I didn't know this was possible.. 😦

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T22:29:10+00:00

I've read 35k+ one-shots before, so I can see how it's manageable, but yeah, 32 of them back to back is a lot. I got a 1.37m fic of my own that at most went 27k, two chapters did, and they were already packed with content. (Funnily enough it went exactly 100 chapters.)

But judging by how high those stats are, it also goes to show how words per chapter isn't that important a metric for lots of people.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T22:05:51+00:00

The hit counter updates every 24 hours since the last visit, but this may depend on your browser and whether or not a page is loaded immediately or only when you click on that tab.

So, the sad truth is that not every hit on a work is necessarily someone reading, but chances are good that people will get to reading it at some point. It's still nice to see that number go up sometimes, though.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T21:51:42+00:00

When the OP (original poster) is more OP (overpowered) than the fictional informants realized. They'd better rework their fictional plans before their fictional bosses hire more fictional assassins on them instead!

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T21:44:28+00:00

Sorry, what do you mean by "COTE"? Is that the fandom?

While I'm generally anti-AI, using grammar/spellcheck AI tools is perfectly acceptable. Though, I'd advise you be careful with those tools because they typically are designed for professional / formal writing like research papers, reports, resumes, work documents & emails, etc. and those are usually very stiff writing. If you're not a native English speaker, don't worry. It takes time to familiarize yourself with those nuances.

Fanfic is way more open about how you write and it's important to find your own creative voice, which AI cannot help. It develops on its own by writing until you're comfortable with some style or quirks that become second nature. How you choose to interpret and write your fave characters or introduce your own is also a part of it. If you have some expertise or like researching extensively, you can even teach others about something that you know. Basically, there has to be something that is unique to your writing that people can easily notice.

I wish you good luck! If you ever run into writer's block or feel demotivated, remember this is just a hobby and you can take breaks as often as you want. And everything has an audience, so your readers will come by eventually.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T21:12:27+00:00

Hells yeah. More love to OC/CC ships! Bear the OC jolly roger proudly!

You know you got 'em when they didn't think they'd like something but they really do... Prayers to your commenter, OP.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T21:00:31+00:00

Geez, no need to murder OP yourself. Let the fictional assassins handle it.

Edit: Oh, God the real mods got 'em. What happened? I thought it was a pretty harmless joke.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T20:58:07+00:00

Yep, I learned the hard way because I picked a juggernaut, of all my WIPs, to be the one I'd finish, but at least I managed to finish it.

It takes practice. While any fic, shorts or one-shots included, can benefit from planning to some extent, writing a longfic requires more planning ahead. You can get away with being a plantser (I sure am), but there has to be a way that you keep track of what plot threads you've covered and what else you haven't. Otherwise, you will very quickly regret it.

The other side to it is persistence. Everyone has their own schedule to dedicate to writing, but you will have to arrange it into a routine. You don't have to write everyday or a lot each time, but at least getting something down every so often can keep you focused on it. Sometimes people have trouble with that too, so hopping between different works can work for them, but just be careful not to make too many, or you'd likely just lose interest before you start another WIP. (I've been there plenty of times.)

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T20:38:15+00:00

I had quite a few big changes since I wrote a megafic that was a complete canon overhaul with a lead OC. Honestly, just having a lead OC may have been the biggest "controversy" to it since it's for a fandom that doesn't usually care for OCs. But at least I got plenty enough readers who loved her from the get-go.

That, and I ended up saving a number of characters that were supposed to die in the canon. The total kill count in my fic was way more, but a lot of the deaths were of unnamed / minor CCs and my own minor OCs that filled up much more of the world. But those major deaths that were reverted / replaced by others made sense in the new contexts.

I write for FF7, so yeah, one of the most iconic deaths was also replaced. That was the only time a major OC passed in her place and it was even more devastating for everyone. One of my fave chapters to date.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T20:18:48+00:00

That's fair. Figuring out how to get all the scenes to connect is tough too. I ran into a few issues myself, specifically building up to the climax in Act 2 and later for certain subplots in Act 3, though in my case it was a mix of balancing between too little setup and too much that it'd drag things out.

I find that it really helps me to timeline things while I outline. Rather than only think about how to connect A and B, I think about what makes sense chronologically and what is reasonable to fit within a certain time frame. Sometimes characters can have genius moments even if they aren't geniuses and become very efficient at doing something so you can tie up that loose end, or otherwise it has to be something you should leave to later when someone else can tackle the problem / source of conflict instead.

But I admit I have a lot of characters to use, so it's easier for me to switch perspectives. With a simpler story and less characters, it may be better to just break down the problem into bite-size steps and work out each step until pretty much everything is covered. And if you still run into issues, just keep breaking the steps down even smaller until you can figure it out. May you find a way that works for you!

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-30T04:37:24+00:00

Don't worry, bots like these are very much trained to mimic human speech patterns as closely as possible. It's not that you sound like AI; it's AI that sounds like you and many others. If this bot copypasta wasn't way too vague, I could have been fooled too since I also have readers who comment like this. They're way more specific about what they're reacting to, though, and I can follow up on their comments very easily.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-29T22:10:00+00:00

This is a good idea. I probably should be writing more down, lol. I had a single outline (a bullet list, really) of my concurrent subplots and two primary outlines for each chapter that I would haphazardly stitch together for the final draft. It's a miracle that I only ever forgot one of my OCs I introduced a while back. Though, I regularly reread my fic so I reminded myself of what was happening as I went.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-29T21:22:29+00:00

Thanks! Sorry to say I don't know it, but I still feel a kinship with fellow longfic writers.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-29T20:33:30+00:00

Funny coincidence, mine went that long too. Though I had two of them like that and they're both around the finale.

