Bringing @avelera and I’s chat out here. Those aliens really did take care of that meatsuit they’re in. Sure they destroyed Newt’s mind, twisted the remains of his personality, turned him into the corporate douchebag he would viscerally hate and used his intellect to try to destroy the world but damn….those tailored suits…that skanky shirtless instagram selfie…. that was probably the first time in Newt’s life that he regularly exercised, wore nice clothes, and ate a vegetable
Oh man, y’know for Bagginshield I had such specific headcanons for smut, but with Newt and Hermann it’s more dependent on the kind of story the author is trying to tell?
(Cut for NSFW discussion but also just general headcanon rambling)
I like reading fics where Newt’s a bottom, I like fics where Hermann strictly prefers to bottom, and I like fics where they switch! I like fics where they’re both kink monsters who have racked up considerable experience, and I like fics where one or both of them are secretly virgins. I don’t personally like fics with lingerie or cross-dressing/feminization but that’s a unique squick of mine that has nothing to do with the quality of those fics and even then I’ll dip into those tropes for good Newmann banter.
For my own fics I tend to default to, “They’ve each had a few partners before, so they’re not inexperienced, but no one who really stuck.” A big part of that for me was the letters: after age 25/26 when they began to exchange those letters, both of them had a very fixed idea of who they wanted to be with (each other) and heavily romanticized the other and secretly pined after the other as their soulmate, to the point where any relationships they had limping along finally bit the dust, and they both struggled to form meaningful relationships with anyone else after, because everyone else just felt dull in comparison or more specifically “Not Hermann/Newt”, respectively. Basically: they ruined each other for other people (and I can so easily see both of them biting that back as an insult they’d like to fling because it would reveal too much, but both harbor a simmering resentment in the lab that they just can’t quit this annoying asshole, even when everything became a disaster after the letters, and they’re both pissed that even now that they “despise” each other they still can’t pull their romantic lives together and are still hopelessly pining, which in turn feeds the heat of their sniping).
I headcanon predominantly (as in, I’ll switch it up for a fic, but I have a strong sense of a “default”) that Newt had trouble holding down long-term relationships even before the letters because he’s flighty, easily distracted, and hard to deal with it, to the point where even he was self-aware of those traits. It’s one reason he attaches to Hermann so strongly: even when he was at his absolute most heinously annoying, Hermann stuck around. Maybe not in a “relationship” sense, but he didn’t request a transfer or even a separate lab. Hermann clearly wants to be around Newt (maybe on a perverse and masochistic level, lol) in a way Newt does sincerely appreciate. Even Newt’s mother didn’t stick around, and we see no sign of him having other close friends or partners, so I do think his teasing of Hermann is to some extent a guy with chronic abandonment issues perversely needing to constantly test the boundaries, “If I do THIS will you leave me?? What about THIS??” and gaining comfort when nothing is enough, knowing it’s toxic and counter-productive behavior, but not really being able to stop because he needs to either lose people on his own terms or know they’ll never leave him no matter how he acts out. Which could very well stem from being the youngest, most immature person in the class at school too. (Oh, and on that note, I totally agree with other writers that Newt has a serious “strict professor/librarian” kink thing with figures of authority that dominated his youth which feeds into his sincere attraction to Hermann on a primal level).
I do think Newt’s dossier statement that his dating preference is, “anyone who will take him” is not narrator-voice/word-of-god speaking in the third person about Newt, but literally something Newt is self-aware about for himself. Unlike a lot of the fandom I actually headcanon Newt as truly pansexual rather than bisexual based on that quote: genitalia does not matter, only someone’s willingness to be with him does. I see him as totally game to fuck aliens regardless of anthropomorphism or genitalia, inspired by Star Trek, Mass Effect and sci-fi in general. THAT SAID, I actually don’t personally like to write Newt as the “Kaiju fucker” because I actually like to credit his statement about, “I don’t love them, I study them,” as sincere, and not deflecting a fetish. LOL, I don’t think Newt would ever deflect from talking about his fetishes if they came up, he seems very open and honest in that respect SO, if we break down that statement, it strikes me as something he’s thought about. I strongly headcanon that when Kaiju first showed up, Newt was down to fuck if they had turned out to be sentient and benevolent and able to give consent. The fact they’re trying to destroy our world and can’t be reasoned with is why he’s not a Kaiju fucker and knows he isn’t, not the idea of fucking aliens in particular, but he’d never fuck these aliens, specifically. Because either they have beast-like intelligence and can’t give consent OR they DO have intelligence and they’re malicious. He’s outraged at the implication that he’d fuck Kaiju just because he’s obsessed with studying because HE’S THOUGHT ABOUT THIS, OK, AND NO, JUST NO. (Also it adds a delicious level of tragedy that this reputation of Kaiju fucker comes back to bite him so hard in Uprising. I truly believe any vestige of positive fascination he had for the Kaiju was dead by the end of PR1, but the legacy of it made his being controlled and destroyed by them “unsurprising” in a really tragic way).
