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baejax-the-great · 13 days

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Archive-locking the fics that YOU WROTE and are thus 100% yours to decide what to do with 'hurting people' is so silly tbh. Skill issue on their part. Wish those people could be normal about the amazing fics that writers like you put out & be understanding or at the very least respectful of the choices that writers make about how and where they make their fics available. Especially in light of recent ai training theft and nonsense & all that.

I hope this doesn't sour the fic writing & sharing experience for you too much. I love your writing & think you're very talented & skilled!

There seem to be dual attitudes I'm coming up against recently (and obviously these are not held by everyone, I don't even know that they are held by a majority, but they are certainly held by a plurality).

The first is that authors should be grateful that readers deign to read what they put out there. I think this stems from the "content creation" mentality and the idea that everyone who posts things wants as massive as an audience as possible (for monetization purposes which... isn't a thing in fanfic). I think this mindset also leads to readers demanding that people write specific tropes/pairings/whatever, or threatening basically to take their business elsewhere. "Nobody will read unless you do [X]." 1. Not true and 2. Okay, you weren't my audience.

(I also think authors circulating those posts about how badly they want comments/kudos feeds this mentality of readers doing authors a favor by even clicking on the fic. "Wow, if people are so desperate for attention, then mine must be worth an awful lot!")

Fanfic ain't a business, and I write for myself. Readers choosing to read my work isn't a privilege or an honor they are bestowing upon me (nor are comments for that matter), just as me posting my writing where they can see it isn't a privilege or an honor for them. We are both engaging in hobbies and a love of some media, and sometimes we will overlap and connect and sometimes we won't. Readers aren't reading out of altruism for attention-starved authors, and authors aren't writing out of altruism for content-hungry readers.

And there are those who will read these paragraphs above and think to themselves "wow, what an ungrateful author," and that's exactly the attitude I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, it's delightful and rewarding to receive comments on fics and chat with people about Blorbo and the Situations. But it should be delightful from both sides of the exchange, or why the hell are we doing this? If I'm meant to be grateful for every commenter who jumps into my inbox, then every commenter in my inbox better be grateful for me, and I can tell you right now there is a population who is not. There is a population who sees me as a service provider for their entertainment, and whatever form I take in their brain, it is not shaped like a full person.

This attitude also leads to people thinking that things like lorefm are no big deal. Don't I want to get my work in front of more eyeballs (or ears)? Don't I want to broaden my audience? And once I put my work out there for readers to see, should I be shocked (or express any negative emotions at all) when someone plagiarizes/scrapes it for AI/demands updates rudely/reads it on a monetized youtube channel/binds it and sells it for profit?

The other idea I've been coming up against is almost the opposite of this--that because some readers form attachments to fic, deleting that fic (or even archive-locking it!) is actively harming those readers. Sure, they can't be bothered to hit the download button or get an AO3 account, but that's no reason not to think of these strangers first before doing what I want with my creative output.

Yall, life is ephemeral. There are things we will see and enjoy and never find again for one reason or another, and it's not harm being done to us, it's just the nature of existence. Having an emotional reaction to something does not give you any sort of ownership over that thing. Artists are allowed to change their minds about whether they want that art in the wild, particularly given that it's free. Maybe it's because I utilize the library a lot, but reading a book and then losing access to that book is not a crime against you, it's just a normal thing that happens. If you read something and it means that much to you, there are ways to avoid losing it (download it).

Seeing this particular attitude extend out to "not making your fic available for as many people to read as possible is harming them" is beyond bizarre. If I woke up tomorrow and deleted everything I have ever written, there would still be thousands upon thousands upon thousands of beautiful, emotional, meaningful fics out there for people to read. They would lack for nothing. Would some people be upset? Probably. Would I be hurting them? No, not really.

Sometimes people have negative emotions because of our actions, but that doesn't mean we did anything to them. This is one of those times.

Lastly, this AI and everything else bullshit really has taken a toll on my enthusiasm for posting my work. It's one thing for companies to try to pillage every thought, every word, every stroke of a pen or paintbrush to enrich themselves while actively making the planet an unbearable and inhospitable place to live, it's another when fellow fans are telling you that "Whelp that's just life, what did you expect, give us your content anyway or you're a bad person and if you complain, then I'll be taking my business elsewhere, you sensitive, entitled creative, lol."

