Some great posting meta and that meme again

[kate]

melannen posted Ten Simple Ways To Get More Attention For Your Fanwork that is all really solid advice. If you're looking to get more kudos/comments/attention, her advice is good, and presented with a sense of humor. I'd add one more, actually - if you want more kudos/comments, write porn. My clicking around tells me that Explicit ratings get more hits than General Audiences - and the Gen stories that end up high in the kudos/comments sorting are exceptionally well written while the Explicit ones are middling to good (with the occasional one hitting it out of the park). If it's a long story, add a sex scene to get more readers (this is my cynical side talking - I don't actually do this myself, but I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that it would make a significant difference in your hits/kudos/comments).

Day 1. Discuss something old
Day 2. Discuss something new
Day 3. Discuss something made for someone else
Day 4. Discuss something made just for yourself
Day 5. Discuss something for a large fandom/pairing/character
Day 6. Discuss something for a small fandom/pairing/character
Day 7. Discuss something you're just really proud of

This should be totally easy! Most of the 133 SGA fics I've written are McShep (73 of them, actually, which is.... somewhere between half and two-thirds - not as many as I thought), and they are the juggernaut pairing. I've written Alexander/Hephaestion in the Alexander fandom (all 29 of my fics are that pairing), Cougar/Jensen in The Losers (22 of my 37 fics), and a little Destiel in Supernatural (only 4 of my 38 fics). So basically, I could talk about roughly half of the stories I've written.

The sad thing is, if I had finished it, Impromptu would be the thing that goes here. God, so much time and love has gone in that fic and every time I realize I'm not going to finish it, I just want to cry.

But of those juggernaut pairing fics, let's go with my most popular (continue with the theme, I suppose), which is different depending on whether I sort by hits (Truth, Justice, and the Lantean Way (McShep)), comments (The Astrophysicist Job (McShep)), or kudos/bookmarks.

I'll go with kudos/bookmarks because it seems like that's a truer reading of the popularity - the comments on The Astrophysicist Job are all basically "more!" (which is fair, really) and the hits on Truth, Justice, and the Lantean Way are because it was a big bang and it has chapters (and it's only 4th on that list - the other three aren't in huge fandoms and/or don't have huge pairings). They're solid, and both in my top 10, but the one that's actually the most popular is a Losers fic.

the antechamber of another world is a Cougar/Jensen fic set in a steampunk world. I'm ridiculously proud of it, I cannot tell you how much - I'd never done steampunk before I and I was scared shitless writing it, as I am not super-familiar with steampunk. I really enjoyed creating the world, though, and I just really enjoy the story. The fic itself should be longer, but I'm finding that one of the things I can do pretty well is find a way to taper off my novel-length stories at a satisfyingly happy stopping point, even if it's not the true ending of the story. This is one of those. A lot of my Losers fics are like that, sadly. A lot of my fics are like that, actually, because I have too many ideas and they're all too big for their britches. Life was easier when I only got one plot bunny at a time.

Comments

[melannen]

Ah, yes, I was trying to avoid advice that involved changing a story, but "rate it as high as you think you can get away with" probably ranks up there with "tag for major pairings at the least excuse".

[kate]

Ahahahah, yes! That's why I didn't put that suggestion on your post - yours was specifically about posting, but "rate it as high as you can get away with" totally works!

[omens]

Haaaa yep, sex sells.

*adds steampunk fic to to-read list* :D

[kate]

It sure does. Sometimes I feel like a freak because I'm really not in this for the porn, you know? But it is a bit overwhelming how many people seem to be.

\o/ I hope you like it! :D

[omens]

Yeah, I get it. I don't mind the porn but I'm almost always skimming (and don't tend to notice if it just fades to black or whatever).. so I don't go for PWPs but sex as physical emotion is great! I'm here for the feelings >_>

[kate]

Ahahaha, me too! And I know a lot of folks I hang with are that way. I'm just always surprised, the difference between explicit and non-explicit fanworks when you sort by popularity.

[scheherezhad]

Ah, I really love antechamber, and I love that you love it, because it's amazing. <3

Also, very true advice re: porn. It's a long-proven fact that smut is at least going to get hits, if not kudos/comments/bookmarks/etc. I know I was already reading meta to that effect some 15-ish years ago, when I was new to online fandom (and didn't yet know the term "meta").

[kate]

<333333 I love that story a whole lot, yes, and I'm glad to hear you do too! It was a lot of fun to write.

I wish I could get a porn ghost writer. I'm just really picky about my porn, so I have to have characterization and other stuff in there, so just plain old smuttiness won't do. It's a frustrating thing about my porn-writing habits. :(

I'm not surprised that it's been talked about that long (and probably longer!). It seems to be a recurring theme in my fannish life. (Those vampire stories I talked about yesterday, the ones that friend and I were writing? She kept bugging me about where the porn was! And all her stuff was porn. And I was just like... but... where's the story? Where's the angst?!!!)

[nagasvoice]

Actually, I think the pr0n is very much more *effective* at raising the heat when it has some angst and humor and plenty of plot structure stubbornly getting in the way and stringing out the UST until you just can't staaaand it any more. I like to have it matter. Of course folks looking for Plot What Plot head-on smut are going to be really annoyed by that.

[kate]

I'm that way too - though I don't necessarily need there to be UST to the nth degree. I do like that - I think ratcheting it up can really keep your readers with you in the long haul - but I think that there are stories that are really just straight-up porn that manage to capture meaningful moments or spectacular characterization. I can't remember one I've read recently, but there were a lot of those in SGA, and I remember a number from LOTRIPS.

And while I know there are people that basically only read PWPs, but I think most folks also read stories with plot, they just want to be rewarded with sex at the end.

[scheherezhad]

Ahahaha, sweetnlow and I used to play-argue about that a lot. If I mentioned I wanted to write something porny or she asked me for some, I'd talk about how I needed to figure out how xyz happened before tab a met slot b. She'd tell me to just write the porn! and I'd tell her you can't just do that! They have to be in character, and even if there's no substantial plot, the porn can't just exist in a void!

I wish I could remember who it was a couple of years ago who wrote some meta advising writers to tag fic with sex scenes with all relevant kinks and sex acts therein. I was thinking about it again when I posted that kinkmeme fill, and I still think it's very good advice. I know I look for those kinds of tags on Mature and Explicit fics to see if they include any of my kinks or nopes, but it's one of those things I probably wouldn't have consciously utilized in my own posting if I hadn't read that.

[kate]

Yeah, I can occasionally write porn in a vacuum (I wrote a Clay/Aisha fisting fic like that once for kink_bingo), but mostly I prefer plot, so if porn happens, it's because it fits the story I'm telling. And people don't generally ask me for porn, probably because that's not most of what I write.

Yeah, I remember that - and it's seriously solid advice. Whenever I'm tagging, I go back to my practices as a reader and see what I'd like people to do. (And that's one of melannen's points on her post - it's really good, you should read it if you haven't (and not because you're looking for more kudos, just because it's an interesting look at the way stories pile up kudos/comments and why).