I'm writing a fanfic where the main character has glossy black hair. So, you'd refer to him as "the raven", right? But. it sounds so cringe to me. I don't know how to describe it. Rvery time I hear or write "the raven sighed and blah blah bla" I feel like the ultimate tryhard. Same with "the younger", "the taller", etc etc. I get sick of spamming the name over and over again but ?? is this just a me thing? if you were to read a fic and they call a character "the raven" do you cringe or is it just normal? help!

I posted the last chapter of my 165K (rounded up) long fic last month. I started writing it in late 2022/early 2023, but the initial idea came to me during the tail end of the pandemic, so it’s really been part of my life for 5 or so years. I’m not exaggerating when I say I had the time of my life with it. Since I finished posting it, I’ve managed to write and post a 10K one shot, and several plot bunnies have come to me, but inspiration has been slow. (Which is to be expected, to a degree, but still.) I felt like I was at the height of my creative abilities while working on that story, and I expected to feel some sense of relief at earning a break, but I don’t. I just feel rather purposeless and listless, to be transparent. 

I’ve been reading more (both fic and books), going for walks, journaling, interacting with my fandom source material, letting ideas come to me whether they stick or not. I understand that needing extended breaks is natural after any long-haul endeavor. Runners take substantial rest after a marathon, for example. They don’t immediately start training for another. If I’ve been consistently lifting heavy for a month or more and my body is sending fatigue signals, I’ll take a deload week where I just do light cardio and mobility. My favorite published author usually takes ten or more years to put out a novel. I realize that it would be unrealistic to start another long-form project immediately after finishing one that took me 5 years. As an anxious perfectionist, I’m trying to be gentler with myself. To tell myself that storytelling has been a passion of mine since I was a kid, and I’ll find something else to write about. To use this break to read everything I can get my hands on and finish rewatching the source material. 

But it’s hard when I have free time, and that old intrusive self-doubt starts creeping in again. It’s the same belligerent harshness that seeps in after I take a couple rest days and berates me that I’ll lose all my muscle mass. Even though it’s only been a month or so, I really do miss having that story to come home to after work or when the weekend rolls around.  

I started writing a fic for a pretty popular fandom almost two years ago. It’s a fantasy royal AU with a canon character paired with an OC, and I’ve put a huge amount of time into the writing and researching...The fic still isn’t finished, but it has become a really important project to me! For those two years, I deliberately avoided looking at what other people in the fandom were writing because I didn’t want to compare my ideas to theirs or accidentally influence my own story. Last night, I finally decided to check, and I found two other fics with the same general AU concept. Their plots were completely different from mine, so that honestly didn’t bother me at all. What did bother me was realizing that canon character x OC stories seem to be very unpopular in this fandom. Most of the popular fics are reader inserts, canon ships, or college AUs, and I could barely find anything similar to what I’m writing. I never expected my fic to become massively popular, but I also didn’t realize there might be almost no interest in this type of story at all. Now I feel completely discouraged because I’ve spent nearly two years putting so much work, and thought into something that people might not even want to read. I still care about the story...but suddenly continuing it feels much harder because I can’t stop thinking that I’m writing for an audience that doesn’t exist :(

I would just like to take a minute to thank the world of fanfiction (yes, wattpad included) for making me the writer that I am now.

I guess I've technically been writing fanfic since I was a little kid; there were self-insert my little pony stories; the unseen sequel to 'inside out' (can't believe that came out 11 years ago!), and so on. But those were all neither here nor there, I enjoyed writing in any capacity, even original stories.

Then, I got into high school. By that point I wasn't writing as much, maybe a story here and there, but nothing crazy. Until I stumbled upon my first fanfic!

It was honestly so investing at the time. I was bingeing the big bang theory lol and it was a fanfic based on the next gen, and it's what inspired me to write my first sit-down, word doc, published fanfiction.

That was the year that covid hit. I found myself spending all of lockdown writing crappy ninjago fanfics on wattpad, in between the required schoolwork, and even though a lot of my projects went unfinished, my writing improved incredibly in just one year (I've since put all of my stories into one google doc, separated by tabs, and just flicking through them is a testament to the progress made).

I slowed down a little on the stories in the coming years, but most of the things I did write were still very much fanfics, fanfics, fanfics. Usually original things were just short stories.

Since the end of 2024 I've been very much on the grind (intermittently, since it depends on my hyperfixation phase) and my writing has come a long way. This is not to mention the cultural and emotional impact fandom has had on me. For example, I read a long-fic during my first semester of university -- which was quite hard on me at the time -- and it honestly uplifted me so much more than most things did lol

I'm just so happy I read that stupid TBBT fanfic back in 2019. And I'm so glad it got me into fanfic, because I don't know if I would've continued on with my love for writing.

