#dow17

[bettsfic]

reading advice (for writers)

you know those posts that are like, “remember when we used to read books and now we all have no attention span because of the internet.” then there’s the very contrived advice that’s like, “if you want to be a writer you have to read”??

well i think they’re completely true but they also really suck, and we of the youngish adult writers of 2018 have it pretty hard, especially those of us in fandom who enjoy reading fanfic more than original fic because it’s mostly tagged properly and possesses the emotional catharsis we’re looking for, pretty much guaranteed.

that said, i think it’s really important -- whether you write fanfic, ofic, or both -- to read traditionally published work, in part because it can help better inform your fanfic, but also because it will help develop your writing overall. and if you’re interested in ofic, it’s pretty much a necessity to read.

so, i just graduated from an MFA program in creative writing, and contrary to popular opinion, the MFA does not actually teach you how to write. it gives you space to write, and mostly, it teaches you how to read as a writer.

so here is everything i’ve learned about reading as a writer over the past two years:

you do not have to read anything you don’t want to read

part of the problem with “read everything you can!” advice is that there is a lot of stuff out there, and a ton of it doesn’t jive with your interests. moreover, there’s a kind of pressure to read the Classics just to say you’ve read them when in fact a lot of them are boring, irrelevant, and dare i say overrated. so here is me giving you permission: you don’t have to pick up Hemingway or Faulkner or whoever else to be a good writer. life is too short to force yourself to read dead white dudes.

if a book doesn’t grab you by the first 10%, put it down

this is what has helped me more than anything else as a reader, because i found i would commit myself to a boring book and then never want to read it, so i would stop reading for months at a time. so, when you pick out a book, go to the last page and check the number. promise yourself you’ll read 10% of the book. 400 pages? read to page 40 and ask yourself, “do i really want to turn the page? if i put this book down, would i want to pick it back up again later?” if the answer is no, return it to the library or wherever you got it. try the next book in your pile. your TBR list is long; be merciless. 

but if you want to make it look like you read the book...

commit to 25%. then go to the wikipedia article, read the plot summary, and fast forward to the last 10-15 pages. bam. you’ve more or less read the book. bonus points if you watch the movie, too. so if you’re really committed to reading Ulysses or whatever but you don’t want to slog through it, you can digest enough to be able to hold a conversation about it in a few hours and move on with your life. you can even pretend you enjoyed it and found it a formative reading experience that helped shape your understanding of the work of fiction, really, absolutely groundbreaking, etc etc. this is especially helpful if you find yourself anywhere in the literary sphere because other writers will expect you to be familiar with the canon. 

read selfishly and take tools from everything you read

when you read anything, even the stuff you don’t like, ask yourself, “what tools can i take for my own writing?” let’s say you really love the plot structure -- write it down somewhere so you remember to try it out for your own story. if you love the lyricism of the sentences, find a few sentences you really like and jot them down by hand, inspect what about them makes you love them so much. steal aspects of characters you admire, pacing, conflict, stakes. steal as much as you can without stealing the words themselves. you can even use this for things you don’t like by rephrasing the question: “what is it about this story i would like to avoid in my own work?” pivot every single thing you read to be about you and your writing. take notes. mark up and highlight your book if you have to. reading as a writer is not a passive activity but an active one. you’re not being entertained, you’re learning. so let published works teach you. 

carve time out of your day to read

at 7pm every day, i put my phone down and pick up an actual physical book. this is my personal preference -- i have no beef at all with ebooks, but honestly, i get so tired of staring at lit screens all day, and paper books without the distraction of my phone is such a nostalgic feeling for me, back when i was 14 and the library was my second home and if someone wanted my attention they had to call me on a landline. if you had the same upbringing, dedicating some time to read a physical book will do you wonders. if ebooks are your thing, it’s still important to schedule reading time for yourself, not as an obligation to uphold, but as something to do that’s good for you and that you enjoy. 

write letters to your favorite authors!!

seriously. if you love a book, let the author know. they will not be annoyed or upset. they will be thrilled. it’s a good way to network with other writers, and it’s a great practice of literary citizenship.

