#or maybe i could make a commitment to share snippets more on discord in the wips section.... hmmmmm

[branmer]

ive really lost my motivation to write recently

[cssns]

Please give a warm welcome to @theartofdreaming1 to the CSSNS!

Please welcome @theartofdreaming1 to CSSNS!

How long have you been in the CS/OUAT fandom?

I've been into OUAT since it started airing in Germany in 2012 - but since I preferred watching it in English, I kinda had to wait until I could buy the DVDs for my viewing pleasure... So I've been more of a passive fan, dipping in and out of the fandom whenever the mood struck... And these past few months, the OUAT/CS mood has been thoroughly rekindled ;)

When did you start shipping Captain Swan?

With the beginning of season 3, I think (definitely was intrigued by the idea of CS early on in season 2, but I think I only fully committed to CS when the Neverland arc began)

What drew you to this event?*

It's been a while since I've had the time to participate in a fandom event, so it's been really serendipitious that this event coincided with me catching another bout of OUAT-fever and having finally handed in my BA thesis :)

What inspired your topic?

Mermaids are some of my favorite supernatural/mythological beings and I haven't gotten around to drawing mermaids in a while, soo... (plus, I think it fits nicely with the nautical theme Killian's got going on, lol)

If you would like to share a snippet/sneak peek/summary of your fic or artwork, please use the space below.

It's still in the early stages... I'm still deciding whether I want to go for an Enchanted Forest setting or a modern setting (kinda Shape of Water-vibes; maybe with Killian as a marine biologist?)

For our artists: What kind of art do you like to do? Picsets, painting, digital, etc? Feel free to give as much info as you like.

Digital art/illustration

What are you looking forward to most about participating in this event?

Getting to know some more fellow OUAT/CS fans, collaborating on a bigger project... and getting to draw some Captain Swan, of course! ;)

@theartofdreaming1 will be doing artwork for @beckettj dropping on 7/1 and her own original artwork drops on 7/15. Make sure to say hi to her on Tumblr and on Discord!

[faimrpg]

Hello, and welcome to member appreciation time! Every week, I’ll be posting a snippet from everyone’s blogs that I felt was jaw-droppingly fantastic, as both a thanks to you for being here and putting your character on the dashboard, and so other members can appreciate your artistry as well. There is no doubt in my mind that writing is, perhaps, the most grueling fucking hobby in the world. It’s hard to do, difficult to grapple with, and often time consuming, but the fantastic part is that we do it anyways, and everyone else gets the opportunity to read it. I don’t want this blurb to get too long, so I’ll be shutting up shortly, but I’d like say from the bottom of my heart that I am grateful that you’re all here!

AGRIPPINE: Who is this noble who speaks with more authority than Agrippine has in their entire body, who calls them champion yet treats them like a child? It’s hardly an offense to their pride, of which they have so little. Even they can’t deny they have swum too far into the deep end, over their head and out of their league whilst at court. No noble lies awake in the dark, haunted by what they do not remember and what they may never find.

BEAU: It’s against her very nature to step out of the shadows and into the opening, to be so vulnerable. Her heart is racing, at the sight of the ghost in front of them as their footsteps grow closer and closer. Closer than they’ve been in so long, there’s no doubt in her mind now as she catches surprised but so familiar brown eyes.

CECILE: It is still a regular occurrence that Cecile brings flowers to her mother’s grave, and shares a peaceful silence with her final resting place. She still talks to her, sometimes. But these days, more often than not her worries are not things she can say aloud, even in the quiet of the graveyard, for fear of who may be listening.

CYRIL: She wanted out of there. Cyril can still feel the tension she felt back in that room surrounding her, even as she put as much distance between her and that place. She’s used to gilded halls and marble floors, not blood pools growing bigger by the heartbeat. Her bubble had burst and Cyril was afraid.

DEGARE: Degaré knows well that anything whispered over a flagon is tricky, fickle, maybe even downright false. It could be fact, could be fiction—himself, he doesn’t much care. Whether the honest truth or little more than a myth men tell themselves, he knows one party likely to be interested.

GISELE: Surely, the word Lady has never been uttered with such distaste, so jarringly, transparently through gritted teeth in an otherwise lyrical performance, like a pianist striking a discordant note midway through a scale. “Is your nobility nothing more than a hat you don only when convenient and matching your dress? Have you been attending Court only to gawk at your own gowns, as though this were nothing but a showroom for your wares?”

HELENE: She knows what Helene has done, all of the sins and all of the misery exacted on behalf of Celestine, but she could never truly understand that power was merely secondary to order. Order kept her lands green, order kept violent warfare on the streets, and order prevented yet another King of Fools from emerging underneath the rot and filth that seemed to only well up in the streets where the nobles dared to tread.

