Wishes for Reception and Community

[paulamcg]

Challenge # 6

In your own space, make a list — anything between one and ten things is a sweet spot, but don't feel constrained by that! - of things that you wish existed in fandom or elsewhere, or that you'd like someone to make for you.



In this challenge I’ve taken the time to go through all the comments on the Snowflake post. This is the first time, because I’ve found the number of participants overwhelming, and I’ve wished that there were an easier way to find people who share my fandom. I understand that the point is to find something new. But I’m so hopelessly limited to Harry Potter fandom, because I’ve never really been into watching any TV shows at all, and I’m so addicted to the same fanfic universe I’ve kept writing since 2003 that I feel I can’t afford branching out and starting a new addiction based on another book canon. Perhaps I’ll still end up having an adventure before the challenge is over.

Anyway, due to being limited to HP fandom, I haven’t found many wishes I could grant. At least I have added a transformative works statement to all my profiles (DW, LJ and AO3), in addition to filling the AO3 profile, as analise010 wished everybody do that. And I think I can rec some genfic to author_by_night, and try my best to do my share for the fulfillment of nyctanthes’s wish:
For fandom to regularly leave its comfort zone and engage with a wider range of fic, vids, art, etc. There's a lot of good stuff out there, and I believe at least *some* of our desire for more reviews and a more engaged audience could be addressed if we all tried out works outside our sweet spot - and didn't limit our adventures to "what my friends have created" or "I read and commented in an exchange I participated in." I can't expect people to get into my fanworks/fandom/OTP/whatever if I never do the same for anyone else.

I’ve also got some ideas of what the wishes could be. A lot of people wish for transformative works, particularly visual art. I decided that I, too, can always wish… Because of my conviction that all art’s value is in its active reception, I’d truly love it if dreams like this came true.

1. I wish someone made a transformative work – fanart or podfic or anything else – on the basis of any of my fic. That would certainly make a lot more than my day. (In 2005 – 2009 I got a few pieces of fanart inspired by some of my short stories, and I’ve got two prints and the two original watercolours framed on my bedroom walls and they’ve been treasures all through my hiatus, too.) I’d also love an icon made of my-fic-inspired art, especially because I’ve always preferred using only one icon.

2. I wish someone recced a fic by me. Even though a story has served a purpose when one reader has received it, I suppose I’m not the only one in fandom who always wishes for more readers. It’s wonderful to know that someone has liked the story enough to think others can enjoy it, and to know that the story has a better chance to be read by people out there, even though I may never hear from them.

3. I wish for comments on my fic, the longer and the more detailed, the better, but any comment always makes something like my month, at least! Kudos is good, too, and even hits are, but I’d love to know whether someone has really read and even liked my writing, and I don’t know how to reply to kudos.

4. I wish for replies to the comments I leave on other people’s fic. I love discussing the contents of stories as well as how the text works, and hearing about writing processes.

5. I wish for a community (and I mean a community in general and possibly also as an account) on DW where people in HP fandom share recs and discuss fics, perhaps make review exchanges… I don’t know how that could work: how large the active HP fandom on DW is, and how the topic of the community should be restricted (perhaps leaving out Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts, or focusing otherwise on what appeals to people interested in this kind of interaction – while I hope we could be open-minded and try out things outside our sweet spots, even outside our comfort zones). Maybe someone who’s got experience with starting and modding communities could develop more practical ideas.

Comments

[malenkayacherepakha]

Ooh the rec community idea is a really interesting one! I also have no real idea of how to make it actually work, but I'd love to see it happen and be involved. Maybe it's as simple as a bunch of us aiming to do a weekly (or something) rec post where we talk about a fic/multiple fics we've loved recently and then we can all discuss in the comments? I'm still not sure how actual DW communities work but could also look into setting up a reccing one.

[paulamcg]

Oh, I’m so glad you’re interested! Perhaps it is better to first aim at what you suggest. I should try and see if I manage to make even a monthly rec post, saying a bit more about a few fics. I’m so slow that responding to these comments is a challenge for me! And I never founded or modded a community on LJ either. Above all, I hope that HP people will stay active on DW after Snowflake.

