Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2024-09-21 04:18 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2024-09-21 04:18 pm
Entry tags:
Well, I Was The Fastest To Lose.
I have a bad habit of getting tangled up in questions of whether something I'm working on is 'worth' writing or sharing. I don't hold anyone else to these weird standards, but suddenly, when I'm the writer, every fic apparently needs to justify itself in my head. Is this long enough for me to post to AO3; is it good enough? What's the point of this fic?
These are silly questions to ask when we're all just in fandom to have fun and share our love for things. I'm not going to lose my job as a ficwriter because I happened to post a silly little ficlet, and it's not taking up space that might otherwise be occupied by more 'worthwhile' fanfiction. The wordcount is right there on display; anyone who's not looking for shorter things can just pass the ficlet by, or filter by wordcount. People who are open to something short can check it out, if they so desire. Maybe they'll even enjoy it!
I've broken it occasionally, but I've been keeping to a general 'don't post anything under a thousand words' rule on AO3. The thing that finally led me to reassess: I found myself tempted to pick up a pinch hit for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
pokepodproject, which requires that fics be under 1,000 words.
In the end, I missed the opportunity to grab the pinch hit! But, while I was waiting to hear whether I'd been successful, I went, 'Well, I suppose I'd better create a space on AO3 where I'll be comfortable posting shorter things.'
Anyway, that's why I ended up creating my rixareth pseud on my secondary AO3 account, rionaleonhart, which I originally created for archiving my older fics. (My main AO3 account is Riona.)
I'm still not quite bold enough to post every ficlet I've ever written, but I gathered some I felt confident enough to post under the rixareth name. I decided I'd post them without backdating, as most were originally written in response to comment prompts and had never really seen the light of day outside this journal, but I'd stick to one ficlet per fandom per day to avoid flooding fandom tags. I posted the first batch of ficlets and waited nervously to see how they were received.
Within four hours, someone had translated one of the ficlets into Russian, which was certainly reassuring on the 'will anyone enjoy this?' front.
I've continued to post little batches of ficlets to the rixareth pseud over the last few days. Here are some things I've learnt from this experience, other than 'translators work terrifyingly fast':
- It's sort of nice to have these commentfics archived somewhere. I've written a lot of little ficlets over the years; it's a shame that they've just been languishing in the depths of my journal, where no one is ever going to see them. I had no recollection of writing some of the things I've managed to dig up!
- Things add up quickly! I've posted thirty-two ficlets to the rixareth pseud so far. They're all tiny individually, but collectively they're over 11,000 words.
- The Torchwood fandom is a lot more active than I was expecting! The show ended thirteen years ago; I sort of assumed it would have gone quiet. But no; apparently plenty of people are still into Torchwood. (Death Note is also surprisingly lively for a long-closed canon, but I was already aware of that on account of my headlong plunge back into Death Note last year.)
- I have some fics that have just languished unfinished for years. This ficlet-posting exercise has led me to reassess them and realise that, in some cases, the problem isn't that I can't think of where to go with the fic; the problem is that the fic is already finished, and I just failed to recognise or accept that because it was less than a thousand words long. I should really comb through my 'abandoned fanfiction' folder and see what can be salvaged.
- You can just post tiny things to AO3 and it's fine! Nobody complains! The fact that a fic can be read in the space of a minute or two doesn't necessarily mean people won't enjoy it. Sometimes that's exactly what you need.
These are silly questions to ask when we're all just in fandom to have fun and share our love for things. I'm not going to lose my job as a ficwriter because I happened to post a silly little ficlet, and it's not taking up space that might otherwise be occupied by more 'worthwhile' fanfiction. The wordcount is right there on display; anyone who's not looking for shorter things can just pass the ficlet by, or filter by wordcount. People who are open to something short can check it out, if they so desire. Maybe they'll even enjoy it!
I've broken it occasionally, but I've been keeping to a general 'don't post anything under a thousand words' rule on AO3. The thing that finally led me to reassess: I found myself tempted to pick up a pinch hit for
pokepodproject, which requires that fics be under 1,000 words.In the end, I missed the opportunity to grab the pinch hit! But, while I was waiting to hear whether I'd been successful, I went, 'Well, I suppose I'd better create a space on AO3 where I'll be comfortable posting shorter things.'
Anyway, that's why I ended up creating my rixareth pseud on my secondary AO3 account, rionaleonhart, which I originally created for archiving my older fics. (My main AO3 account is Riona.)