when someone recommends a book to you, ask why

this is something i’ve only recently learned to do, as someone who gets book recommendations pretty much constantly. if the person knows you decently, i don’t think it’s out of line to ask, “what would i specifically like about this?” because then that will tell if you if the person is only recommending it because they like it, not because they think you’ll like it. if the person knows your writing, it’s fair to ask, “how is this book in conversation with my work?” so you have a head start in the kinds of tools you’ll want to take from it. 

follow your aesthetic instincts

as a writer, honing your aesthetic will always be one of your highest aims, which means constantly seeking out writers whose aesthetics you admire and analyzing what it is you admire about it. “aesthetic” is kind of a vague term, but it refers to your overall vibe -- the things you write about and why you write about them. my aesthetic is more or less “midwestern class warfare meets sexual identity crises with a lot of dark humor,” so i tend to look for other writers who share facets of that aesthetic and i inspect what’s working for them, where they publish, what their influences are, etc. i try to read both within my aesthetic but also far outside of it too. for example, i love historical fiction but i know i’ll never, ever write it. but i appreciate the aesthetic, and i can take tools from it like dedication to detail, internal conflicts, etc.

read short fiction (please)

this is my personal plea. short stories are a great way to find authors whose work is in conversation with yours, so that you can then go check out their novels with a good idea already of what you like about them. short stories are all over the internet via literary and genre mags. they’re a much smaller commitment than novels and tend to have just as much emotional impact (if done well) as novels. more importantly you’ll always have recs for your friends, and it’s a lot easier getting someone to read a 6k story you enjoyed than a 60k novel.

resources

don’t have time to read but like to listen? try the new yorker fiction and writers’ voice podcasts

like marking up books but don’t want to buy them new? check out thriftbooks (my favorite site on the internet -- the link here will get you 15% off!)

finished a book you like but don’t know what to read next? try what should i read next

want to stay apprised of the goings on in the modern literary community? subscribe to the lithub newsletter and arts & letters daily, two newsletters i’ve been subscribed to for years 

as always i’m glad to answer any questions! happy reading!

writing advice tag

[bettsfic]

hey! so i was wondering if you have any tips on motivation/staying away from distractions when you're trying to write?

as someone who gets very easily distracted, i have several:

the aesthetic of your space is very important -- make your work space pretty. make sure you want to be there. take a pic and instagram it if you have to. place your snacks in an appealing shape on a pretty plate. use your best mug for tea. get the lighting just right. if you don’t have a pretty place to write at home, go to a library or coffee shop. 

turn off the internet -- this one sucks because sometimes you have to research stuff. but save it for later. if you get to something you have to google, write RESEARCH THIS LATER and move on, or keep a list of stuff to look up later.

keep a timesheet or make a schedule for yourself or set a timer -- i use toggl. i did this all of june and it really helped me see where my time went, and i found that because it felt like “work” (not in a bad way), i took it more seriously than i do when i’m goofing around on the internet between writing vaguely shitty expository paragraphs. yesterday i told myself i would spend an hour on a story i was struggling with and i ended up finishing it, so this method works pretty well for me. i also recommend forest which is a timer app that gives you a pretty lil tree at the end!

put your phone in another room -- this one kind of horrifies me but i have to do it. so i put my phone upstairs in my bedroom and i go downstairs and turn off the internet and write, because if i don’t i’ll glance at my phone every other sentence, even if it’s on Do Not Disturb.

write on paper -- i’ve done some research on digital ethics and basically every device connected to the internet is designed to bring your attention to apps and ads that generate income for other people. there is no avoiding this anymore except to go back to basics. so every once in a while i’ll try to write a story on paper, which i know i’ll need to transcribe later so it makes it that much easier to write kind of shittily just to get it on the page, and every time i’ve done this i’ve managed to write a whole heck of a lot more than i anticipated. buy a pretty notebook and a nice pen and sit outside and write something without a glowing screen nearby -- it might be hard at first but the longer you do it, the better at it you’ll get.  