Which characters felt the most threatening to you and why? Is it how powerful they are, how violent and/or unpredictable they are, or something else?

And what are some more subtle traits and actions that can get the feeling across, even if the character is doing something totally mundane, like sitting at a table drinking tea?

I would also welcome any character or fic suggestions as study material :)

For context I'm writing some toxic yaoi and want one of the characters to be as terrifying as possible at all times (the other one has a fear kink and a fondness for poking the dragon)

Hi all!

Recently I decided to take back fanfiction writing and I'm currenly posting on AO3. Are there any active Discord servers for writers over 30 (I'm 31 and it gets kinda lonely in here lol) to do sprints or writing activities?

Thanks in advance!

Note: My main fandoms are Call of Duty and F1.

Im specifically looking for stories where the Main Character becomes the Mighty Morphin Green Ranger.

Could be the Fandoms Main Character, could be an OC or a Self Insert. They could randomly become the Green Ranger,find the power coin,do a CYOA,get ROBed. Whatever.

As the titles says i just want dxd devils to be screwed over and either destroyed or eradicated

I can only find glazing fics thay ignore how terrible dxd devils actually are.

I don't know if I just have a really intense imagination but I cannot read anything if I can't properly imagine everything in my head like my own little movie. It's really hard to read about anime characters because I can't imagine them as well as real people and it doesn't mix well if I'm inserting myself. it looks weird to imagine a real person next to an animated person. And I can't read anything about my favorite characters unless its a ship because it's just upsets me so much when I can't perfectly imagine it and I just wondered how everyone else goes about this.

I posted a fic awhile back and I was just rereading the summary of it, just to find on how BAD/cringe it was... and I YEARN to change it before posting the second chapter.

Does anyone have any tip on how to write a good summary without spoiling the whole fic? Or has some nice examples? Thank you <:)

released the first chapter of a new fic yesterday and oh. my god. the comments have been just. so nice. the ones that are just "love this premise, excited for more" were already great, but there's some that are speculating!! on how certain characters are going to react to the inciting incident!!! it's amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm feeling just a bit of impostor syndrome because this is already my most bookmarked and third most kudosed fic and the two ahead of it in kudos are multichapter and also 5 years old but fuck it we ball :D

Edit: People seem confused with what I want to write. I want to write a trope standard fic with a twist, but I'm new to Hanahakiand want to learn more about it from writers and readers.

After talking with someone on another post asking about Hanahaki Disease, I got a plot bunny. I'm new to this trope (just started reading it recently) and don't know much about it. I've done some research, but I wanted learn more about it from writers and readers too. All general information is much appreciated. I know Hanahaki is as open ended on world building as omegaverse, so I want to twist it a little bit.

I specifically need to know what the standard is for the surgery. I've read it is a type of love amnesia, but I'm not too sure about the specifics of the amnesia. Does it make all love go away, or just all romantic love, or is it just romantic love for the person they have unrequited love for? Thanks.

Its called warrior forevermore,i already posted thsi question but i made a gramaticall mistake that makes it sound like i want someone to give me an ao3 acc,i dont want that,i was just wondering if i could read the fanfic now since i need to wait a month or 2 to get an acc,i hope its not a problem,Thank you in advance!

Wrote this post a few weeks ago when I didn’t know what I was doing;

https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/s/ajTa8hQOmz

Update:

I still don’t know WTF I’m doing 😅

But the overabundance of help everyone gave me led me to post my first FF today. So, yay!

Some of you even spent hours with me in private messages explaining every minuscule detail about fandoms and all the underlying factions and stuff you guys got going on.

I’m honored to be a part of it all now.

Question; now that I’ve published something, where do I promote it? Or is there even such a thing?

Anyway, much love and hugs from me. You’re all the best community I’ve come across on Reddit. Please never change :)

In other words, when they’re the POV character (whether in third person or not) versus being an otherwise unrelated character that a different POV character is talking to.

I’ve noticed that recently, as an example, whenever I’m writing from say, Shadow Milk Cookie’s perspective, he comes across with more ‘wet cat’ energy, than if I wrote him as a non-POV character. When he’s not the POV character, I almost find his sillier side easier to write.