#because here's the thing #it just stops being fun #and fun is the reason I (and hopefully all of us) started writing in the first place #if I wanted to cater to people whose tastes aren't mine #I would be trying to woo the taylor swift fans who control the publishing industry #and don't get me wrong the people on AO3 who interact with my stuff rule #Particularly patrochilles fans like that group of people has given me the best writing experience of anyone #and I don't want to let some idiotic exchanges ruin the joy I get from writing #but it feels like it's coming from all sides this year #I do think everyone would benefit if we all remembered that author-reader interactions are just two strangers attempting to communicate #sometimes good sometimes awkward sometimes wires get crossed sometimes cultures clash most often it's just small talk

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ettawritesnstudies · 1 month

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long story short: My short stories aren't selling as consistently as I hoped they would, and with publishing and wedding costs on the horizon, I'm hoping memberships will be a more effective way of making income, so I'm curious to see what people are most interested in seeing!

Tagging @abalonetea because I know you do patreon and that's similar so I'm curious to see what's worked for you in the past?

#etta rambles #other people's writing #writeblr #to be clear I have a day job so I can make my rent and regular expenses and bills #but unless my writing starts paying for itself I might not be able to publish runaways next year #or I run a successful kickstarter #I work so hard on my blog and youtube and everything and try to give so much to community and it's not paying off like I hoped it would #but I don't have any more time left to give #so I've got to get more annoying about self promotion I guess #etta grumbles about running a business in the tags

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batsplat · 21 days

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In 1996 Vale raced a rotary-valve 125cc two-stroke that weighed 70kg and was good for 140mph/225kph. In the year he reached his retirement age he raced a 1,000cc four-stroke that weighed nearly 160kg and nudged 220mph/350kph. It is inevitable that such motorcycles need to be ridden in different ways. The essential difference between racing a low-powered bike and a high-powered bike is the speed the rider uses through corners. The best way to achieve fast lap times on a lightweight bike with relatively little horsepower - like a 125 or 250 - is to use as much corner speed as possible, by taking flowing lines through the turns. On the other hand, a 500 or a MotoGP bike has a lot of horsepower (too much, in fact!), which if used correctly has a huge effect on lap times. Therefore Vale had to change the way he attacked corners when he graduated to the premier class in 2000. After his first few races on a 500 he understood that the secret to a fast lap time on a big bike was to focus on corner exit, so he could unleash the engine's power as soon as possible. This required sacrificing corner speed, the gain in acceleration in corner exit more than compensating for the loss of time in the middle of the corner. "You need to go slow mid-corner, then lift up the bike really quickly and give gas when you are on the fatter part of the rear tyre," he said. "If you don't get it right, you're either slow or you crash." The first man to set him right was rival Sete Gibernau. Vale had a lot of crashes during the winter of 1999/2000, because he was trying to ride the bike like it was a 250, using flowing cornering lines on the edge of the tyre. Gibernau told him what to do, but like any keen young racer, Vale ignored the advice and kept falling off. Gibernau was correct, however. The 500 had double the power of a 250 - about 180 horsepower - and a two-stroke engine delivers power and torque in an aggressive and unpredictable way, so it's asking for trouble to swoop through corners on the edge of the tyres and then open the throttle.

Mat Oxley’s Valentino Rossi: All His Races

At the time, I was falling a lot. And for many different reasons. Part of it had to do with my style in 250. In 250cc you can go into a turn bent right over and you can even open the throttle all the way on the turn, accelerating as you go through it. OK, it's not the easiest thing to do but it was possible and many of us had mastered it. You can forget about doing things like that on a 500cc. One of the problems with the 500 is that, at first, you feel totally confident. That's what happened to me. I felt very sure of myself, I pushed ahead, keeping my 250cc style. And, as a result, I kept falling off. It happened in my second test, at Phillip Island. And it was a very bad fall. Gibernau had come up to me before the test and actually warned me: "Look, you bend the bike too much, treat it as if it was a 250cc. You can't do that. You should use your body more rather than bending the bike." "Gee, thanks, yeah, I'll do that..." I replied, not really taking him too seriously. I asked myself, "Who is this Gibernau who thinks he can tell me how to race?" Of course, I paid no attention to him. And that was a big mistake. Two hours later I had a terrible spill. I was going very fast and, all of a sudden, I felt the rear tyre lift itself off the track and the next thing I knew I was flying through the air. It was an incredible flight. When I finally landed it was with the kind of thud I'm sure to remember for a very long time.

