#epic length fic > 100k

[wangxianficrecs]

💙 Caught in 4k by KizuKatana

🔒💙 Caught in 4k

by KizuKatana (@kizukatana)

E, Series, WIP, 184k, Wangxian

Summary: A night-hunt goes wrong, and Wei Wuxian is scapegoated for the death of the Jiang Sect Leader and the destroyed core of the Jiang Sect Heir. As punishment, his core is taken and given to Jiang Cheng, and he is stripped of his cultivation credentials and expelled from the sect. What everyone forgot was that Wei Wuxian was wearing the standard issue body camera that each cultivator wore on training missions and high-risk night-hunts. Struggling to make ends meet, Wei Wuxian finds his way to Caiyi Town with the doctor who performed the surgery, a partial core still secretly in place. His application to work at Cloud Recesses is summarily rejected by the hard-edged Second Jade of Lan after an unfortunate initial encounter. But things change when someone hacks into the Jiang systems and releases the footage of what happened. Kay's comments: The series is still a WIP, but the main story is complete! I am so weak for Kizu's modern AUs with cultivation, they are great. Especially the world building and how the cultivation society might function in a modern AU shines in this story. Definitely not a story for fans of the Jiang family, but a story for everyone who wants to see some retribution for the things Wei Wuxian went through. Here, Jiang Fengmian dies during a night-hunt accident where Jiang Cheng's golden core gets destroyed and Madam Yu makes Wei Wuxian give his golden core to him, unfortunately for her, his body-cam is still filming everything. Wei Wuxian finds himself taken in by Wen Qing and her family and we get the sweetest found family and Dadxian vibes here and then meets Lan Wangji as well, who's highly judgemental at first but soon finds himself drawn to Wei Wuxian as well. This story really got it all, the drama, the horny, the softness, the restitution & humor. Excerpt: Still Wei Wuxian forced himself to at least try one last time. “You could also interview me. Have me talk to your best talisman experts,” Wei Wuxian said, forcing himself to keep the desperation out of his voice. “Interviews are scheduled based on receipt of proper credentials and references.” “I don’t have any, at least not right now. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be a great teacher.” “No references, no interview.” “Come on. Look, ask me anything about talismans. You’re an experienced cultivator, right? So you must know enough to at least interview me to see if I know what I’m talking about.” “Simply ‘knowing about something’ is not sufficient. Our lecturers are renown cultivators, and masters in their fields. No references, no interview.” Wei Wuxian felt frustration well up in him, especially at the reminder that Lan Wangji didn’t see him as a cultivator. No one would, in his current condition. Why would they? He didn’t have a functional core, which was the main scale against which all cultivation efforts were measured. He thought he had done a good job of not getting his hopes up about the teaching position, but the suffocating feeling constricting his chest was calling him out for being a liar. He should have known better. Why did he never learn? Some people had luck on their said, but Wei Wuxian had never been one of them. “Right. Of course. Because it would be impossible for someone who wasn’t born to the fucking clan nobility to ever actually be good at something, and the cost of taking the mastery test makes sure that other people can’t do it!” Lan Wangji’s lips parted slightly, like he might say something, but his expression was as opaque and emotionless as before. Wei Wuxian didn’t need to sit around and listen to him defend the clan system. “Good to know that the Lan are just the same as all the other sects,” Wei Wuxian continued, his lips twisting into a sarcastic smile. “Thanks for making that clear.”

pov alternating, modern setting, modern with magic, yu ziyuan being an asshole, dysfunctional jiang family, jiang family bashing, canon divergence, golden core reveal, burial mounds ensemble as family, golden core transfer, golden core transfer fix-it, top lan wangji/bottom wei wuxian, dual cultivation, strangers to lovers, misunderstandings, meet ugly, families of choice, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#April 2024 #Wangxian Fic Rec #The Untamed #Wangxian #MDZS #Kay's Rec #Kay's Favorite #epic length fic > 100k #KizuKatana #Caught in 4k #Series #WIP #Work in Progress #pov alternating #modern setting #modern with magic #yu ziyuan being an asshole #dysfunctional jiang family #jiang family bashing #canon divergence #golden core reveal #burial mounds ensemble as family #golden core transfer #golden core transfer fix-it #top lan wangji/bottom wei wuxian #dual cultivation #strangers to lovers #misunderstandings #meet ugly #families of choice

