Ways To Get Your Fic Noticed?

[Anakin Skywalker]

I disagree that there's nothing we can improve on in our fics. If nothing else, say _why_ you liked it. What drew you in? The characters? The scene was really well developed? It moved along well? The action was exciting? There are plenty of things you can say to explain why you liked something.

 

Jae..... I was sayin I personally do not find anything to comment on, usually bc someone else beat me to it But, you know...... people are busy now..... especially modders... and there are a few modders who read and write fics.... so don't take it offensively if someone doesn't get to comment on it..... or there are no comments, chances are that it's good, but the readers just don't have time to comment

 

Didn't mean to make it sound like it was directed at you in particular. It was meant to be more generalized. Sorry! --Jae

[Sabretooth]

When I started writing Jaden Korr - Darth Qollous, I never thought of an audience. My literature flowed from my head to my fingers to the web. I only wanted a place to write, a place where my writings will be etched permanently, so that I need not dream these fics in my head all the time. The audience I got built up slowly, after a few commentless chapters, I soon got a more dedicated audience. I got regular readers, and many more. My view count was torpedoing before my very eyes.

 

The lesson to be learnt is, always write from your heart and about yourself. Never believe that just because you don't get replies, nobody is reading your fics. You are as recognized as the guy next to you. Write for yourself first and your community later.

 

If people have something to comment about, they will. If they don't they won't, that simple. Just don't take it too seriously, because some authors get liked a lot, by a lot of people. Their threads become discussions about the fic, since we have a lot of people appreciating the place. Remember, write well and you will be rewarded.

 

Going to the more technical side, I'll say write properly. Avoid spelling and grammar errors, specifically the latter. Try to write legibly and don't forget to read and correct yourself. Put yourself in the shoes of a naive reader and think of what your fic would look like in his eyes. Keep your paragraphs pertinent and short - there is a difference between reading on the web and reading a book.

 

According to a study I had seen on the net, an average user will rarely "read" a page, but will rather scan through a page to absorb it's most important keywords, and ignore stuff like grammar, common nouns and so on. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Your chapters should be sized so that they can be easily read in a few minutes - most users won't bother reading a fanfic for several minutes on end. But try not to keep them too very short.

 

Keep your content pertinent. Avoid dabbling in the unnecessary, except in a few instances. Stick to your plot and before you start, think out what you want in your fanfiction. List out a few events, the beginning, the end. Avoid taking your twists too crazily and windingly, unless your fic is supposed to be that way.

 

Think out your chapter beforehand and remember to EDIT, EDIT, EDIT!!!

 

Finally, A good idea is to bribe a moderator into increasing your thread's post count by 5000. <_< >_>

[Kas'!m]

 

Truthfully, we're all amateurs here except for mach...

 

 

You all may be but I am not. I've been doing this for more than five years.

 

I stand corrected. --Jae

[Diego Varen]

You all may be but I am not. I've been doing this for more than five years.

 

Then how come you needed a beta reader for your Fic? Sorry to sound rude, but when I first started writing Fics, around this time last year, I improved in my opinion. Anyway, Sabre has given a good explanation.

 

Edit: Another way to get your Fic noticed is to, as mentioned earlier, put a link of your Fic in your Sig and PM all your buddies on your Buddy List and if they may read it. Most of the people on my Buddy List, like Anakin Skywalker and CSI: Nihilus are members who read my Fics.

[The Doctor]

Jae, I was never trying to imply that people go out of their way to avoid reading stuff written by certain people. What I'm saying is, people don't give new writers a chance. It's hard for a new writer around here to get people to read their stuff - and it has an effect on self esteem when it does get views, but only gets one comment for every 50 views. It makes one think 'Hey, it must be pretty bad if nobody wants to say anything about it'. And that can kind of make one lose interest in posting their work. I know it's the reason I stopped posting my stuff. I still write it, I just don't post it, because nobody seems to care.

 

You all may be but I am not. I've been doing this for more than five years.

I've been reading music since I was five years old. Does that make me a professional muscian? Until you publish something, you're an amateur. An experienced amateur, sure but an amateur all the same.

[Kas'!m]

Then how come you needed a beta reader for your Fic?

All writers need editors, even experienced ones.

 

I've been reading music since I was five years old. Does that make me a professional muscian? Until you publish something, you're an amateur. An experienced amateur, sure but an amateur all the same.

If you say so.

[Diego Varen]

All writers needs editors' date=' even experienced ones.[/quote']

 

That's true, I suppose.

 

Pottsie, I have a bazillion years of college under my belt, so you might think that I wouldn't need a beta-reader. However, I've found my beta-readers have been absolutely invaluable and have given me incredible advice. I am very thankful to have their help because it's made my writing a lot better as a result. A beta-reader can pick up things that you or I as authors don't see because we're 'too close' to our own work sometimes to notice some of the little problems. --Jae

[Vaelastraz]

Here's the opinion of an occasional fanfic reader...