IMO, to turn to Hermann: he’s strictly gay but has a lot of baggage attached. I can totally buy Vanessa being someone he was with at some point, maybe even “married” to on paper, but I see it pretty strongly through the lens of a relationship with a like-minded woman who was probably a close friend that his family encouraged because his father was homophobic and encouraged his son to marry this woman to make him proud, in denial of his sexuality (whether or not you headcanon them as actually getting married).
I think Hermann has a lot of internalized fears around homophobia because of his father and may even resent Newt’s more progressive upbringing that Newt never had to wrestle with those demons and was always comfortable in his sexuality and free to explore and experiment openly around his family. That said, I do think Hermann switching side away from his father to support the Jaeger program instead of the Wall allowed him to shed a lot of that baggage: once he made that stand against his father, and realized his father wasn’t infallible because he had so clearly taken the wrong side in this war, it freed Hermann up to be more decisively his own person. Rebellion is exciting to Hermann, but also still very scary (as seen in PR1 and 2 when he tries to be a badass and actually does quite well!). That includes him being completely open with his sexuality by the time we see him in PR1.
Last note on sexuality and fetishes: but I think they’re into each other, totally. Physically, mentally, circumstantially. It’s gross to everyone around them how into each other they are, lol. It’s the source of a lot of their anger in their old fights that they had all this tension between them. Newt is sincerely into Hermann’s whole professorial “look” even if he teases about it, he’s deeply respectful of Hermann’s disability and it would be antithetical to his very existence to bring it up negatively. He thinks Hermann is as hot as it gets. They mock each other’s intellect but from a place of them being the only ones allowed to do so because they’re on the same level and it’s so lonely at the top that they deeply appreciate, even if not especially through the mockery, how rare this level of intellect is and they cherish it in one another.
Likewise, Newt’s entire look is based around rebellion, and Hermann I think has a secret, buried kink for display of rebellion in others because it was so forbidden to him growing up. It’s exciting. Newt’s tattoos’, his barely-professional clothes, his rockstar attitude, even the fact he’s got the pudge and doesn’t care what other’s think about it, are deeply exciting to Hermann in ways that he could never have for himself. Newt is extremely attractive to him, physically and mentally, if exasperating at times for not having better self-preservation instincts, but again, that’s part of the charm that Hermann will never admit to aloud.
Long story short, I think they’re well matched and deeply in love. They fulfill things the other needs like someone who is stable and sticks around for Newt, and someone who breaks him out of his shell for Hermann. I just love the a lot, ok?
So I’m still trying to figure out how to patch the Uprising plot hole of where did Newt get a third Kaiju brain to Drift with? In the immortal words of others, who the fuck is Alice??
There’s really only two possibilities:
1) It’s a piece of Kaiju brain from some previous Kaiju that was miraculously preserved and Newt got ahold of it either in secret or because someone at the PPDC thought he’d know what to do with it.
2) It’s from one of the last three Kaiju that came out of the Breach during the Triple Event: Slattern, Raiju, and Scunner. It can’t be Slattern because it was driven into the Breach to destroy it. But Raiju and Scunner were not totally obliterated by the explosion, apparently (I had to look that up) and that’s where the really scary and interesting possibility sets in.
So the problem with getting brains before was that the Kaiju start dissolving right away and the brain dies before anyone can drill through the skull, right?
But the Kaiju are also highly adaptive based on Precursor designs. They’re literally constructed creatures adjusted for their purpose.
So what if this last, newest batch of Kaiju have one new, invisible tweak: their brains don’t break down as quickly?
There’s already a hypothesis out there that they sent Otachi pregnant to our world and had her look for Newt to try to lure him to Drift with her or the fetus. So what if the Precursors continue to adjust their design for this newest wave? They want to make contact with Newt again, so why wouldn’t they make it easier for him? That would be a truly insidious way to get a brain into his hands in the hopes he’d try it again, and given the lack of intelligence that can be gathered about the Anteverse, perhaps even at the urgings of the PPDC, Newt could very well Drift again OR Drift again and not tell anyone and bam, trapped.
I don’t think it’s a clone brain that Newt makes, for the record, in part because I hesitate to say whether or not it would have a live connection to the Hive Mind unless the Precursors were involved in the process? And I admit, it’s mostly a gaping plothole in the movies. But I wouldn’t put it past the Precursors to make all SORTS of adjustment to their designs to kick off their second attempt at Earth by Drifting with Newt and the possibility that “Alice” is a part of Raiju or Scunner seems the most likely possibility.
I think it was Word-of-God-ed somewhere that Alice is a clone of Newt’s make – but that doesn’t make it canon. I love the design tweak idea. It’s aaaalll in place to make it easier for Newt to get back to the hivemind. Very creepy.
Pre-K-Day, he specialized in artificial tissue replication so it seems not entirely unlikely that he did in fact make the brain himself. I don’t like it, mostly because how would it link to the Hivemind if it was of earthly origin?