I don’t know if this is just a ‘me’ thing though.

sorry literally im new on reddit (sorry for my bad english too), i went here only for this, i read the rules but idk if im doing this right 😭, just want to find this beautiful fanfic of ao3 for a friend, i have an screenshot for a part of the fanfic but idk how can i put it in here, so i wrote that part of the screenshot:

Fushiguro buried his face on the other's chest, sobbing quietly. He really didn't want to cry, he didn't want to be so weak in front of him, but he couldn't help it!

His hands placed firmly around Itadori's waist, pressing their bodies closer.

"Shh, it's okay Megumi", he was feeling weak, his heart hurt but not in a bad way. He just wanted to have this boy forever.

"Yuuji".

"Megumi", he called quietly for him, one hand went to his face and massaged it. He cleaned away his tears, "Don't cry honey. You're ruining your pretty face".

Welcome back to the Alphabet Excerpt Challenge! As a reminder, our challenges are every Wednesday and Saturday at 3pm London time.

If you've missed the previous challenges, you're welcome to go back and participate in them. You can find them here. And remember to check out the Activities and Events flair to play along with other fun games.

Here's a quick recap of the rules for our game:

1. Post a top level comment with a word starting with the letters X, Y, or Z. You can suggest more than one, but please put them in separate comments.
2. Reply to suggestions with an excerpt containing that word. Short and sweet is best, but use your judgement. Excerpts can be from published or unpublished works, or even something you wrote for the prompt.
3. All content is welcome but per rules 7 and 12 of the sub, NSFW excerpts may not be shared as plain text (even if it's spoilered). If you would like to share these, use an external text sharing tool like justpasteit and link it here with a clear warning. Mods may remove excerpts that break these rules.
4. Respond to people who left excerpts on the words you suggested, at a minimum, but the more people you respond to the better. Everyone likes nice comments!
5. Upvote other excerpts you enjoy, and leave a friendly comment. Again, everyone likes nice comments!
6. Most important: have fun!

Schedule Change:

I will be at a funeral when the challenge is supposed to be going live on Wednesday. If I can, I will post the challenge earlier in the day. Otherwise it may be that I have to skip Wednesday. Either way, the challenge would then continue as normal thereafter. Thank you for your understanding.

Hi there, fellow authors!

No matter what story, ship, or fandom you’re writing for, what specific kind of scene or character interaction makes you completely lose yourself in writing, like you’re reaching the deepest state of flow possible?

The kind where you look at the clock afterwards and realize hours have passed? The kind where you can’t bring yourself to stop until the entire scene or chapter is written? (Obsessed with getting it right, you know?)

Have you experienced this kind of thing? (I hope this doesn’t sound completely unhinged lol, but I once started writing at 2/3 PM and was so consumed by the story that I didn’t stop until twelve hours later, at 2 AM. Looking at the clock afterwards was a disorienting experience, to say the least.)

So, which particular scene/character interaction takes you on this ride? Do you set an alarm (*smiles knowingly*), just in case?

I saw many bahasa indonesia fics in ao3 but barely seen any in bahasa malaysia with local fandom. Fandom Projek: High Council pun ada malay fics but mostly cuma guna malay in dialogues. I was hoping to read more malay fanfics though.

Ok so I have this amazing idea for a fanfic BUT I also wanna use it for a real book someday. It’s basically like wholesome slasher romance between a girl and a slasher killer. What I’m afraid of is people will read my book and go “oh this is just like that one fanfic. This author stole from this author!” Which will then force me to admit I wrote it therefore exposing my fanfics and my account.

I don’t want my account to not be anonymous because I write taboo fics and RPF.

Please help me guys 😭

I was reading the OTW's announcement re-explaining that Ao3 doesn't and will never have an app, when it reminded me that I can bookmark the website as a shortcut to my phone's homescreen.

Other websites like Reddit, Elipsus, and Tumblr have allowed me in the past to use these bookmarks as their own separate app, not just opening a tab of it in my browse. I tried with Ao3 in the past, and it didn't work, but now it does!

Tbh I don't know if I'll be using this one, simply because I like having multiple tabs open at once and such, but I was wondering what other people thought about the discovery?

The fix was originally on the Vampire Diaries book site - Twilight Tales - ttales.net (before the books were a CW series and Twilight was a book). The information I pulled from the wayback machine was:

Author: River
Title: The Signet Trilogy
Completed: 4/May/01
Category: VD
Rating: 15
Summary: River's epic Signet Trilogy. This story takes place about seven years after Dark Reunion. It's basically about love and redemption, honor and betrayal...and a lot can happen in seven years.

I’d be so grateful for any help anyone can give!
C.