TINY SNACKS -- when i’ve reached part of a story i really don’t want to write, i buy myself a lil bag of candy and whenever i write 100/500/1000 words or whatever goal i set for myself, i eat one. i know food isn’t supposed to be a reward but it works so i do it. if you don’t want to do this with food, you could use a short tv show or youtube series to watch or a book/fic to read. sometimes if i don’t have candy i promise myself fanvids.

due dates with accountability partners -- some people join big bangs or challenges to set due dates for themselves, but i prefer having one friend that i agree to trade work with on a specific date, so i have to work to that date so i’m not the asshole who doesn’t have work to send. then we give feedback on each other’s work and revise. 

hope this helps!! happy (focused) writing!

[bettsfic]

Do you think knowledge of shipping helps improve your ability to write different types of character relationships? This is sort of another MFA question if you don't mind answering... I wrote for so long without ever hearing about shipping. Then once I did I became fascinated. But it seems like in MFA programs you can't talk about shipping. But studying it seems to pull back the curtain to see what's going on beneath the surface. I love your writing and am always curious to know your thoughts :D

absolutely yes shipping has helped improve my ability to write different kinds of relationships. that’s probably not true for everyone but one comment i get from non-fanpeople is like “you write such interesting relationships without any judgment toward them” and to me that’s like...status quo. there are an infinite variety of relationship styles and unique chemistries and attractions and that’s what i’m most interested in writing. but a lot of writers are stuck in their Platonic, Romantic, Familial relationship boxes because that’s what they know and they haven’t had access/interest in a massive genre that exists in large part to inspect the notion of what relationships even are. 

i would say you can talk about shipping in MFA programs but probably not in fandom terms because no one will understand them. the literary world has just as much vocabulary and jargon as fandom does, so starting an MFA is in large part about learning a new language. “canon” means something different in literature than it does in fandom. what fandom considers taboo is known as transgressive elsewhere, and it’s generally a good thing (which is in part why the moral purity rhetoric in fandom seems exceedingly toxic to me). 

for me, a lot of the fun of the MFA was learning how to hop between fanfic and ofic, and seeing all the things i knew and understood about writing that my peers didn’t and vice versa. many of them hadn’t yet written their million words, nor ever had a large audience, nor even cared about audience at all (which was something i had to learn -- to let go of my constant audience pandering).

it also showed me how limiting both worlds can be. for example, in fanfic i probably couldn’t write heavily allegorical fabulism with a sad ending and get any kind of traffic on it because fandom is the wrong audience for that kind of story. fanfic, if you want people to read it, tends to be pretty limited in types of content and style. conversely, ofic feels limiting to me because i feel less inclined to be silly and cheesy and over the top. absurdism is fine, but even absurdity takes a certain focused subtlety to pull off. also, what frustrates me most is that there’s no strict canon to bounce off of or details to bookmark, so everything needs explained, every detail carefully chosen, and that gets exhausting. you have to pick out names and describe setting and who everyone is to everyone else, but in fanfic, because it’s always a response to an existing text, everything is streamlined. no matter what universe i’m writing in, my audience will always know ron and hermione are harry’s best friends; bucky is steve’s romantic interest; luke and leia are twins. 

that said, i think it’s very interesting to see what happens when you bridge the divide. i have a series of novellas that began as fics but stepped too far outside of the bounds of what i would consider fic and too far into ofic territory, even if the primary intention of the story is about a pairing, and i think, for me anyway, it creates a unique aesthetic effect that i personally find very compelling, even if none of these stories are ever publishable. 

i kind of went on a rant here but i hope i answered your question! thank you for asking; i love thinking about this kind of thing. 

[bettsfic]

bite-sized writing advice

i had my students send me questions about writing and i addressed some of them. thought i’d share.

How do you write a really long book?

By convincing yourself it’s very short and you’re almost done

Why is writing so hard and have so many rules?

If you break them it gets easier so do that instead

How do you write quickly?

Break more rules

How can writing become a bigger part of my life?

