Review spotlight

"I really love the way you write, it's very Oscar Wilde, dry and witty."

- Guest, chapter 2 of Permission Granted

 

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Author rant: I know you love him coz you're jealous.

Author rant:

I know you love him coz you're jealous.

I try to respond to reviews as often as I can. Not only because I'm genuinely thankful someone took the time to review, but also to further ask their opinion on matters relating to the story.

I've gotten some amazing responses and a lot of food for thought when I go in to write more chapters, and its invaluable to have that kind of feedback from people, especially readers.

Very recently, I got a response back which, I'll paraphrase: 

"Maybe bring in a male character to make the other character jealous in order for them to realise their true feelings" - Uhm. How about no. 

One thing I absolutely hate is the use of jealousy for a couple to realise they have feelings for each other. No. Absolutely not. 

Love isn't about jealousy. 

Insecure people are jealous. 

People that think love and relationships are about being better than other couples, or being better than their significant other, get jealous. 

People that are comfortable and happy in a relationship do not get jealous, and they certainly don't need jealousy to make them realise they're in love with someone. 

Using a third party to insinuate deeper feelings between two other people is superficial at best. 

Yes, you may feel jealous at the lucky women who sees the Hemsworth brothers, Orlando Bloom and the like first thing in the morning in all their shirtless, sent-from-Heaven glory, but that's completely different! 

In fanfiction whenever there's a love triangle or an indication of a love triangle, there's always one poor person in between whose an innocent bystander in the ship's path. 

A good love triangle puts the reader in the position of the male/female character that is in the middle of the triangle, letting them into why the character is so torn between Person A and Person B. The reader has to feel just as torn up about having to choose only one of them (not because it's a competition, but because it isn't fair on either of them that you - general - can't make up your mind on who you have stronger feelings towards). 

If anything, a love triangle is the most used and the most pitifully implemented plot device the world over. 

In fanfiction its supposed to indicate why the pairing can only be together, and to portray how unhappy one half of the relationship is when they're with someone else. THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS DAMN IT.  

Love means wanting someone to be happy, even if it isn't with you.

PLUS. Just because you're unhappy with a relationship doesn't mean it'll be better with someone else. 

RELATIONSHIPS TAKE WORK, IF YOU AREN'T WILLING TO DO IT, SOMEONE ELSE WILL. 

One of the many reasons I'm so against love triangles (or any "love" shape) is because it pits two individuals against each other for the affection of a single person whose screwed up in the head, whose indecisive AF and will probably run off with a third party anyway. 

Do you want to see how to do love triangles well? Observe the relationships in Scandal! between Mellie, Fitz and Liv, and Fitz, Liv and Jake; no one does love tangles better than Shonda Rhimes.

The only way I can respect a love triangle is if the author isn't scared to show all sides of the characters - the sides that aren't pretty, that have a pension for pain, that don't always win the battle at the end of the day. The characters in a love triangle go through HELL. And sometimes you're left wondering if anyone could possibly love another human being. I'd go so far as to say it's the ugly side of love. 

Love triangles are a guess game - the end result will always be on the horizon, but the scary thing is what ship will still have their flags raised when its over.

That's right: for those of you who only read fanfiction when you see character A x character B x character C love-triangle, you as the reader aren't supposed to know which ship will actually sail another day. If the summary immediately indicated "character A x character B" then there's no actual point in it being called a "triangle".  

The common thing in fanfiction is to use a third party to incite the "true" feelings of the pairing which is what this reviewer wanted me to do. 

All suggestions are open to be considered, accepted or declined.  I choose the last. 

Because: 

• There's no space for jealousy of that kind in a happy relationship. 
• It isn't fair on that third character.
• To actively manipulate any character to feel anything is just that - manipulation, and that's not how a healthy relationship works
• Two people should admit or have their feelings known because they've decided to, not because they've been "pushed" to it in fear of losing their significant other 
• Using a "love triangle" as a way to make feelings known is plain stupid - the laziest form of writing in my opinion. Just because the characters are unsure of their feelings for each other doesn't mean that they need something dramatic or require some event to occur to right that. 
• Its a "character" problem - my stories are character driven, there needs to be internal conflict to move the story along. The reason character A and character B don't know how the other feels is because THEY'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO. 

