[ SECRET POST #3771 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3771 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #540.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This is a tough one because IMO neither way of posting is really ideal.

On the one hand, I get what a couple people in this thread are saying about each little snippet being very much a separate part of one universe, and lumping them all together really confuses the issue. But on the other hand, it genuinely can be annoying when an author posts a bunch of tiny little snippet fics separately.

Personally, I think it's not great to post anything shorter than 1000 words as it's own separate work, but 500 words would be my hard minimum. Sorry if that's your preferred format, but tiny little snippets are annoying and inconvenient for the majority of readers (as this thread shows). So if you're turning out a whole bunch of little snippet fics, that would be the time to take the functionality of the website and the interests of the people who use the website into consideration, and post your snippets in a single multi-chaptered format.

But really, amount and frequency is the main determining factor for me. Like, even though I think fics under 500 words shouldn't be posted on their own, if a writer has six tiny snippet fics on their account and a bunch of other fics that are five/ten/twenty/fifty thousand words, then the little snippet fics are no big deal. The place where it becomes annoying is when a writer is constantly turning out snippet fics, with dozens and dozens of them piling up. Especially when that same author has written few to no fics long enough for anyone to actually sink their teeth into.

[(Anonymous)]

^What she says.

[ketita]

I have one fic that's a collection of short oneshots about one pairing. They're roughly 1k each, but I felt kind of iffy about spamming tons of fics that short, so I figured I could put them as chapters of one fic, on the idea that it's the same pairing, and if somebody likes one, there's a high chance they'd enjoy several.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I think this was very considerate of you. Like I said, for me so much depends on the author's overall habits. But regardless of what your broader fic habits are, doing it the way you did it was considerate of others, and while it's not the kind of thing people ever think to thank fic writers for, since we're on the topic: thank you for reigning in the ficlet sprawl and doing it the way you did it instead. :)

Honestly, a couple of hours ago I came across a collection of very short snippet fics (13 of them added up to 2000 words), and because the author had posted them as chapters of one fic, I gave the first one a try and ended up liking them and reading all 13. I wouldn't have done that if they'd all been posted separately, because it would have been like, what's the point in opening all of these?

Plus, frankly, a lot of very short individual fics can feel like an attention grab (which is inherently annoying), whereas posting them as chapters never does.

[ketita]

:)

You know, the length is a good point, too - I'm also a little less inclined to click on a super-short fic. You're right that somehow psychologically it seems like more work.

and re:attention grab, I think that this is one of the places where the contrast between Ao3 and tumblr is pronounced. Because as a ficauthor on tumblr, it always seemed to me like if you're not posting stuff CONSTANTLY you get ignored - and that lends to writing lots and lots of short little things. But then you're left with all these short little fics, so what do you do with them? Fic-spamming on Ao3 is obnoxious. So for me, posting them as chapters of one fic seemed like the most convenient solution. And hey, it also saves me having to write a summary each time and tag and all that!

[dancing_serpent]

You can't please everyone, though. One person thanks you and thinks it's considerate, the next one thinks it's annoying and should have been posted separately.

So, I guess, do what you think is best and people will either love it or hate it.

[ketita]

Of course. At the end of the day that's all any of us can do... though I do think that on Ao3, at least, there's a fair number of people who don't appreciate pages and pages of postings by the same author. At least space them out...

In this case, I have yet to see somebody complain that I posted them together. And like I said, all the fics are for the same pairing and none need smut tags or excessive warnings, so it doesn't have a wall-of-tags problem either.

[dancing_serpent]

I'm sure there are, just as there are those who really hate the multi-chapter fics that aren't actually multi-chapters, but lots of little one shots. I'm certainly one of the latter, although I wouldn't complain to the author even if someone happened to trick me into giving their fic collection a try.

You mentioned fic lengths in a comment above, and that something else I seem to view differently. I often search by word count, because I chose my reading according to the time I have available. When I'm free for the evening I search for long stuff, on the weekend I read the epics, during lunch breack I pick something short, and for a little pick-me-up when something annoyed me at work I read the minifics or drabbles.

So, I really really appreciate people posting their small standalone fics separately. *g*

[ketita]

Well in my case, the fic is labeled as a collection in both the title and the summary, so no misleading there! (it's also only 5 mini-fics, not 30 or something).

I see your point about searching by fic-length. I guess part of it is my own style, since I don't often write short fics (most of my short fics are at least 2k, but I have 20k oneshots too). Thanks for mentioning it, because I hadn't thought of it that way!

(on the other hand... I can assure you that the fic collection has many more kudos than any fic would have probably garnered on its own, which is its own advantage, if people search by kudos...)

Thanks for your reply, though. I'll definitely think about this subject more.

[dancing_serpent]

Well, of course it will have many more Kudos. That's pretty much the point. Someone up-thread mentioned authors taking up shelf space by posting lots of separate fics. But those collections take up the best place on the shelf because they have the most Kudos. And it's so misleading, because even if someone waded through 30 chapters and only like one fic in that collection, the Kudos goes to the whole thing. People sorting by Kudos will have those collections clogging up the top spots in every major fandom - to the point that sorting by Kudos has almost become meaningless now.

So, one side calls the other attention grabbing and gets called fishing for Kudos in return. *g*

[ketita]

Well, lose-lose is best, no? :P

And I mean, if somebody wants to give kudos to the whole thing even if they only liked one chapter, it's their prerogative... Plenty of people read things and don't leave kudos. So I'm not too bugged by it, though I mean the most-kudo'd fics in any fandom tend to be shitty anyway. Usually it'll be some smutty melodramatic slog-fest. Either way, your scroll button gets a workout.

And again, in my case - I felt comfortable doing it only because I do think that somebody who likes one of the fics will probably enjoy most of them. They're all on the scale from fluffy to melancholy (sometimes both in the same ficlet), no mega-angst, no big warnings necessary, no smut, mostly canonverse, all same pairing.

In short, I don't think any system is perfect.

eta: I agree with you that people who tag multiple pairings or things like that are annoying because they force you to hunt through multiple chapters in the vain hope you'll find that one pairing.

[dancing_serpent]

Haha, yes. Lose-lose sums it up best. *g*

the most-kudo'd fics in any fandom tend to be shitty anyway
Oh yeah. And mostly full of the current favourite tropes, too. I've been sorting by bookmarks for a while now. Kudos is given far too easily, but someone bookmarking because they liked it enough to want to read the fic again, or have the link available for reccing - that helps me a lot more. (Not that the results are all that different from the ones when one sorts by Kudos...)

Nope, you're right. No perfect system. And the search function is not perfect, either, and that's not helping with the issue.

[ketita]

That's been a fandom problem since the dawn of time. And not just fandom - popularity isn't much of a guarantee of quality in any medium.