Re: The Pit of Voles

[vanillafluffy]

They make me crazy: These people who have been members for a year or two, have posted maybe three stories totalling 4000 words or less---but they've got a profile containing quotes from every movie they've ever seen and some knee-jerk meme (If you love baby kittens, post this. If someone has ever made you cry, post this. If you have ever stood naked in the middle of a graveyard at midnight, post this.*) and when you compress the profile, there's nothing left but those lonely little stories, one of which probably says something like, "I suck at summeries" or "I don't want to give my excellent plot away but please read it".

Aaaaarrgh!

Okay, first of all, move the fucking endless profile over to Facebook. Now SHUT UP AND WRITE FICTION. There should be a rule that your profile can't be longer than your writing credits.

While we're at it, maybe they could make the background a different color for people who actually post stories, as opposed to the people who just favorite every goddamn thing they've ever read. Kinda like on eBay, where your star changes color the more good feedback you get.

And summaries? Geez Louise, and Thelma too---it's a sentence, or two or three. An catchy quote, a "To be or not to be?" question, a clue---just give us a clue! Is it past, present or future? What character(s) does it feature? Does it fill in a gap in canon, or is it AU? If you've really come up with a genius idea, surely you can come up with a couple lines that won't spoil us!

Next Wednesday will be the 5th anniversary of my first post over there. I have a total of 126 posted fics, thank you very much. Which isn't everything I've posted HERE, since there are a few things that are way too *ahem* intense for that venue. (Knowledge is Power would probably get me banned.)

Their loss....

===============================================

* Okay, I made that one up. I wasn't naked.

Comments

[starhawk2005.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I rarely hang out over there anymore, because I just can't stand all the amateurish crap.

And I can't post over there, either, since 99.9% of my stuff is too hawt for them. No great loss.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

I've posted a few things that push the envelope, and no one's complained, and there are a few things I've done "cleaned up" versions of. I like being able to see the number of hits I've had (although I've been over there since the days when you had to PAY to have a hit counter), and it's a free place to archive most of my stuff.

The volume of crap there IS a lot greater than it is on LJ, but I'm more about writing it than reading it. What makes me sad are the ones who have good ideas but don't have the skills to execute them. I've gotten to the point where I don't even try to encourage them any more, just hit the back button, because they're all "It's FINE the way it is!" There's ALWAYS room for improvement, and I include myself in that. (In my case, it's mostly follow-through and finishing stuff....)

[starhawk2005.livejournal.com]

because they're all "It's FINE the way it is!"

Yeah, I rarely offer concrit anymore. And even if I did, it was usually to people I knew, since they're less likely to go off on me/brush off my comments.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Not that I was much better in my adolescent/post-adolescent maunderings; I didn't get the hang of self-editing until much later, when it became second nature.

On the rare occasions when I think there's something worth pursuing, I try to provoke thought by asking questions. If character A does X, how will character B react? Will he go along with X, or will he do Y? What happens if Z comes into the equation? Is X in character for A or B, or are they being gulled into it by C? And so on. Not telling them to do or not do whatever, just hopefully stirring up ideas they might not have thought of otherwise.

[starhawk2005.livejournal.com]

*nods* Sounds like a good plan to me...

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

It never even ocurred to me that anyone actually read the profiles over there, except to trash the author when abusing them on fanficrants.

After my initial paranoia, I've basically started posting every thing I write to FFN (except the RPS) just as another back-up against LJ going kerflooey some day. I suspect no one's paying any attention, at least not in terms of my corrupting the kiddies.

Mostly my stuff just lays there like a lump, but I had the weird experience last week of someone clearly "discovering" my TW fic over there and hitting me with about 8 reviews in quick succession, which I gotta say was pretty awesome.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Is my OCD showing? I always blip over to take a look before I answer any reviews or if something's been favorited, just to get an idea of what my readership demographics are. There's a lamentable amount of bubblegum, but every once in a while I feel complimented, as in favorited by someone who's clearly selective about who they save. I just wish there was a way to tell if my stats are awesome, wretched or average....