[malenkayacherepakha]

It depends how you work really - for some people being a part of a community or something will make them really stick to the promise of doing recs, but for some it's best to try it out more casually first to see if it's something they want to do. The good thing about Dreamwidth seems to be that things move a little more slowly, so it doesn't matter if you can't reply immediately (as opposed to places like tumblr which move so fast).

I really hope so too, I've loved how active it's been here this month!

[paulamcg]

You must be right! I think that myself I’d like to start more casually but to soon feel I’m doing it as part of a community, keeping a promise.

I didn’t have many people in my list before this month and didn’t know how active or not people were. But yes, let’s try to stay active!

[walgesang]

I feel like there used to be regular rec communities (maybe LJ?) but I don't think there's anything wrong with sometimes like what you and malenkayacherepakha are talking about, i.e. deep discussion of a particular fic. Sounds like a good idea! My own participation in such may be iffy because I still have yet to get around to reading more fic in general, but perhaps in the future!

[paulamcg]

I should try to find out if there are rec communities on LJ or DW. And I suppose that, aftet all, deep discussion of a a particular fic should go where the fic is hosted. Thank you so much for commenting and supporting the idea! I’m actually a very slow reader, and I craft these replies, too, slowly.

[tjs_whatnot]

I'd love a link to where your stories are hosted. ♥

[paulamcg]

Thank you for making me realise I could have included a link! I’m in the process of posting my stories at AO3, here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/works. Most of my older (pre-2019) fic and a few of the new ones are still only on my Live Journal, and the links to them are on my LJ profile, here: https://paulamcg.livejournal.com/profile.

[muccamukk]

I love it when people reply to comments. It's so fun talking about fanworks.

[paulamcg]

Yes! And while I suppose no writers or artists mind comments on their work, a reply also really makes me believe that the feedback is appreciated and makes it more likely that I click on more of the same creator’s work.

If I’d managed to be less self-centred, I would have done like luthien and wished for more commenting in general, nor just on my fics. Because both fic AND comments are … part of the fannish conversation.

[writcraft]

There have been a few pretty big rec communities on the journals in HP which might be worth looking at for inspiration for a rec community, Crack Broom being one of the biggest ones I recall that functioned as a community where people would sign up as monthly reccers for a particular ship or ship category, e.g. Marauders Era, Next Gen, etc. I loved your idea of a review exchange too, I don't think outside of Comment-A-Thon's (some of which I organised) or comments as gifts during holiday fests (HD Owlpost does that) I've seen something purely centered on comments / reviews. It would be an interesting one to think about and although I can't take on anything new this year I would be happy to give any thoughts on getting something like that off the ground if useful.

There was also a HP Concrit Fest one year where writers signed up to a closed community under the agreement that constructive criticism not only be allowed but also encouraged. It was a really interesting idea in terms of a writing community although I can't say too much about it as I didn't participate due to other commitments!

[malenkayacherepakha]

The review exchange sounds amazing. You could also do it as a kind of fest, like in I think Fan Fair where participants were split into teams and got points for leaving comments.

The concrit fest sounds really interesting - I wonder how the participants found it.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for your wonderful contribution here! Yes, I remember crack_broom. I’m still watching it on LJ – or I would be, if there were anything to watch now. That concept looks good, and I think I’d like to “fly” with my recs for a month, but I doubt I’d be able to run the community – not only due to my lack of experience but also due to my slowness!

I’ve experienced review exchange only on FA, and it’s interesting to hear about Comment-A-Thons and comments as gifts, and also about Concrit Fest. It’s exciting to realise that it’s possible to do so many things in fandom besides writing and reading fic and giving and hoping for praise!

[antuhsa]

I feel you on being limited to HP. I don't really watch tv shows or play games either, so a lot of the fandoms people talk about are lost on me. Also, none of the other fandoms I've tried have given me the same spark that HP has. Maybe we're just those lucky people who've found their One True Fandom?

Writcraft has given you some marvelous suggestions for reccing comms already, but I actually know another one, and it's still active. It's only on LJ though, but it's One Bad Man. The comm is a bit limited, because it only allows recs for fanworks about Snape and/or Lucius, but it has permanent reccers, who each have their own day, so there is a new rec every day.

