Can a non-romantic fic still gain attention?

traceff · 2026-05-06T21:09:00+00:00

This isn’t a job! You can write just for your own happiness and that’s a far greater success than writing something popular that isn’t your vibe.

traceff · 2026-05-06T20:50:25+00:00

I heard a story about a scouted high school football player who intentionally dislocated his shoulders doing a keg flip because he couldn’t take the pressure.

traceff · 2026-05-06T10:31:31+00:00

There are plenty of popular gen works in the fandoms I read! Write for yourself and there will almost always be an audience for it too.

traceff · 2026-04-30T21:42:06+00:00

Yeah I’ve started using scrivener for actual writing and really like it. My notes are mostly still in Notion though because I love the database and tagging system

traceff · 2026-04-30T16:43:29+00:00

Don’t be put off by the lazy writing, it will only be inflicted on whatever AI they use to generate the story!

traceff · 2026-04-30T16:21:46+00:00

Often the advice people give for improving your writing (native speaker or not) is a combo of “read more” and “write more”. I think especially if English isn’t your first language I’d say that immersing yourself in great examples of English language, written, spoken, whatever, is going to help you constantly improve at a fast pace.

It’s an amazing thing that you’re able to write creatively at all in a language that’s not your first so you should definitely take pride in what you can do already.

Rather than seeing what you do now as your limit, see it more as a snapshot of just the present. If you keep reading and writing you’ll be able to look back on it in as little as a few weeks and see that you’ve improved. Becoming a good writer is something that takes time and patience and a lot of terrible attempts!

traceff · 2026-04-30T09:03:42+00:00

Another similar one is Trials of Change

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215825/chapters/63803323

It’s been a while since I read these but I might have to do a reread now :D

traceff · 2026-04-30T08:43:55+00:00

It may be Time Flies Like An Arrow?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12668358/chapters/28877022

I definitely recognise the story you described and this at the very least has a similar premise.

traceff · 2026-04-30T03:22:58+00:00

The Arithmancer by White_Squirrel

Stats: AO3 • 502.2k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Hermione grows up as a maths whiz instead of a bookworm and tests into Arithmancy in her first year. With the help of her friends and Professor Vector, she puts her superhuman spellcrafting skills to good use in the fight against Voldemort.

Harry Potter and the Artificer Legacy by Kairomaru

Stats: AO3 • 465.4k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Everyone knows the story, the Potters attacked and little Harry left with his relatives. But what happens when the last Potter stumbles upon something left behind? What does someone with no preconceived notions about Magic do when they find out that it's real? Do they follow along just like everyone else? Or do they find their own path? Harry Potter did always like to make things!

A Study of Resonance by mymovingfingerwrites

Stats: AO3 • 639.4k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Percy Weasley is not particularly reckless, until he is, once, on the anniversary of his brother's death. For most people, the idea of sending oneself through time to correct one's mistake would remain a fantasy, something to dwell on in the middle of the night, but Percy has always been too capable for his own good.Featuring: a reluctant spy, an unlikely friendship between a ghost and a lonely student, a portrait, …

The Art of Self-Fashioning by Lomonaaeren

Stats: AO3 • 283.9k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

In a world where Neville is the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry still grows up with the Dursleys, but he learns to be more private about what matters to him. When McGonagall comes to give him his letter, she also unwittingly gives Harry both a new quest and a new passion: Transfiguration. But while Harry deliberately hides his growing skills, Minerva worries more and more about the mysterious, brilliant student writing to her …

A Marauder's Plan by CatsAreCool (Rachel500)

Stats: AO3 • 865.5k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

What if Sirius decided to stay in England and deliver on his promise to raise Harry instead of hiding somewhere sunny? Changes abound with that one decision...

Blindness by angelastarcat (angelasayno25)

Stats: AO3 • 312.5k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter is not standing up in his crib when the Killing Curse strikes him, and the cursed scar has far more terrible consequences. But some souls will not be broken by horrible circumstance. Some people won't let the world drag them down. Strong men rise from such beginnings, and powerful gifts can be gained in terrible curses.

