Reminiscences of fics past (and future)

[chthonya]

I've finally started to archive my fics on AO3, and I'm loving how easy and fast it is. It's been interesting reading through stories I've not looked at for years, and it's been rather sobering looking at the dates and realising that I wrote so many of them 8-10 years ago, and even those I think of as being relatively recent are 4, 5, 6 years old

Comments

[delphipsmith]

I've never archived any of my work anywhere else, but I have to say I can't imagine anything better overall than AO3. The tagging is great, the functionality is sufficient without being flashy/gadgety, the interface is intuitive and easy to use. The only negative is that people don't seem to comment as much there as they do on some of the other sites, I'm not sure why. I do my best to encourage it by commenting on the ones I read, and always thanking the folks who comment on mine :)

The minerva-fest list really is great, isn't it? Such creative and original prompts -- I absolutely love the one I got and plot bunnies are already multiplying...

[chthonya]

The only thing I find a little irritating about AO3 is the search - I like the check-boxes to narrow fics down by character and ship, but it would be helpful if there was an easy way of excluding certain ships/characters, or excluding crossover fics from search results. I suppose I'm going to have to get to grips better with 'search within results', but even then I'm not sure that would help with cutting the crossovers out of results lists.

I suspect the lack of commenting may be due to people using it as a back-up archive, so perhaps those who would be inclined to comment have already read elsewhere? And then it's to some extent self-perpetuating as lack of comments makes it look more like an archive and less like a community?

On FictionAlley there were several challenges and communities that encouraged commenting. I wonder if there'd be any milage in doing something like a reverse comment exchange to get some commenting going over there?

[delphipsmith]

Great idea -- go for it!

[chthonya]

So, I've been thinking about this and how the mechanics would work. I went back to the FictionAlleyPark Reverse One-shot Exchange - I liked the reverse way of doing it because you never know what you're going to get, and also it would leave things more open for people to suggest other people's fic to review if it fits the reviewers reading preferences.

That said, the bulletin board structure works a bit better for this sort of chain reply than nested comments. If I set up a community then either I could disable comments and just require everyone to make a new post - which would be easier to read down but isn't how people are used to using LJ - or basically have one post with a load of nested replies, which would be harder to read once collapsing set in, and would mean everyone on the chain would be e-mailed with everyone's offers - but would make replying simpler. I think I'm inclined to go for the former, but I wouldn't want to put people off with the structure.

Or maybe I could just host a thread here and see how it goes.

[inamac]

I think I can promise you some genfic in minerva-fest. In fact I seem to be all porned out these days.

I do like AO3 - if only becaues I can use it to download e-pub versions of fic to my e-reader.

Goes and looks for your stuff.

[chthonya]

Oh good

[inamac]

I have a Sony e-reader. And I've yet to pay for any book that's loaded onto it (the advantage of having a passion for early 20C detective fiction that's out of copyright and available on Gutenberg). everything else I pick up in paperback at charity shops.

The biggest advantage is being able to set the print size so that I can read without resort to glasses.

[ext_1054020]

I'm also excited to be writing some gen fic for Minerva fest. :)

[chthonya]

Awesome! Looking forward to it!

Mine will be hettish, but more at the UST than the porn end.

[anonymous]

'after Invictus 19, I hasten to add for the benefit of the anonymice'

I feel honoured! But yay! so excited!

[anonymous]

Hello Chthonya. I hope you are well. I don't normally do this, but I just finished reading your fanfiction Invictus for the first time and when I checked the date of your last update I was extremely disheartened as I feared such a gripping and masterful piece had been abandoned. However, obvioulsy I read your personal profile and found your blog and saw the above post that you are writing chapter 19! I am so, so happy! Do you know roughly when this will be published? I literally spent three days reading all 18 chapters and I just cant wait to see where the story is heading.

Needless to say I would be happy to help you edit if you wanted!