Make it an indulgence instead of an obligation

How is creative writing used in the business world?

Subtly

Is grammar important?

Language is made up and the points don’t matter

How can we teach children more about creative writing?

By encouraging rule-breaking

Where does a person’s writing style come from?

Rage, passion, and grief

How do you develop your voice?

Scream a lot

[bettsfic]

hey betty! two things: first, congrats on the writing program- seriously, well done!!! and second, i was just wondering if you have any tips on how to Power Through when you feel like your writing is garbage? hope you're having a great day :)

thank you so much! and great question --

so, first, i do not believe in Powering Through. to me it feels like breaking a leg and continuing to walk on it solely because you need to get from A to B. the real solution is seeking help, setting it, and getting rest. in order to get back on your feet, you need to slow down a bit and take some time for yourself.

when you feel like your writing is garbage, there might be a few things going on:

something is not working -- maybe you picked the wrong voice in your WIP, or your conflict isn’t steady/compelling enough, or you’re staying too far in your comfort zone

you’ve hit a writing ceiling -- you’ve improved to the furthest degree you can, now you see all the faults in your writing, or maybe you just have a vague notion that it’s not as good as you want it to be, but you’re in that awkward space where it’s not great, but you don’t know how to get better

you’re bored or afraid -- you’ve set up a story that’s not doing anything ~interesting for you, that isn’t speaking to you and dragging you along to finish it. conversely, you might have set up something so ambitious that you feel your writing skill doesn’t do the idea justice, so you’re afraid to continue in case what comes out falls short of your expectations

here are some ways to counter these things:

do an experiment

when i can’t write, i play around with something technical. for example, i’ve been having a heck of a time with a story i’m working on, and one of my profs gave our class a prompt to write a braided essay. when i narrowed my focus to the braided essay only, it offered me the freedom to finally get words on a page. i wrote 10k in two days. 

so try something new. if you always write in third, try first. if you always write chronologically, write non-chronologically. if you always write prose, try poetry. if fiction, try nonfiction. 

which reminds me, i wanted to make a post of craft-based (rather than content-based) prompts. hopefully i’ll do that next.

read stuff for a while

specifically, read stuff you admire. read new stuff. read stuff you don’t normally read. read stuff that makes you go “oh shit i wanna write like this.” or maybe “this is cool, maybe i’ll try it.”

i highly recommend reading short stories and personal essays. it takes you out of the world of fanfic, which can sometimes feel confining, without forcing the commitment of a novel or longer work. moreover, you can find fucktons of them for free all over the internet. maybe i’ll make a post of reading recs too.

do not read things that bore you. you are on a hunt for inspiration, and boredom is the villain of inspiration. if you get 1-2k in and you don’t have Kill Bill sirens in your head, dump it and move on.

when you finish reading the thing, ask yourself, “what tools do i want to take from this for my own writing?” 

can you borrow the structure? the voice? the conflict or conceit? a character dynamic? a tone or cadence? narrow your focus down to what exactly you liked about it and then try it in your own writing.

get feedback

the best way to break through a ceiling is to let someone to call you out on your bullshit. specifically, you need an extra set of eyes to tell you what’s working and what’s not, either in a work in progress or with a piece you think is really polished. 

i had a workshop once where i submitted a chapter of something i had revised three times. i thought it was great, it absolutely did not need any more revisions. i had also hit a writing ceiling at that point, and found i was trapped in my own wheelhouse, spinning the same writing style and the same kinds of stories, never taking any risks. there was no experimentation anymore, no fun. 

obviously, the workshop shredded my chapter. we spent about two minutes going over what worked and then forty or so just tearing it apart. i loved it. all of my blind spots were being shown to me and i could finally see a broader picture of my own work. i definitely broke through the ceiling and my writing is better for it. sometimes you just need someone better than you (and by that i mean, who possesses a wider understanding of writing) telling you what to do.

write about writing

i am a firm believer that we write to think, not as the product of thought. so when you’re stuck, or bored, or uninspired, or down on yourself, writing about writing or talking about writing can really help move things along, like a verbal Ex-Lax.

