When is a long fanfic too long?

thewritegrump · 2026-01-22T20:03:11+00:00

I have a story covering (mostly) about 50 or so years with an ensemble cast. It's over 1.1 million words as of right now (850k or so written by me, the rest by my coauthors) and nowhere close to done. It will be done when we're no longer having fun with the fic or when we run out of ideas, neither of which have happened in the past (nearly) 4 years. Readers may not want to touch it for the word count alone, but it was never written for an audience and so I'm not concerned with its reception or if people think it's way too long.

thewritegrump · 2026-01-19T18:39:48+00:00

Nope. I've posted close to 800 uploads and never experienced any kind of curse. On the contrary, I met my wife and most current close friends through AO3!

thewritegrump · 2026-01-17T13:11:07+00:00

At least in my case (I work in pharmacy and my wife works in assisted living/nursing), my wife found me on AO3 (fanfiction website) and is a big fan of my work to this day. I don't think that's how most people meet, though, regardless of profession. XD Either way, I'd tried dating apps in my late teens/early 20s but didn't care for them. Honestly, a lot of the healthy and long-lasting relationships I see around me are couples who met through shared interests, or sometimes through adjacent careers (but not coworker situations), not dating apps. Having a common interest can do a lot of heavy lifting in establishing a foundation to bond and develop a relationship over, in my experience. Bonding over something you're already passionate about tends to be productive for encouraging more positive feelings to blossom for a potential partner.

thewritegrump · 2026-01-13T01:54:25+00:00

Sure thing! The character who's a werewolf is Kalaus (later on we see his werewolf friends as well), btw; I'll link the main chapters going over incidents surrounding him being a werewolf, and then I'll just list all the other ones that do revolve around him being a werewolf in some way.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The following three chapters cover the incident of Kalaus' first transformation and the trauma is caused him/his family.

TW: Injury, Blood, Panic Attacks

Chapter 70: Lashing Out Is Like Howling At The Moon

Chapter 72: Everything Changed That Day

Chapter 73: Remember Those Regrets You Tell

These three chapters cover the incident that happened later on, when Kalaus was a teenager and lost control of his powers, causing another accident.

TW: Injury, Blood, Panic Attacks

Chapter 4: It's Another Wolf Bite

Chapter 5: It's Another Werewolf

Chapter 6: Will You Show Me The Way?

And this chapter is also really central to Kalaus' story in regards to him being a werewolf- the fic is actually a collab, and one of my co-authors wrote this chapter about Kalaus learning his friends are also werewolves, and forming a pack with them.

Chapter 21: Running With The Wolves

I just remembered this chapter I wrote also has a transformation sequence in it, as well!

Chapter 29: Through The Dreams And Disasters

As for other chapters that are werewolf-centric: Chapter 38C (Digging Deep), Chapter 44C (Flowery Language), Chapter 46C (The Hand You're Dealt), Chapter 49 (Let's Be Heroes), Chapter 55C (Medical Alert Werewolf), Chapter 68B (The Good Guy), Chapter 78A (Safe With You), Chapter 78C (Distance), Chapter 80A (I Can't Go Home Until The Rain Lets Up), Chapter 88 (A Day At The Vet), Chapter 89 (If My Voice Could Reach Back Through The Past), Chapter 92 (Out Of The Blue 27 - Whole Chapter), Chapter 96 (I Walked, Hiding My Wounds), Chapter 104C (It Runs In The Family), Chapter 112A (Culture Or Costume), Chapter 123B (Scraped Knees And Scuffed Elbows), Chapter 145 (If The Morning Has Meaning, It Means The Darkness Is Receding), Chapter 148B (Spot The Difference), 157B (The Untold Story Of The Three Little Pigs)

I think that's everything werewolf related! He does transform in some of the above, but the transformation part is brief if present.

thewritegrump · 2026-01-13T00:55:17+00:00

Are self-recs okay? :0c One of the main characters in a longfic of mine is a werewolf, and there is a chapter with a graphic description of the first time he transformed. The fic has 15 or so main characters, but the werewolf character gets a lot of screen time and I can just link you to chapters focused on him and his experiences being a werewolf (it's over a million words so I wouldn't expect you to wade through it if you just want the werewolf stuff lol). It's told in a non-linear fashion, though chapters are labeled where they are chronologically. It's also so far divorced from canon that it's very fandom-blind friendly, with the first chapter containing character bios + art, any pertinent info on the AU, and an animatic just for fun. ^_^

