A writing post for a change

[shapinglight]

I haven't done one of these for a while, so I thought I might as well.

Occasionally, I look at the hits on the stories I've posted on Ao3. Some continue to go up, though slowly (doubt I'll ever reach the heights of some stories I've seen on there, with almost 1000 hits. I'll be lucky to get 100 on any of mine), others seem firmly stuck pretty much where they started.



I'm assuming that this has more to do with people's character preferences than anything, because otherwise I can't explain why Venus and Mars, one of my own favourites, and (IMO) one of my best stories stays stuck on 11 hits, where it's been for ages, while others, which I don't consider as good, go upwards. Or maybe people just don't like historical stories? I posted a couple of short things a few weeks back. One - a Giles piece - has garnered 15 hits, while the other, a 1000 word Fanged Four tale has only four (and was stuck on one for ages).

I dunno. History is of the then, or course, whereas we are all in the now.

Anyway, where current writing goes, I forced myself to start revising my penultimate Spike/Giles season 7 story the other day. I managed the first two sections, because they didn't actually need much work, but when I got to the part where I know I have to start re-writing whole scenes, I came over all tired and gave up. :(

I was hoping to finish the entire series for brutti_ma_buoni's letsgetitdone challenge. Now, I think I'll be lucky to finish just this part.

As for the story I started on sb_fag_ends last month, I've written one more part, but I don't want to post it. I want to write two or three more, or even more than that, before I consider doing so.

And the whole experience is making me feel all over again that I should have stuck to my long ago resolution never to start posting a WIP until I know I can finish it.

:Gloom:

Finally, I saw the first part of a story posted the other day. I thought I might glance at it, but then read in the blurb that Character X was hardly in the story, and that the author hated the Character-X/Character-Y pairing. This didn't seem to me a good way to advertise a story (unless you only want other Character-X/Character-Y haters to read it). What do you think?

Comments

[chasingdemons.livejournal.com]

It often doesn't make sense to me who gets the most comments or hundreds of hits or whatever. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be a correlation with the quality of the work. But one element that might be coming into play is promotion. I don't read that much anymore, but back in the day, when I was looking for something to read, I might easily blow by a really great fic because the summary just didn't grab me. Then years later, when I finally read it and loved it, I was sorry I didn't realize the quality of the story. Yeah, maybe I should have investigated a little, but I'm probably like most readers, I want the work done for me. And at the time there were hundreds of fics to choose from. Just as there are now on AO3. I know you are loathe to toot your own horn, but maybe make sure your summaries really make the reader want to know more about it. Make sure all the characters and pairings that matter are listed. Make sure you have used all the tags that apply. Your work is a treasure. Maybe some people just don't know it.

[shapinglight]

You're right. I should work harder on my summaries. Do you think the ones I have on Ao3 are not that good? I also don't tag (because I don't understand their tagging system). I'll have to go back and do it.

It's not that I'm so desperate for more hits, but I should try and get my head around it. It's silly not to.

[chasingdemons.livejournal.com]

I haven't really paid attention to your summaries on Ao3, but I know how you talk about your stories in your posts, and I am guessing your summaries almost downplay the story. There's nothing wrong with working to get more hits. You've created something really special. In exchange for this gift you've given to everyone, you deserve to know it was appreciated. That's only natural and you needn't think of it as desperate.

[shapinglight]

I think when it comes to summaries, I have this tendency not to reveal too much, because I want there to be surprises for the reader.

But anyway, I'll go back and have a look and try and improve them. I'll also re-think my backdating of stories (didn't realise that was a problem, until killerweasel pointed it out), and tagging.