#write for yourself

[the-millennium-curse]

Hey so can we like clear some time in our schedules for us to all get together and collectively remember that "write for yourself" was never supposed to mean what anyone on this site takes it to mean? Yeah the actual advice there is that you shouldn't compromise your own art and ideas for the sake of pleasing an audience, real or theoretical. IDK how so many people took it to mean "it's wrong to want people to engage with your art."

Like yeah lemme post this to archiveofourown.org so I can (checks notes) think about it alone more

[alectohowl]

I've caught you staring, You've caught me too, We say that we are nothing, when people ask if it's true, I don't like asking questions, and neither do you, so we look for answers, in the midsummer night blue.

[ffcrazy15]

"Just Write For Yourself"

I think the thing that gets to me the most about the whole "just write for yourself!" response to writers complaining the lack of engagement in fanfic, is that it makes me realize that there's a fundamental misunderstanding between writers and readers of how much work writing fic is.

Like, there are 2-3 scenes in any given oneshot or chapter that I want to write. I usually write those first. They'll take me a couple of, very enjoyable, hours at most.

And then I have to go back and write the whole rest of the fic. Which is work. And it's usually not immediately enjoyable.

For example, one of my best fics on AO3 is a Star Trek fanfic called Rascal'ed. This was one of the fics that was easiest for me to write, one of the ones that just possesses you until it's done. It took me less than five days to create.

And I still had to go back in and fill in blank spots and cut bad prose and revise the dialogue.

If you want to see what a difficult fic to write looks like, like my fic Leap of Faith, here's what I do for my stories that I actually plan out:

And that's just the planning. I still have to write the damn thing. And there are things in the above layout—which is just for Chapter 1, mind—that got changed between this and the final published version of the chapter. You can see that the title of the story itself was changed at some point.

So when people say, "write for yourself, not for engagement!" What I personally hear is: "I as a reader do not understand how much work writers put into getting a story into a publishable form, and I also do not realize how easy it would be for them to write the couple of scenes they enjoyed writing and then to let it sit forever in their drafts."

(Of these eight fics—averaging more than 20 pages each—only two of them ever made it to AO3. The rest remain unfinished and unpublished.)

And for the record: I, personally, have wonderful readers. Kind, attentive readers who leave me comments engaging with the work. And it's because of them that I continue to publish stories! Like, I don't want to sound like sour grapes here, because I know that I get way more comments than many great writers out there.

But I've seen, across the board, writers trying to express that they are just not getting the engagement that they desire and expect for the work they put in, and people responding with "you shouldn't expect engagement; just write for yourself."

And the thing is, I know they're not trying to be rude. I know that! Of course they don't know how hard we work, who would have ever told them? We can't blame them for not knowing what they've never been told. Which is why I just felt the need to get out here and say:

Writing fics takes a lot of work. A lot of work. Hours upon hours of unpaid labor. Any fic that you see on AO3 or Fanfiction.net or Wattpad, is not something someone wrote solely for themselves. They could have just daydreamed about it, or written a couple of scenes and then left it unfinished. But they chose to put in the hard work it took to finish it. Because they wanted other people to read and engage with it.

Please engage with it.

Because if all fic writers ever hear is "you should just write for yourself"—we might start believing it.

[galaxyedging]

I love Avengers tower fics. I'm really tempted to treat myself to writing a Thunderbolts fic.

[physalian]

Writers, as 2024 closes out, remember:

Maybe you didn't publish this year, you didn't meet your wordcount goal, you didn't participate in any writing challenges…

But did you have fun?

It's okay if you only wrote for one person this year, and it's okay if that person is yourself.

[zemkzone]

I just found your Sparks in the Ice verse and I just wanted to say thank you for reminding me just how much I love Leonard Snart and ColdFlash.

Wow, I'm mega late on answering my asks but—OMG, you are so welcome! It makes me happy to know you're enjoying the 'verse... and that you rekindled your love for our fave thief and his silly-smart speedster. ❤️🩵❤️🩵

I still have quite a lot planned for them, so hang on tight!

[hockeyspiral23]

Like … fuck. I have gotten three comments so far that have made me cry (IN A GOOD WAY). Two have been on The Backup Plan and two have come from @canadian-confusion. Like fuck. 😭🥰🥹❤️

Also, it got me thinking … mostly about TBP love. Listen, I’m proud of that 15k behemoth. But I think what I’m mostly proud of is how I can tell my writing has grown since I first picked it back up in May.

I used to write. All the time. Short stories. Longer stories. Song parodies. Poems. It started dying off in college, and then died off completely after.

(I should give the caveat of fiction writing, as I did work as a hockey writer for several years.)

