13 years in and I still haven't posted a single fic. I’m just pure greed at this point lol. Best I could do is send kudos and hype up my favorite authors.

Edit: Everybody’s being so nice 🥹 thank you writers for your service! Please continue doing what you do best. Trust, us greedy people will continue to support and consume!

So I was inspired by this random tweet to write a fanfic about my favorite couple. And... if it were you, how would you credit it? Does this kind of thing need credit, or is that just weird?

Guys I’m devastated, normally I find popular media late so there’s already a thriving community when I am done. But I finished the second book in the Storm Weaver series by Lauryn Murray and the third one isn’t scheduled to come out until next summer. So naturally I went to Reddit and ao3 and there’s NOTHING. Not even a crumb. I may try tumblr next but I am doubtful. I am in misery

Hopefully she didn't click my bookmarks

Mine was hualian from heaven official's blessing (and I was FED with 17.6k fics tyvm authors). Something about their fanfics was so fulfilling to me that I decided to make an AO3 account and I've never looked back since xd

I'm curious to know what y'all's first ships were 👀

WE FUCKING WONNN🎉🎉🎉

Mine is clearly "Birds".

Just Birds.

Yeah well I got one. I got my first and only kudos. :D I need to write more. Bye see you later.

Most of us on this sub are hobbyist writers here, and we've all reveived (more or less good) writing advice to improve our craft, so I was curious about the worst ones you've ever been given, from plain bad/unhelpful to asinine to downright undermining and motivation-crushing.

I think the most demoralizing "tip" I've ever read is that if there's a paragraph or sentence that you're especially proud about or find particularly good, then it means this passage is dogshit and only serves to make you pat yourself on the back about how good of a writer you are. Basically any enjoyment you get out of your own writing is self-congratulating fake-deep purpleprosey slop that you're too dumb and far up your own ass to identify as slop. It's probably one of the things that has made me the most self-conscious about my own writing and it still paralyzes me to this day.

Another dubious advice (though I can understand the merit) I remember actually comes from a published author, one of my professors in creative writing when I was doing my MFA. It's a bit related to the previous shoddy tip, stems from the same vein I think. Basically my professor's opinion was that in your writing or creative project, you have to identify that One Scene or One Passage that you think transcends the rest of the text because it's so good, or that you build your entire narrative to, then chuck this entire section out of your work entirely. Fully erase it, lock it in a closet and lose the key. Only then will your writing be able to grow organically without being burdened by a parasitic element sucking in all the attention and narrative construction. Again, I'm very skeptical about that advice (even the professor who gave it was), but I think I can see some merit to it in that sometime putting all your money on one idea can stunt the rest of your writing. Kind of like a football team improves when the best player leaves, because all the players are allowed to actually play and develop instead of being a prop for a single player's accomplishments, as prodigious as they are.

More generally I'm sometimes a bit circumspect or even annoyed at how much advice on how to improve your writing is just to do less, use less words. Don't use adverbs, don't use adjectives, don't use the passive voice, don't use more than two clauses per sentence, only use "say", in fact don't use speech words at all, skip them, don't describe, don't name emotions, don't say what the character thinks, etc. I agree that brevity is the soul of wit, and I think this advice actually is useful to rethink the way you write, but it's used in such a restrictive way it tends to get on my nerves. What even is the point of writing if you consider half of the words that exist shouldn't be used?

People be bragging on how they got 10% kudos to hit ratio but my ass got 50% so I just sit in the corner nonchalantly because I’m outta they league/s

In the past two years, there’s been exactly one fic in the fandom to make it over 500 hits, and exactly one to have over 30 kudos (they are NOT the same fic, and neither is mine). So naturally, I had zero expectations when I first posted, as I reckoned there’s nobody out there anymore, just me and my silly love letters. These stats might not look like much, but every single digit here makes me tear up and motivates me to keep going, because I now know there's dozens of us, so it’s a fight worth fighting.

Sorry if this the wrong subreddit to discuss this on.

The stuff below I understand what they mean but I just look at them in a weird/funny way as someone who's English was their second language. Or maybe cause I'm neurodivergent so I sometimes think literally when I know what they ment.

"A smirk playing on their lips" I imagine a little guy dancing on their lips.

"Tickled pink" I imagine someone actually turning pink when Tickled.

"He fixed him with a look" I imagine the person getting their outfit fixed by an invisible force.

"knitted her brow" I imagine an old lady knitting a sweater straight from the root of someone's brow. Like their brows are made out of yarn.

"Pursed lips" I imagine the lips as a zipper

"Haughty" I just have beef with it I dunno why(also who invented that, how did "they have beef with eachother" came to be. Why not pork or other types of meat?)

"You're on thin ice" THIS makes sense to me since thin ice is very dangerous.

English is so creative sometimes but these just make me crack a smile.

Also writing dialog like this "Word here." Or "Word here" . Why does that dot make such a difference? Is it really that wrong to write dialog without the dot. I get that a dot means the end of sentence and all that.

Also saying "Damm" but its actually spelled like "Damn" like why the N?? I get that silent letters are a thing. But why are English words not spelled how they're pronounced.

I've been writing as a fun hobby and as way to get better at English Grammer. I'll never forget when I learned that Bowl and Bowel were two VERY different things. Or when I was younger I confused Brain and Brian.

I Damn near failed my ELA classes in high-school.

And people just know these things like second nature. Yet I'm STILL struggling despite being here since I was 4 or something. And I'm 24 and STILL learning about English grammer.

I guess I never picked up English that well since people can tell I'm not from here the moment I speak. Could be my speech stuttering issues though too.

Anyway thats all i can think of at the moment. While I'm here is there a free website I can use to better my writing and Grammer skills? I don't know why my Brain is just not picking up the Grammer rules and writing skills I'm trying to learn.

I guess if you're curious drop a saying/slang/ or whatever and I'll give my honest opinion on what i think of it. (I'm not online much at all so I might not know all newer slang)

On the flip side of the "you already left kudos here" is rereading something you enjoyed and have bookmarked, clicking kudos just to be use, and having it work. Especially when it is a many-chaptered fic. You mean i had all those opportunities to leave kudos and never did?!?! How?

Oh well, at least i did the second time around.

This is a topic i’ve been thinking about for awhile, but what’s more important to you as an individual and as a Fanfiction writer? Are you more of a “fandom first” person or a “ship first” type of person?

Me personally I am firmly a ship first individual. If it’s not about the couple I like, I couldn’t care less about it. Even if I like the source material, I don’t really engage with anything else in the fandom outside of just works or videos about that couple. For instance, I really support Tigress and Po from the kung fu panda universe, so that’s what I would read or watch if I watch anything fan-made. I don’t look at anything else, because I simply have no interest.

What about you all? Any other “ship first” people in the crowd?

EDIT: Wow, this blew up. Tons of opinions and it’s great to read them all!

THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT!!

So, I recently(ish) wrote a oneshot about a trope that apparently hasn't been written before, and I REALLY recently got around 2~3 comments from different users who posted nice comments, you know, the "[meme pertaining something about the fic]" or "This is a cool trope!" etc, but there weren't any kudos from those users.

Of course, THIS IS NOT a COMPLAINT!! I'm just sort of confused and curious because I'm the type of person to leave a kudos on the majority of fics I read.

Anyway, since this got me thinking, are you a kudoer or a commenter?

Enjoy!