Oh yeah I mean, the cloning makes *sense* as a possibility, in that I totally believe that Newt could *accomplish* it, but it leaves some gaping questions like: how is the brain connected to the Hive Mind, and wouldn’t Newt mitigate for that? Unless he deliberately designed a brain to Drift with in order to connect with the Hive Mind on purpose? Which, btw, seen some fics with that assumption and they are ROCKIN’ so that is NOT a criticism! I could also easily see it that the Precursors already had their hooks in Newt so they sort of… guided him in the process? Because cloning is hard and there’d be a lot of false starts if he was working from scratch, but with a little voice in his head telling him how to do it and not mess it up…? Who knows. Interesting to consider it’s NOT connected to the Hive Mind UNTIL Newt Drifts with it, because HE serves as the conduit (gah!).
This more came up because for the Kidnapping AU I’m going with the idea that the Drift leaves a photocopy of the partner in your brain, but after the first 2 it wasn’t strong enough for the Precursors to take Newt, so there needs to be a third Drift. I also truly wanted to believe he and Hermann had some time together as a couple before the infection set in. So I sort of had this idea that Raiju and Scunner finally get recovered a few months later and everyone is shocked that the brain is still intact and, well, who are you going to give it to except Newt Geiszler? And then we need to know if the Anteverse might try for another invasion, and we have no other means of testing, and maybe he protected Hermann by not telling anyone Hermann Drifted too, and, well… maybe Newt doesn’t “find” anything, regretfully, and then maybe Newt suddenly decides to get a job at Shao Industries…
I was watching the first 2 episodes of “My Hero Academia” and it reminded me of some storytelling tips my teacher at Odyssey related, and it was really interesting to see them put so effectively into practice:
– Start with a protagonist – Even before we’re shown the world of superheroes, we meet Deku and learn about his personality (driven but emotional), his goals (to be heroic), and his obstacles (childhood bullies/physical weakness) in a fairly non-magical scenario of being beat up by bullies while defending a friend. We learn tons about his character before we ever learn this is a magical world with superpowers, and then that revelation expands the situation. We then get our monologue about why this world is magical. There’s a temptation with genre fiction writers to front load the monologue about their magical world: do not do this. The audience at this point has no reason to care about your magical world. They need a protagonist to latch onto to see through their eyes why we should care about any of this. We care about the world of superheroes because Deku cares about it, and we are given reasons to care about Deku in the first scene (his earnestness, his drive, and his goals).
– Your protagonist should have goals – Like all good Shonen heroes, Deku wants to become the best of the thing that defines his world. For Naruto, it was to become lead ninja (Hokage) in a ninja village. For Deku, it’s to become a top class superhero in a world that is 80% heroes, except for the 20% which are normal people like him. Everything Deku does in the story is him being driven by this goal. He watches videos, keeps a notebook, and doesn’t just daydream but actively strategizes day and night about the kind of hero he’s going to be. His goal drives his every action in the story, even when it gets him in trouble.
– The setting should match your protagonist – Deku doesn’t want to be a superhero in a world of people who want to be stockbrokers. I see a lot of writers get tripped up on their settings, because they build elaborate worlds with no one to populate them. The setting should center on the story of your protagonist, its details don’t just exist because “it has to be this way”. Your world is fictional, even if it’s the real world you’re still focusing on the things that effect the story of your protagonist. Everything is created by you, so nothing is arbitrary. Deku’s world is perfectly suited to tell the story of Deku’s rise to become the greatest superhero.
– Flaws only count as flaws if they inhibit your protagonist from getting the object of their goal – I see a lot of authors struggle when building new characters with the concept of giving their characters “flaws” so let’s clarify: a flaw is something that holds your protagonist back from their goal. Saying your romcom heroine is adorkably clumsy is not a flaw unless she’s trying to become a dancer. However, if her goal is to become prom queen, but she’s too shy to make friends, then shyness is a flaw. Shyness is not a flaw if her goal is to become an author who hides in her room all day writing, etc etc. Deku wants to become a superhero. His flaw is that he was born “Quirkless” and can’t become one. His flaw stands in opposition to his goal and must be overcome within the narrative, ideally through his purposeful actions (and not by coincidence).
– The protagonist of your story should drive the action – Every step of the way, Deku’s actions are driving his story. He is inspired at a young age to become a hero. Trying to be a hero gets him into trouble that shapes him as a person. He keeps a notebook of hero strategies and when it’s stolen and messed with because he tells his dreams to the class, he takes actions as a result. He is attacked and then rescued by his idol (yes, technically that would be a non-protagonist driven coincidence BUT his actions after meeting his idol are driven by him) and in the process of being rescued, chooses to latch onto his hero while All Might is retreating, thus setting off the action in which the villain is accidentally set free and wreaks havoc again. During the second confrontation with the villain, which was caused by Deku’s actions, while all the other superheroes are frozen with indecisiveness, Deku chooses to dash forward to save his classmate. As a result All Might chooses to circle back with this kid, and apologize for his earlier words, thus fulfilling Deku’s (at this point) life long dream of being told he can be a hero by his idol. Yes, a second person fulfills Deku’s dream, but it was Deku’s actions at every step that led to this happening.
– Coincidences should hurt your protagonist, not help them- the reason we groan and roll our eyes at bad storytelling when everything falls into place for the hero is because it feels cheap. In general, coincidence should frustrate your hero and empower your villain in a traditional genre story. The river your protagonist needs to cross has coincidentally flooded, so they need to go around, but that gives the villain time to catch up to them. This raises tension up until the point of the fever pitch of the climax, where the hero is at her lowest point and the villain is at her strongest. Deku in the anime coincidentally met his idol but in the process, set free the villain who then coincidentally found a more powerful host to wreak havoc.