Valentino Rossi in his 2005 autobiography, What if I had never tried it

#valentino rossi #sete gibernau #//#vr46 #sg15 #I'll admit I mainly typed this up for the sete bits though both extracts come from very neat sections of the respective books #anyway to meeeee it's interesting he even included the sete bit. he didn't HAVE to #the thing about the autobiography is that we're getting close to the point where I've posted every mention of gibernau on tumblr dot com #which given it was published in 2005 is !! interesting !! he barely is allowed to be a part of valentino's story at all #obviously he's kinda rude about sete here but! crucially he's the one who's in the right in this story while valentino is the cocky idiot #it's not a chronological autobiography sure but compare it to the amount he says about biaggi. sete's just... erased #and I'm sorry you cannot tell me that's because in late 2004 he took sete less seriously as a rival... like he started a war. come on #very juicy and fun for Narrative Purposes but also deeply deeply inconvenient when you're trying to evaluate what really happened rip

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silverview · 6 months

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inspired by this post, i did a little bronoun analysis of my iasip fics...the full spreadsheet has a lot more numbers in it but you get the gist

i don't think my word list is particularly controversial but i would welcome other takes. i manually checked to make sure i didn't count times these words were used as regular nouns (e.g. "that man there," "help your buddy out")

apparently my favourite bronoun by % is man, followed by dude, then buddy, then bro

arguably a main factor in overall % is basically dee-centricity – the more dee talks, the less the boys talk (to each other), the less i use these kind of words

anyway, the key figure here is that these 4 words (used as bronouns) account for 0.194% of the words in my iasip fics to date. now i want to know other writers' figures & see how i measure up, and how those figures compare to actual canon dialogue

#iasip #i actually live to make spreadsheets about stupid things like this #also these fics are listed in order published from earliest to most recent - NOT order updated #so if u don't count How Charlie Got Fat it turns out my fic titles are getting longer and longer :T hm #tragically i started trying to prove/quantify the dee thing and ended up googling how to do regression analysis #so ig stay tuned till my statistics module next semester when i'll. find out how to be like this but better

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ilkkawhat · 1 month

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He kept telling himself that he got out of the Dark Place, but he wasn’t fully convinced that this wasn’t just another layer. His earliest days in the Dark Place were spent in Bright Falls, after all. But there were no stalking shadows here, no eclipsing echoes…so far, at least. They didn’t all appear at once, at first. Part of him was also aware that he rarely became physically tattered as he was in this instant; only in the deepest part of the loop did he ever get wet in the waves of the ocean trying to drown him. Somehow that made the dirt on his face feel real. The grime in his fingernails peeling away in his wringing hands was real.

The crunching leaves beneath his feet felt real enough, the wilderness somehow feeling refreshingly foreign after being trapped in an endless night in a suffocating city.

The batting of branches and disgruntled scoffs from the agent, clearly a fellow city dweller, ahead of him were real.

And so was the snap of a twig that sounded like it came from behind them.

A shiver passed through Alan, an eerie sense of someone approaching him, swinging an ax in slow motion—he motioned to duck out of the way but his batteries were empty and he nearly fell forward—the pull of exhaustion had blinded him into this momentary hallucination of a ghost, and after an audible gasp and a brace for impact, he opened his eyes to discover what was really behind them—

Just a deer.

“Uh, Wake? Is there something on my jacket?”

It was then that Alan became painfully aware that he was gripping Casey's sleeve, in the same exact manner that Alice would when they would venture into haunted houses.