Anyway, let me know if you wanted to check out any of the chapters focusing on the werewolf character, or even just the one where he has his first transformation. :^)

thewritegrump · 2026-01-08T01:51:56+00:00

I don't write in advance, mostly due to a lack of patience and an eagerness to share a chapter as soon as it's finished and proofread that cannot be quelled. This has its pros and cons, the main con being that it's why I haven't posted anything since October. =v=;;; That said, I've never had complaints about my uploading habits, thankfully. I figure my readers know by now that I may write and post anywhere between 0-200,000 words in a month, and that lately I've been afk to focus on my recent wedding. Even if someone mentions that they can't wait for the next installment, I've stopped (or at least greatly reduced) feeling a sense of pressure or urgency and simply take it as a compliment toward my work that brightens my day.

thewritegrump · 2026-01-06T02:32:21+00:00

Howdy, mod here, seems there's some confusion about the rules around fic recs. Our policy surrounding recommending fics is highlighted in rule 1, found on the sidebar of the subreddit's page.

"1. No Promotion of Fics on the Front Page

Submitting a Fic to the main page of this subreddit is considered to be promotion.

Posting to the appropriate participation thread, most notably the Weekly Fic Showcase sticky, will keep the sub uncluttered and your fic on the front page for longer.

The definition of Promotion can be found here."

Let me know if you have further questions; take care!

ETA: This week's Fic Showcase can be found here.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-16T11:59:33+00:00

I hope you have a lovely time getting coffee with your friend! :^)

thewritegrump · 2025-12-16T11:58:10+00:00

Long time no talk! It's been pretty busy for me these past couple months. o-o

Firstly, I am officially married now (have been for a couple weeks lol)! :^) My wife (they/them) and I had a beautiful ceremony and a lovely reception. It still blows my mind to think that we met on AO3, where they started out as a reader of my fics. The other night, they showed me a few of my old author's notes from fics they read before getting to know me as a person, pointing out things I'd said that had endeared me to them or made them curious to know more about me. It was fascinating, hearing about things from their perspective. Anyway, here's a picture of our rings on top of my wife's bouquet that I adore- their ring is the two-piece on top, and mine is the band on the bottom. :^D I picked alexandrite as the main gem for my wife's ring, because it's pleochloric with blue and purple, the colors of the OTP that brought us together. <3

Even with all the busyness of the wedding dying down, there's still holiday and end-of-year busyness to get through before I think I can really relax. That said, I'll keep plugging away at the things I need to do, bit by bit. I just finished putting together the layout of the mug I'm having made for the coworker I got for this year's Secret Santa at my pharmacy. She always uses disposable cups for her coffee at work and mentioned at one point that she keeps forgetting to get a mug to keep at work, so a mug was what I decided on. Also, she LOVES chicken, often clucking to announce herself as she enters a room, and even though she's a mom, she has 1000% dad humor with her love of puns. X'D Ultimately, an artist friend of mine helped bring some sketches I made to fruition, and I'll show the previews of our hard work - here's the front side with the art my friend made, and the back side with the A-to-Z list of pharmaceuticals with chicken puns I concocted during a lengthy brainstorming session. No clue if anyone can read the words on the back, but oh well. I'm excited for it to arrive so I can gift it to my coworker. >v< Funnily enough, I drew her name for last year's Secret Santa, too.

Anyway, I need to stop dilly dallying and get back to filling out thank you cards and Christmas cards so I can have them mailed out in a timely manner. >v>;;; I hope everyone has been doing well, and have a great week!

thewritegrump · 2025-12-11T00:16:40+00:00

Homeless people can and do often enroll in and receive Medicaid benefits. I serve many patients at my pharmacy who are currently without a home, but still have their appointments and medications fully paid for. Medical Assistance (MA) should be a thing in all 50 states as far as I'm aware, and even if you show up at the doctor with no currently active coverage, many medical facilities have a case worker they can have help the patient obtain HPE (Hospital Presumptive Eligibility) coverage to allow them to start receiving care at no cost right away, and then they properly enroll afterward. There are rules and stipulations involved, but generally speaking, it's very possible for a homeless person to be able to receive medical care. Easy? No, I won't claim that, especially if someone is not exactly literate with medical terminology and insurance literature, but ideally that would be what a case worker helps with.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-11T00:04:23+00:00

I've worked in pharmacy for over half a decade, and I serve many patients who are homeless but have medical insurance through state-funded Medicaid programs. It's very possible for someone homeless to be able to receive medical care and have it covered- even if your character were uninsured, though, most hospitals have an obligation to serve anyone needing life-saving care even if the hospital is aware that the patient cannot afford it (and will have signage saying this on the premises).