These were all principles I struggled with until I attended my workshop. It was the reason I couldn’t figure out how to go from writing fanfic, where all of this is built into the narrative, to creating new characters in new worlds. Of course there are caveats and exceptions to all of the above rules, but they’re really helpful to follow in starting a new genre fiction story from scratch.
Sometimes building suspense for the reader means making sure they know what they’re supposed to have suspense about.
This can mean some level of over-explaining. There’s so much in the writer’s head that never makes it to the page, but there’s also a lot that’s implicitly obvious to us that we don’t realize isn’t clear to a reader (this is one good reason to have a beta reader at the very least look over your work before submitting it to an audience).
One thing I’ll sometimes do is explain as much as I can about what the rules of the story are upfront (particularly in stories that have a lot of secondary world building), and allow the characters to question the mystery that I want the reader to wonder about. Some writers are a bit more cagey and subtle than I am, maybe it’s an ADHD/spectrum thing where I’m over explaining (like right now, lol) because I’m afraid of not being understood.
But personally, I’ve never really seen an audience get mad because they fully grasped what was going on and the rules of how the story is going to work. They might get bored or exasperated, but in general people don’t mind the story recap at the beginning of a tv episode, they don’t mind the reminder of how stuff works, or what’s going on. But they don’t like being confused.
One way as a writer that you can make sure that the reader/audience knows what to focus on is literally pointing them to it. “Here’s all the circumstances around the murder, given in extreme detail. What we don’t know, and what the characters are also wondering, is the identity of the murderer.” Having the murderer’s identity and some lingering questions about why exactly everyone cares about this murder, or why this particular detective is in town solving it, may already be too many mysteries depending on the length and complexity of the story. Your audience especially shouldn’t be wondering about extraneous mysteries if you don’t intend them to be wondering about those things. That’s another reason to get a second pair of eyes on complex stories.
Mysteries provide an element of cognitive engagement for your reader, which is one way to get them hooked on your story. (The first three books of the Harry Potter series in particular were in fact mysteries, one reason for their enduring popularity IMO.) Readers like to be cognitively engaged and asking questions. But they don’t want to feel dumb because they don’t have all the relevant facts, because you haven’t provided them or you pulled a fast one on them. In general, they want to be there with the character in terms of knowledge level, maybe even more informed than the character if you don’t want your story to feel claustrophobic.
For example, if it’s a “who done it?” don’t have the murderer not even show up in the story until they get pulled out of nowhere, it pisses everyone off and it makes them feel cheated. Don’t pull a surprise twist that has no lead up, or have scenes floating around with no connection to other scenes because it would be “a cool reveal” (*coughWestworldcough*). This also helps keep your reader from wondering if stuff is there on purpose or not. I’ve seen readers forgive a lot of writerly sins, but the only one I’ve never seen them forgive is the writer not knowing their own story and all its details better than the reader does.
Give your readers all the tools you can, and don’t be afraid to give them obvious signposts to what you want them worrying about, so that they stay focused and engaged with the narrative and you can guide them through a satisfying experience.
Wow, for the first time in awhile I’ve written a scene that was better in my head.
So one thing I see a lot of earlier writers agonize over is how “the story was better in my head than when I wrote it”. Now, this is just speaking from my own experience (as is all my writing commentary) but the good news about that is it does actually go away after enough practice. Not in the sense that you become like, a magical mythical writer who gets everything perfect on the first try, but in the sense that once you’re committing words to the page you can actually come up with better and more complex stuff that what you can hold in your head at any given time. At this point I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought “Ooh, this scene in my head will be cool because of this sad thing I’ve thought up,” only to write the sad thing and discover a bunch more sad things that are even sadder because now I had everything laid out in front of me. So there’s hope there! (And yes, I like writing sad things that become MORE TRAGIC when I actually write them. I am broken.)
But last night in the kidnapping AU I wanted to write a scene where we get up to speed on the events before the story began. Granted, it was late at night when I wrote it, maybe I was tired. But it just came across as way too… tell-y, it’s just a very bland recap, but in my head it was like this sweeping sad realization of how our characters got to this point and what has been lost.
Chances are, this just means I need to re-write it, and the tell-y (instead of show-y) version will just become the mental heavy lifting outline I’ll use to couch the moment better in a visual scene. But I may end up having to do that rewrite way later, because on first drafts I try to maintain forward momentum and just write the next bit rather than stalling out to make an earlier one perfect (because I might need to do so again later anyway, undoing the hard work, if something down the line needs to be foreshadowed or contradicts an earlier lackluster scene in favor of a really interesting later scene).
But anyway, thought I’d give this peek behind the curtain for when things are going badly and not just when they’re going well.
Update: So I realized the problem with the scene was that I was putting it too early in the narrative! Which basically meant that instead of it being a scene, where actions and thoughts gave a cinematic sense of how the story was progressing, the whole thing just ground to a halt as I had to tell rather than show everything that led to the character being there.