talk with a friend about your story idea and use their interest to fuel your own. write a journal entry about your WIP and what about it isn’t working for you. vent your writing frustrations somehow. 

sometimes the act of meta-analyzing yourself as a writer can offer a new perspective. i feel like we’re discouraged from this because the focus should always be on the work and not the creator, but you as the creator are just as worthy of your own literary inspection as anything else. so try to shift the lens toward yourself and see what happens. what happens when you become the focus of your own work?

thanks so much for the great question, and i hope this offers you some guidance.

other writing advice articles

right now i have beta commissions open if you’re looking for feedback. 

or if you enjoyed this post and want to buy me a coffee, here’s my ko-fi. i’m currently raising funds to attend a workshop this summer. 

[bettsfic]

you are the exception

anon asked:

hey betty! one thing i hear a lot in Writing Advice is 'have faith in your story' and 'your voice matters!!' and while i do wholeheartedly agree, i just. idk, do you have any Words of Wisdom on /why/ your specific, individual voice matters? (especially when you're a teenage girl writing fanfic, and everything seems kind of- frivolous? Not Good Enough? idk man. i know most of that rhetoric is misogynistic bs, but some days it just feels pointless.) hope you're having a good day!

this took me forever to respond to in part because i’ve been thinking a lot about how best to answer. this is definitely one of the most challenging writing asks i’ve ever gotten. 

i keep coming back to Audre Lorde’s “the transformation of silence into language and action.” specifically the line:

Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.

your voice matters because silence is not the default state of being. you have to speak, and more importantly, you have to be heard. it is a fundamental tenet of existence.

we are sad lonely humans trapped in cages of our singular sentience, and the only means of connecting our brains is to share our experience through language. so saying your voice feels frivolous and not good enough is the machine grinding you into dust. if you find meaning in something, YA or fanfic or sitcoms, other people will too. and if someone else doesn’t like it, or looks down on it, well, it wasn’t written for them. it was written for people who are invested in your perspective. who share and find truth, meaning, relief, and joy in your voice. and would you really want to deprive them of that?

some days, the bad ones, i let the machine grind me into dust. i make myself smaller and smaller until i don’t take up any space at all. i think, though, there is some freedom in non-space. if i am so small that no one can hear me, i’m free to scream without recourse. it is when i am small that i write my biggest risks, my largest truths, because i believe no one could, should, or will ever read it, and then later, when i start to take up space again, i have a piece of writing that is daring and weird and that no one else could have made. and to me, that’s when it feels like my voice matters most.

on all the other days, though, i practice self-aggrandizement. generally we assume our own averageness; we take our success in school and jobs and relationships, lift it up to compare with others, and go, “i guess i’m just like everybody else. if i were exceptional, i’d know by now.”

but what if that’s not true?

what if you’re truly exceptional, one of the best writers in the entire world -- in all history, even -- but you’re just not there yet? what if you only need to get down a million more words of practice to write the book that inspires an entire generation of writers that come after you?

“that doesn’t seem likely,” you might say.

no, it’s not likely. but we’re not talking about averages and probability and likelihood. we’re thinking in terms of exceptions. and you can only write exceptional work if you believe you have exceptional things to say. if you believe you have a perspective to offer that no one else could write the way that you would write it. you have a truth to show the world that no one else knows.

octavia butler wrote her affirmations on the back of a notebook:

this is a good practice to get into. you don’t need to believe the words in order to write them, but you do need to write them, if for no other reason than to see what you want staring back at you, to make your potential real.

you cannot sabotage that potential because you believe you’re the rule rather than the exception. your future self deserves better than your present doubt. you might think you need to be humble about your skill and realistic about your chances. this is not true. practice telling yourself, “i am the exception.”

another voice might come back with, “what if i’m not?”

and you should answer, “i should give myself the opportunity to find out.”

