Ooooh,

[ximeria]

I hadn't noticed a 'kerfluffle' in the TW fandom -- or rather, a community kerfluffle.

I'm mildly amused.

People take it personally that the mod asks them to limit their posting per day (lot of chapters, short ones, posted 3+ times per day... imagine my flist if everyone did that.... O.o)

quote: From the original post, it sounded like writers were going to be required to have a final chapter count, etc.
(The mod asked that people might consider this, it wasn't a direct order)

Eh.... that would be nice, you know. I actually consider it bad behaviour if you start posting a story before you've finished it (I've done it ONCE, in my early days of Smallville... say, 8 or so years ago). I'm old fashioned that way. I'm sorry if some find it hurtful. I'm a fossilized dinosaur when it comes to fandom, it seems. I'm the old lady with the cat, sitting in her rocking chair, bitching about today's youth...

*wibbles*

But... I've only been in fandom for roughly 10 years... I'm still young and hip, right?

I'm sitting on my hands trying not to comment anywhere else that people getting betas might be a good idea too....

Comments

[audaxfemina.livejournal.com]

Kerfluffle.

I love that word. It's wonderful. It does not come up in common conversation enough.

Yeah, a lot of the younger authors don't know good etiquette... but it comes with being bitched at, I think?

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

It should, unless they go off in a huff XD

[audaxfemina.livejournal.com]

I'm telling you, it's high school drama, sometimes.

Except when it's primary school drama, and that's even more fun to watch. :)

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

I'm sitting on my hands trying not to comment anywhere else that people getting betas might be a good idea too....

get off those hands!

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

*snorts*
Oh no, I'm not even dipping my toes in on that one XD

[gwendolen.livejournal.com]

But... I've only been in fandom for roughly 10 years... I'm still young and hip, right?

Definitely. I better not say when I started out. I saw that the zine that printed my first K/S-story was published in 1996... erm, yes... just call me dinosaur.

And wow, people get into a tiff about the strangest things. I'm definitely not a friend of Wips. Too many don't get finished and too many lack the utter basics of story-telling like a beginning, a climax and an end.

As for posting several short chapters a day that's something that used to be extremely popular of mailing-lists - unbeta'd of course. Some fandoms still suffer from this affliction.

Betaing also seems to get out of fashion. It's really weird, the excellent writers have one, two, three or more betas and the ones who really need them have none. And yeah, seeing a story note that basically said: "I couldn't be bothered to check certain facts, britpick, or spell-check before I posted." is a good reason for me not to bother reading it. There's this saying about patience being a virtue....

Erm yes, sorry for ranting in your journal. :-)

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

Rant away.
It's not alike I always use a beta, but that's just for short stuff that only gets posted to my own LJ -- I wouldn't dare work on a bigger story without having someone to help me.

[sorciere.livejournal.com]

But... I've only been in fandom for roughly 10 years... I'm still young and hip, right?

Hell, yes. 'Cause if you're not, then I'm not, either X.x

I do occasionally read a WIP, even when I know it's never going to be finished (or it's an old one that hasn't been updated in years), because the fic is Just That Good, but that's really the exception to the rule. I like to read finished stories - waiting weeks for the next update just makes me forget what happened in the previous chapters (or forget about the fic completely. Attention-span of a goldfish, baby). I don't mind if people post before they're finished with it - sometimes, the reviews can even make the author finish something they would normally have put aside - but I usually don't read the stories, unless I know the author has a rep for actually finishing their WIPs.

Having some idea of fic length ties in with that a bit, even if it's just "This will probably be 20-30-ish chapters". You have some idea of what you're getting into, and YMMV, but it also gives the impression that the author knows where s/he is going with it, and that ups the hope of actually seeing it completed. And lessens the risk of the author going "Huh, this gets a ton of reviews, but I'm almost done... I know, I'll toss in another plot twist and keep it going for another 30 chapters!"

Of course, I'll readily admit to being a total hypocrite, since the interfic I wrote was not finished when I started and I overshot my original chapter estimate by, uh, a bit. On the bright side, I did finish it (and pro-tip of the day: never, ever read an interfic if you want a finished story, because if you thought regular WIPs were bad at that, you ain't seen nothing yet), and updated a minimum of once a week. I like to think that redeems it a bit ;)

[sorciere.livejournal.com]

(throw in a few more 'YMMV' in the last paragraph just in case, by the way. It's been seven years or something since I finished that story, and if that fic type even exists anymore, it could have changed a lot)

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

Hehe, nope, spring chickens, that's what we are XD

I've occasionally accepted a WIP that was just... that good. But it takes one hell of a writer to keep the story tight when it's up to 10 parts. But some of the WIPs on the TW comms are... well. Let's just say some of them are 70+ parts. No writer is that good.