I went back and couched one of the revelations the character had in a couple of scenes before that, where they actually do the thing that leads to them figuring out. It’s still a bit tell-y and think-y rather than action-y, but that’s hopefully to spare y’all seeing the monotony of a very precise character going through all the avenues to draw his conclusion. Now I’m back up to the scene I wasn’t doing well with before with a lot of the tell-y baggage out of the way so I can focus on the mood of it instead. Hopefully this time it’ll go better and I can move on from it quickly rather than needing to stay in it to finish all the exposition.
Petition to just fanon Uprising as taking place 5 years after Pacific Rim 1 instead of 10
The “ten years” line in Pacific Rim: Uprising just makes no fucking sense to me, it’s so unnecessary, because it should just be five years for a variety of reasons. Now, I tend to just watch certain *cough* newt related *cough* parts of PR:U when I rewatch it so my understanding of the timeline of the other parts might be fuzzy, but here’s my best understanding of what’s going on in Uprising and why it makes no friggin’ sense that it takes place ten years later:
– Pacific Rim 1 was really specific with its dates, including having the first Kaiju show up in 2013, the year the movie was released. I know it’s often hard to know when exactly a film will be released, but just saying Uprising takes place 5 years after PR1 makes sense because the film comes out 5 years later, and so all the actor ages match up too.
– How old exactly is Amara Namani, 16? She’s clearly older than 6 years old in the flashback to the attack on LA but the last attack on LA by a Kaiju wasn’t necessarily in 2025. Also there’s no visible Wall of Life, which canonically would make it at least 5 years before that, frankly she shouldn’t even be born yet during the time she supposedly lost her parents. If it’s 2030 though instead of 2035, it makes much more sense.
– How old is Jake Pentecost exactly? Ten years since PR1 but we’re still talking about Stacker Pentecost as if he didn’t die a decade ago, and Jake was supposedly thrown out of the PPDC before that. He would have to be around 30 in that case, older than Boyega, since back then the PPDC didn’t use child soldiers he’d have to have been in the Academy at age 18 and been there long enough to have a record before he could get in trouble. It would also mean he hasn’t piloted a Jaeger in a really long time, probably too long to not need refresher training, we’re talking like Mark 6′s (at least) now and he would have been trained on a Mark 3 at latest.
– The way Newt and Hermann interact makes much more sense if it’s been a 5 year gap. Ten years is a really long time to still act like such a goddamn puppy Hermann you adorable man so casually with one another, Hermann legitimately behaves as if very little time has passed at all. Five years as an adult (sorry to burst your bubble, kids, but you’re gonna find that it’s increasingly true) is reallynot that long of a time though. I’ve got friends I haven’t seen in five years but it still feels like yesterday. Ten years? Not so much. Five years is enough time that Hermann can treat Newt as he does: as if they both got caught up in silly side projects and lost track of time, but they’re happy to finally reunite. It’s also long enough for Newt to be a veteran of Shao but not be fired yet dear lord Liwen would toss a man that annoying like last week’s garbage if she could, not hold onto him for ten years. And for that matter, if it’s ten years how old was Liwen when the Breach closed and she supposedly hired Newt? 15? 20? If it’s ten years she’s known the man almost half her life and she still hates him! And again: simple actor ages, Newt and Hermann look five years older, not ten. Everything about their relationship in the film makes more sense with a five year gap.
– Finally, technology. PR1 takes place in 2025 but the technology is not that advanced compared to today except in places where it’s clear a lot of money and energy was spent like Jaegers, Drift technology, and holo-projectors. In my view, you’ve only got about 5 years of advancement visible in PRU: Jaegers are a bit more streamlined and Drift compatibility doesn’t have to be as deep in order to pilot a Jaeger (which, fandom complaints aside makes total sense as the aspect of the Drift you’d want to improve upon so you can recruit more pilots outside the super specialized compatibility ones that are hard to replace!). Even Hermann’s Kaiju blood rocket fuel makes less sense for 10 years later because samples would probably have dried up by then with no new Kaiju, but five years it’s totally reasonable that there’s enough lying around for him to get his hands on it, that the cleanup efforts from the attacks aren’t further along, and that there’s still a lot of chaos and vagrancy. All the Jaeger pilots were wiped out in 2025 so having a small batch like Nate and the others as adults but needing to turn to younger recruits to fill out the ranks also makes sense as an act of desperation out of fear the Kaiju might come back any minute now, rather than a morally questionable ongoing institution ten years out.
It also just makes everything in general a lot less sad if we don’t assume things are still this bad after ten years and Newt and Hermann have been apart a full decade anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk Uprising taking place 10 years later instead of 5 is stupid, thank you and goodnight.
Desiring feedback is the perennial state of pretty much every fanfic writer I know. Fortunately, it is possible to increase the feedback you receive with a few simple and respectful tips! Unfortunately, there are many factors which are outside the writer’s control when it comes to receiving feedback, so you should be aware of those, but don’t worry about them.