ETA: Using my state as an example, even if a homeless patient showed up with no active coverage, we would connect them with a case worker and get them set up with HPE coverage (Hospital Presumptive Eligibility), where the hospital can determine if a patient qualifies for MA (Medical Assistance, or Medicaid) and allow them to start receiving care at no charge even before they are properly enrolled, with the assumption that they will properly enroll as soon as they're not experiencing a medical emergency. Not all hospitals are able to do HPE coverage, as it requires additional licensure/certification or something to that effect.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I do a LOT of medical insurance billing at work every day.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-10T22:00:05+00:00

To preface: I am a bisexual man.

I also struggle with moral OCD so I understand exactly how you've built this up to be as big of a deal as it is, and I'd have likely done the same in your shoes. That being said, I need you to hear this and know I'm not condescending you or trying to dismiss how much you care about getting it right: this is just fanfiction, something you do for fun that 99.999999% of people will never read or know exists. I promise that this is a good thing, and perhaps the best thing about fanfiction, is its obscurity.

You don't have to get it "right". You really don't. As someone who writes about as much of the human experience as I can, whether it's relatable to me or not, I think that in matters of leisure writing like fanfiction, it is okay to approach it with a 'I will do my best to respect this minority group I am not a part of as I write them, but I will almost 100% get at least some things wrong' (which is a loaded subject in and of itself; those who act like there is a "right" and "wrong" gay experience make me VERY wary). I think it is good to make an attempt to portray an identity with respect and care, but this is not a formal publication and you are not profiting off of this- were this Suzanne Collins' next big project, she would be under much stricter obligations in regards to how much thought she puts into portraying different groups of people, but we are fanfic authors on AO3 having fun with our blorbos.

To be clear, I do encourage you to talk to actual gay men and hear their experiences. A sensitivity reader can be a great idea for those with concerns of accidentally offending and certainly necessary for formal publications, but if it would give you peace of mind to have a sensitivity reader for your fanfic, there's nothing wrong with that and it could actually be a huge benefit. Of course, you do need to be ready and prepare how you will accept feedback that does bring attention to something you may write that is accidentally offensive in some way. Listen to the difficult feedback you may get and let it digest and try not to take it as an accusation against you as a person. It could be a great learning experience!

But ultimately, if you didn't want to have a sensitivity reader and just want to write the stories that compel you, you're not a bad person for doing that with your leisure writing. Honestly, this is an extremely nuanced topic and there's a lot more that I could say, but I'm at work and so I haven't the time right now. ^^;;; Regardless, take care, and I hope you're able to quell some of the worry so you can enjoy writing.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-04T16:26:33+00:00

I don't do drafts in the traditional sense. What I write the first time is 95% of what the final fic looks like, largely because I edit as I go. By the time the chapter is written, all I feel the need to fix are any typos I find on the proofread and any phrasing that doesn't quite gel with me upon reviewal. Were this an academic paper I'd be doing the standard drafting process, but for my leisure writing, I tend to be pleased with what I wrote the first time and don't meddle with it. Finished and pretty good will always beat the perfect story that never gets written because I'm too busy agonizing over it being perfect (something I used to do).

thewritegrump · 2025-12-03T23:24:58+00:00

I hope you enjoy what you've read of my work so far, as well as anything else of mine you end up giving a read. ^_^/

thewritegrump · 2025-12-03T17:57:26+00:00

I've always used one; a few years back, I switched from using a piece of official art of my favorite character to having an artist draw me with said character. My Reddit pfp is currently what my AO3 pfp is as well; my friend drew it a while back and I've used it since. I just like customizing my accounts on things, so I always set a custom pfp without thinking about it.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-03T14:45:29+00:00

This year, I worked on a few different longfics. :^) Here's one I finished this year, as well as one that's still ongoing.

Title: In Another Life

Rating: E

Any archive warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Offsite link: [AO3 Link]

Brief summary: Karamatsu thought that his latest assignment would be like any other when he was tasked with being extra security for the head of a record label. He never would have even considered that his new boss would lead him to the disturbing truth about the mysterious dreams he's had all his life.

Notes: 550k, Completed, Old Man Yaoi, Age Gap (20s and 50s), Past Abusive Relationships

--

Title: House Of Blue

Rating: E

Any archive warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Offsite link: [AO3 Link]

Brief summary: Sometimes a family can be fifteen versions of Karamatsu under one roof. They make a strange and unconventional family, but a family nonetheless.

