#reader preferences

[thecatinthelibrary]

Character x male/masc reader from a woman author?

Hey so , I like writing fanfiction and now that I'm in a better place mentally and I can actually engage with the fandoms I love.... I wanna start writing again.

But I want my readers to feel represented.

Every time I see a set of guidelines for fanfiction requests (outside of the Grishaverse) for the most part if the author is a woman she'll always put "no male x character" ,and I always feel bad when I see that because what if a guy reader really likes that author or that fandom? The fandom doesn't even have to have a predominantly fem audience, it just seems to be the default.

Which is why I want to ask

AND ONLY GAY MEN ANSWER

Do y'all care if a woman writes male reader inserts , or do you only feel comfortable with it being other guys?

I'm being completely genuine, I'm not looking for someone to give me the greenlight to write what I want and yada yada like no, most of my inspiration comes from wanting to give representation. But that intention is null and void if it makes people uncomfortable.

And before people ask no , I'm not straight I'm a queer woman.

Omniromantic and somewhere on the asexuality spectrum to be specific, but to save myself the hassle of having to give a thesis on my identity in public I'll just say bisexual.

But regardless I'm still a cis woman. And yeah...the fetishization that happens with gay couples gives them more than enough of a reason for them to be uncomfortable with cis women writing for them.

But idk because I always feel bad when I'm reading an xreader fic that's supposed to be "gender neutral" but it's still someone with long wavy hair , or dainty hands , or they start talking about curves (which men have just in a different way). Or even if the fic isn't explicitly gender neutral and it's just a fic/head cannon and everything's going along fine and then it it's like "you lipstick" or "your dress" and I'm like , welp target audience noted.

And DUH men can have those descriptors but I also know gay guys personally who are like "nah I'm gay as hell but I'm a GUY. " They want to read about fixing each other's ties and characters who are described with stubble , or beards or muscles(and yes I know muscles aren't gender specific that's a different rant tho).

Also if it wasn't clear I'm not talking about writing smut , writing smut in general is too tedious for me. I just mean ships in general.

Idk I'm kind of rambling but , do y'all care? Do you want more representation? Or do you want it but only from someone within the community?

Pls help

[m0thman-after-dark]

fic readers and writers a like!!! I beseech thee to answer my formatting questions!

When writing a long, more serialized story on ao3, how do you prefer for things to be broken up?

Each distinct arc is its own fic? It’s all one fic all the time that keeps being built onto? Certain more similar arcs are grouped into fics but after a big change it’s a new one? Or maybe each similar arc is a fic in a series, with the entire story also being part of a bigger one? Or something else entirely because seeing things in 2 series could be discouraging or less likely to be picked up.

I’m curious where people fall on this

[romeoandmesittinginatree]

To whomever reads this:

What are your thoughts on mcd with the characters having A) no options, or B) options but none work.

To take it even farther: what if they tried all the options and none worked? Or what if they decided not to go through with - for some goddamn reason - the one option that could save the character’s life?

[transcribinghistory]

Witty Sports

Sports are something I don’t do much of, and hardly ever watch, but I sure love reading about them. Some of the best writing in the newspaper is in the sports section. A lot of it is wittier than the comics and Saturday’s Viewpoint letters are the reading highlight of my week. Maybe Charles Goldman’s pretty blonde won’t read, but this pretty-old blonde can and does.

MRS. LOUISE HAUTER

La Canada

(Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA, March 20, 1982)

--

Reader preferences: come for the humor, stay for the humor.

[bookriot]

We are all individuals who have unique preferences and needs and desires. We read a variety of books because we all want something different from our reading experiences. This means we will all gravitate towards particular books and want to read in a variety of genres and formats. Thinking that every reader should feel the exact same way about books as you do and read books the exact same way as you is not only close-minded, but it is also pretty boring. Getting to see a book through someone else’s eyes who has a completely different perspective on it can maybe change your own views on it. Or even if it doesn’t, it can still be an interesting experience and maybe help reinforce the reasons why you do feel the way that you do.

from New Guidelines for Readers by Rincey Abraham

[dorotheian]

99 SFF Women Authors

http://thebooksmugglers.com/2014/01/sff-in-conversation-women-write-sff-andrea-k-hosts-keeper-bookshelf.html

I need to save this somewhere...

My favorites on this list are Diane Duane (if she reads this, hi!), Patricia C. Wrede, Patricia McKillip, Tanith Lee, Diana Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley, Meredith Ann Pierce, Tamora Pierce, Sherwood Smith, Caroline Stevermer, and Jane Yolen.

There's a lot of women children's/YA authors that weren't listed, either, but that just proves how many there actually are. Among my personal favorites whose websites I have bookmarked, women outnumber men by 3 to 1.

It's really good to have a list of older stuff, particularly adult stuff, because I haven't really been exposed to it. Most of what my library owns was published a while ago, and I have had difficulty finding entry points since I am not easily impressed by epic fantasy or dry-as-bone sci-fi. Plus, I'm a lot less impressed with the level of writing in adult fiction. *shrug* It's probably just the stuff I ran into, though.

[heretherebdragons]

Quick question for people who read stuff :)

For readers of fanfiction (or other things), and particularly for those of you reading Unshaken (because this will directly affect you :D):

Do you like long chapters? Or are more, shorter chapters better?

For example, the masquerade chapter was about 12K, IIRC. Was that too long? Or do you like getting a big chunk of story all at once? 

I'm considering splitting the next chapter into two parts, even though it all happens on the same day. There's a reasonably good place where I could make a break (which wasn't really the case with the masquerade chapter, or else I might have split it). But if people don't mind (or even prefer) long chapters, I'll leave it the way it is (which will be somewhere in the vicinity of 13K). ???

[tsheng11]

Not all great content goes viral, but (with the exception of awesomely terrible videos) content that does go viral is great. No one can guarantee that any piece of content will take the web by storm, but we can make sure that a piece of content has what it takes.