Often I get asked about what matters certain ranks of society speak about when they are alone, such as what topics they talk about, what would be taboo and what sort of things they would feel comfortable speaking about.
Topics
Downstairs conversation usually revolved around whatever kept the household running smoothly, so most talk was practical, harmless, and rooted in day to day life or life outside of work. Servants would often have swapped tales about work, talking amongst themselves on matters of staff such as conduct or reputation or skillset, not too different from working in any workplace. Servants would have discussed personal matters, such as who was courting who, who was flaunting the riles and who might have fallen short of the expectations of the house. They would have also traded local town gossip, local scandals for example.
Taboo
Some subjects were absolutely off‑limits. Some topics could lead to a servant punished or dismissed. One never criticized the lord, lady, or their children. Even the mildest comments could be seen as disrespectful. Servants also avoided repeating anything they overheard upstairs, arguments, affairs, illnesses, debts etc. Sharing private family matters was considered a betrayal of trust and could destroy a household’s reputation. Loose lips sink ships and all that. Politics was often barred too, servants were expected to stay neutral and silent and not get into debates about things 'above their stations'. Mocking any guests to the house or discussing sensitive topics like inheritance, legitimacy, or money was equally forbidden. Everyone downstairs understood that their job depended on discretion, and some secrets were so dangerous that even whispering them could cost a life.
Censorship
The tone of downstairs life was shaped by a strict hierarchy. The steward or housekeeper controlled what was appropriate or not. If they said something was never to be addressed, it wouldn't be. Senior servants like the butler, cook, or head maid also had authority to shut down gossip or scold juniors for speaking out of turn. Their approval or disapproval shaped what was acceptable which was often shaped by the morals and leanings of the family they served. It is important to remember that even when the family weren’t present, they dictated the atmosphere.
Confidants
Servants of course, did speak about taboo subjects but they had to be very strategic about who they talked to and what they talked about, because the wrong word to the wrong person could ruin them and see them fired. Safe conversations happened with peers, for example the scullery maids, footmen, grooms, and kitchen hands who shared the same workload and had no authority to punish them would talk about more sensitive topics, may share complaints about unfair treatment. But trust was essential. Senior staff like the butler, housekeeper, or steward were treated with caution, wise servants would avoid complaining, gossiping, or mentioning anything that hinted at discontent in front of them. Around the family, servants spoke only when spoken to and stuck to practical answers, never offered opinions, never gossiped, never spoke on personal matters. Downstairs life ran on an unspoken rule: you could speak freely only with those who had nothing to gain by repeating your words.
Tumblr Tips From a 10k Follower Fanfiction (and RL) Author
Who am I?
I’m Donna, a fanfic author who recently hit 10k followers. I am also the real life author of the Outlaw Royales Motorcycle Club series, and an award-winning book editor and writing coach.
The Stats:
I am not being an arrogant twat while listing the figures below I'm just trying to provide transparency so you can see how things are going. The examples I'm using later on are The Pitt specific hence the tags.
I'm currently at 10,221 followers. I assume sometime next month I'll hit 10,500.
My blog usually gains over 50 followers a week. Over the past month I’ve actually gained 272.
I honestly don’t keep an eye on this usually, this has been a big surprise for me when I looked into the stats. I’m always more focused on writing my next fic.
So… how did this happen???
I asked myself this when I hit 10k and I think there’s a few important factors at play.
Consistency:
I post fics daily.
I try to stick to one a day, and then I reblog it at selective times over a 24/36 hour period so it hits the Tumblr busy times and also so that my friends in other time zones get the chance to read it.
I add any additional fics to a schedule for the next week so it doesn’t oversaturate the feed and people don’t become overwhelmed by seeing so many different fics on their dashboards. It also means I don’t have to worry about the days I don’t get to writing. < like in the middle of a heatwave.
Now I know not everyone posts a fic daily. I have ADHD and writing is my hyperfocus. However posting fics regularly (every 2/3 days or once a week) matters especially in fast-moving fandoms because it keeps you in near the top of the latest tag so people are constantly finding your content.
Also, if people keep see you showing up for a character, they’re more likely to follow you, as it shows you can give them more of what they want. It develops a trust between reader and author.