“What? Oh, sorry…”

“Doing an awful lot of apologizing. Makes me wonder if there’s something else you’re apologizing for,” Casey added in an accusatory tone, though he was smirking as Alan frowned and released his grip on the agent’s jacket. “Relax, Wake. You’re not a suspect…yet. You’re just part of the mystery.”

“Right,” Alan muttered, hanging his head. “A-agent Casey, I just gotta ask—’

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The answer to your question, did the chicken come before the egg, did I come before your stories, is yes. I’m older than your books, probably older than you, kid.”

“Oh. Small world, then, huh?” Alan tried to crack a smile, win over the grumpy man ahead of him, but he stiffened and wiped his nose with the back of his sandy hand instead.

The agent scoffed and continued on.

#mk.op #mk.fic #alan wake #alex casey #fic: half awake #if i never actually finish this fic or publish it #i just want everyone to know it ends with alan ruminating on his how mom would always peel the skin of his apples #and saga somehow senses this and does the same in an effort to try and get him to eat something before they start that interview

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daydadahlias · 4 months

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#ive been getting back into original writing a lot more recently #as im going to try to start submitting things this year :) and actually try to get published eek #and im reading through the books i wrote when I was 16-18 #and these are like actually crazy

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coquelicoq · 3 months

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i've gotten so used to my daily practice of reading french aloud that now when i have to read something boring in english for work i default to reading it aloud. which takes way longer and also i feel like i retain even less information than i would otherwise, somehow. the upside is that my oral reading cadence in english, even of dense scientific articles, is rather excellent nowadays. i could read scientific articles out loud for a living, if that was a thing people needed me to do. which they do not, because screenreaders are a thing. maybe i could read crusty PDFs out loud for a living? but anyway all this is to say shoutout to my man alexandre dumas and also my other man victor hugo for training me to read run-on sentences in my second language. after that, dry journal articles in my first language are easy peasy.

#this practice is giving me some insights that are relevant to my actual job though #i mean we already knew this but. try reading your sentences out loud. can someone understand them without seeing them?#if not...your sentence may be too complex and may need to be broken up into multiple sentences.#my clients have to write complicated shit in a readable manner and one of my coworkers had this whole #initiative for a while just trying to get them to write shorter sentences. but they completely ignored him lol #reading out loud also helps you catch typos. i caught so many in this published journal article just now (embarrassing for them)#i probably would have caught most of them if i had read it silently but you never know #it's really interesting to me that i think this skill of parsing syntax on the fly to modulate sentence-level prosody in french #seems to transfer to english. i mean that i've been practicing reading french aloud and it seems to have made me better at #reading english aloud too even though french and english have different syntax and punctuation conventions.#so that's convenient #french #syntax #prosody #my posts #i cannot believe i STARTED this daily practice with the count of fucking monte-cristo. way to start on hard mode. jesus #and then followed it up with les misérables of all things. am i a masochist??#don't answer that.

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wildberryjams · 5 months

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Hello ♡ It's been a while!

It's been over a year I think? I haven't kept track tbqh

I'm not really back, because I want to be noncommittal as possible (since I have a tendency to disappear when my motivation to write does)

But this is me saying that I'm finally working on under the rose again! ♡

I'd all but abandoned it months ago, but yesterday I had a burst of energy and managed to write a couple hundred words. Tonight, the total is 1300. It's not much, but it's a start!

I don't talk about my personal life for many reasons, but this year has been one of the most difficult I've ever experienced. The last thing on my mind has been Will and Azul, as much as I wish they'd kept occupying every inch of it like they used to.

