fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2109 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2109 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #301.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

12. http://i49.tinypic.com/2nap79j.png

Unlikely. There are many hugely popular het pairings out there.

Depends on fandom.

They didn't say they wrote het. I can tell you from experience that in pretty much any fandom, gen gets the short end of the stick. (Also that on AO3, if you stick a popular pairing tag on a gen fic that is heavy on the characters in the pairing, you will get approx. 10 times the readers, and nobody will complain that it was mistagged.)

Also that on AO3, if you stick a popular pairing tag on a gen fic that is heavy on the characters in the pairing, you will get approx. 10 times the readers, and nobody will complain that it was mistagged.

Nobody might complain, but I personally don't leave kudos or comments on purposefully mistagged fic. (If there's a hint of shippiness about the pairing, I'll err on the side of caution and feedback the author, but purely gen stories with a pairing tag annoy the hell out of me.)

Oh, I admit it's a douchey thing to do, especially if you don't at least put a few bits of plausible-deniability subtext in, but 10x the kudos can be really persuasive. Also you can tag with the pairing but categorize as gen and the pairing fans will still see it, which is what I usually do when I succumb to temptation.

And it's pretty good evidence that the sole reason my genfic doesn't get read is because nobody goes looking for genfic, because if I go edit in a popular pairing tag even for just a couple days as a test, the increase in readership and kudos is dramatic.

Yup same here.

That's odd, I can see the temptation to get more readers, but doing that just drives away readers like me who actually would like to read gen.

Not in any of the fandoms I've ever belonged to - except the one where the creator of the series said, "Please don't slash my characters. I didn't write them that way, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't make them gay."

And that's the only fandom I can think of that didn't have a huge slash subset and a wee tiny het subset.

And the Harry/Ginny vs Harry/Hermione wars never happened?

Because everyone knows the HP fandom, sure. Secret: no, they don't.

Er, ok. What about Buffy, and Doctor Who? Sure there's some slash there, but both those fandoms are majority het. And huge.

And that's the only fandom I can think of that didn't have a huge slash subset and a wee tiny het subset.

Avatar: The Last Airbender, Battlestar Galactica, Bleach, Bones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Castle, Chronicles of Narnia, Doctor Who, Firefly, Fullmental Alchemist, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Jane Austen, The Mentalist, Once Upon a Time, Phantom of the Opera, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stargate: SG-1, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, The X-Files

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-10-12 17:09 (UTC) - Expand

What's popular isn't always what's good. It's what most people are into. It hits the "this situation/trope/kink makes me feel good" for the majority. That's all.

It really depends on the preferences of the fandom. Maybe your particular otp isn't that popular?

I understand, OP. I write gen one-shots in obscure and inactive fandoms, or gen one-shots about obscure characters in active fandoms, so I know my work's not going to be popular as a multi-chaptered romance about well-liked characters. I get one or two pieces of feedback (a review, a kudos, or a favorite) per story. And I absolutely cherish that one piece of feedback because they liked something I liked putting together and everyone wins! And I'm not just posting into the void after all.

But sometimes I imagine what it would be like if I was writing a type of story that was more popular. Would I be pushed into obscurity by the better writers of that genre, would I attract some more attention? Imagine me being one of the authors who complains on the one day a month when they don't get kudos, instead of being an author who cheers on the one day of a month when I do.

It's fun to think about sometimes, and I'm a little envious, but I love the little pieces surprising me when I least expect it.

Good attitude.

Man... I will forever read text broken up like this top to bottom.

Same.

First, love the picture you chose.

Second, it's hard to say. I have to admit my "following" increased when I started writing slash, but there could be some unrelated quality that caused the increase. Maybe I got better quality-wise, maybe I just got more exposure (I was also involved in a popular kink meme at the time). I don't think you can hinge all your plans on changing subject matter.

Aww. :) Yeah you should be proud, it's hard to get readers for non-slash/shipping fic unless you're really good.

My kingdom for a world where people stop posting secrets with text in counterintuitive side-by-side blocks

I'm not really sure what writing style has to do with slash. Unless you meant genre. In any case, yeah, please don't write something for any other reason than you want to.

I think you mean students so I agree with you there. Although Snape is a giant creeper, so...

Yup. I've seen plenty of authors who wrote mainly gen and/or het, but got more reviews and hits on their occasionaly slash piece than on any other.

I myself mostly read slash, but I agree, OP, that you shouldn't write something if your heart isn't in it. You're not doing this for money, and it's usually easy to tell when a story was written with a lackluster author. Plus, it's not like any slas-piece gets tons of reviews and hits just for being there.