 

When I look for interesting fics (which doesn't happen too often) I will not click on everything...

Very important for me is a promising title. The fic "Freefall" for example cought my eyes. It's an unorthodox title, and I'm interested in fresh story ideas.

And it turned out, the fic is good. Did I comment on it? No. At least I think I did not. Really, a good title for the fic WILL catch attention. Be creative.

 

 

BTW: I just did a search on threads started by you Doctor. And I was surprised that I've read almost all of them. I even commented on some of them, but since I'm no native english speaker I can't say more than "Good fic".

You fics are very very good. And you have good titles too. I wonder why you just got 200-300 views on them. I think they are brilliant. If you have written more fics, post them and if it's only for a few interested readers like me.

[Jae Onasi]

I did some stats on the reply-to-view ratio. I took 100 fics (from the first 3 pages) and did the stats on those (100 because that's a decent sample size). Out of those 100 I found some of the following info:

83 had fewer than 1000 views, 17 had more than 1000 views.

 

The average reply-to-view ratio is 6.447%. The standard deviation is 3.45%. Range went from lowest at 0 reply-to-view, and highest was 18.0 reply-to-view ratio (and the highest ratio actually had low views).

For the fics with more than 1000 views, the ratio actually dropped--average reply-to-view ratio was 5.901% and the standard deviation was 1.902%.

 

What this means: if your fic has under 1000 views and gets a reply-to-view ratio of 2.997-9.897%, you're within 1 standard deviation of the norm, meaning you're well within the normal range. Now, we may not like getting 3 replies out of 100 views, but that's actually within the normal range, because the average is about 6.4 replies out of 100 viewers.

If your fic has over 1000 views, and your reply-to-view ratio is 2.036%-9.766% (mean plus 2 standard deviations), you're also in a normal range.

 

@The Doctor--I did just a quick stat thing on 9 of your fics--your average is around 4.78%, with a standard deviation of +/-2.83%. That's well within normal ranges, and 1 in a little over 20 views, rather than 1 reply in 50, _on average_.

[ForceFightWMe12]

In reply to the whole 'amateur' thing:

 

I've been writting for two and a half years now -- since I was twelve years old, that's right -- and you would be amazed to see how much my writting style has changed. Obviously, a lot of it has to do with age, but still. It doesn't matter how long you've been writting, there's always room for improvement. And though people may say different, I agree with Doc - you're no more than an amateur until you're officially published. Even then, there is more to learn.

 

It's the same thing with a beta reader. Admittedly, I didn't use a beta reader for the longest time, but, now that I'm working on another fic, I always run every chapter - even if it's incomplete at the time - past a friend of mine. Often times I show quite a few people, just to be sure. You would be surprise how many mistakes you can miss, and how many things can be reworded to sound better.

 

And in regards to the review ratio thing...I say ignore the review count. Just because you don't have a whole ton of reviews doesn't mean your story is bad - it just means that you need to get out there and get yourself noticed. Stick a link or summary in your sig, if you're good with graphics, make a linky-sig for your story. One thing I highly suggest not doing is pestering people in their threads for reviews. Going to a story you really like and asking the author to review it a hundred million times is not going to make the author want to read your story any more than before. This I know from experience.

It's also a form of spam and will now get deleted. If you get pestered with requests again, PM me or another mod, and we'll take care of it. --Jae

 

Sorry for jumping in the thread late

[Emperor Devon]

(I sense a reminder PM from Devon coming about the RP and the atheism issues... )

 

In organized debate, silence is concession. I'll take your lack of posts as that, then. No biggie, I'm not one to brag about my victories (to a point).

 

The duel: I think we know which one of us Is Infinitely Superior at D20. You can't get past the red dragon; I beat her on my first try.

 

You're right, she's very much alive in my little world. And, nice try Devon. Editing my comment is very naughty. --Jae

 

However, I've found my beta-readers have been absolutely invaluable and have given me incredible advice. I am very thankful to have their help because it's made my writing a lot better as a result.

 

I take it you're referring to Jiara instead of me?

 

Well, I used the plural here, and unless Jiara's managed to create multiples of herself, that would definitely include you. --Jae

 

And to stay on-topic, my thoughts on the issue of comments:

 

This may sound harsh to you, but there really isn't a lot to motivate someone to comment. The author can only say so much in response to 'good fic' after hearing it for the twenty-eight time. Yes, you can always write multiple-page reviews on it that are bound to result in a long discussion... But really, who has the time to do that? I'm fairly busy, and have grades to keep up - commenting on the fics that I read really isn't that high on my list of priorities, and hearing people ask for more does nothing to change that - I comment on things because I have something to say, not to massage anyone's ego or boost my post count.