That spark is coming back, I think! ♡ (More in the tags since this is getting long)

#I have lots of plans for this story since what I have published is barely one third of the entire thing #It works in three acts if I'm remembering my outline correctly. I'm still re-familiarizing myself with it #But yes I do intend on trying to get part 2 of ch. 9 out in the coming weeks!#I also wanted to continue the Ruby x Bobby x Stef love triangle in a band au setting but I'm seeing that the app is gone?#I cannot even begin to describe how upset I am that S1-3 are all gone before I was able to replay properly #Not to do a sharp turn but it's been a very taxing year mentally and I want to start the new year off by trying to work on a resolution #Which is finishing a fic! I don't know if I'll finish it in 2024 but I'm determined to write as much as I'm able #Anyway I will still be a fandom recluse but I'm excited to catch up on all the writing I've missed ♡#Posting this and going promptly to sleep ♡ (Insomnia is a huge part of UTR's conception LOL)

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emeryleewho · 1 year

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I hate the way a lot of people in publishing are so married to the "writing rules" that they forget what makes writing great is deviance. Yeah, good writers master the rules, but brilliant writers master the rules *so they can break them* with purpose and meaning. Things that are only allowed to exist within the constraints of what was written before them will never be revolutionary.

#and like sometimes it's the authors but more often it's the gatekeepers #and i feel like the longer you're in the industry the more the industry beats you down #you start off being so creative and vibrant #then you get forced to conform just to pay the bills #and some level of adhering to rules and structure makes sense #because the rules exist for a reason #but too many times the reason for the rules is 'just because' and i hate that #embrace chaos you cowards!!!#but also the difference between absurdity and revolutionary brilliance can only be seen in retrospect #and i feel like publishing kills the drive to just try #writing #publishing #musings

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lesenbyan · 15 days

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Sometimes I get the Urge to make a Big explanation about my view and thoughts on the universe, like, metaphysically and then like. Remember it doesn't matter and no one cares.

#personal;#it's not like i'm trying to start a new religion or philosophical branch or nothing #more like.....why put in the effort to monologue at the wall. it's not something i want to throw into the void #if i voice how i view and interact with the universe (which. probably honestly includes a non 0 amount of magical thinking)#then i want like. i dunno. a conversation? something about it #but also i know if i post it to the internet i'll get people calling it dumb too and like #don't want that #like it's not theistic but it's also not NOT theistic and it's not anything verifiable with current science #and has to do with nebulous concepts that are merely terms given to things that don't exist (like time. and possible electrons)#maybe i SHOULD write all of it down and try to publish it #weirder shit is being touted these days #maybe i should just shut up now #(need to figure out who in my head it is that makes so many personal posts and get them a blog or something)

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heraldofcrow · 11 months

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Logarius can go to HELL.

#i actually made myself infuriated and then start crying just now LMAO #i love logarius but the way i write him is so EVIL #EVIL MAN #he actually scares me and i hate him #i hate writing him #i love it at the same time #FUCK THIS GUY #fav character fr #sorry i’m in the throngs of writing passion atm #chapter five is about ready to be published so i took a bit of a break from getting it ready to add another scene to chapter six #i will try to publish them within a week of one another #writing stuff #martyr logarius #bloodborne fanfiction #CrowNotes

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crybaby-bkg · 9 months

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writing a slow burn enemies to lovers fic is. a lot harder. than I had expected.

#it’s why it took me so long to start akdhfkfjf #I’m just not used to writing slow burn!!!!#or enemies to lovers!!! lol #especially since enemies to lovers toes a very thin line #of this being too fast and all at once after a brief makeup #OR they’re too mean in the beginning and it’s like why do u have any attraction to that person at all.#so I’m trying to find the line of hesitant friendship somewhere along the line of that!!!!#even tho I’m only on chap three right now AKDHDKFJFJF #IM SO USED TO RUSHING THIS FEELS SO WEIRD!!!!!!#I’m ready for them to fugg #bc fugg is all I know I fear #but it’s coming along very well and I’m enjoying the writing process so much!!!#only downside is my wrist and back hurting #but trust and believe I’ll be back writing tomorrow ☝🏼#I’m enjoying this so much it’s so cathartic #I think I’m gonna write about five chapters first before I publish it and then write the rest as I go #I just know I can fall behind bc of school and depression but I’m really liking this so far!!!#also think I might upload on Monday’s or Thursdays??? idk #bc I do school tues/wed and I don’t typically get on my computer on sundays #and I usually go to bed either really late or really early Fridays LOL idk #I’m rambling soooo much I’m just so excited about this!!! OH and j made a banner and I love that too!!!!#—in store chit chat! 🍫

