewrite your emails so that they’re focused on a single action, make sure that action is a discrete, clearly defined task on the user’s path to activation.

Your reader should be able to complete the task you’ve asked them to complete–and they should be able to tell that they’ve completed it.

Unfortunately, lots of emails offer vague and nonspecific CTAs. Some of them even sound exciting — especially CTAs that use the word “explore”. Exploring is fun! It’s adventurous! Brave souls explore!

Just because it sounds fun doesn’t mean it is.

All true of actual exploring. But your SaaS app is not the Louisiana Purchase.

When you ask someone to “explore” something — anything, really — you put the onus on the reader to figure out what to do.

And because exploring doesn’t have a clearly defined end, it’s impossible for your reader to figure out exactly what to do next–and when they’ve actually completed the thing you’ve asked them to do.

The Fix: Reduce cognitive overwhelm with a CTA that calls for readers to complete a clearly defined single task.

Zapier does this well. This app helps you connect what feels like an infinite number of apps to do all sorts of cool things (including powering the technical logistics behind managing your lead nurturing messaging).

With so many options, it would be easy for free trial users to get overwhelmed. They could explore their options, but then decide not to do anything.

So instead of leaving it up to new users to decide what to do next, Zapier’s first email removes some of the cognitive drain of “Shoot, how will I choose?” and offers a CTA tightly bound around completing a single task.

I love this email, and if I was going to rewrite it I would try other CTAs that don’t sound like they’re asking your reader to do work.

You already know what steps a new free trial user needs to complete to get to the point where your app suddenly becomes a can’t-live-without-it tool. You might even know the different steps different populations take to get to the point of activation.

Use your knowledge to guide your free trial users along the steps of that path.

Mistake 3: Your emails don’t connect the CTA to the outcome your free trial users want.

If you’ve rewritten your emails to get users to complete one and only specific and measurable action, that’s a great start.

Unfortunately, one of the most common grade-F CTAs I see in onboarding emails are the ones that don’t connect completing the action to solving a problem.

They make a call to action (the CTA “sign in” and its synonyms appear with devastating frequency), but they don’t make a call to value–so readers have no reason to expect that anything good will happen after they log back in.

Did logging into anything ever solve anyone’s problems? Of course not.

It’s what happens after you log back in that makes the difference.

The Fix: If your email’s CTA could easily appear in the free trial email sequence of another app outside of your category, change it.

If you’ve conducted your jobs-to-be-done research, you also know why your readers are using your app–and the outcome they hope to achieve.

Instead of “Log in to Your Account” or “Sign Back In Now”, your free trial email CTAs should make it clear that someone who clicks on this link will be moving closer to the goal they want to achieve with your app.

Buffer does a great job of sending an email that connects my click to what happens after the click.

After I signed up for a trial but didn’t finish setup, I got an email asking me to connect my accounts that also had some background info on what accounts, exactly, we’re talking about here. (In case I forgot what Buffer is.)

This email shows me everything I can connect to Buffer and makes it abundantly clear what I need to click to move forward.

Buffer could have sent an email that said “log back in” or even “connect a profile”. But “login” = boring and “connect a profile” = kind of vague.

Instead, this email makes it abundantly clear what to do with this email (click on the link that says “click here”) and the meaningful reason why you should take that next step (because it’s what you need to do to connect your social profiles).

Are You Making it Easy for Free Trial Users to Disappear?

When I first learned about free trials for software, I was over the moon. “Look at all this stuff I get to try!” “Look at all these opinions I get to form!” “Look at how few people I have to talk to before I make my decision!”

But what are all these thoughts really about?

What are your new free trial users really thinking when they sign up for your app?

My hypothesis is this: free trial users are really thinking some version of: “Look how little risk there is to trying this software. Let’s see if it works.”

The free trial reduces the risk of having to buy before you try. Your free trial messaging is what helps your prospect understand for themselves if your software will solve a problem.

What can you do to help free trial users understand that yes, your product can change their life?

Make it easier for free trial users to evaluate your app with focused, specific, and meaningful lifecycle emails.

About the Author: Alli Blum helps SaaS apps build messages that get customers. Click to get her copywriting checklist for high-converting SaaS onboarding emails.

http://ift.tt/2pxU0nB from MarketingRSS http://ift.tt/2qb6SMH via Youtube

#MarketingRSS

0 notes

marie85marketing · 7 years