Characters realising their feelings on their own and how they make it known is part of the story, I'm not throwing that away to give anyone instant gratification, and if I were, I'd be throwing the potential the story has and my own work down the drain. 

Sigh. Okay. I'm done.

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Anatomy of a popular one-shot

Yes I'm aware I'm tooting my own horn. 

No. I don't care.

Anatomy of a popular one-shot

I've written many one-shots. Not exceeding a hundred yet mind you, but I've had my fair share of them - thirty plus if you count the stories from my inactive account, and ten to fifteen on my current. 

For those of you who don't know what a one-shot is: It's basically a short story, the shortest short story ever. It can really only count as a one-shot if it's a single chapter so word count is relative. 

Some people find it easy. Others not so much.

I write one-shots as experiments and mainly to scratch the writing bug that pops up. I don't have the best track record with long running stories, so one-shots and collections of one-shots are my safest bet which would explain the number of them that I have.

I'm no expert at it, but I've come to recognize a few things once the story has been posted. An example being the two one-shots that spurned the creation of this post.

Before I give away any misleading secrets, it's important to note a few things: 

A story's popularity depends on a number of factors, these include, but are not limited to:

• The fandom you're writing for
• The pairing or main characters involved
• The genre you categorize it under
• The rating of the story

As you may have noticed, the actual writing isn't mentioned because those are internal factors and what makes a story attractive to potential readers is the bare minimum they see which in fanfiction is limited to a 455character summary, a title, and the above already mentioned. 

Note: Readers will notice any spelling and grammatical errors in your summary and it could be held against you. A good first impression is important.

Now, as I said, I recently posted two one-shots three days apart (they're practically twins), here they are, their first picture outside of my brain -

Despite the fact that the stories were three days apart they had nothing else in common: Not their fandom, not their rating, not their word count, nothing. 

But what's interesting is that I felt exactly the same when I wrote both. I was suffering from writer's block about another story and I wrote those two to make them better. They were written practically the same day but released seperately because I felt like it (no joke, I didn't think either of them were particularly good so I was reluctant to release them onto the internet).

As you can see from the reviews though, the stories garnered different responses. 

The first, my shot in the dark - first Fairy Tail one-shot was me writing away my obsession with a pairing that isn't particularly popular. I thought it was the better of the two so that's why I posted it first. I didn't expect a miracle, if anything I'm surprised I got any reviews at all. 

The second was posted under the excitement that my Fairy Tail one-shot survived without a flame or troll in sight, and I hoped I'd get the same response. 

If you're on the Facebook Group Fanfiction Writers Unite you'd know how it was received: I got eight reviews within two hours of posting, and the numbers kept going...

I still think it's a joke, and I honestly laugh about it because it's so unbelievable. 

Looking back, the stories are pretty different. 

Fandom and pairing:

Fairy Tail, though popular as a fandom, didn't have a big community of Laxana shippers.

Pride and Prejudice on the other hand, is quite active, and its  DarcyxLizzy/Dizzy ship definitely takes up the entire harbor.

The up would go to the Pride and Prejudice story.

Plot wise: 

The Fairy Tail one-shot was my version of a Laxana trope: the pairing being drinking buddies. 

The Pride and Prejudice one-shot was a complete out of the box: the pairing in the same economic situation (a trope that is rarely ever explored though I've yet to figure out why). 

It would be a toss up, but since the trope was more uncommon in one then the other, the up would go to the Pride and Prejudice story

Rating:
The Fairy Tail one-shot was rated T for safety (Cana's a big drinker, plus the trope was drinking buddies so there was that).
The Pride and Prejudice one-shot was rated K because it was still regency, no one swore and no one did anything mildly inappropriate (for our time period besides a kiss)
Both ratings show up without having to fiddle with the filters, but the more G rated it could be the better chances the story has of being read (safety first). The up would go to Pride and Prejudice story.

