Fanfic reading poll, redux

[miss_porcupine]

I'm at that point in the story where I start forgetting things that happened earlier and wondering if I can maybe get to the action scene (aka the whole point of the story) before the 30K word mark (stop laughing, ileliberte) and so I'm going to dither further by pondering what to do when it's done. So, a poll. Except without the ticky boxes, since I do not

Comments

[anonymous]

Everyone needs Ticky Box Power! :D

You are very welcome. Enjoy your new capabilities - you deserve them!

[miss_porcupine]

*sheepish*

Thank you.

[ga_unicorn]

I won't read WIPs; I've been burned too many times by abandoned ones. Once the author indicates that it is complete, then I will go back and find the original post and bookmark that for reading when I have lots of time.

My office, for some odd reason, wants us to NOT cruise the internet during business hours, and LJ i amongst the sites that have been blocked. So, if it hasn't been a busy day fic-wise, I will read stories under 30k that night, anything over 30k I usually bookmark for later reading (> the weekend). Your stories? I'll stay up until the wee early hours to finish. I have also been known to cut/paste to a word doc and email it to myself at the office for lunchtime reading. ;-)

[miss_porcupine]

Odd, those workplace regs...

You might want to save the current WIP for a weekend; it's 27K words and I've gotten nowhere.

[miss_porcupine]

If I had to do the poll over again -- or if you could edit polls -- I would maybe shade the questions toward 'what is the best dispersal rate' for crossposting. Although I did not anticipate quite such a tolerance for mass crossposting, I will admit.

[busaikko]

I was actually just talking about this with someone.... The day of posting also has a big effect, but bear with me, I'm fuzzy on the algorithm (please adjust according to your own experience). Most fic entries are posted, I believe, at the end of the week. Sundays are the slowest days, followed by Mondays. (The reason we were discussing this was to, ah, force people to click fic because it was the only thing posted that day *accepts whack to the head* ) As well, American television broadcasts have a big effect (people don't read when shows are being watched, obviously; and people who *cough* DL shows the days after they are broadcast tend to not read, as they don't wish to be spoiled).

And I just wanted to say thank you for including Asian timezones in your poll: I actually had ticky-boxes I could tick! Yay!

[miss_porcupine]

From my experience and on loose anecdotal evidence given by others, Saturday is the absolute worst day to post anything and mornings (US time zones) are better than evenings. At least in terms of getting feedback; the numbers for the poll thus far would not back it up, but these are asking questions about reading, not commenting.

I'd posit that there's a correlation between story content and timeliness with respect to aired episodes -- an episode tag versus a story set without a particular timestamp.

[cofax7]

1. Depends. Some writers I want to read all in one gulp. Other writers do well in the chaptered format--if they can be relied upon to finish them. So if it's a new-to-me writer, I'll want it all at once. People like kroki_refur, who do chaptered stories really well, with cliffhangers and all? If they can be relied upon to post reasonably frequently, I'm happy reading as they go. It also depends on what I'm in the mood for, as well.

2. Writers lose me if they only have a by-chapter format and they don't have links embedded in each chapter to the chapters ahead and behind. That's a minimum. I should not have to go digging through their tags for the earlier chapters of the story, especially if this is the final, finished, version of the story. The better ones include links to all the other chapters in each chapter. If I forget to tag or bookmark something and I forget about it, I don't worry too much: if it's good, it'll show up on a recs page or Delicious or something.

[miss_porcupine]

1) I was thinking less of WIP than "I have finished the story and it's a gazillion words long and I will deliver it to you in pieces because if I tell you it's a gazillion words, you will tl:dr it." (Not that I'm speaking from experience here *cough*) But, yes, there are some writers who can be wizards at serial pacing and others who really should have just posted it all at once.

2) Putting in sequential chapter links is a pain when coding, but I view it as a necessary pain. For my own stuff, I tend to do 'links to all chapters' for LJ serials and 'links to next chapter and story homepage' for the webpage -- if someone is coming to a story late, it's bad business sense to not let them catch up.

[persephone_kore]

Personally, I'm fond of having chaptered stories and/or series on LJ tagged with the title; it's easier for me when posting (or, uh, it would be if I actually skipped the chapter links when I did it) and as good as a master post for me as a reader. Being able to follow the links forward from the end of the chapter is nice once I get started, though, I admit. Well, if I didn't open them all up in tabs already.

Unlike a lot of the people I see speaking up on the subject lately, however, I have no problem with WIPs and am only disappointed if one I really liked doesn't get finished, as opposed to being annoyed by the phenomenon in general. And if I liked it enough to be disappointed, I probably liked it enough that I'd rather see some of it than none at all.

[miss_porcupine]

Tagging by title can be quite useful; I do it in only limited circumstances, but I've seen it done to great effect for people who routinely write serials or WIPs.

WIPs are definitely a hot-button issue in terms of fandom readership. It wasn't quite what I meant -- I was going more for cutting up a finished story for easier handling -- but it is what most people think of when "chaptered fic" gets brought up.