Fanfiction ► How to get people to read your fic...

[bizness86]

"I've got a good fic!"
"O'rly? *lies and chuckles about it* I'll read it!"
"Really?! Thanks!"



How to get people to read your fan fiction​

I thought it'd be a good thread; I've had the problem on more than one occasion (including now apparently :closedeyes. Are there any suggestions? Perhaps there could be a guide made and stickied.

(*insert shameless plug* coughShinesOneYearAfterahemAHEM!)

An obvious answer would be to post in others work, but there're actually flaws with that answer as well. even still, generally...how could you get a person to even read the first chapter of your fan fic? And post?! Constructively?!!

You know that you have an original idea...but the only thing that advertising would do is get you a lot of people that will say that they would read your fic; this doesn't mean that they would do it. Some people will only say "Nice fic. Write more." No motivation or constructive criticism behind that...

Any suggestions to the writers or the readers?

I'll start actually: Topic - Long Fan Fiction, or Fan Novels as I'd like to call them...

@ writers posting stories:
Let's say that you are relatively new to the forum and you've already written a story with a lot of chapters. If this is your first time posting the story, I'd suggest only posting the first chapter at the most! Even if the chapter is short! The unfortunate fact is that many people rarely give stories a chance unless they are written by someone who has written a lot of stories, or a lot of chapters to a story. Don't give them the excuse to say that your story was too long for them to read. I know you are in a hurry to post your story, but give it a few days before posting anything else.

@ readers
I'll be addressing a point that I just made to the writers: I told them not to post too much, so now I'm telling you not to feel like they've posted too much. Here's a decent question to ask: If a new story has 5 chapters, why couldn't you, as a reader, read only the first two chapters, and then give a response? The writer gets feedback and you didn't read a lot like you thought you would have too, and maybe now you may be interested in what happens later in the story. This method really helps to expose you to new stories.

A closing statement
As a reader and a writer, I encourage the readers to read at least one to two chapters of a long fic and respond with constructive criticism. I also encourage the writers of lasting fan fics to go and read other new fan fictions and encourage their readers to read something new.

bring up more topics and discuss

 

[Xuan]

You're forgetting something. A cool title or at least decent is a must. For example, I'll never enter any fanfics that's too lazy to put caps on their title. Another example is that I'll never enter fafics with title like, "Sora fights Riku Destiny Island", cause it's a title that makes no sense and boring.

 

[bizness86]

A cool title or at least decent is a must.

Titles. *plug=how cool of a title is coughcoughShinesOneYearAfterahemAHEM!*

Very true. Some titles have a tendency to draw certain people. An example would be titles of fics that mention a canon character's name. In some instances that's only used to attract "the fandoms" who are either infactuated with a canon character, or just want to see the mundane "Sora-gets-dropped-off-in-Hallow-Bastion-and-fights-1000-Heartless-with-Cloud"-type-fanfic.

Another topic that can relate to that: The Ultimate Fanfiction Index

I use the index frequently to find out what people are writing; but I don't think nearly as many people use it much in the way it was intended (or at least in the way which I'd see use for it). I thought of it as a way to 'sell' your fic, but it could be possible that people don't even give that thing much attention at all. Any thoughts

 

[jazznam89]

One common thing: Learn to spell properly.

 

[bizness86]

One common thing: Learn to spell properly.

Well actually, even if Webster (alluding to the Dictionary) wrote a fan fic, he'd probably have a hard time getting someone to read his work. So, while proper spelling is essential to writing a fic, I don't think that actually attracts readers; more like misspelling turns them off. Good suggestion though.