Writing quality is subjective. We should always strive for quality, but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it or compare ourselves to other writers. All that does is slow you down, which in turn stifles your improvement. You are only ever competing against yourself. So I’m going to start with a few reasons why your fic might not be getting the feedback you think it deserves, before diving in to ways you can improve that.
– Fandom size: larger fandom will, naturally, have more readers. You should scale your expectation of Hits, Kudos, and Comments accordingly. In theory, if you’re starving for feedback you should focus your attention on larger fandoms, but I don’t recommend that. You should write what you’re passionate about.
– Fandom timing: The day after the sequel film hits the theater you’re going to have an inrush of fans who are looking for fixit, romance, canon AU, or any number of needs the film/book/comic release etc left them with but did not fulfill. Unfortunately, writing takes time, especially for long pieces. Audience interest tapers off over that same time, with the occasional bump from a DVD release or a sequel announcement to remind people of that thing they love.
Also, maybe you’re writing for a large fandom like the MCU, but it’s either flooded with writers or it’s been a while since they had a film focusing on your corner of it. Don’t despair that just because it’s a large fandom and you’re not getting attention that it’s necessarily a quality issue. It may just be there’s too much out there or there’s new, different content to disseminate and that’s where the majority of focus is.
– Reader trust: It takes time to build up an audience, and you need to be gentle with yourself and with your expectations of feedback during that time. Even if you’re the greatest writer in the world, your first fic in a new fandom doesn’t necessarily come with a lot to recommend it. You’re relying on curiosity or boredom from readers scrolling randomly through the section, especially if you don’t promote yourself elsewhere or have readers who are following you from a prior fandom. There’s a lot out there, and like with published books, many readers just stick to authors they already like and trust, or they may just have one specific idea they want to read which your story doesn’t fit, or they just don’t intend to spend a lot of time in the fandom (which not everyone does!) and they rely on kudos/comment/hit count to tell them based on other readers what has been considered to be popular (which is not always the same as good!) so don’t take it personally. Sometimes it’s just a product of fandom timing. Having that solidly written movie fix-it ready within the week the film came out will tend to shoot a story to the top of the list, even if a “higher quality” one comes out later.
Perennial rule for fanfic writers: do not compare yourself to other writers based on these metrics. There’s room enough for everyone. A larger number of fics in a fandom tends to INCREASE the number of readers, not decrease the amount of attention to go around. The presence of other fics and fic writers helps you, it doesn’t hurt you. You are colleagues, not competition. With that in mind, you should not be afraid to promote fellow fic writers! It’s very likely they will return the favor, but even if they don’t (and that’s fine!), it’s just a nice thing to do and makes you a positive member of fandom, which we should all strive to be. This can also serve as an aspect of winning reader trust if you are a known, positive entity in fandom.
With that in mind, let’s dive in to tips to increasing reader feedback. Most of my tips are going to focus on how to build an audience by increasing reader trust, the one thing a writer actually has some control over. See those below the cut.
Tips for increasing reader trust/increasing feedback on your fic:
– Be aware of fandom size, timing, and trends. This is more about tempering your own expectations. That said, if you are extremely keen on maximizing your feedback, it’s unrealistic not to pay attention to fandom interest and timing. If you have that one short fix-it or fluff piece that you can get done within the first week of that film coming out, don’t wait. Get it out there, even if it’s not perfect. That’s your foot in the door, and that gets you a point of reader trust. People who are stopping by the fandom in the early days will now recognize your name and, if your work speaks to them, they may continue to follow you while you work on those longer pieces. Admittedly, this may require extra work or an all-nighter to get it done in time. Don’t feel guilty if this isn’t realistic for you! These tips are meant as motivation, not a guilt trip, but you may be surprised what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it and don’t get discouraged.
Side tip on publication timing: When posting a chapter, be aware of the time of day. Posting an English language fic at 4am EST means very few people are scrolling through looking for new stuff to read. Common times are around lunch or after work hours, so around 1pm or 6pm EST. Contrary to popular belief, people read less on the weekends. Fic is more commonly read in free moments during breaks or commutes, people have stuff to do on the weekend. This is not to say don’t post on weekends, during the day is still effective, but I’ve noticed from experience that there’s less social media and reader activity on Friday and Saturday nights than you might think.
– Finish what you start. Nothing loses reader trust like starting to read a fabulous work in progress, only to discover it’s never going to be finished. Writers are also readers, so I’m sure you can sympathize with this feeling. Be honest with your readers if a work is abandoned, but also endeavor to get finished pieces out there. Bonus: It will help you grow as a writer to finish what you start, you will see marked improvements over time when you do this.
Finishing pieces may mean being realistic with yourself about what your current endurance level is. If 5,000 words leaves you exhausted, then it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to finish a novel-length piece without burning out. But there’s hope! Endurance can be increased with practice, but be mindful of whether that is even something you want to do.
Side tip on writing long pieces: Pound for pound, I’ve seen many good short pieces get way more feedback for the amount of words and effort that went into it compared to a long piece. If feedback is your goal, a long piece doesn’t necessarily get you more vs. the effort you put in, because people’s time is precious and a long piece is a big commitment for them too. Again, length has nothing to do with your skill or the quality of your work! It’s just a reality of readership. Long story short (heh), don’t judge yourself by your ability to finish a long piece, and don’t assume a long piece is necessarily going to get you more feedback and readers. Being a short fic writer is just as worthwhile!