Another comm I can think of is the HP SlashFic sub on Reddit. Its very different from journal comms, but it has regular discussions and a monthly 'What have you read last month?' thread in which people post short reviews of the fics they read that month. You don't need a Reddit account to be able to see the content, so feel free to take a look!

I don't know any reccing comms on DW, unfortunately, but I do know that TheMightyFlynn regularly posts recs on her own journal. She enjoys many different ships, so it might be worth checking her page out!

[paulamcg]

I haven’t even tried any other fandom, although I’ve just considered it now that I’ve (exceptionally) watched the Witcher (because I’ve enjoyed the books and The Wild Hunt game, the only video game I’ve ever played), but I can’t believe there could be the spark given by my first love. I’m afraid I’ve actually found my One True Story (in the fic I started in 2003, as I ecxplained on your post).

Oh, (as I’m still active on LJ, albeit on my own) I’ve noticed recs by One Bad Man, because I’m watching The Daily Snitch – and I’ve paid attention to how the Fandom Recs part in that community is a bit one-sided. I’ll go and check out TheMightyFlynn’s journal and HPSlashFic, too, although I haven’t used Reddit. Thank you so much for all this information!

[wendelah1]

I actually modded a fanfiction discussion community on LJ: xf_book_club. It was not a community for writers to get concrit--it was a readers' community, where we could freely discuss what we liked (and what we didn't like) about a particular fic. We mostly discussed older fic but newer stories were also recced from time to time. There were never more than a handful of active participants but boy oh boy, did we have lurkers. We had a nomination post where any community member could nominate a fic. Writers could not nominate their own stories, although we certainly had some who tried. And I know of at least one active, well-known, excellent writer who posted there under a pseud. I know because she eventually came clean to me--because we had become close friends. (It was a shock but yes, we're still friends.) Most posts were and remain public. Because of a specific jackass who liked to hack and destroy X-Files comms all over the internet, you couldn't just join. You had to request membership. Anon comments were permitted but initially screened for the same reason. It's much easier to run something like this if you have a co-mod. After my last co-mod defected to Sherlock fandom, I did run it on my own for awhile. In 2016, following the disastrous US election, the community went on hiatus. Because of the two revival seasons in 2016 and 2018, there is still an active X-Files community, but it's not on LJ/DW and I don't like Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook. The community was backed up in 2018 to DW but remains inactive.

I don't know how the HP community feels about this but you are probably aware that fandom in general is very hostile to negative public feedback about fanfic, regardless of where it appears. (I am a writer but I have to say, writers in general are very hostile to public feedback--witness the recent meltdown at that romance writers organization.) Betas are allowed to give feedback to writers because it's done privately. Fic readers are supposed to keep their negative opinions to themselves. There is/was a fanfic discussion community for Sherlock BBC on LJ but it was locked to members only. There are probably fic communities on Discord that I'm not aware of because I don't use (or like) Discord. If I were to start something like this in today's climate, I would likely do it only in a locked community, and probably post using a different pseud, too.

[paulamcg]

Thank you so much for all the information and tips, including this fascinating story of a readers’ community! I can understand some writers’ urge to get their stories discussed, even though it meant also public negative feedback, as well as their urge to participate in the discussion – which I assume they were allowed to do with their author names. I’d have nothing against having my fic being also critisised like that – in the way non-fanfic writers’ work is discussed. It would be an honour – at least in case somebody suggested my story because they found it good and therefore worth a discussion, not as an examle of a failure.

I got used to public concrit on FA, and welcomed concrit on my journal when I entered LJ. Perhaps HP fandom has changed in this respect during my hiatus 2010 – 2019, but I can’t actually remember having seen much concrit outside my journal after 2005 or so.

[necessarian]

great wishlist, and i wish you the best with these wishes being fulfilled in the new year! number #5 especially resonates with me, as you know. the HP fandom is a weird best; it's hard to say how large it is at any given time, but it can and will pop up anywhere you look. so i think it can happen!!

[paulamcg]

Thank you for your wishes and encouragement and, well… everything!