Word count:
The Fairy Tail one-shot was 3k
The Pride and Prejudice one-shot was 1k
One-shots are usually read because they're always complete and because generally, they're short so the up went to the Pride and Prejudice story.

Genre:

Both were categorized under romance, with Fairy Tail having the added Friendship thrown in because the actual romance was more implied. 

In that, there are no differences. In fact, having another genre can attract more readers, so the up might have gone to Fairy Tail if I wasn't so unsure of how obvious my preference for Laxana as more than a friendship pair.

Summary: 

I've changed the summary twice for the Pride and Prejudice story while the Fairy Tail one has remained the same. For the most part, both stories seem relatively simple in the trope they present - 

The Fairy Tail one-shot was clearly going to be about drinking (Cana and alcohol always go hand in hand) and I had it easier putting into words what exactly it was about while the Pride and Prejudice one-shot was a little more vague, but implies the pair are in the same situation, though it was difficult to word it in a way I was happy with (I'm still not by the way, but what can you do). 

Content: 

I liked the story more in Fairy Tail because it had a clear beginning, middle and end. I got to play around a bit with headcanons. It also read more like a one-shot despite it being 3k in length. I struggled with the tenses though, and people did notice, but overall, the response was the best I could've hoped for.

The story for Pride and Prejudice was a bit more muddled, the only thing really clear about it was the fact that it was happening in the moment - the beginning and end weren't particularly clear, but that seemed to have an appeal to people as they reviewed to say they wish there was more to read.

The thing I was most worried about was how completely out-of-character I thought everyone was, but the readers disagreed.

Also when I reread it a few hours after I posted just to make sure the readers and I were reading the same thing, I found a multitude of errors and missing words, none of which was present in the Fairy Tail story. No one seemed to mind.

So here's what I got from the responses of the two one-shots:

Write what the plotbunnies tell you to. You don't have to put it in a box and organise it. Get what you want to say out and then rework it to make sure it meshes. You'll miss the story if you're too worried about how it'll look.

Content is king. Don't worry too much about the spelling and grammar as you write (though don't post it if you haven't corrected the mistakes), the plotbunnies don't have time for proper English. Let them do what they do and then clean up the mess.

Be bold. Like this font. People want to read something new, just because it's been tried and tested doesn't mean it'll be popular. 

Also, just because a fandom or it's pairing isn't in demand, doesn't mean you shouldn't write that story your plotbunnies have been nagging you about. You could be the start of that ship's popularity. I know, because I've been one too ;-)

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That awkward moment in fanfiction when...you don’t know what comes next

That awkward moment in fanfiction when...you don’t know what comes next

So you finished your first story…

First off, congratulations!

Readers who don’t write have no idea how difficult completing a piece of work is, it can be a one-shot, (insert-number-here) prompts, requests, collections and full on chaptered stories.

It takes a lot of motivation to swallow down the excitement, anxiety, pride and fluctuating feeling of self-loathing (“Dear Fanfic Gods on High, why did I make it more complicated than it has to be?”/ “Why aren’t the plot bunnies cooperating?!”). Question is: Are you ready to do it all over again?  

My answer was this, “Tap out.”

Maybe I just have commitment issues. But the work required to get the story started, to keep it going and then end it was emotionally exhausting.

We’ve all come across amazing stories that sit on the first five chapters, and they never finish. Why?

It’s hard. So hard. Very hard. Frustratingly hard. It’s creative constipation really.

But you know what?

I’d do it again.

I haven’t really written anything for a few weeks (months?) since I changed the status of my story from “Incomplete” to “Complete”, and I’ve never felt so fulfilled in my entire life. Yes, the story wasn’t perfect, but it was finished and very few people can actually say that when you take into consideration the number of aspiring writers all over the world and those with completed works under their belt.