Timing is Everything:
The time you choose to post your fics can really affect how many people get eyes on them. If you’re posting in the middle of the night or at three in the morning, it’s unlikely to get a lot of eyes on it and you’ve missed that initial impact. However, if you’re posting at key social media times (breakfast, lunch time, 6pm-8pm – when people finish work) you’re likely to get more hits on your fics because that’s when people are checking their phones and have the time to interact. – it pays to know your audience (predominantly US in my genre and the times they’re online.)
I personally also find that my posts get less interaction on weekends. I think that’s because people are out of the Mon -Fri grind so their routines aren’t the same. Does it stop me posting? No. But it does allow me to be a little easier on myself when a fic doesn’t do as well as the others.
There is also a seasonal element to fics in general. Some of your older fics may see a resurge of life when a new season starts of a show so in my case. I recently had a flurry of people reading my Mikey fics from The Bear because the new season started and my work for him is very passionate and visceral.
This also plays into your current writing. You’re more likely to get hits/follows on fics when a season is airing because fans are engaged on a week to week basis. You will see a drop off a few weeks after it ends because a massive group of people are now moving onto other things. That’s nothing to worry about, but it is good to be aware of this for your scheduling.
An example for me is this: When The Pitt first aired I was one of the first people writing for Jack Abbot. We saw two mins of him and we were all hooked but… no one was writing him. My fics from around that time were hitting 1000+ on interactions because people craved more. After the Pitt ended we saw a huge drop in interaction and for me that was fine, I still enjoyed writing for Jack regardless.
Backmatter Is Key
Like in actual publishing, backmatter is key. What is back matter? It’s the fics that link to the one you’re posting. Making sure they are available on the same post to read is crucial because it addresses several different issues for the reader.
If they like that fic, they can read the rest with just one click (it is proven people are notoriously lazy so the more clicks they have to do, the less likely they are to do it.)
It shows you’re consistently writing for this character so they have more reason to follow you because they know they’ll get more of the stuff they like.
People can join the journey at any point. For example if they come across that post 5 months after it was posted, they’ll still have all these great fics to read and they can seek you out for your most recent post on that character– usually resulting in a follow.
Also if they are picking your post up 5 months down the line, it draws their attention to your profile, and they have a nose and see what other things you write for that they follow.
Engagement:
I engage with 95% of the comments that people post on my work with the exception of those annoying ‘I really need to talk to you’ bots and the odd one I miss. Why do I do this? Firstly I really enjoy talking to people, if they’ve taken the time to comment it’s really meaningful to me and I should be able to make the time to say thanks for doing that. You’re also strengthening your relationships and building a community.
On a different note, if people think they’re talking to a brick wall they’ll stop engaging and truly I don’t blame them. Its how you lose followers and readers.
The Series Aspect
I have ADHD which means I write small bitesize fics that usually become a series. This is not planned, it just happens because my brain can’t focus on anything bigger than 2000 words at once.
But the magic of a series is… it keeps people coming back for more, they want to find out what happens. It’s what starts conversations in your inbox, what gets people excited for the next post. Hence why you tend to gain more followers when you have a consistent series running because people can jump on at any point (and read that backmatter).
When I wrote The Call for Brendon Park, every single person was tuning into the fics following it because they wanted to know... is he really going to have to cut off his finacee's leg???
I see some people writing long form fics and that is fine but you’re only getting one bite of the apple with those fics, you’re not really giving anyone a reason to return because they’ve had the whole meal already. If you published them chapter by chapter however… you’d probably see a boost in engagement/follows. There’s a reason serialised fiction does well.
The Pivot
Sometimes you fall out of love writing a character because they’ve got their happy ending, and that’s ok! This happened to me with Jack and Robby from The Pitt. I went through a long period of time not writing them, but I didn’t want to take them off the character list because I still really liked them… I was just bored with the series, there wasn’t any conflict anymore.
And then I read King of Greed by Ana Huang, and I thought what if Robby has an ex wife, what if she surprises him by turning up at an event in Pittsburgh and suddenly a new series was born because I pivoted away from the old series and played with a different concept and guess what??? People love it because it’s deliciously angsty but heartfelt too.
The same thing happened with Jack. We’ve all listened to Yes Chef, but I don’t know if anyone has listened to any of the other Quinn Originals. I have and comparatively Shawn is actually very good as a voice actor compared to some of the others, and that got me thinking… what if Jack wanted to step out of his own life for a bit… what if he decided to become a voice actor for Quinn because he got to be other people for a while. The Mafia Princess’s bodyguard/The Naughty Professor/The Grumpy Billionaire.
