[ SECRET POST #1987 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1987 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 096 secrets from Secret Submission Post #284.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Her hat is lovely, and I want it on my head right now.

Anyway, I'm someone who personally likes romance a lot, and who doesn't read a lot of gen because it seems like the draw of it for many people is what it isn't, not what it is. I think many of the people who don't like "gen" are people who also enjoy romance and don't find anything appealing about "hey this doesn't have any shipping or porn, isn't that great?". And I mean, there's nothing wrong with not liking shipping or porn, just like there isn't anything wrong with people who do like shipping or porn. But a lot of people do like romance enough that they don't want to read something that's advertised as TOTALLY NOT ROMANCE, especially because the romances depicted in fanfic are pretty different than the romances depicted in regular popular media (example: non strongly-queer-coded characters having same-sex relationships) and those can be really important to some readers.

Then again, I don't just like romance. I like horror, I like thrillers, I like adventure stories, I like drama, I like personal conflict of a non-romantic variety, there's a ton of stuff I like. If there's a really good time travel mystery or courtroom shenanigans comedy or surreal horror story or something that happens to not have romance, and the description focuses on the time travel/funny lawyers/unsettling things that don't make sense, I'll read it no matter if there's shipping or not. But if it just says it's "gen", I'll probably give it a pass. Not-romance isn't enough to appeal to me, but actual things I like definitely do.

If you want people to read your story for what it does have to offer, instead of what it doesn't, I'd strongly suggest pushing what's there and not just focusing on that it's gen (maybe just mentioning "No pairings" in the header or something?) You won't lose any readers for not going "NO ROMANCE HERE" in giant flashy letters, and you might gain some for trying to appeal to what's actually there. Sure, the people who only read shipping, or who are just in the mood for porn that day, might not bother, but they wouldn't have read non-romantic stuff no matter what. If you don't want your story lumped in with all the other not-romance, give it a genre label you think actually works.

Maybe my fandoms are unusual, but there's plenty of love there for non-romantic stuff, if it's interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a good comment. It articulates how a lot of people feel about genfic, I think. I love horror myself, but I also think one of the key draws to horror is to see how people react and form relationships or friendships, and labeling a horror story with "NO NOPE NO ROMANCE HERE EVER" means I probably won't get my relationship in times of hardship fix. I love the friendship too, but with only friendship...it has to be a really good story.

Also, in a more general sense: I tend to get attached to certain characters, and I can almost never guess how a genfic will treat them. A fic where they're part of the main endgame pairing is usually a pretty good indicator of that character not getting excessively bashed.

I guess what I'm saying, OP, is that genfic doesn't have enough labels for me. :)