I'm still not quite bold enough to post every ficlet I've ever written, but I gathered some I felt confident enough to post under the rixareth name. I decided I'd post them without backdating, as most were originally written in response to comment prompts and had never really seen the light of day outside this journal, but I'd stick to one ficlet per fandom per day to avoid flooding fandom tags. I posted the first batch of ficlets and waited nervously to see how they were received.
Within four hours, someone had translated one of the ficlets into Russian, which was certainly reassuring on the 'will anyone enjoy this?' front.
I've continued to post little batches of ficlets to the rixareth pseud over the last few days. Here are some things I've learnt from this experience, other than 'translators work terrifyingly fast':
- It's sort of nice to have these commentfics archived somewhere. I've written a lot of little ficlets over the years; it's a shame that they've just been languishing in the depths of my journal, where no one is ever going to see them. I had no recollection of writing some of the things I've managed to dig up!
- Things add up quickly! I've posted thirty-two ficlets to the rixareth pseud so far. They're all tiny individually, but collectively they're over 11,000 words.
- The Torchwood fandom is a lot more active than I was expecting! The show ended thirteen years ago; I sort of assumed it would have gone quiet. But no; apparently plenty of people are still into Torchwood. (Death Note is also surprisingly lively for a long-closed canon, but I was already aware of that on account of my headlong plunge back into Death Note last year.)
- I have some fics that have just languished unfinished for years. This ficlet-posting exercise has led me to reassess them and realise that, in some cases, the problem isn't that I can't think of where to go with the fic; the problem is that the fic is already finished, and I just failed to recognise or accept that because it was less than a thousand words long. I should really comb through my 'abandoned fanfiction' folder and see what can be salvaged.
- You can just post tiny things to AO3 and it's fine! Nobody complains! The fact that a fic can be read in the space of a minute or two doesn't necessarily mean people won't enjoy it. Sometimes that's exactly what you need.
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This reminded me that I probably ought to start archiving the stuff that’s in my journal and the communities I’m active in– I don’t plan on leaving DW any time soon, but it’s good to back stuff up, I think.
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I tended to group my ficlets when I posted on AO3 by fandom or ship more because I am lazy with titles and summaries and tagging, not necessarily because they were "worse" than my longer stuff.
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This is interesting to hear, because I wasn't aware of this discourse at all! Around that time, as a kid on ffnet, I was posting fics of 300 or 400 words proudly and unselfconsciously. I need to reclaim that attitude, clearly!
Coming up with titles and summaries for all these ficlets had definitely been a challenge! Your ficlet collection strategy is a cunning one.
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I'm glad you're getting a good response to posting the old stuff! That Ianto and Rhys interlude is simply lovely.
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After I'd written the first draft of this entry, I reread the opening paragraph and realised I needed to make some additions to make it clearer I was just talking about myself ('something I'm working on', 'long enough for me to post'), because I didn't want anyone else to feel judged, but evidently I could have done better on that front! I've added another line to the opening paragraph, which will hopefully help to prevent other shortfic writers from feeling called out; thank you for alerting me to the fact that I needed to do that.
And thank you so much! ♥
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I myself am guilty of being a drabble snob! I want drabbles to capture a feeling or insight or something that is contained solely within the form of 100 words, and I get judgey when a drabble is "just" 100 words of something that clearly needs more than that form offers to make the writer's point.
As a frequent short short fic writer, I remind myself that a brilliant sentence or characterization is still brilliant whether or not it is adorned with a million other words.
My point is that you haven't done anything wrong, either in feeling as you do or posting what you have posted. But it does highlight that we aren't all doing fandom the same way. Of course that's not a bad thing!
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Absolutely! Forcing a fic to be longer than it needs to be is likely to weaken it, too. I think that's the most important thing I've learnt from this reflection; I had a couple of perfectly good 400-word fics in my files, which I'd just never posted because I felt some ridiculous need to turn them into overstretched 1,000-word fics. When I finally accepted they were already exactly what they needed to be and posted them, they got a warm reception. Hopefully I've learnt a lasting lesson from this!
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Good luck with your exchange!
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I'm glad you're getting past it yourself!
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stories in all shapes and brevities
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I originally decided I would not archive drabbles to AO3 for similar reasons, but as I'm going through my "make sure the same things are archived everywhere", fuck that, I've as much right to the pixels as anyone else.
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also I'm very glad I clicked on your new pseud because I saw the Jane/Cho failed phone sex fic at the top and read it and it was so funny sjdfhskjdhs thank you for that.
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