[katejaneway.livejournal.com]

All the fanfiction.net stories I've ever seen, except for the drabbles & 1-shots, have been updated chapter by chapter on a semi-regular basis. But usually when they do get a chapter update, it's like a giant new chapter once a week or so.

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

Oh exactly -- and I don't even particularly like ff.net. But at least it doesn't show up on your list unless you're asking it to. Here if you watch a community... well, you can't even put it on digest like you do with an old fasthioned mailinglist.

[katejaneway.livejournal.com]

Yeah I can imagine how aggravating it would be if Ff.net was in an LJ friends-page style. I like how I can subscribe to certain stories and then follow an email link once an update has been made. That way I don't even need to rememeber what I'm trying to keep up with.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'I hadn't noticed a 'kerfluffle' in the TW fandom -- or rather, a community kerfluffle.'
I didn't notice either.

'
I'm sitting on my hands trying not to comment anywhere else that people getting betas might be a good idea too....'
Please don't. Usually the people who really, really need betas don't have ANY. Why is it that most people in the Torchwood fandom seem to think betas are a horrible, nasty, Weevil-like things?

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

If they'd go a round with my betareader, they'd probably never write again XD -- don't get me wrong. She's damned good, but she is very focused on giving you enough concrit for you to make make your story as good as you can.

She never asks for me to write anything specifically, she just points out the where and whys.

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

Fanfic writing got its start in the pre-internet days as part of fanzines. I think older writers were more inclined to have stories finished and beta'd in those days because they were essentially publishing their stories in print.

I think that tradition carried over to younger fanfic writers, people like you and I who have only been in fandom for 10 years or so (god - has it really been that long already?!).

... but now even the internet has changed. Everything is about instant gratification (the rise in popularity of things like Twitter, etc). ... I think people are a lot less patient overall.

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

You're probably right. Doesn't make it any easier to accept LOL.

But yeah, everything is about instant gratification these days.

[hoskie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not saying that justifies their behaviour. Not at all! ;P

[acampbell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I used to have everything beta'd, but so many people have left SV fandom that it's a lot more challenging to find good, reliable betas. Sometimes, as was mentioned above, I just want to finish & post something, and for the times I don't have a beta waiting in the wings (much more often, now), it can take significant time to do a callout, wait for responses, work out an agreeable arrangement, send it off, and then wait for the beta to fit the job into their schedule. Then wait to get it back, revise, etc.

Getting something beta'd is always beneficial, but I just find that lately I'm skipping that step more often.

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can follow you on that one. But at least you take care to check through your stuff before posting. A lot of the ones on the TW lists who could benefit from a beta, don't even seem to be doing that much.

And the woes of getting a good beta reader, yes. Thank you LOL -- I've had people who only corrected my spelling from ou to o (humour/humor) and that was it. That's not betaing, that's nitpicking LOL

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

Is it bad of me to want to point out to the flouncing authors that, in fact, their taking their posts away isn't exactly a threat when it seems that the majority of the community wanted them to quit spamming it to death? (Answer: Okay, yes, it would be bad, or at least unnecessarily mean, but that doesn't mean I can't think about it. ;))

I admit, I once tried reading one of the (finished) stories of one of the prime offenders. Any redeeming value in the writing, plot, execution, etc. was completely destroyed by having to click to a new chapter every one or two screens. It was like reading a book that had been written on scraps of paper.

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

It was like reading a book that had been written on scraps of paper.

That has to be the best description ever LOL

And what do you mean? Of course people should post the way they want to. It's their artistic freedom we're talking about here!

*laughs herself silly*

Artistic freedom my arse.

[ginger931.livejournal.com]

Oh How I remember your Smallville days!
Gosh, that is how we met.

^_^

Just that funny feeling I got...
and a Google search: I discovered an entire sub-culture
I had been absolutely unaware of!

Heavens, that really was nearly 9 years ago!??

Stand by your guns, ma'dear.
Quality and Protocol are far too important.

*GRINS*

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm, was it SV or... was it x-men? I can't completely remember -- then again -- it WAS roughly around the same time LOL

Heh, even if it does make me sound like a bloody dinosaur, I'm sticking to my old fandom ways ^_~

[ginger931.livejournal.com]

The confusion may be in that I went LOOKING for Smallville Slash (before I knew such a thing existed) and when I found yours--I also found your X-MEN stuff as well, and that was what I linked to in my journal and commented on to my "FListers" that you and Amy were remarkably respectable--I mean c'mon. Wolverine cannot catch and therefore cannot transmit a DISEASE, yet you very responsibly had him put on a condom.

I adored you at that point.
Instantly.

^_^

[ximeria.livejournal.com]

*laughs*
Oh yes, that explains it then *g*

Cheers to the years behind us and the ones to come ^_^