[vivi-scera]

just read eternity enshrined. damn :'/

#very pleasantly surprised was not expecting it to be so. emotional #made me realize how much i miss reading novel-length fic in one sitting #and the research??? felt like it was written by the mutuals loved the footnotes #a sukufushina is allowed to laugh but a gofushina can only chuckle. or whatever gio said about the lack of gofushi 100k+ epics #i mean i would do it but i would rather kill myself i can barely pull out 10k. 9k more to go everyone btw #but i see the sukufushi hype now i think i wanna read eviebabie moonlight on the river it seems to have a como se dice uh chrollo/pika vibe #but do i have the patience to read 400k words now. doubtful #well i've read longer on that stupid site #there's something so similar between the chrollo/pika and sukufushi dynamics i can't articulate or discuss properly #because the venn-diagram of enlightened shippers consists of like only me in the middle afaik #like they are the tame versions of each other idk #which makes sense since hxh basically inspired modern day shonen & jjk is a critique of what shonen's become. like a mid critique tho #a fusion of hiso/gon and chrollo/pika maybe

[ao3commentoftheday]

Quick question about the last post: Is there like a specific amount of words for fics to be considered a long fic? Like how drabbles have 100 words, or is it just like ... a longer fic? If that makes sense

There's no specific definition for longfic that I'm aware of. My own personal approximate guide is:

shortfic = under 10K words. This includes things like drabbles and ficlets.

mediumfic or midfic = 10K-50K

longfic = 50K to 100K

epicfic = 100K+

I drew my own definitions from the publishing world where shortfic is like a short story, midfic would be a novella, longfic would be a novel, and epicfic would be... well, an epic.

A lot of people use the term longfic to indicate both long and epic length stories. It's rare that I hear the terms mediumfic or midfic at all, and it's usually a kind of tongue-in-cheek tone when I do. All of these definitions will vary from person to person and really drabble is the only one I hear consistent arguments about.

Feel free to share your own thoughts on longfic (and other types of fic) lengths in the notes!

#asks and answers

[olderthannetfic]

Ok, so what does "oneshot" mean? Because I tend to think of a oneshot as a an entirely self contained short story, but I've also seen people who use the word for a short fic that was written in one go, and I've seen still more who define it by length alone. I've also seen it used to mean any fic that doesn't have chapter divisions, which would include 100k epics if the author posted them kinda funny.

--

Yes.

It means all of those things depending on who's talking.

[kaleidoscope-eyez]

Sylki Fic Recs - August 2023

So, I finally decided to go through the Sylki tag on AO3 and pull out some of my personal favorite Sylki fics! I may have missed a few, but from now on, when people ask me for fic recs, I'm just going to point them right here!

These are pretty much in descending word count order, since that's how I sorted them on AO3. And I think I stopped around 2k words, so things that are less than that don't appear.

(Fair warning: I included some of my own on there, too.)

Enjoy!

