Writing (Up) Better Write-Ups
Hello out there! I get intermittent likes and comments on my fanfic write-ups, so I assume someone is reading them even when there is no feedback. Today I've been thinking about how I might make my write-ups better, and I wonder if anyone who has been following my posts has any suggestions. Do you like the write-ups? How would you change them? What
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I always think there's two elements to spoilers on lj. The first is that if we talk about things in an actual lj post, then we might be spoiling people unless we use an lj-cut for any bits that might be spoilers. So when I post I try and leave enough visible that people can decide whether they're interested in reading more or not, but put anything that might be spoilers for a story under the cut. The second thing though, is that story discussion is implicitly going to involve spoilers, so if people then go under the cut and into the comments to read, they understand that they might be spoiled for a story. If I haven't read something, and think I might want to, then I try not to look at someone's post until I've had a chance to read the fic. And if I do decide to look at the post first, I know ( ... )
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That's okay. I didn't mean my post to sound like a complaint that people were not interacting with my fic write-ups. I've changed the wording so that it sounds less that way. ("I occasionally get likes and comments" to "I get intermittent likes and comments".)
Thank you for the thoughts on spoilers. I think I will perhaps make more use of spoiler tags in my posts. That will make crossposting to Dreamwidth a bit more annoying, since Dreamwidth doesn't have them, but it shouldn't be too bad. I think some people who read my posts come to them through a direct link from the Pros newsletter. Those people don't have an opportunity to see where the cut is, so I don't want to rely entirely on that. Cuts also appear differently on the mobile app.
It will be good to feel able to say a bit more about fics. I've worried that people think I just don't have any thoughts about the fics I read. (Sometimes I don't, of course, but I am not totally passive and
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If you want to discuss the stories (kind of like a book club discussing various books), that implies everyone in the discussion should already have read the story. So as long as you label the post appropriately, so someone doesn’t read it without knowing, it shouldn’t be spoil the story for anyone.
On the other hand, if you’re just recommending stories that others might want to read, you’re right to be careful about spoilers. I think what’s tricky is that it’s not too difficult to say that you enjoyed a story and recommend it to others in a general overview without any spoilers … but it’s much more difficult to say you didn’t care for a story or some aspect of it without being specific. It just comes across as rude to say you didn’t like something without explaining why. So if you’re posting a non-recommendation or a qualified recommendation, I think you should use a spoiler alert and say why.
Just my two cents…
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Yes, this is a good point, and so far I have aimed my comments mostly at an audience who has not read the fics. When I write up multiple fics in one post, as I often do, it isn't likely that many people will have read all of them. That's even more true now that I'm mixing all fandoms together. I do want the write-ups to be interesting to people who have read the fics, though. Maybe I could have the spoiler-free blurbs I have been writing, and for some fics, also some spoiler-protected discussion. Your point that such discussion is especially indicated for fics I don't like is also a good one.
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I'm glad you like the write-ups. I hope you will like the new material I am planning to add, too.
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