Poetry and a bit of microfiction were the only things I kept up sporadically through the years.

Then the Empyrean hit, and the fanfic, and my brain finally started to whisper at me, after being dormant for so many frustrating years. And I chose to do it pen and paper, to prevent me from getting stuck obsessively editing the same thousand or so words before ever moving on.

I can tell the growth of my writing even over the course of viayn - I hope that people can tell too, over the 6-8 weeks I spent writing it. It’s definitely evident in TBP, which went from random idea to published story within two weeks. I’m not entirely pen and paper anymore because the notes app has served the same function (and I can read it a fuck of a lot better than my scribbles …), but I’m proud of myself.

And anyone who writes should be proud of themselves, too. Write for you. Write the story you want told. Understand your barriers and write in a way that will get around them.

[raleighrador]

Rereading my own fic like “damn this author is COOKING”

[khepiari]

When I have to reread through my fic to write the next chapter. Who told me to do so much bread crumbing?

Who?

This is what happens when you follow the golden rule of: write for yourself first.

My mind is a crow; it loves collecting shiny things in fics for no reasons.

[queenmabcreates]

Happy Halloween 💀🎃👻

This is a perfect example of writing for yourself!

I almost gave up halfway through writing this one, but I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because I don’t like to start something and not finish it, but also I really like the story. I also decided it would be the last 90s movie AU I would attempt …. But here I am currently working on another one. 🙃

[alectohowl]

I can't paint you, I'm terrified that it'll, never be as perfect as you, Don't you remember, All those little moments, that felt like we broke, the limits of friendship, we suck at words, we spoke with our eyes, could we be more? I don't want to know, but for now I'll just , live in our limbo

[walkawaytall]

So, I have never interpreted “write for yourself” to mean “write with the assumption that you are the only one who will ever read this” because that is bonkers. Like, sure, there are things I’ve written that no one else will ever read, but I write because I have things to say and stories to tell and pictures in my head that I want on a page and because I enjoy the challenge and the process and I want the product of that to be enjoyed and understood by others because art is meant to be experienced.

I write for myself in the sense that I truly believe that the stories I want to tell have value and that the right people will recognize that value. If someone reading them wishes that I’d gone in a different direction with a plot point or written a character differently or used a different tense or style, that’s fine, but that may not be in line with the way I want to tell a story, so I don’t change my plan based on the desires of others. That’s how I write for myself.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t write with the intent to have my stories read, and it’s really strange that I keep seeing that piece of advice interpreted that way.

[takikojou]

Shall I pick up writing fan fiction again?

I do have a few ideas left and my old fics still get kudos now and then.

But I never pop up on any rec list so I wonder if I'm any good. But there are stories in my bookmarks that are amazing and never appear on any rec list either, so I'm ... Don't know.

Maybe I should just create a list with my bookmarked stuff.

[cafe-melanion]

Occasionally I will feel slammed with insecurity over my own imagination. My stories aren't creative enough, my characters aren't interesting enough, they don't attract enough attention--even their designs just aren't "pretty" enough. It feels like I failed at make-believe.

And then I realize it's a symptom of social media.

Before I spent so much time in fandom spaces my characters delighted me--and you know what? They still do! So what if my Azem isn't the prettiest? So what if she has kids with HythHades (who are two more OCs I've made and absolutely adore)? So what if my WoL is in love with someone else even though she feels inexplicably drawn to Emet-Selch and yet doesn't end up with him? So what if I've decided that that reunion is for their next lives? So what if I made a character for an AU I love so much I am retconning him into everything else?

I'm not saying they're perfect or that my writing is (Zodiark knows that isn't true). What I am saying is that I love the stories of my XIV OCs (and how they've inspired a font of creativity I thought long-vanished) and I will happily share them with anyone who cares to listen. And if no one does? Then I will keep telling myself these stories, simply because they make me smile.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

Never ask others for advice on if your writing style is "okay." To demonstrate how fickle it is, I asked a community of people once if titles can be too long and everyone said yes. Fic titles can be too long and it turns them off a fic if it is. That titles should be shorter and not so wordy.

Then I posed the same question to the same community today and got the same people responding. No, titles can't be too long. It depends, but most the time no, titles can't be too long. Lots of titles are long and it works.

The point is you will never appease everyone. Hell, a lot of times, you won't even be able to appease the same person twice.

You know who you can appease every time, though? You. You know what you want to do with the fic that time around. Don't worry about what others will like, you can't count on others to enjoy the fic. Go based on what you like.

Make the title wordy or make it one word. Make the story "cringy" and self-indulgent. If you make it the way you like it, you can always be sure at least one person will enjoy it.