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oatbugs · 8 months

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. anyway after writing the tags 4 this post i told my research partner i will no longer follow his dreams lmao. still helping w it but i need to engage in research that i find satisfying

#i think ive been waiting for something for a while and i will spend the next year waiting for it too #i thought i felt panic but i have decided to read it as anticipation. the thrill of rejection or of moving forward or the latter as #a result of the former. i left you with your backpack unattended in the cafe because on fridays i am done #putting my life on hold for another whim-without-a-warning #this cross country service is delayed by 26 minutes so i will grab a bucket and start shovelling the water away from the tracks #everyone is moving on in some different way and im sorry if you think im mean for telling you getting so drunk will disable you from #recording your brainwaves effectively but it seems like you think i owe you an awful lot. one year ago in four days my friend got me hegel's #science of logic for my birthday and i thanked him for proving to me the existence of things this is what i do he said #and then he will spend the rest of his life breathing philosophy and i dont want to spend the rest of my life #breathing someone elses dreams i wait for the moment of realisation. this is now a 30 minute delay. i was supposed to worship beautiful #things and that is what i will do. i think i have a best friend and i know i have a lover and i know to #restrict my love the way you have. im sorry. i hope you understand when i tell you. i am now sitting on the floor in the luggage section of #this incredibly busy train and i saw a photo of her with her boyfriend and her hair in braids smiling like a fool this is the #except a week ago you told me you almost took too much this time to live. you are a beautiful girl with a beautiful soul and you know you #have already changed the world and it somehow was not enough. now you are smiling without any makeup on next to him #and yesterday you cried in an airport in the states when you were too full of love. this is the most extraordinary human being i have met.#tomorrow he heads off to princeton while his best friend heads to harvard. he goes there to make the world a better place. he is the most #extraordinary person i have ever met. the issue with human beings is that we are incredibly good at almost dying and keeping going.#you try to kill yourself and publish a paper and give a talk. you negotiate the seperation between your own parents and submit another #phd application. i am surrounded by extraordinary people with extraordinary minds and incredibly broken happy hearts.#i only see you smile when you talk about robotics. i still dont know how manifolds work and i love the concept anyway. i dont know.#i do know that i refuse to live unsatisfied.#you can keep drinking. im going to drink this reality up #i think i was a horrible person and i refuse to engage with that mentality again no matter what it takes.

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spaceshipkat · 4 days

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MOTA got me back writing fics because Bucky and Buck are k i l l i n g me, but I’m unsure if I should even post them (ao3). Thoughts?? Advice??? 🥺

ahhh HELL yeah!! welcome to the clegan writer fanclub 🫶

and honestly, anon? i say go for it!! i was hesitant to write any mota fic (for a variety of reasons, one being i'm first and foremost an original fiction writer and i already have a mota-inspired original manuscript i'm developing, and i worried about crossing streams and losing momentum for either my fics or my original manuscript, but thankfully neither has happened--and i posted my first clegan fic a month ago today) but i'm SO glad that i did, and i'm equally glad that i posted them to ao3. the response has been overwhelming in a very good way and incredibly uplifting, and really helps with my motivation

but beyond that, i think three good reasons to post your fics are 1) you enjoy writing them, 2) you enjoy reading them, and 3) you did something incredible that not everyone has the chops to pull off and that deserves to be celebrated. i wrote my fics because they were stories i wanted to read and hadn't yet found in the tags (i've also reread them countless times since i posted them, bc i wrote them for myself) and because i thought they might be stories other people want to read, too.

so some advice! this is how i approached writing and posting any fanfic, since i came to it as an original fiction writer pursuing tradpub where the best way to keep writing is to write first and foremost for yourself (it's truly the only way to keep writing when you're pursuing tradpub--i'm not even being facetious here). i had not written a single word of fanfic until april 2022.

anyway, enough yapping. my advice is under the cut because this got long. and while this ask is about mota, my tips cover pretty much any fanfic someone might post to ao3 (should anyone else be after some advice about posting or writing fic!):

tip #1: try not worry about the number of views, kudos, comments, etc etc that you receive. YOU enjoy what you wrote and had fun doing it, which means it was worth writing, so try to go into posting to ao3 without expectations. i know it's easier said than done (i myself still struggle with this, separating my feelings about writing fic to their reception), but it's something important to, at the very least, keep at the forefront of your mind and remind yourself of as often as needed once you click "post."