I’d do it again to feel like I have something to show for it. It was the evidence of my abilities as a writer and proof that I can push through the muddle and slug of writer’s block and lack of support and be less of the “spur of the moment” writer I was years before.

I would do it again.

But how? I didn’t want to do a sequel (which is happening anyway because plotbunnies). And I didn’t want to be a one trick pony by only writing one type of story.

But how would I be able to create another story without the influence of the one preceding it?

Writer problems.

Have you recently completed a piece of work you didn't think would ever be complete?  Were you proud? Exhausted? Excited? Filled with regret that it didn't end the way you originally envisioned it months/years before? Share your thoughts below :)

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What the plot-bunny: Sibling Intervention (free pdf)

 

Inspiration comes at random; they appear when anyone least expects it and offers ideas a writer just can’t get out of their heads. It drives them out of their minds to the point where they’re either fascinated to distraction or irritated beyond belief – both was my experience.

See, the plot-bunnies show up at times that are extremely inconvenient.

 As it was, I couldn’t just write the idea as it was presented, I couldn’t just accept the baby they wanted me to raise – if it was an English exam I might’ve, but I doubt my maths teacher even knows who Jane Austen is, let alone marvel at the awesomeness that was my Pride and Prejudice variation. 

Unfortunately it persisted through the exam and by the time my 3hour paper was over, I walked home cursing myself for choosing to read Pride and Prejudice fanfiction the night before instead of studying.

 For weeks the idea grew, stirring questions a fangirl of JA and P&P does whose about to raise the plot-bunnies’ baby and release it into the fandom:

1)      What would happen if a character had done this, or said that? Would I still be seeing the original story taking place or would some magic route come out of the sky and lead me towards another playground? WOULD THERE BE CANDY?

2)      How would it affect the characters? Would Caroline still be obnoxious? Would Hurst still be drunk? Would Mrs. Bennet still be Mrs. Bennet? WOULD KEIRA KNIGHTLY OR JENNIFER EHLE PLAY ELIZABETH?

3)      Would changing a single event affect how the characters behave and see each other? Would Darcy still be Darcy? Would Elizabeth always expect the worse from him? Would Bingley still be influenced by Darcy and let Jane slip away? WOULD CAROLINE STILL WEAR ORANGE?!

4)      Why would the event matter? Would it be significant in any way outside of the current situation? Would an heir to Longbourn make a difference?

The answer to the last question was the deal breaker, the one that decided whether the story would be born at all and see the light of the Pride and Prejudice fandom…And I realized I was being a dumbass because obviously an heir to Longbourn would change a hell of a lot, and not just be another Bennet wreaking havoc with the Darcy/De Bough/Collins/Bingley family and so, the plot-bunnies prevailed and I took their baby and made it mine.

30 chapters, 113 726 words and Sibling Intervention was all grown up and ready to face the public that were forever and always, prowling for a complete story to shred.

I’m ready for it though – the plot-bunny baby was mine.

I knew its faults: its presumptuous manner, its grammar difficulties, its’ confusion over American-British spelling, the constant brandishing of creative license and its overly subtle nature. It isn’t a masterpiece.

It wasn’t created with a message to spread or a purpose beyond the simple reading pleasure of whomever its fancy had taken; it had no hidden image or intended themes beyond the superficial – I’m nowhere near that stage in writing.

This first completed work of mine was not Jane Austen. It was fanfiction. But it was fanfiction I was proud to call mine.

Just a reminder: this story is as unedited as it is online - in the future a "better" version will be available - watch this space. 

      

Read for free online? Follow this link.

Free PDF download available below: 

Sibling Intervention

And for those not wanting to make another account at another site, you can go the Gumroad way and just type in your email address - which won't lead to spam, just send you any notices about any new books I may release, or send a thank-you note your way from me :) You banking details are unnecessary as well as I'm told that the option will disappear if you leave the amount at zero :)

Note: money is not to be made through its distribution, I believe in bartering – I offer you a story, readers offer me feedback. Also, this version has many errors, all of which will be corrected and parts added/and or removed in the new version.

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