ISEULT: Names had never been his forte— he’d sooner know her by her blade of choice, in all the places it’d previously clashed with his. As was the Guild and Underworld rapport: the honest sellsword awaited their turn at the billet bank, the successful one poached theirs. No contract passed without protest, and Iseult knew by sound alone he’d had the (mis)fortune of crossing theirs in the field before.

LIANE: Undoubtedly, they take her for a fool, nearly retching on their own tongue in the hopes of cradling Liane’s undivided attention in the palm of their hand like a child who wishes to thieve shining stars from the night sky. She has half a mind to disregard the act, to leave well enough alone, but a trail of vines thorn around her blackened heart as she teeters on the brink of hunger, and as luck would have it, Sidonie Dupont appears to be ripe for the taking.

MATTHIEU: Matthieu gnashes his teeth together. He catches his lip in the press: vice-grip, vice-sanction. He thinks about his friends, now notches in the frame of his bed; crosses and circles, sleeping together with the rest of his kills. He thinks about the weight of Leon’s hand. The way it perched on the back of his neck, the tight sound in his throat when he whispered into his skin. Maybe we’ll go somewhere, you and I. What do you say? After this is over.

PATRICE: The adrenaline had kept his mind far from the stinging feeling of the cut across his bicep, but now, the warmth of blood flowing down his skin, a calm river compared to the pounding of his heart, that made it feel as if his veins were roaring rapids in contrast.

REGIS: Long strides take him past rows and rows of soldiers who have made themselves into the shape of ornamental decorations. They do not blink. They do not breathe. They dare not move. An occasion of some kind has called Alain here today, thus his presence, but Régis is here with other intentions.

SAINTE: Sainte knows that to outsiders, her morals may look skewed. How can one take a man’s head off his body, and still feel wrong telling a lie? Perhaps she’s balancing things however she can. Some things, she feels, have been set out before her by Odeline, so very clearly. Other decisions are hers to make alone, and feel, therefore, much more muddy.

SAVATIER: A wild, young world is often violent; but the bloodshed committed in the name of order has always left Savatier with a strange taste. He’d live freely before the displacement, knowing no rulers nor loyalty aside from that to the earth’s phenomena, and Odeline. Odd, to be asked to pledge similar faith in an Empress who has sacrificed nothing besides familial blood.

SIDONIE: If one looked closely enough, they would notice the fire brimming in their gaze— a stilling anger that they attempted to reel in as they watched her, completely unmoving. They loathed the way the nobles looked upon her as if she were their courtly pet. As if she’d been there for to sole purpose of their entertainment, and not a living, breathing human. They would never know her— never learn her in the way she had, but this Violaine did not mind.

VIOLAINE: If only I could spend a lifetime impressing you, they do not say, because admitting such would turn what was previously palpable, present occasionally in her lingering gaze, or even the hesitation of her whispers, into something tactile, permanently cauterized into the webs of their affections. So soon they would not sully their mind with doubt.

YVON: From within her sleeve a stretch of white is drawn, the watery silk reminiscent of the shucking of milky, pale meat from a sea creature’s gold shell. Yvon extends the square in pinched fingers, pearlescent and thin as it hangs in the air between them. Here, a thing from within my husk.

ZHENYA: Such was the nature of the tenuous push and pull by which they were bound; in her furious suspicion and flaring spite, Gisele burned, and with his chilled apathy and callous disregard, Zhenya only ever stoked the flames.

[icypantherwrites]

Just a quick request for some advice, I've noticed you seem to be very good at promoting your works, requesting feedback and actually getting some, and reposting on Tumblr and such. Now admittedly, you are an awesome author and I pretty much love everything you write, but I have to think your promotion abilities are part of what brings you hits, kudos, likes, and feedback. Do you have any advice on the best ways to promote my fanfiction, build a fanbase and short of begging, get more comments?

Self-promotion and marketing definitely are a large part of my fanbase. I’ve seen it go both ways; amazing writers and fics that don’t have much attention and not-so-great ones that have huge followings because of social media presence of the author. So while having quality stories is still a large part of it, so too is marketing.

My background is not actually in marketing but journalism, but I did run a number of social media pages and have always been a very big people-person and engager, which I’ve applied to pretty much all aspects of my life. One of my favorite slogans I’ve learned from retail (and marketing) is you can’t sell what’s not out. i.e., if you don’t present your product you can’t expect to have any customers (or in this case readers).