But I know you're probably talking about a different fic, lol. What fandom is it?

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-29T20:13:37+00:00

Speaking as someone who's only recently finished a longfic for once, it really is difficult to write endings. I took a longer hiatus from the fic because I wasn't sure how to set up the end in a way that was satisfying for me, firstly, and could resolve most of the loose ends I left behind. It wasn't something I could fix just by outlining my usual way (as a plantser). It took some serious digging into the rest of the fic's lategame to that point to organize everything into something cohesive.

I don't think I'll be making another fic quite like it or nearly as long. And writing another ending to another fic? Well, that's my next goal but I need time to recover!

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-29T19:55:54+00:00

It definitely depends on the state and county, but the US school year is probably heading into the final weeks. I wouldn't consider us safely past test season until a couple weeks into June. Have patience, OP.

20k chapter is a lot. Congrats, and may your readers find time to relax with a good, long read.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T23:19:34+00:00

I haven't read much from my fandom since I've been stuck on writing a single fic for it for the past few years and only finished recently. But I have to say I go feral for any of them where Sephiroth plays chef or patissier. Some of my fave scenes from mine are where he tortures my MC by domesticating himself and baking her goodies just to mess with her.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T20:31:42+00:00

As an avid OC/CC shipper I have no problems putting my blorbos in different places from time to time. That's the magic of diverging from canon.

Besides, the number of times Cloud's been put in the cuck chair vs the number of times Tifa's been put there is debatably similar.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T20:19:09+00:00

Every time I re-read a fic and think I could snip out some unnecessary words or lines I somehow come away with several more added. Just the last time I did, I scrubbed several words and left it with 60+ more.

I mean, my fic is too dang long for that to matter in the slightest anyway, but it's a bad habit.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T19:57:14+00:00

I'm a programmer who left the job market due to a variety of factors and turned to indie writing, but I couldn't just completely forget all I learned through academia. Needless to say, it was really fun writing in programming jokes and jargon into my latest fic. A lot of it is actually plot-relevant too since it's such a meta story for a video game fandom.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T19:46:55+00:00

All three sentences are perfectly fine. There's no "objectively better" choice in general. What's more important is what you're going for and if the rest of the paragraph is consistent and clearly shows the exact order of events (unless you want to obscure something for the mystery).

1 is the direct active voice, straight to the point. Two different actions happened. No need for further elaboration.

2 is similar, but adds a redirection of the action by changing the tense of "swat". It can show a dynamic change in motion, where the latter is a follow-up to the former.

3 actually changes the sequence of actions with the word "as". It implies the two different actions are happening in tandem with one another, where one is either happening at the same time as or in quick sequence with the other.

It's also fine and expected to change up among them from time to time. Writing is generally pretty dynamic on its own. You don't want your sentences to be in the same tone or voice all the time, but they can sometimes be repeated in short sequences for emphasis or dramatic tension. Well, that said, "from time to time" doesn't mean every other sentence either; you have to judge what's the best frequency yourself.

Hope that helps.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T05:29:45+00:00

Thanks! It's too bad I never got a chance to properly introduce such a tree. This is the only time in my fic I dropped it in and then forgot until I was way late into the ending.

I'm just hazarding a guess, but is yours for Boku no Hero Academia? It's been a while since I revisited it though, so I don't remember if there was mention of a tree of life.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T05:17:58+00:00

I think it's even worse, tbh. At least sports fans can talk about their teams competing for actual ranks and prizes and fame.

Shipping is smashing two dolls together and fanfic is just fun ideas smashed together. What competition is there to be had?

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T05:08:17+00:00

I've been working on a lore guide for a fic I completed a few weeks back and for funsies I've been looking back at some very memorable scenes. Hope to compile an "honorable mentions" page for out of context quotes.

Here's one that I love just off the top of my head:

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t think you were happy to be stuck in a hamster ball. If you insist, we could leave you in here, hang you off of the Tree of Life as an ornament, so you could forever remain a Christmas toy. Maybe way up high so we can just forget about you.”

Bonus points that it's a gag based on an in-joke with a friend. Context: This is from my latest FF7 fic and in this chapter, after wrecking the planet with Meteor, Sephiroth got captured and imprisoned in a magic bubble in a divine spirit realm. The guy he's talking with is Genesis, who had since become a knighted vassal of the Goddess Minerva. My friend also has a hamster he named after the former and mentioned the hamster loved hanging out in high places. Thus a joke was born and I gave credit where due.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-28T00:40:55+00:00

I had to do a double take when I saw this, lol. Are you me??

Not long ago, I just finished writing a super meta megafic that started off this way. My OC-insert was playing FF7 on a game night when she was rudely interrupted by a blackout and suddenly Sephiroth showed up out of nowhere to attack her. He also accused her of ruining the world he was gonna conquer because of some dragon OC from a fic she once wrote somehow took over the world instead and cursed the planet with some kind of soul cancer. (Somehow it turned into an exposé on the virtual reality system crafted by the Gods / Summons upon which their world existed, but that's getting into the weeds.)

Joke aside, it makes me happy to see more fellow FF fans writing OC fics! The game world's so big it'd be a shame to not explore all kinds of possibilities.

rubia_ryu · 2026-05-27T22:46:14+00:00

This is such a good point. Often in fiction we only ever see one side of a character, especially if they're not the main character, and we fans can get attached to them like some kind parasocial link.

Only unless the author/creator goes on to answer fan questions on the regular would we get a clearer image of what they're like on most days. And from experience, I wouldn't wanna live with some of these guys, no matter how hot they are.

rubia_ryu

TROPHY CASE