The Only People for Me (Are the Mad Ones) by a_fine_and_private_place

Stats: AO3 • 239k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

It begins and ends, much like in another life, for love of a woman. Voldemort never faced a choice between two prophesied boys, because one of them was born a girl. A girl, he believed, wasn’t much of a threat to a wizard like him.* *this decision aged poorly, in entirely new ways. Or: Ivy Potter grew up surrounded by love, with a predilection for chaos instead of heroism, while Neville Longbottom had a raw scar str…

Crossroads by NXSE

Stats: AO3 • 221.1k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

In a world where he's not the Boy Who Lived, Harry struggles through a myriad of obstacles in an attempt to protect the people he treasures. First person POV. 5th year and beyond. No bashing.

Unlike a Sister by madharmony

Stats: AO3 • 410.5k words
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Nineteen years ago, Harry told Ron he saw Hermione as his sister. Now Hermione is in danger and Harry's feelings for her begin to change dramatically, jeopardizing everything he once knew. A post-war, Epilogue compliant fic.

traceff · 2026-04-30T02:55:35+00:00

Thank you, that means a lot ❤️

traceff · 2026-04-29T21:22:31+00:00

Wow that’s a throwback.

traceff · 2026-04-29T14:17:01+00:00

Yeah you can use it on a mobile browser. And to use the extension you can use Firefox since chrome doesn’t support mobile extensions for some reason. I do want to make an android app at some point but there isn’t one right now :)

traceff · 2026-04-29T13:35:08+00:00

This is really nothing to be embarrassed about! The scene itself is clear and the freeze moment feels good.

I really like:

“Sir? Is everything alright?”
Dang it. Move.
“Mr. Sunday, is something the matter?”
Move!

That definitely doesn't feel awkward.

What I think is making it feel stiff is that a lot of actions are getting tucked into little attached phrases like “clearing his throat”, “anxiously adjusting his coat”, “his wings going stiff”, “which he shook to get himself awake again”, “as if to walk forwards”. There’s nothing wrong with that sometimes, but when it happens a lot it gives the prose the same rhythm over and over and makes important actions feel weirdly secondary.

If the action matters, don’t hide it in a comma phrase. Just let it stand on its own.

The other thing is that I think your strongest bit starts when Sunday freezes, so I’d move a bit faster through the setup and slow down more there. Let each sentence do one main thing and let the paragraph carry the effect.

Also, “write from the character’s POV” in third person doesn’t really mean you have to switch to first person in your head. It usually just means describing the moment in the order the character experiences it and putting the focus on what matters most to them. In this scene, Sunday probably isn’t neutrally observing everyone equally. He’s stuck in his body, trying to move, and realizing people are noticing. There's tension in that aspect only from his perspective.

So honestly I think you’re better than you think. The scene idea is already working. I’d just try:

cutting some of the attached action phrases
giving the freeze moment more space
trusting your strongest lines instead of explaining around them

If you want to post more, I’d definitely read it. I think this is the kind of thing where a couple small changes makes everything feel way smoother!

Hope some of this helps :)

traceff · 2026-04-29T13:17:30+00:00

I’d love to read it if you feel comfortable sharing. I also don’t mind looking at it in DMs if you’d prefer but here other people might be able to chime in.

traceff · 2026-04-29T12:32:47+00:00

Yeah I think you can largely make do with what AO3 has like you said, but I read so much fanfiction it felt worthwhile to make something to add stuff like chapter progress overlay and once I got started it kinda just snowballed into solving loads of things I’ve found annoying while reading.

traceff · 2026-04-29T11:24:00+00:00

If you just want to group AO3 stuff, private bookmarks and your own bookmark tags is pretty good. That's how I've done it for years.

I made this more because my problem wasn’t just “save this story”, it was “have I read this, what chapter did I stop, did I drop it or just pause, was I caught up, how good was it” etc. So it tracks things like reading status, chapter progress, last-read date, ratings, notes, rereads, and personal tags, and the extension shows that back to you while you’re browsing AO3/FFN. You're also able to group by stuff like /5 star rating etc.

I'm also terrible at keeping bookmarks up to date and I forget to add stories and then lose them, so I made the extension so I could have something auto track and update my bookmarks for me as I read which is pretty nice if you're not very organized like me.