In my case, I’m a very prolific author, meaning I have a lot of stories under my name and I’ve been fortunate that a couple of those have become bigger name ones in this fandom for extra exposure. The more you have, obviously the more you will “sell” and therefore, generally, the more exposure you’ll get and then comments (comments though are a fickle beast and it really really varies). 

I’m borrowing some of the advice from a previous post (you can always search my blog with “#writing advice” for more things) but these would be a couple of strategies I would recommend you try out :) Not all of them may be applicable to you either, as all authors write at different paces and volumes and have different time constraints, but maybe something in here will help ;) 

1. Have an update schedule! This one is really important. Whether that means you pre-write the entire fic or you buckle down and commit to a regular posting (which is how Color was for me for the first couple months until I pre-wrote enough to kick back and relax a bit xD) be it weekly or bi weekly or every two weeks (the other bi weekly? Such a weird word) you do that.

When you get people on a schedule and they are more likely to come back and comment with something other than the dreaded “update soon!” because they know you are going to update soon and when exactly that is. Give readers something to plan and look forward to, just like a favorite TV show that airs weekly.

2. Respond to comments. Whether you write giant-ass paragraph responses or even a simple “thank you ♥” it goes a long way. I know I always am more inclined to really keep up on a fic where the author has shown to appreciate their readers (although if I read your fic and like it I will comment regardless ♥). I know for me right now I have stopped doing this as it just got... draining for me, to respond in detail and never see those readers again and it felt hurtful to me. But I still make a point to say thank you in the author’s notes and if anyone has a question I do try to answer that too.

3. Read other authors’ works you enjoy but do not self-promote. Please don’t do that. I hate it when I see that and it makes me even less inclined to check out a fic (I’m already very picky with what I read and don’t read much at all). By all means comment on the fic and be like “I headcanon Keith is a good cook too!” because those personal details are lovely and maybe that’ll inspire that other author to click on your profile to see if you’ve got a fic with such a theme to go read.

But otherwise, keep your comments about their fic (or your reaction to it) and show your excitement and passion for that fic. Bookmark too (and Ao3 lets you add comments; you can bet if I see a nice comment on a bookmark tag I’m clicking on that author to see a; what else they’ve bookmarked and b; if they’ve written anything). Well written and passionate comments tell a lot about a person and if they can write a nice review they likely can write a nice fic and could be worth an extra click to see their profile. That is indeed how I’ve found several authors and fics I now read :)

4. Chapter length. This I have noticed over time but shorter chapters (for me around 3k-4k) tend to get more comments than longer ones because people have “more time” upon finishing to leave a comment. It doesn’t always work but it is something I’ve witnessed on more than one occasion. That said, don’t write a chapter of only 1k words and think they’ll pour in because it’s short. Leading on to…

5. Whatever your chapter is, make sure it has content that people will want to respond to. Not every chapter has to have explosions and action and intense heart-to-hearts, but every chapter should have something memorable. Filler chapters are unavoidable, especially in longer fics, but do what you can to make them not quite so “blah” and give them some heart.

6. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, meaning write multiple things (although perhaps not as much as me ^^;). Having a mix of a longer running chapter fic (for those “episodes” back in bullet point one) to keep people coming back and having a few shorter fics (be one-shots, two-shots, or shorter chaptered fics) to draw in new people and help you out when you get stuck on your other fic is invaluable. I definitely expanded my audience and brought in new readers that gave me little boosts of support when I started publishing one-shots semi-regularly. 

7. Don’t be afraid to self-promote on your blog. Reblog your works, pull out snippets to share, reblog those too if you don’t get many notes. I don’t really get how Tumblr’s tag system works, but tag your first few tags with the biggest ones that those browsing might stumble across. Ao3 does let you link to your Tumblr so long as you aren’t advertising commissions or patreon or the like in said blurb so make sure you link to your tumblr too to get cross-traffic.

8. Post sneak content on your blog; previews and snippets. Get people excited about the work before you post it. 

9. I don’t know how reasonable this is for most, but holding little games or contests can really up the engagement. Starting out, doing something like a bingo card prompt event could be one to consider; the “prize” is writing the prompt which gets you both more content, therefore more eyeballs on said content, and hopefully a very grateful fan who will leave you a nice comment and reblog it for their page. 

10. I like ending on this number. Um, oh, okay! This is both great for writing experience, content and engagement! If you see a piece of fanart you like that you feel compelled to write a bit for, do so and reblog it! Anyone who clicks on that art will see your reblog of it and maybe, maybe, the original artist will reblog your selection too! Not just artists either, but there are lots of “prompt” type posts I see that you could do that for as well. 

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