Today I want to talk about fanfiction (FF).  Specifically, authors of fanfiction.

People who choose to write fanfiction are brave souls for putting themselves out there for the world to see. These authors write fanfiction for a myriad of reasons.  Some use it as a form of therapy.  Others write fanfiction because they love the characters of a book, TV show, or movie and see them in other scenarios outside of canon.  Still, others write FF because they don’t want the stress of dealing with a publisher and marketing that comes with writing original fiction. Yet, they still enjoy the writing process.

As an author, I fall into the third category. I’ve previously published original fiction but found the process stressful and eventually burned out.  In addition to my original stories, I’ve been writing fanfiction for decades. It’s invigorating to have the freedom to write what I want when I want.  Still, even writing fanfiction, I have developed a loyal reader base and, as such, feel a responsibility to that base to be as clear and transparent as possible with my work.  

For me, that means trying to give my followers the necessary information about my story so they can decide if they want to read it.   

Story Summary/Blurb

One aspect that is the same between original fiction and fanfiction is the story summary.  Now the one in fanfiction (depending on your platform) requires fewer words for the summary(blurb).  However, fanfiction offers additional options for further defining your story. Over the years, I wrote in Emergency! Fanfiction and Wrestling Fanfiction. Recently, my interest shifted to Stephanie Plum fanfiction, so, I’ll use it as an example in this post.  

 In both AO3 and fanfiction.net, the additional options include the following:

~ Genre (Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Crime, Drama, etc….)

~Characters (Example: Stephanie Plum, Carlos Manoso, Joe Morelli, etc….)

~Rating (How spicy the story is or if it includes violence)

~Story length

~If the story is complete

A03 also provides content warnings for specific topics that might trigger a reader.

In addition, the plum fandom contains certain kinds of readers. (Babes = Ranger/Stephanie HEA, Cupcakes = Joe Morelli/Stephanie HEA, Tart= OC/Stephanie pairing).  Some readers don’t care about the pairing.  Others are diehard in what they want to read. 

I see more and more authors opting not to use these additional tags.  Why?  From what I’ve ascertained, the thought process of many authors is less information will force more people to read their stories.  The problem with this thinking is readers may be searching for a certain type of story.  Without a clearly defined summary, including pairing, genre, etc…the reader is going into a story blind.

Now, I’m not saying that an author has to give away the ending of a story. However, if the story is marked ‘Romance’, it’s reasonable to assume the story will end with a HEA. However, not using the tags or character pairings leaves readers wondering if they should take a chance on reading it.

Sadly, when the story doesn’t meet the reader’s expectations, that reader becomes upset about spending their valuable time on a story that didn’t meet their criteria.  The reader then leaves a negative review. The result of this negative review is an angry author.

Give and Take

I know quite a few authors who believe they don’t ‘owe’ readers anything regarding the stories they write ‘for free.’  This might be true, but the author’s lack of respect for the reader’s time and preferences is clear, and in this situation, the readers do not ‘owe’ the author a good review.

Much like any other situation in life, this IS transactional. The author writes a story, and keeping the reader in mind provides a good summary and proper tagging/info. With the proper information provided, the reader can choose to take a chance(or not) on the story. This transaction should most likely end with a positive review. This ending makes everyone happy.

When a story doesn’t meet a reader’s expectation, that reader has every right to write a negative or unhappy review.

Yes, it’s easy for authors to want to make the argument to ‘just don’t read the story’.  However, that logic is frustratingly irrational and, in this author’s opinion, quite honestly, dismissive. Again, this is just my opinion, but if authors don’t want to do the minimum to aid the reader in making an informed decision on what to read, they get what they get. 

As an author who is also a reader, I fail to understand why it is such a big deal for some authors to provide this information. If I see authors acting this way I will avoid reading their stories. 

Another type of author that I avoid reading is an author who holds their chapters hostage, until they receive a predetermined number of positive reviews. This is a guaranteed way to ensure I stop reading. I will purposely back out of any story where I see the author say that he/she won’t post the next chapter until he/she receives an ‘X’ number of positive reviews.  It doesn’t matter how good the story is.

As an author, I can say that we all enjoy receiving positive reviews.  It feeds our delicate egos and affirms that we are good at what we do.  However, coercion or bribery isn’t the way to go about it.  

IT IS NOT THE READER’S JOB TO STROKE AN AUTHOR’S EGO.

Authors who do this should take a long, hard look at their story.  If the only way you can get reviews is to use this tactic, maybe something is wrong with how you write your story.  Is the plot disjointed? Not proofread and filled with typos and punctuation errors?  Are you head-hopping without any indication of POV? Are the characters not properly developed or lacking in some way?

My advice would be to take some time to better your craft.  There are plenty of free sites to learn more about writing and hone your skills. A great one to look into is Critiquecircle.com. Otherwise, authors should prepare for the occasional (unwanted) critique or advice from a reader. This doesn’t mean the author has to consider the critique or advice. Delete it and move on if you don’t want it or disagree, but it is unfair to get angry with a reader if you haven’t done your part to the best of your abilities.

On the flip side, if you’re an author who uses fanfiction as therapy and is not interested in receiving critiques or advice on your stories, please let the readers know your position. While it won’t keep all the negative reviews away, it might help to minimize them.

You can do this in the summary or by making an author’s note at the beginning of the story’s first chapter.  Let readers know that they’re welcome to leave a review if they enjoy the story but that you’re not interested in critiques of your work or advice on how to get better. 

Whatever their reason is for writing and posting FF, authors need to remember that if you choose to put your work on the internet, where anyone can read it, there will be keyboard warriors who will ignore your requests/notes.  Unless you post only on AO3, where comments can be shut off completely, you should prepare to take the bad with the good. Remember the phrase ‘Misery loves company’ and take those critiques and nasty comments with a grain of salt.    

While this post may not seem like it, I do support my fellow authors.  I didn’t write this with the intent to shame or name.  Instead, I wanted to educate and offer easy ways to help prevent some of the increasing discourse and animosity within the FF community.

In a situation such as FF where it’s a give and take, I think Aretha Franklin said it best: RESPECT

Next time, we’ll dive into readers behaving badly.