Use a beta reader (if that is an option for you) and let readers know you have one by thanking and crediting your beta reader in your author notes. Having a beta reader increases reader trust in the overall quality of the story. Always run spell check at the very least, and read your chapter once aloud to yourself before posting. It’s fanfic, so line editing, spelling and grammar aren’t necessarily always a major concern, but it’s disrespectful to your readers to expect them to read something you haven’t even read once through yourself! And always thank readers if they find a typo (so long as they are polite about it too).
– Stick to a reliable update schedule: This is an aspect of the above point on finishing what you start. Reader attention wanes over time. This is a simple reality and it’s not their fault, it’s hard to keep track of a story that hasn’t updated in a while and people’s lives are busy. They forget. To keep reader attention, I recommend updating within a few days to a few weeks. Any more time between updates than that and you risk people forgetting your story. Obviously this is often unavoidable, but if you can’t update for a long time, don’t be surprised or discouraged if you have lost readers or see reduced feedback as a result. It’s not personal, it’s just the reality.
Ideal update schedule for feedback: Based on my own experience, there is a bell curve of reader feedback based on update schedule. The sweet spot is somewhere between 3-7 days for maximum feedback per chapter.
If you post a finished fic all at once, especially if it’s a multi-chapter fic, you shoot yourself in the foot in many ways. Readers will see that your multi chapter story doesn’t have many hits/kudos/comments – just because I don’t recommend a writer worrying too much about these metrics, doesn’t mean a reader won’t. Those statistics are widely seen as a mark of quality, my cautionary is more about not letting yourself get discouraged by those metrics. But when you post a multi-chapter story all at once, on average readers will read to the end, and leave one comment there. Therefore, if you want to avoid just getting comments on the final chapter, you need to space out your updates.
Posting every day, while admirable and good for building reader trust, does not maximize your reader feedback for two reasons. One, people just don’t have the time to reader your update! People’s lives are busy and even if they love your story, they might just not have to get to the chapter before the next one comes out. This leads to reason two, they may just wait until the story is done now that they can be reasonably certain when that will be, and they may have fallen behind. You do not want your reader’s thought process to be that they’ll just wait to read a bunch of chapters at once in a few days and then they’ll comment at the end of it, at least not if your goal is to maximize feedback.
In my experience, you get your first rush of feedback for a chapter in the first 24 hours. Then it’s diminishing returns, with fewer on the second day, generally made up of eager readers who just didn’t have the time to read on the first day. Then it gets sporadic throughout the first week as less eager readers find the time to catch up. Certainly if you leave a story up for a couple weeks without updating, you will get some feedback later than that, but my recommendation is to have the next chapter up by the end of the week for maximum feedback. This is enough time to keep your story in people’s minds and to encourage people to comment because they feel the sting of wanting to know what happens next, and they know that the next chapter won’t be there immediately. It gives them a little time to stew, without giving them time to forget what’s happening in the story.
It’s very unusual to get readers who comment after every chapter unless you guide them to do so, and those readers are awesome! You want to cultivate and reward those readers! You can reward readers who leave feedback on every chapter by responding to them and thanking them! Answer questions (without spoiling your story, ideally), take an interest in their thoughts, and show gratitude for the time out of their day that they took to let you know what they were experiencing, it’s not an easy thing to do! It’s much easier to just lurk, and formulating a response takes courage because you’re putting your thoughts and feelings out there. Be respectful of this. This is also how you build a faithful audience, when you take individual interest in your readers (and how can you not? They’re actually interested in what you have to say!) who may even follow you to new stories, maybe even to new fandoms! This is the dream, and it’s built one reader at a time.
Bonus: Every reply you give to a reader is one more hit to your comment count! No one will blame you for responding once to a reader (though I do not recommend padding your comment count with multiple frivolous replies or comments to yourself, readers will catch onto this and you will lose their trust, because frankly it’s somewhat dishonest). If you’re truly dedicated to maximizing reader attention and feedback, be aware that some people sort by comment count, and your replies still count as comments. It’s basically a free, honest, and understandable way to increase your comment count. If you’re truly dedicated, I’d recommend doing this sooner rather than later on new pieces. A new piece that has lots of comments tells readers that this story has an enthusiastic audience and may be worth checking out!
Don’t be afraid to ask readers to comment in your author notes! It’s actually been proven on government forms that asking people to not commit fraud or lie on the form actually works, which is insane to me, but it’s a provable metric that asking people to do something in writing actually increases their likelihood of doing it. Don’t be afraid to put an end note at the bottom of each chapter gently requesting that your reader leaves a comment, if they have the time. It may seem obvious to you that you want feedback after every chapter, but it’s an easy thing for the reader to forget when they’re caught up in your story! You will increase your feedback by a reliable metric simply by reminding people to leave it.