tip #2: everyone can get picky about what stops them from reading certain fics. for me, one big reason i'll stop reading is when an author overuses epithets. for instance, if i wrote this passage from peacetime like a liminal space:

Gale is still there in the soft light of the hotel hallway, the leather of his A-3 jacket gleaming and crusher cap angled just-so, toothpick a taunt and temptation both in the corner of his mouth. He’s smirking and, if John didn’t know better, blushing as he gives John a quick once-over. John looks down at himself. Lipstick is still smeared on his nipples. Clearing his throat, he tugs the robe tighter shut, shielding his chest from Gale’s sight.

as this instead (the things i changed are bolded):

The blond is still there in the soft light of the hotel hallway, the leather of his A-3 jacket gleaming and crusher cap angled just-so, toothpick a taunt and temptation both in the corner of his mouth. He’s smirking and, if John didn’t know better, blushing as he gives the taller man a quick once-over. John looks down at himself. Lipstick is still smeared on his nipples. Clearing his throat, he tugs the robe tighter shut, shielding his chest from the other's sight.

it's a big turn-off for me, and i thus likely won't read the fic. it's the same way everyone will have different reasons they put down a traditionally published novel. what floats my boat might not float yours and vice versa, and that's 100% fine. therefore, if you enjoy writing epithets, then go forth and write epithets. this is fanfic. we're here to have fun, not grade each other.

tip #3: do not be afraid to "market" yourself, aka post about your fic on tumblr as often as you fucking want. share passages while you write. ramble about what made you choose a certain turn of phrase, or a certain plot point, or the color of the curtains, or what you believe a background character was thinking in a scene. talk about the writing process. make moodboards. go hog-wild because you should be proud of your accomplishment, and proud of your writing style, and proud of that first kiss you labored over and want to shout from the rooftops about. ignore the people who say that talking about your writing makes you egotistical or a braggart. you are allowed to be proud of your work.

tip #4: tag appropriately. there's quite a few posts out there with general to-dos for tagging your work, and two of the most important ones are ratings (for instance, if your fic has on-page sex, tag it as "explicit," or if it has graphic violence but closed-door sex, tag it as "mature") and proper archive warnings (for instance, if a major character dies--if you include Curt's death in more detail than simply mentioning it, and if Curt is a main character rather than a background or secondary character--select "Major Character Death." in the case of Curt, i don't think you need to tag this unless he's, say, one of the love interests or a POV character. you don't need to tag this if he's a background or secondary character, or if his death is simply talked about/mentioned). another important one is "dead dove, do not eat" as well as a tag for what that dead dove is--even if it's a spoiler. if there's rape, you tag Rape as well as Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, because readers need to know what the dead dove is. it's not enough to simply use the tag, even if the explanation is a spoiler.

personally, i try not to use too many additional tags, as i find the more tags a fic has, the more likely i am to skip over it while scrolling for something to read. i really only want the important ones. to continue using peacetime like a liminal space as an example, this is how i tagged it:

i included Post-War and Post-Canon because i wanted people to know exactly when this fic takes place. i used Getting Together because that's kinda the main plot of the fic, as well as Pining and Idiots in Love. i used Angst with a Happy Ending because i wanted readers to know there is angst, but that there is a guaranteed happy ending (personally, if a writer uses just the Angst tag but doesn't have an additional tag for Happy Ending, i'm unlikely to read the fic unless i'm in the right mood for a potentially upsetting ending). i used POV John Clarence "Bucky" Egan because i personally appreciate knowing whose POV i'll be reading in before i dive in. i love both Bucky and Buck as narrators, but other people might have preferences, and the first three mota fics i posted were all from Buck's POV--people might have expected this one to be from his POV, too. last, i used No Infidelity for this fic when i didn't for my others because (and this is veering into mild spoilers if anyone reading this hasn't read the fic yet, so skip to the next ✈️ if you don't want to be spoiled) it isn't made clear to John or the reader until maybe 75% in that Marge and Gale aren't actually a couple, and this is a big issue John and Gale have to talk about in order for Gale to reveal he and Marge are one another's beards and have never been a real couple. therefore, even though that tag is technically a spoiler, i felt it was important to include all the same. ✈️