 

Some circumstances are understandable - mach did an incredible job at Return From Exile, and was frustrated with the lack of comments in it. He asked for more, and that made a point - he was writing a fabulous story and wasn't getting any feedback, so I commented on it. But with that logic, why don't I go about commenting on everyone's fics just because they want to hear good things about it? Several reasons:

 

(1. It has to be worth commenting on. This may sound harsh, but if I read something I don't like, I won't say anything about it (if you have nothing good to say, it's best to stay silent). Even if it's kinda good, I won't have much of an opinion - there has to be an actual reason for me to say something. With mach's fic, I enjoyed it quite a bit and had opinions to share, so his request prompted me to.

 

(2. This forum is here to share fics, not positive reinforcement therapy. If your fic doesn't suit people's tastes, they won't comment on it - there's absolutely no reason to.

 

(3. Time. I'll flog this dead horse one more time - people are busy. Even with the fics I've enjoyed, my comments haven't been the best ones I could give - I simply didn't have time to write an essay, and I have other things to do.

 

(4. In real life, people won't recognize accomplishments if they've not accomplished much - that should be no different here.

 

So, why aren't you getting comments? Either your work doesn't appeal to people, they're busy, or they've been discouraged from saying anything. To elaborate that, a 'please tell me I did a good job whether you think that or not' post will be as effective as giving flies vinegar. I myself have rather Objectivist (not a typo, that's an actual philosophy) views on hard work. It sounds harsh, but that's life for you.

 

And to flog this dead yet another time: Does it really matter that much if people comment? You're here to write for yourself, not everyone else. If you're truly desperate for an opinion, ask a buddy or someone in real life - but don't expect other forumites to if they're not interested.

[Sabretooth]

About this "Amateur" discussion - I'm with Doc - you're no pro till you publish. I've been writing since I was six. (YES!) If you read JK-DQ and VoB/IH, you'll see a huge difference in writing style. I've been writing weird stories sicne I was in the first standard, but I've lost many of those now. I might post some of my earliest stories, if anyone's interested.

 

A beta reader is an excellent idea, IMO. Not only a human proofreader, but also an great way to ensure that your fic is being read by atleast one guy.

[Aristotélēsticus]

i think its a common problem for all of the CEC writers. most of us think that they dont get the "expected" reply ratio. still, i believe that it doesnt matter (well at least for me). i write because i like to write, to express my feelings, ideas and imagination. it doesnt matter that much whether if someone like it or not, especially in this forum regarding the fact that users who view the CEC are few. sometimes i hear ppl mocking of some of Goerge Lucas ideas like "the stupid little green god-like thing" A.K.A "Yoda", and sometimes i say to myself (and i am a big fan of SW) "with all these high technologies and they are still fighting with each others using sowrds!!!". what i meant to say is that you'll be ignored, and you'll be criticised but whatever!!! keep on writing

[ForceFightWMe12]

Seeing your post, Ar-Pharazon, reminds me of another reason why I left very few comments when I was active here in the CEC.

 

Grammar. Please don't think I'm just picking on you Ar, because I know how many people tend to hardly care when posting regularly, but if you're going to post a story without proper capitalization, punctuation, spacing, or *shudder* netspeak, a lot of people will take one glance at it and move on to the next story. I know I will. Having broken up sentances and run-ons will do the same. It can be a fine line to walk between the two, but honestly, the better a story flows and the easier it is to read, the more people will be willing to read it.

 

Also, it is often a good idea to revise your work even before sending it to a beta reader. I go back to look at some of the fics that I've posted here (PoD *shudders again*) and am amazed at the way some of the sentances sounded and the little mistakes that could have easily been fixed if I had spent the time to look it over. Half the time I stare at the screen, thinking I can't believe I actually wrote that!! It really is terrible. Perhaps, if I have time, I should redo PoD...hm...

[HK-42]

As pottsie said sig. also Kasim' I read it, i use to edit it.

[The Doctor]

Seeing your post, Ar-Pharazon, reminds me of another reason why I left very few comments when I was active here in the CEC.

 

Grammar. Please don't think I'm just picking on you Ar, because I know how many people tend to hardly care when posting regularly, but if you're going to post a story without proper capitalization, punctuation, spacing, or *shudder* netspeak, a lot of people will take one glance at it and move on to the next story. I know I will. Having broken up sentances and run-ons will do the same. It can be a fine line to walk between the two, but honestly, the better a story flows and the easier it is to read, the more people will be willing to read it.