Epic Length fics (+100k) – Rated G-T

As Long As You're Mine by Shoalsandsuch*

Welcome to Westview by KaleidoscopeEyez

Heal The Cracks Within My Heart by Chipper99*

Gone, I'm Gone by Shoalsandsuch

Epic Length Fics – Rated M-E

Love & Mischief by Sasquita

The (Mis)Match by Sasquita

skin on skin by Palmarion

Becoming who I was never meant to be (But did anyway) by overIndulgence

A Promise of Peace by neonheartbeat

From Jotunheim With Love by kytsos, Wonderchild90*

Medium Length Multichapters (Up to 100k) – Rated G-T

Baton Pass! (Round 4) - Collab

Of Love and Daggers by litladyloveshp*

Sweet Nothings by Shoalsandsuch

Frost Queen - Collab

Pets are a reflection of the soul by overIndulgence

The Search: A Domestic Adventure by IngridGradient

Life is beautiful by Korsarri, Madam_Violet

Love Child by KaleidoscopeEyez

The Race To Your Heart by navy_bushes 

Sylki Advent Calendar (Baton Pass! Round 3) - Collab

Fire & Gasoline by BeanBarn*

The Lost Goddess by KaleidoscopeEyez

Vivaldi Doesn't Square Dance by LunarDust, preserumping

Somewhere Only We Know by KaleidoscopeEyez

Sylvie and The Beast - Collab

To Make a Heart Whole by Adrift_in_thyme, Aritou

Rotational Symmetry by Neolights, PinkCanary

Delicate by Shoalsandsuch

Loki Actually by Padawan_Writer 

Adventures in Lokisitting by KaleidoscopeEyez*

Our Shared Eternity - Collab

Medium Length Multichapters (Up to 100k) – Rated M-E

How Sweet It Is by Wonderchild90

Frost and Flame by professnerdiness

Into the half light (and through the flame) by BrightBlackTrees

RE: ARRANGEMENT by neonheartbeat

Wherever You Are by Aevianya

We'll Find A Way by professnerdiness

By the Glow of the Rune by IngridGradient

The Providence We Create by amadness2method (CynSyn), overIndulgence 

Perfect Partners by variant001*

Roots and Branches by PinkCanary

Like the Moon Needs Poetry by IngridGradient

Wings - Collab

Not as planned by StrangeNoise*

Seconds from destiny by PicassoPickle

An Heir And A Spare (The Extended Version) by nostalgia

Foundations by BumbleHumbleBee

The Edge of Disaster by PinkCanary

and when you start to feel the rush (a crimson headache, aching blush) by Palmarion

No Prisoners by preserumping

the right kind of madness by Palmarion

Technicolor Dreams by kytsos, Wonderchild90

We're Screwed by kimikokun

Sylki in Suburbia by The_Hourglass_Muse

The strangest power of all by StrangeNoise

Letters to my Beloved by AndySkull

drunk on you by Palmarion*

Concept Art by IngridGradient

The Learning Curve by kytsos*

To Be Felled by You by D_A_Cullum

Torn in Two by UnderwaterArch*

A Marriage Between Realms by professnerdiness

Back to Lamentis by TTerran*

Candy Crush by kytsos, Wonderchild90

i guess that's love (i can't pretend) by Palmarion

The Perfect Lie by Padawan_Writer

The Isle of Mists by preserumping 

When I'm around you by AndySkull

One-Shots – Rated G-T

Bright Purpose by daggerlovie

second nature by neonheartbeat

Cravings by KaleidoscopeEyez

Fire in the Sky by KaleidoscopeEyez 

Bleeding Hearts by Eithniel, KaleidoscopeEyez

Eyes by daggerlovie

The Loki Trap by KaleidoscopeEyez

10,000 Unhappy Meals by UnderwaterArch

all in the golden afternoon by Palmarion

Lamentis-1, 2077: A Return by KaleidoscopeEyez

Time Keeps on Slippin' (Into the Future) by KaleidoscopeEyez

One-Shots – Rated M-E

Insatiable by catalystcomet

slow (how you wanted it to be) by PinkCanary

the word of your body by Palmarion

Crammed by catalystcomet

but you never go away (so I guess I gotta stay) by PinkCanary

The Prince, the Princess, and the Dozen Cupcakes by KaleidoscopeEyez

* Denotes an unfinished/ongoing fic

#sylki #loki x sylvie #sylki fanfiction #sylki fanfic #sylvie x loki #sylvie #lovie #sylvie laufeydottir #lovedaggers #fic recs #sylki fic #loki fanfic #loki series

[consistentsquash]

Hp Rec Fest 2023 Recs by Squash

AO3 collection for the recs I made during this fest!

The fest mods deserve everything <3

Rec masterlist - links are for my rec blurbs.

31. A fav among favs: Almagest by eldritcher (2018). Harry/Voldemort

30. A precanon fic: The Unspoken and the Unsent by hollycomb (2013). Dumbledore/Elphias Doge

29. A postcanon fic: Candles Lit Against the Dark by perverse_idyll (2023). McGonagall/Grubbly-Plank

28. An underrated fic: A Cliff in July by Miss M. (2013) Millicent/Marietta.

27. A Muggle AU: Commonplace Magic by Acid, Sinick (2010). Snarry

26. A fic with an ending you can't stop thinking about: In Infinite Remorse of the Soul by perverse_idyll (2011). Snarry, Snape/Dumbledore.