[bettsfic]

i was wondering, and apologies if you have been asked this before, but how do you keep track of what stories you've submitted to what journals/magazines/etc ? i've been struggling to keep track of my poetry submissions because i don't always send in the same poems to different places, and there are often long response turnarounds so it is easy to forget what has gone where and when and so on.

i’m so happy you asked!

this was a major problem for me for a long time and tbh kept me from submitting. it was just too much work figuring out what went where and who rejected me when and so on. 

i have two methods, which is kind of invasive and which i recommend maybe doing one or the other. so first i keep a spreadsheet:

this keeps track of where i submitted (A), what kind of submission (B), what piece i submitted ©, how much it cost (D), when i submitted (E), when they responded (F), how many days* (G), and status (H).

*the formula for how many days is =if(F2=0,today()-E2,F2-E2)

then to the side i keep a totals chart:

it’s important to keep track of how much you spend on submissions so you can deduct it from your taxes. 

i use countif formulas for the totals. for example, to count how many times i submitted A Wet Man, the formula would be =countif(C:C,“A Wet Man”). 

the spreadsheet is really easy to use and maintain, but it doesn’t do everything i need it to. for example, i want something that can keep track of open and closed reading periods, when submissions to certain mags are due, what specific personal rejections say, and how many things i’ve sent where. 

to handle those problems, i keep two trello boards.

i hear a lot of bad things about trello, and maybe it’s not good for major projects, but for my purposes it’s divine. 

i’ll start with the writing board:

i have a bad habit of starting more stories than i can finish, so i keep track of my projects on this board. the lists tell me what project it is. the color tags tell me what the thing is (short story, novel, other), and what stage it’s in (not started, started, first draft, submitted, accepted). 

on the left we have my MFA thesis, a short story collection. each entry is a story.

the number next to the name is how many words the story is. when you click on any of them, you see details i need to know about it.

i’ve attached the final version of the story, as well as the link to where it got accepted and a copy of the publication agreement, so everything is in one handy place. i also keep a RocketBook notebook so here is where i’d put my handwritten notes about the story too. (i can go over my RocketBook methodology at some point if anyone is interested).

then i keep a checklist of where all i submitted it to and i check them off when i get a reply. 

and remember: don’t lose hope just because you get a rejection. my story Lien got sixteen rejections before it was picked up.

in the comments, i copy and paste any nice rejection emails i receive.

it’s important to keep nice rejections not just for the morale boost, so that next time i submit to Fence, i know to say something like, “i recently submitted my story Lien to your publication, and while it was not accepted, Ms. Wang encouraged me to submit again. i hope this story is more to your liking.” or if you get a personal rejection, it’s a good idea to submit again and email that person directly so they know to look for your submission.

the restriction with the writing board is that i don’t have a full image of, say, what i’ve sent to Fence already, nor does it help me in deciding where to send work in the future. i made a career board to keep track of publications, contests, workshops, fellowships, jobs, etc.

here i can post “due dates” for when certain journals open again or when they close, and i use the tags to keep a handy visual for who accepts what.

for example, yellow means i’m waiting on a response. green means they’re open for submissions, red closed. blue means they accept long work, purple short. etc and so on. teal means i received a nice/personal rejection. this way when i have a story ready to be sent out, i can pick out my first ten mags pretty easily.

i copy and paste the submission guidelines in the description, and put the link to the site in the attachments. the due date in this case was that they reopened for submissions March 1. 

i make a checklist that shows what i already submitted. so i know what i’ve sent already. 

i keep trello and my submission spreadsheet up in a tab all the time, so when i get a notification of a rejection, i can update all three pretty quickly. the benefit of the trello boards is that they extend beyond publication – the writing board helps keep track of necessary research and files for composition and editing; the career board keeps me focused on all CV-boosting things. for example, this year i chose to apply to the New York State Summer Writers Institute instead of the Breadloaf Conference or Antioch, but now i have a place to remember a year from now to apply to Breadloaf or Antioch or wherever else. it’s also a good place to keep track of fellowship and grant opportunities.