Don’t be afraid to promote your work! If you’re reading this on Tumblr, I’m going to assume you have a Tumblr blog, and if you’re reading this at all I’m going to assume you’re a fanfic writer. Don’t be afraid to direct people from your fic to your blog for updates. Don’t be afraid to direct people from your blog to your fics! This feedback loop helps to build and cultivate a reliable audience. I know many writers are self-conscious, and many fear putting themselves out there but never, in all my years of blogging and writing, has anyone complained or even unfollowed me because I promoted my work, even when I reblogged the notification post from myself every few hours (though, do try to make it a reasonable amount of time, every six hours or so is fair and won’t clutter your reader’s dashboard in a way that makes them want to unfollow you).
I have, however, seen readers get annoyed and outraged when they didn’t realize you had updated because you didn’t promote your work. Sometimes people forget to subscribe, or can’t because they don’t have an account! Your readers and blog followers will completely understand and thank you for letting them know when you’ve created something new, so long as you don’t spam to some crazy level like every five minutes. Don’t be afraid to let them know when you’ve made something!
Tips on promoting your work on Tumblr:
– Put a post on your blog whenever you update.
– Talk about the process of creating your work (without spoilers) – the ideas that went into it, the time you spent, the stuff you’re excited to try in the future. Reader trust is about the reader connecting to the author, and that means caring about how and why you do things as much as the things you actually make. Be aware of spamming, but letting people know about your ongoing work on a story they’re following can be of interest to them and helps build your authorial brand. This is also useful for original fiction writers. Author brand is a big deal, and often has far more to do with why people pick up a story than the story itself.
– Don’t be negative.Do not complain about a lack of feedback, ever. I won’t pretend I haven’t done this, or felt the desire to do this, and I’m advising from a place of experience. It does not help in any appreciable way. Maybe you’ll get a pity recommendation or comment from a friend, but even that’s better requested in private. You should never berate your audience for not doing what you want them to do. It’s not their job to do so. It’s your job to earn their trust and attention with your work and enthusiasm. It’s also just a generally crappy thing to do, and puts negative energy out there. You never know when one of your followers might also be a fic writer whose story is getting even less attention than yours, so then it just makes you look greedy and insensitive. There’s really no upside. Just don’t do it.
This includes not making negative posts about fellow fic writers or fics. They are your colleagues, not your competition. This is also a general life tip: never, ever publicly criticize another fic for any number of reasons that could range from them getting more attention than you, to just not liking it, especially not if you’re a fic writer too. You have no idea how hard that other person might have worked on their story, you know nothing about their life or circumstances, and you have no way of knowing if they’re going to read your criticism or have it shown to them. If you don’t like something, just don’t talk about it publicly. If you do like something, promote the heck out of it! People will respond positively to you sharing your taste in things and you may even get a rec in return. No one likes negativity on their dash, and you will lose reader trust.
– Use images in your update post. If you have the time (and it’s fine if you don’t! this is just a tip) put a reaction gif, or better yet make up an image banner for your story or even for individual chapters. It makes your update post stand out from a sea of text. If you do have the time and interest to make a different banner for each chapter it can be very rewarding, as it keeps your update posts from blurring together in people’s minds and lets them know there’s new content. I’d recommend this practice for your big magnum opus work, the one you poured your heart and soul into, and not just any little fic, given that it takes extra time and creativity. Though it should go without saying: Do not steal people’s art or fanart to make your chapter headers. Always ask the artist first and credit them if they say yes, or just make your own from some stock photos.
And finally, my last tip: Be true to yourself! Writing is hard! It’s no fun to try to write something you’re not interested in just because it seems popular right now. Don’t write fluff or smut just because it seems to get readers, write what you genuinely love or want to practice! It will keep your motivation burning during the hard parts.
Don’t try to chase the rabbit of reader popularity. Sure, maybe fluff in general gets more hits these days, but if you want to write a really good dark fic, people will respond to your passion and enthusiasm, and may have secretly been longing for that exact story. Be nice to your fellow fic writers and your readers, and remember that you improve with every word you write, so don’t get discouraged!
Bringing @avelera and I’s chat out here. Those aliens really did take care of that meatsuit they’re in. Sure they destroyed Newt’s mind, twisted the remains of his personality, turned him into the corporate douchebag he would viscerally hate and used his intellect to try to destroy the world but damn….those tailored suits…that skanky shirtless instagram selfie…. that was probably the first time in Newt’s life that he regularly exercised, wore nice clothes, and ate a vegetable
Ok thanks to @linddzz I’ve been listening to this song on loop until 4am because it is the single most perfect Precursor Possessed Newt song like you can just perfectly imagine it’s his hazy chaotic internal monologue where he senses something is wrong but can’t break free of it.
Locked up, naked with socks I’m watching the phone ring It’s making me angry It’s making me mad Maxed out, minimum wage My brain is a time bomb I’m saying goodbye, mom I’ll see you again Striking a pose Smiling in photos without any reason With people that I’ll never know I’m out of control, live in a fictional prose I took an oath, it’s killing me though ‘Cause I don’t believe in the things that I do And now my favorite color is blue And now my favorite color is blue And now my favorite Roped up, rot in a cage I’m having a breakdown Drinking at a playground, tequila for one Too short, walk in the streets, I’m hating my haircut You say that you’re here, but You live on the Sun
Avelera 