25. A fic rated T: On Wednesday by Tryfanstone (2006). Snarry

24. A holiday fic: 10 Snarry Holiday fics.

23. A soulmate fic: Inch by Inch We Crawled Toward Each Other by Chatter (2017). Fleur/Hermione

22. An unfinished fic: The J. Alfred Prufrock Arc by vain (2003). Snarry.

21. A thought provoking fic: Brown Sugar by eldritcher (2018). Voldemort/Tom Riddle (Diary).

20. A G Rated fic: The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife by eldritcher (2021). Snape/Giant Squid.

19. Hottest smut fic: Both Sides Now by Predatrix (2006). Snarry.

18. A fairytale fic: The Lost World (short version) by perverse_idyll (2013), Snarry + Omphale by eldritcher (2015), Harry/Voldemort

17. A fic that made you cry: 10 Snarry fics to make you cry

16. A fic that made you laugh: 10 Snarry fics to make you laugh

15. Most recent bookmark: De Aegypto by squibstress (2023). Minerva/Rolanda

14. A fav series: Pandemic by eldritcher (2021) Harry/Voldemort

13. A fic over 100K words: Catullus 16 by eldritcher (2014) Harry/Voldemort

12. A WIP: Year of the Thestral by perverse_idyll (2022) Snagonagall, McGonagall/Hooch

11. A dark fic: King of Fat by rinsbane (2006) Snarry

10. A fest fic: A Matter of Time by danpuff (2022). Snarry

9. A rarepair fic: Extraordinary Lengths by MaxWrite (2009). Percy/Barty Crouch Jr.

8. A canon divergence fic: When the Rose and the Fire Are One by perverse_idyll (2010). Snarry

7. A canon compliant fic: Storytelling by kellychambliss (2010). Hermione/Minerva McGonagall

6. An unreliable narrator fic: Remember Me to Cheetham Hill by Delphi (2021). Snape/Filch

5. A non AO3 fic: Down the Rabbit Hole by RaeWhit (2008). Snarry

4. Fic + art: PS, I love you by mywitch and groot (2022). Snape/Hermione

3. A podfic: [Podfic of] Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do by wilfriede (2023). Minerva McGonagall/Rolanda Hooch + [Podfic of] Plenitude by wilfriede (2023). Amelia Bones/Hermione

2. A comfort fic: Epic of the Forgotten by eldritcher (2017). Viktor Krum/Voldemort + Sexing the Pumpkin by ratherbrightred (2007). Snape/Sirius Black

1 . A fav fic under 5000 words: Corresponding with Snape by asnowyowl (2010). Snarry

#hprecfest2023 #hprecfest2023 squashrecs #hp fic recs #hp

[destieltaggedfic]

Epic Length Fics - Part 4

With time off in my very near future, that means I'll have time for more long fics again, so here are some that are all over 100k words.

Starstruck - peanutbutterjelly-pie (Aleakim)   Ao3

AU.  Actor Dean Winchester gets asked in an interview about his first love and he talks about falling in love with the boy who lived next door when he was a teenager.  Divorcee Cas is watching the interview with his kids, shocked to recognise himself in the description.  He reaches out to Dean and they rekindle their friendship.

Word Count: 204k                            Graphic Sexual Acts

Beyond This Illusion - tiaevans87   Ao3

Set Post S15 AU.  When it turns out that Dean’s little vampire run-in and subsequent heaven trip was a djinn dream, he finds out he’s been missing for weeks and things around the bunker have changed with Jack bringing a number of their dead friends back to life.  A couple of weeks later when Cas is also returned to them, means he’s now going to have to face what Cas said to him.

Word Count: 161k                            Graphic Sexual Acts

Fallen for Humanity – blackimpala   Ao3

Set S11 AU.  The Darkness was defeated and in the process the gates of Heaven and Hell were closed.  Now Cas is human and its only routine hunts.  Maybe its finally time for Dean to do something about his feelings for Cas.