 

Also, it is often a good idea to revise your work even before sending it to a beta reader. I go back to look at some of the fics that I've posted here (PoD *shudders again*) and am amazed at the way some of the sentances sounded and the little mistakes that could have easily been fixed if I had spent the time to look it over. Half the time I stare at the screen, thinking I can't believe I actually wrote that!! It really is terrible. Perhaps, if I have time, I should redo PoD...hm...

You can't redo it until you finish it, Kira.

[ForceFightWMe12]

>.>

<.<

...

Be quite you >P

[JediMaster12]

Personally I get surprised when anyone reads my ramblings at all because the fiction prose world is something that I have not treaded very long. Yeah I wrote a few short stories in school but I always thought there were better ones. Poetry was more to my liking and I got to be good at it. My dad is a poet when he wants to be too so I guess I grabbed the bug from him.

 

As to getting noticed here on LF, I just post my chapters b/c it makes me happy and it gives me a chance to air my semicrazy ideas in the online nuthouse. I've had people say I should write professionally on the side and that boosts the confidence a bit. I have considered it since I will be expected to write texts for anthropology when I eventually get my Ph.D. Don't worry about getting noticed or the lack of comments. I know that I always get igyman and Pottsie to commentate, mainly because I taunt them with suspense and the flying manuscript. That's another thing, leave room for suspense. Believe it or not cliffhangers ensnare readers every time.

 

I understand that people can have time to just view and not comment. Today I found time to write comments in the short stories nominated but I read them. Don't fret. If writing makes you happy, then write. If can't think about nothing but being a writer, then you're a writer. That I got from a movie and I found it to be so true.

 

PS: ED- I also beta for Jae and it is always a pleasure because I see it as a sneak peek.

 

And I am very grateful for the help, too!!! --Jae

[Aristotélēsticus]

Seeing your post, Ar-Pharazon, reminds me of another reason why I left very few comments when I was active here in the CEC...

 

you're speaking the truth Kira. as for me, i can tolerate such mistakes (maybe because i make some myself). still, there are two main reasons why i do tolerate these mistakes:

 

1. there are many users who speak english as their second or third language.

 

2. the other reason is personal: in fact i pay more attention

for new and creative ideas, not those that represent only new versions of SW stories.

 

ps: no offence ment to anyone.

[Darkkender]

I would like to chime in on one point of discussion on this thread. That is the topic of Pro vs Amateur.

 

I will agree that being published should place you above being an Amateur, however I myself am a published author technically. Even though I'm published as an author I am in no way a Professional. Yes I get a royalty check every year of the sales but considering it usually averages $50 I would say that isn't much. Not to mention the work is little better than a 1-2 paragraph high school book report printed on a plate or a coffee cup. It counts as a published work for a protfolio but it's not professional.

 

Also anybody who writes a Fanfic in particular one that gets mentioned by Mach on SWK, is a published author or Professional by the definition given above. In fact your posted Fanfics are published technically when it comes to presenting a portfolio. This is just like a graphic artist and there art, from small web banners to big billboards it is a form of published work.

 

I would say a better definition of a professional writer is a person who writes for a living while an amatuer is one who writes for a hobby. Or you could say writes for money vs writes for free.

[JediMaster12]

Good point there. To me a good review from mach tells me something about my style. Granted he has had few complaints about my ramblings, I find it invaluable as a writer to me because I know what I need to work on and be a better writer. To get better you have to practice.

 

I am a published author myself but in the realm of poetry and I've had people groveling at my feet ever since and that was an anthology of different authors along with mine. Maybe I live in an ideal world where the published word means that your voice and your opinions are heard but hey we all have our dreams right?

 

Anyway patience is the key. Your time will come when you come out with that story that rocks the boards.

 

Good point you made Darkkender. I never distinguished the difference before.

[Uilleand]

Re: Professional vs. amateur

 

Funny, I've made a living with my keyboard for more than 17 years, but I still don't think I manage to call myself a 'professional writer.' That might just be my own cynicism talking - I can barely call myself a 'journalist' with a straight face, either.

 

As for getting fics noticed - it's a strange thing that we do here, isn't it? We take someone else's world and make it our own, and yet still manage to get our own self-esteem hopelessly tied to the criticism and reaction we receive. If I get 10 comments on a story, and seven are positive, it's the three negative ones that will send me to bed, completely despondent. The fear, of course, is that no comments = 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.'

 

Honestly, my experience in most fanfic enviros is that friends crit friends - but that can be pretty positive. If I crit an author that I've really enjoyed, I enjoy their take on my work that much more - because I respect their talent. I don't think I'd get much out of 'ZOMG!!1! That wuz awsum!'

 

Well, maybe that's a lie. *chuckle* There are some days, I'd be thrilled to even get that much!