HD fics produced for fests in 2015: Totals and comparison to 2014

[snowgall]

So last year I did a count of how many HD fics were produced for fests in 2014. This year I decided to do a side-by-side comparison of 2014 fests vs 2015 fests to see if I could spot any trends.

Comments

[rainfallsdown8]

I've been in the H/D fandom for 10 years now and I can definitely say I see the shift to more fic produced during fests then just randomly posting. I have to confess that I pretty much only read fest fic or new fic from authors that I know. I know that's not helpful in encouraging new writers to create and stay in this fandom. It's just I don't have the time I used to (I was a sophomore in college when I got sucked in to H/D). I used to spend hours scrolling though fanfiction.net, hexfiles, hpfandom, and skyhawke looking for fic to read. Sadly that's no longer the case.

[snowgall]

Thanks for the confirmation! :)

I'm mostly the same. Outside of fests I either stick with authors I know, or else recs I trust. Who has the time indeed? ♥

There are some other minor changes in how fics are posted I've noticed too. For one, it's amazing how many older fics on LJ don't have a word count given. Even sometimes those for fests. Now that most fics are either for fests where the header requests a word count or else posted to AO3 where the word count is automatically provided, not having a word count is less common. (thankfully!)

Basically, headers were all over the place. Sometimes you'd get a summary, sometimes not. Sometimes a rating, sometimes not. I've even seen some where all you get is a title and pairing! And even *there* I've seen fics where the author wanted to keep the pairing a surprise until the end of the fic (I personally hate that :) It frankly baffles me that these fics could still get good readership. I need to know as much as possible about a fic before deciding to read it!

[cagnurit]

Thank you for these statistic details. So well-organized! I think it's very time-consuming. (I wish I could help you double check the numbers, but RL gets me trapped I still haven't finished reading 3 recent big H/D fests :'<).

I secretly love fics from fests a little bit more. I think because 1) they have a theme, how wonderful from just one theme we can see many different aspects, and 2) there's always the beauty of anonymity, to read without bias :)))

[snowgall]

No kidding about real life! I almost wasn't able to do these stats. I had hoped to maybe do a larger comparison from more years, but this was as much as I could do. I'm glad you appreciate it, and thanks for the nice comment ♥

Fests really are great! I like the anonymity too, and I also like that it's very clear when the fics are first published, and there are no WIPs :)

Checking the numbers would be really time-consuming for sure! I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few mionor errors, considering all the counting that had to be done. And some fics weren't always clear if they were HD or not. I didn't count fics that were about threesomes like Harry/Draco/Snape, though maybe other people would?

[cagnurit]

Threesome is absolutely another category, I think. Only when it's 2 pairs (like Draco/Harry + Draco/Snape) should it be H/D. That's my way of thinking :)))