Word Count: 147k                            Graphic Sexual Acts

The Destiel Project – Pigzxo   Ao3

AU.  Rock bad boy, Dean Winchester needs an image overhaul, and actor Castiel Novak needs a bit of press after failed projects.  Their publicity team decide the best way to fix both problems is for them to appear to be in a relationship.

Word Count: 214k                            Graphic Sexual Acts

Contingency - Cheerful_Shinigami   Ao3

Set S4 AU.  Waking up in his grave was a shock, but his new friend Castiel is even more of a shock when Dean finds out that no one else can see him because he’s an angel that is possessing Dean and wants to disrupt heaven and hell’s plans for an apocalypse.

Word Count: 123k                            Graphic Sexual Acts

#destiel #fic recs #epic length

[snarky-wallflower]

for the fic writers ask: 2, 14, 33, and 37! or any combination of those if you dont wanna do em all lol.

<3

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

okay, so my top-used five tags are POV Third Person, Angst, One-Shot, Not Beta Read, and Canon Compliant. I think they do explain my writing habits, because I really love getting into the implications of a story, and I am. bad. at waiting for betas sometimes, and not great at continuing a story for longer than a couple of thousand words.

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

honestly, i'll read a lot, so nothing immediately comes to mind?

33. If you write chaptered fics, what’s your ideal chapter length to write? Is it different from your ideal chapter length to read?

stares at the WIPs I have not updated for nearly SIX MONTHS pas de masque, The Show Must Go On, I am so sorry. honestly, I really never plan out my chaptered fics, as the evidence shows - but a chaptered fic I'm recently proud of and that I actually finished was about three chapters, and 24k, so I'd say THAT was my ideal chapter length to write. so much fun. at some point, i need to reread my own fic. And I can and will devour 100k-300k worth of epics, even if I haven't been as good as doing that recently as when I was younger. shoutout to you, @acaciapines, whose TOH daemonverse fics are something i am SO excited for. you're gonna kill it.

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

ohhhh okay, one of my favourite fics I ever wrote would be always be my favourite ghost, from Night in the Woods. It explored grieving Casey Hartley, and how at the end of it all, so much of his life was left unresolved. how he never even got a funeral. it tugged at my heartstrings, that part killed me. so i decided to write people holding one for him. i really loved getting to explore his relationships with those around him, even if he wasn't there. from bea barely knowing him but still being pissed that he'd been taken, from angus knowing that he deserved better, gregg losing his closest friend, and to mae knowing that she'd missed out on so much of his final years, and still missing him anyways. and to maybe, knowing that if she'd stayed, she could have fallen for him. (shoutout to @doyouhearthunder for inspiring that part, as I read all of his NITW fics and that definitely played a role there.) i think i explored grief well there - in a game that has such a bittersweet ending, there aren't many threads to resolve. but this was one i could resolve, and i don't have any regrets about how i handled it. in the end, casey hartley mattered to people, no matter what that cult thought. that wasn't something that could ever be taken away. and it never got much traction because i posted it in 2023, and the game came out in 2017. but i'm still glad i did. it turned out really well for a fic i wrote mostly on a red-eye flight at 1 am.

thanks so much for the ask!

#snarky speaks #writing #fanfic #ao3 #ask games #fanfic ask game

[ginnyruin]

what are your favorite tomione fics? underrated and popular

Hi! Thanks for the ask. I haven't been keeping up with tomione fics that were updated or posted after around July 2021 (when I started writing), so here are some less recent, completed fics I love by length:

Long epic: Madam Umbridge Home for Wayward Girls by LovelyVillain

Under 100K: The Only Beautiful Thing in the World by speechwriter

Short multi-chapter: Adamant by hioangeost

#asks #tomione

[antebunny]

random observations about kudos/hits ratios on ao3

so i've been reading fic on ao3 since uhhhh about 2016? 2015 maybe? and writing since 2018 ish. during those years i've made a few observations about common ao3 reader/author behaviors. i thought i'd share them with the obvious caveat that i am limited to the fandoms i've been in and my own personal experiences

One-Shots

generally the standard for one-shots is a 1/10 kudos/hit ratio. meaning if a fic has 3,000 hits, it has at least 300 kudos.

if a fic has a kudos/hit ratio below 10%, it probably has an unsatisfying ending. i almost never see the ratio lowered for poor writing quality.

the exception is fics tagged Unhappy Ending or Hurt No Comfort. those get less hits but the people reading know what they're getting in to. those fics will generally stay within a 10% range.

generally fluff one-shots or fics that are all comfort, no hurt have the highest ratios of any category of fics, sometimes reaching as high as 20%.