tip #5: while there is a caveat in the next paragraph, do try your best to match a character's voice--not only will it help your fic feel more authentic, it's good practice! that was the thing that worried me most when i first dove into writing fanfic, because i appreciate when an author can match a character's voice really well and i worried that i wouldn't be able to match another writer's characters. sometimes it takes me a minute to really feel comfortable in a voice (i'm still not 100% happy with how i wrote Stede in some of my ofmd fics, to be honest, though i'm insanely happy with how i've written Buck and Bucky), but i always appreciate the endeavor because it helps me change up the voices of my narrators in my original fiction.

all that being said, don't kill yourself trying to match a character's voice. it's not worth your mental health, nor your motivation to write in the first place. it gets easier the more you practice, so practice practice practice. i've also found it helps to 1) rewatch certain scenes that provide a good example of how a character talks (if you're writing a more serious fic from Bucky's POV, try rewatching that scene he and Buck are walking through the yard of the stalag and Bucky is lamenting the fact he didn't set life up right; if you're writing a more lighthearted fic, a good study is pretty much the latter half of episode 2, when Bucky talks to Croz and Bubbles, then sings Blue Skies) (for Gale, a good scene to watch to get a feel for how he "confesses" or talks about important, tough subjects is the scene in which he tells Bucky about his dad at the end of episode 2; a high-emotion scene could be when he orders Friedkin in episode 3 to stop panicking and trying to bail because they're going to take everything the Germans have to throw at them, since the outburst is very unlike Buck's usual calm demeanor). and 2) find a certain piece of music to get into a character's head, i also recommend doing the same for the vibe of a fic. again with peacetime like a liminal space, i listened to Måneskin a lot. i also like to listen to Post Engines, Pre-flight from the mota soundtrack when i'm writing Gale's POV (it's the song that plays in episode 1 when the Hundredth is prepping for their first flight by going over the checklist).

that's all i can think of rn (and i've gotta get back to this proofread for work), but if anyone has any advice, feel free to add it!

on the whole, mota has been the most welcoming fandom i've joined in a long time, and i've made so many new mutuals (hello my lovelies!) since i started talking about it on here and posting my fics on ao3 (also got a helluva lot of new followers--i'm so happy y'all are here 🫶). it's been such a wonderful fandom that i think you'll really enjoy posting your fics, anon. i'm behind on reading fics atm--i read for a living, so sometimes i don't have the brainpower to read for fun, and also i don't read other people's fics while writing my own--but i'd love to read yours whenever they're up!! 💖

i hope the above ramble has helped!

#ask #anonymous #masters of the air #mota #mota fic #clegan #ao3 #writing advice #kinda #since i have a lot of new followers allow me to explain the whole tradpub issue:#i've been pursuing traditional publication since i was 18. i will be 30 in november.#i've also had three literary agents (though i count my current one as my 'first' bc i used to write ya and now only write adult)#in those almost twelve years of trying to get published i have received /hundreds/ of rejections #from agents and editors. i've gotten very close to yes a few times but they inevitably became a no #so after yearssss of being told 'no' from tradpub i started to worry that despite having an agent i wasn't a good writer #and that i didn't know how to write. that my prose wasn't good enough. that my plotting and pacing was shit.#i was feeling HORRIBLE about myself and my writing (hence why i say you have to write for yourself or you'll never make it in tradpub)#then i started posting fanfic and the reception has been fucking mindboggling #not only have i seen such a massive improvement in my writing thanks to the sheer amount of practice i was getting #(my agent even said she's seen a massive improvement from my first manuscript with her)#(and i signed with her in 2021)#i've been able to (mostly) shake the voice that says i'm not a good writer. that i don't know how to write. etc.#so fanfic has really done wonders for my ability to keep creating

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