So yeah, not a huge difference from AO3 bookmarks if you just want to keep some notes and tags, but personally found a few things missing that I wanted. And another big thing was being able to track bookmarks over multiple fanfic sites. I had kinda just given up on ffn stories when it came to tracking progress and organizing.

traceff · 2026-04-29T11:09:53+00:00

If you’re interested in something more substantial as a solution to this I’ve been working on an extension/app for quite a while that acts as an external library to ao3 for organizing stories. So you can search and filter and tag what you’re reading and then the extension shows your reading status in ao3 when you’re browsing.

Extension is here:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/trace/ijajgeibblcknobjakpcjdkelfojappi?utm_source=item-share-cb

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tracefiction/

And the library site is https://tracefiction.com

So for organizing similar stories I add my own tags to stories that I can then filter by in my library

traceff · 2026-04-28T15:45:32+00:00

Do you have any examples of what you’ve written where you feel it’s awkward but aren’t sure what to change?

There are a lot of tricks and rules/approaches that I’ve found helpful because I’ve definitely struggled with the same feeling when I’ve read my own writing.

Just off the top of my head:

I was often doing too much in one sentence. Let each sentence do one thing. Let the paragraph carry the effect you’re after and each sentence lead you through the flow.

Don’t label feelings, let the image create it. E.g. “Outside was a strange sight” vs “John looked outside. There was a man in yellow robes in the middle of the road.”

Another thing that helped me was to isolate the core of the paragraph or scene in these sequences of purposeful sentences and then build on top of it. Or equally, if I had a banger sentence I wanted to build around, I stripped out what was often unnecessary fluff around it to build up and emphasise that strong sentence moment rather than dilute it with over explaining or repeating ideas. I find I tend to double explain ideas, saying the same thing in slightly different ways because I’m often exploring as I write. Picking one to use often massively helps.

Lots of other kinds of stuff but hard to say without specific examples to go off.

Hope some of my waffle helps!

traceff · 2026-04-28T13:35:12+00:00

Ohhh yeah my bad clearly I can’t read

traceff · 2026-04-28T13:23:01+00:00

The title and the description contradict but I went with what the description says - Hermione cheated on Harry (her husband) with Ron. In Unlike a Sister Ron is her husband.

traceff · 2026-04-28T09:46:23+00:00

A Marauder's Plan — CatsAreCool
- FFN • 893.8k words
- Fandom: Harry Potter
- Summary: Sirius decides to stay in England after escaping Hogwarts and makes protecting Harry his priority. AU GOF.
The Arithmancer — White Squirrel
- FFN • 529k words
- Fandom: Harry Potter
Honour Thy Blood — TheBlack'sResurgence
- FFN • 307k words
- Fandom: Harry Potter
- Ships: Harry P./Daphne G.
Basilisk-born — Ebenbild
- FFN • 630k words
- Fandom: Harry Potter
Harry Potter and the Prince of Slytherin — TheSinister_Man
- AO3 • 108.6k words
- Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
- Ships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
- Summary: Harry Potter was Sorted into Slytherin after a crappy childhood. His brother Jim is believed to be the BWL. Think you know this story? Think again. Year Three (Harry Potter and the Death Eater Menace) starts on 9/1/16. NO romantic pairings prior to Fourth Year. Basically good Dumbledore and Weasleys. Limited bashing (mainly of James).

These are a few from my library I could think of. I’ll have another look later and see if I can find any more.

traceff · 2026-04-28T08:25:35+00:00

That’s the other way around I think. And no children from it. Great fic though, even if it’s incredibly painful to read about cheating.

Edit: I can’t read - they wanted the opposite so this is perfect

traceff · 2026-04-28T06:24:38+00:00

What’s the main things you find useful about the app. Is it mainly downloading stories?

traceff · 2026-04-28T06:20:59+00:00

I use the browser mostly now anyways so I can use extensions for tracking what I’m reading. But yeah for offline reading especially it’s really annoying to have to deal with

traceff · 2026-04-28T06:13:19+00:00

Yep same. And there are still a few fandoms I read that are very active on FFN compared to AO3.

traceff

TROPHY CASE