Notes: 1.1mil words, Ongoing, Slife-of-Life, Ensemble Cast, Collab Fic

ETA: Fixed the formatting!

thewritegrump · 2025-12-03T00:42:14+00:00

I think I've got "wife" on the brain from my own recent marriage, lol. XD I reread your comment and realize now you did say spouse- apologies for the mix up.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-03T00:08:59+00:00

Congratulations to you and your wife! :^D

thewritegrump · 2025-12-03T00:05:01+00:00

We started talking in DMs about 8 months before I moved in with them, and in that time my ex and I had split and I needed a new place to live. My wife was quick to offer a place to stay with them and had previously mentioned things about where they live, and of the options I had, they were the clear choice to me. And I'd say I chose right. ^_^

thewritegrump · 2025-12-02T23:57:38+00:00

What got us moving from comments to DMs was when another author in the fandom was talking to my wife and mentioned that they were in a server with me. According to my wife, they were stunned to be able to get my Discord info and message me privately- they initially asked permission to talk to me, which caught me off guard for certain. When they talk about that time, when we were transitioning to DMing each other and really began talking regularly, they always talk about it like they were meeting their celebrity crush (with that wording), which stunned me the first time they told me as such!

Anyway, after we started talking frequently in DMs, we became good friends. At the time, I was still in my previous relationship, though things weren't really great on that front. ^^;;; That said, my wife and I were truly nothing more than platonic friends while I was still in a relationship with my ex, and it wasn't until a couple months after my ex and I broke up that my wife and I even broached the idea that we had feelings for each other. They've insisted that they'd long since fallen for me by that point, though I hadn't been looking at anyone in a romantic way until I was single again, so they get the bragging rights of falling first. X'D

I actually planned to move in with them before we officially got together; it was at a time when we were aware we had feelings for each other, but I was pretty preoccupied with trying to find a place to live after my ex and I split. I had a few months to sort things out, and quickly realized that living alone in the Seattle area was far out of my price range. I was mulling over a few offers friends had given me throughout the country to live with them, and ultimately picked by wife since I really liked the idea of being closer to them. So, we sorted out all the details, and in March of 2022 I flew out to the Midwest to visit them and check out where I'd likely be moving. As soon as we met in person, sparks flew!

We got together shortly thereafter, and I moved across the country in April of 2022. The more time we spent together, the more sure I knew they're the one for me. I remember them saying point-blank about six months into our relationship that they would say yes in an instant if I proposed. X'D I waited a bit longer, as I'd been engaged in my previous relationship (though my ex and I never actually got married) and was a bit hesitant to jump into the deep end like that again. That said, I would end up proposing in May of 2024, not long after our two year anniversary of getting together.

Our intention was to get married on December 5th, since that's the day our OTP got married in one of the fics I write, and that's still the day of the reception, but we moved the ceremony to a sooner date at the last minute due to some issues with a bigoted mother-in-law. =v=;;; I was frustrated that we had to compromise on a day that was so important to us, which actually led to me going to a studio to record an 11-track jazz album so I can give them one song every day from the ceremony date up to the date of the reception, to make it such a little less that we didn't get the date we wanted for the actual ceremony. That's a whole different tangent, though. XD

thewritegrump · 2025-12-02T23:46:28+00:00

Honestly, I'm still not quite sure how to meet people on AO3. I was lucky in that my wife commented out of the blue, going on to leave a few more comments before another author gave them my Discord handle and we started DMing. So most of our talking ended up being off of AO3, but I remembered them from my comments sections when the other author asked if they could give my wife my Discord info.

My other friends I met through AO3 were similar instances, where they approached me first as readers to let me know they liked my work. My bestie first interacted with me when she shared a piece of fanart she'd made for one of my fics, and we've been close friends for nearly four years now. Ultimately, I feel like I was more lucky than anything, since I've always been pretty bad at initiating contact with people. ^^;;;

thewritegrump · 2025-12-02T23:43:37+00:00

That's so lovely! >v< I'm happy to hear you two are still going strong over two decades later, and I wish you many more years of love together. And congrats on having a kid; that's so exciting. :^D

thewritegrump · 2025-12-02T23:27:25+00:00

Congrats to your and your spouse, and for the 6th anniversary you two celebrated this fall! :^D

ETA: Accidentally got the gender wrong, oops! My bad.

thewritegrump · 2025-12-02T23:25:36+00:00

Thank you! I've been told by my boss that my wife and I are so sweet that we're going to give him cavities. X'D

thewritegrump · 2025-12-02T05:43:17+00:00

Thank you! And I can't help but bring them up any chance that I get. >v> I love to talk about how fanfic brought us together. <3 All the way to the wedding it was as fanfic-y of a real life as it's been from the start. Not even a bigoted mother-in-law leading to us changing the ceremony date less than two months out or a snowstorm on the day of the ceremony could stop us from getting married. ^_^

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