this is really kind of an intense way to go about tracking submissions, but once you get it set up, it’s pretty easy. i imagine with poems you’ll have to adapt this a bit, because you have to do a lot more legwork on the submission front. like i only have 3 stories out at any given time which keeps the assembly line of submission pretty cut and dry, but i imagine you have dozens of poems. i hope this can at least give you some ideas for tracking.

and for those interested in the assembly line, it basically goes:

write the thing

edit the thing

pick out 10 places to send the thing

send the thing

wait for 10 rejections

repeat steps 3 through 5

after 20 rejections, consider repeating steps 2 through 5

get the thing accepted

make edits based on editor feedback

sign publication agreement

bask in glory for ~30 seconds

write another thing

if (plural) you found this helpful at all and want to buy me a coffee, here’s my ko-fi. my other advice articles can be found in my writing advice tag, or you can check out a collection of my advice, Drunk on Writing. (it’s spring break so i’m hoping to get the 2017 edition out soon).

and if you have any other questions about writing or publication, feel free to shoot me an ask <3

[bettsfic]

Hey, sorry to bother, I have a question! I've been worried about this a lot, lately. As a young, aspiring writer, I do have some original ideas for possible, original stories. However. I find myself mostly writing fanfictions. I just ... Don't have the motivation to write those original stories? And I have no idea why, because I DO want to write them. Seeing as you are very educated on the subject of writing, I was wondering if you could help me out. Thanks in advance!

this is what i call the Forever Problem. right now, as we speak, i am writing a fic when i should be working on a novel. and actually i shouldn’t even be working on the novel, i should be revising my short story collection. and i shouldn’t even be doing that, i should be finishing my book proposal. and actually, i lied, i’m really writing some experimental nonfiction. 

i remember being in your exact spot, a major desire to move in a different direction because i was beginning to see all the ways in which fanfiction can be stifling. the genre has absolutely no gatekeeping, which is freeing, but there are still topics and narrative threads and other things that i know won’t get the traffic i want, when i think other kinds of audiences might appreciate it better. in other words, there are plenty of stories to tell where the fanfic audience isn’t the right audience. and that has nothing to do with fic itself.

despite the constraints i still think fanfic is more liberating than original fics. no matter what i write, i know when it’s done, it will, guaranteed, have a place to go, because i can put it there. fanfiction always has a home. original fiction doesn’t. you might write an original story and pitch it to a hundred places and get rejected. or maybe you only pitch it to twenty and it gets picked up, but in order to even do that you have to familiarize yourself with twenty publications, and the publication process in general. what i’m saying is that to write fanfic you have to join the ofic fandom. 

there’s also the question of: what is my work in conversation with? is more ambiguous in original fiction. with fanfic, stories are always in conversation with canon, no matter how divergent. they’re always in conversation with other fics. with original work, you have to go out and find authors who are doing what you’re doing and see where they publish. you have to find your canon. 

lastly, you write what you read. that is to say, if you’re reading more fanfic than ofic, you’re going to be more invested in writing fanfic than writing ofic. i think this is because we always, consciously or not, respond to the things we read. it’s that element of conversation again. you read something and go “oh, i have something to say about that” and it inspires a new story, or piece of a story, or a tiny thread that leads you down the path of what you write next. stories make stories make stories.

allllllll this said, the answer is to Find Your People in the world of original fiction. i’m not talking about stories you like or even ones you admire, but ones you read and go, “oh god, this is me.” that’s the work that’s in conversation with you. for me, that was Mary Gaitskill and Flannery O’Connor and Lorrie Moore. “daring women” my thesis advisor told me. look for works that when you read them, you don’t wish you were reading fanfiction instead. 

on a practical level, that also means ditching absolutely everything that doesn’t immediately ignite something in you. i’ve implemented a 10% rule. i’ll read 10% of something and if it doesn’t engage me, i drop it and pick up something else. there’s too much to read to force yourself to consume things that don’t make you eager to turn the page. 

after a while, if you don’t want to start writing ofic, then the problem is something entirely different and i welcome you to hop back in my inbox and give me an update. we’ll figure it out. hope this helps!

this is a little rushed because my life has turned into a tire fire, but i hope it helps! good luck and godspeed.