Whenever you look around on the web, you always see advice for slash writers from the writing point of view. How to make it better, more realistic, how to avoid silly mistakes like having a guy put on a condom and then spilling inside his lover, forgetting the condom was there in the first place. Or forgetting to take the shoes off.
I’m not a writer; I don’t write for the fandoms that I read about. But by now, I have found what I like and enjoy seeing in fics, and other things, which would be best if not present. While opinions expressed here are solely mine, and I do not even pretend to claim to know what others want, I hope there are others out there sharing my views… Or maybe I’m just fooling myself just so that I don’t feel so alone in my beliefs. Hahaha So without further ado, here is a little glimpse into
What Readers Want
- A title. A good catchy title. I know song lines, or song names, are very popular, but, as a reader, I can only remember so many ‘Crash And Burns’ out there before I start getting lost.
- A slash warning. I can’t reiterate how important this is. Obviously, from the writer’s point of view, it’s vital to warn all the vanilla readers away and avoid the flames, but from a slash reader’s point of view it’s also essential: I don’t read vanilla stuff; it’s that simple. If a writer doesn’t have a slash warning on a slash story, they are losing their chance to attract another reader. In the same vein, remember that vanilla interactions can cause distress and suffering for a SLASH reader. Be nice. No explicit details of het sex in a slash story. That’s just… eww!
- Death warnings. I know people have become more careful with those, but I can’t deal with death fics, and I know other readers who can’t either. It’s not enough to have the death warning up if someone actively dies in the contents of the story. If someone had died before, and their tombstone is mentioned; or one of the lovers is coming to say good-bye or something – please put a ‘death fic’ warning onto your work. ‘Extreme Angst’ does not describe it enough. Too Much is extreme angst, but it does not deal with death, and it is on-the-way-to-being-happy angst, know what I mean?
- Be realistic. There are some positions even a yoga master can’t get into, and my mind starts hurting just from me trying to envision what that position would look like.
- Not THAT realistic. Don’t squick your readers: they love you. If morning breath doesn’t exist, farts shouldn’t either.
- There are some themes, beyond, shall we say, regular slash stuff, that also needs to be addressed. Obviously, threesomes are warned about, but also any other quirk/weirdness/abuse/etc that might not appeal to general audiences. Give a warning. Some people are very particular and bitchy about what they read. *looks innocent*
- Only you can decide the writing style, and I shouldn’t be saying much about how you should write, but take some time to study the character: with RPS, we can’t possibly know what people are REALLY like, but we all have a general idea that Darren is bouncy, wacky, happy, rather bipolar (LMAO), super-emotional and can be hyper. All that apart from his super-serious moods. And Daniel, on the other hand, is very stable, balanced, quiet, thoughtful, etc. When the protagonists are too OOC, the story becomes unbelievable, unimaginable, and hard to read. So unless they’ve swapped bodies, don’t do it too much, ok?
- Getting nitpicky: I’ve noticed this written a lot in other fandoms - don’t write in summaries, ‘I suck at summaries, just read.’ That’s so not going to attract me to the fic and persuade me to read it! And don’t beg for feedback in a ‘pretty please blahblabla’ way, either. Lau, on ADM, likes the saying, ‘flowers need water and writers need feedback, so please water the writer’ or something like that. I adore that saying. Subtle and tongue-in-cheek. And don’t admit, "I know that was bad/that sucked." If you, as a writer, have no faith in your writing, why should the reader?
From personal experience: if a fic is good, the reader always wants more. You never know when that monster called Writer’s Block is going to strike. Don’t start posting a story until you have written several chapters in advance, and space them out so as to post with a somewhat regular pattern. The readers are atrocious nagging bastards and while their impatience might warm your heart, after a while, you’ll just want to strangle us.
- Plot-wise: don’t be afraid to go where no man has gone before. ^_^ Disco Shop Girl, in her fic, Different Layers of Love, had Daniel and Ben preggers and giving birth. The usual deal is when Darren and Lee have to suffer, and this was an interesting change from the norm. On the other hand, if the idea sounds too weird or implausible to you, it will probably sound just as weird and implausible to the reader. See above: keep it realistic (the whole issue of m-preg notwithstanding!) By the way, has there been a fic written yet about Daniel as a soccer player? *looks innocent*