Again, people loved this concept, and it gave me the idea to post the episodes of what Jack’s recording as a VA as well as his own storyline around the mysterious Red Velvet.
Pivots can be great for challenging yourself as an author, but they can give a new, fresh spin for your audience.
A word of warning though if you’ve been out of that character tag for a while, it can feel like starting all over again as there’s a fresh set of people who have never met you. However, the more you post in that tag (remember what I said about consistency) the more likely people are to see and engage/follow you because you develop that trust.
If you’ve managed to stick with me until this point, good job! I hope this has been useful for you. These are just some of the things I’ve picked up on my fanfiction/publishing journey.
If you have any questions, feel free to pop them in my inbox!
Random Tips for Writing Post-Op (After Surgery) Scenes
I’ve received a lot of praise for accurate and immersive hospital scenes in my fics, so I thought I’d share some of my tips!
What’s my secret? Well, I’ve had major operations (emergency and planned) and have been hospitalized 😅 firsthand experience, let’s go!
And disclaimer: some people might not experience things exactly the way I describe, but from what I’ve learned from my aunt (a recovery room nurse), my experiences are pretty standard.
Going under anesthesia isn’t like sleeping.
When you wake up after a normal sleep, you get the sense that time has passed because your consciousness has still been active in some capacity (sleep cycles and dreaming).
That’s not what happens with anesthesia and the drugs they give you before and after - you’re truly unconscious. It really distorts your sense of time. It’s like you blink and suddenly you’re somewhere else.
There actually is no “going to sleep” or “waking up” in a traditional sense - you just lose time. It’s very confusing and disorienting, because everything you happen to be conscious for both before and after surgery feels like a single continuous event and you’re somehow teleporting around.
For example: you’re in the ER, then you blink and you’re being wheeled into surgery, then you blink and you’re in recovery, then you blink and you’re in a regular hospital room.
The real sleeping happens once you’re settled in your room and the effects of anesthesia have worn off.
When you wake up in the hospital, you’re not looking up at the ceiling.
I see this in fics fairly often, but that’s typically not what happens IRL. In a hospital bed, you’re basically sitting up - the head of the bed is elevated so you bend at the waist.
They do this because being flat on your back could cause fluid to collect in your lungs, which might lead to pneumonia.
So therefore when you wake up in the hospital, you’re actually looking straight ahead. You can easily see down the entire length of the bed, your own body, and people sitting/standing nearby.
Here’s what it’s like right after surgery:
The first time you wake up, you’re very cold! Your body pulls blood away from your extremities while under anesthesia (because it thinks you’re dying 😅) so you get a lot of blankets in the recovery room. They even have a blanket warmer.
You feel really heavy, like moving your limbs is impossible.
They tape or glue your eyes shut during surgery to protect them, so your eyelashes are sticky and your eyes might feel irritated from the adhesive.
Being intubated makes your throat super sore afterwards. Like, you legitimately feel like you have strep throat.
It’s likely that you’ll have SCDs (Sequential Compression Devices) which help prevent blood clots. These are like thick little blankets that wrap around your lower legs and squeeze them in an alternating pattern. Many patients apparently hate them but I LOVE them! I find them very soothing.
After surgery, a patient might…
Struggle to understand that the surgery has already happened. Due to time loss, their pre-operation memories took place what feels like only seconds ago.
Not be able to answer questions like “how do you feel” very accurately. The best answer I’ve ever been able to come up with in this situation is “weird.”
Be upset about things they can feel (cold, lethargy, irritated eyes, sore throat, SCDs, etc.). They may not feel pain from their actual injury or incision yet, but they feel different than they felt before the surgery - which, remember, was only seconds ago to them. It can be disorienting.
Not remember a conversation that took place only minutes ago, or try to continue a conversation from hours ago as if no time has passed at all. They might even say the same thing over and over again because they don’t remember they’ve already said it.
Fixate on one thing they really want and not let it go. For me it’s been sore throat spray, lip balm, and even one very specific pillow from home.
I hope this was insightful!
Not sure how far this post will go, but feel free to add onto it if you want. And if you have any questions, my ask box is always open!