Multi-Chaptered Fics

these fics are damn lucky if they reach 10% lmaooo

this is a gradient of sorts, though. complete fics with 2/3 chapters have a much higher chance of being near a 1/10 kudos/hit ratio, while those decade-long 400k 50 chaptered epics are probably near 1%.

based on how ao3 hits work, i would guess that this is because there's a higher chance of ao3 registering another hit even if the reader is just reading the latest updates.

basically, a 2-chapter fic started and finished within two weeks has a very good chance of being above the 10% ratio. that really long fic you spent a week reading three years ago which made you feel like you just ran a marathon? not a chance.

a brief tangent into chapter lengths: a higher length correlates with higher quality. i want to emphasize (actually, i want to tell twelve-year-old self this, but 12 y/o me is beyond our help now) that quantity does NOT make quality. just because you can squeeze an extra thousand words into chapter 3 doesn't make the story any better. however, in general, the writing quality of a 30k fic with 3 chapters will be higher than that of a 30k fic with 30 chapters.

there are exceptions! i once read a very long fic with very long chapters where the writing was, for lack of a better descriptor, extremely childish. the author mostly rotated the same ten verbs around and around for 100k. also sometimes you read a 400-word one-shot that mentally destroys you for weeks.

of course, at the end of the day none of this matters. i wrote a barely decent 42k 5-chapter fic which is somehow over the 10% ratio. i cannot for the life of me understand why this is. it's not good, you guys. it's really not. on the other hand, i wrote a 37k one-shot which is below the 10% ratio. the kudos/hit ratio has not changed how i view the quality of those fics, it just convinced me that some of y'all have no taste.

these really are just random observations i've made from my six ish years putting fic on the good old Archive. it's not meant to be a reading guide, just something that makes you go "huh."

#ao3 #random observations

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hello there! 💜💚 i hope you're well and have enough time for tea, baths and all the other lovely self-care stuff 💚💜

i would like to ask you a question... i feel a bit dumb asking this but... what are the different types of fanfics? like- i know what fluff, angst and smut is. and i know what's an AU, and more or less the concept of omegaverse (i think...)

but when is a ficlet a ficlet? or a oneshot a oneshot? what is a 221b? a drabble? idk if there are more but i guess i just don't really understand the differences between the lengths of them? does this make sense..?

i've been confused about this for a while and can't quite figure it out. if you'd help out i'd very much appreciate it!

ps: please don't be too judgy about me not knowing this *hides*

Hey Nonny!

AWW thanks!! I love tea, baths and lots of self-care, just very bad at giving any of it to myself, haha!

And NONNY, please know that there are NO judgements here at all! PLEASE don't feel bad!! Fandom isn't something you magically know overnight! <3 And it's always okay to ask! <3

Before I answer your question, I highly recommend you peruse the Fanlore Wiki; it's a good place for new people to learn about fandom terms and history, so check it out if you need further clarification, as my answers are based on my understanding of each of the things you're asking about from being in TOO many fandoms for TOO many years, LOL.

I'm not going to go into everything, since fandom is SO huge and there's so much about it that I can't cover it all, hence the link to Fanlore, so here are immediate answers to some of your questions:

Drabble: A fic that's exactly 100 words

A 221b Ficlet: A fanfiction exclusive to the multiple variants of Holmesian fandoms that's exactly 221 words long, and the VERY last word of the fic starts with "b".

Ficlet: A short story, usually under 1,000 words but can be a little more.

Oneshot / vignette: A short, single chapter "scene" fic, essentially a story covering a missing scene or an out-of-context situation. In a similar vein, there's Two-Shots, which is basically a oneshot but from two different perspectives (ie. First chapter is situation from character A's POV, and Chapter 2 is from Character B's situation).

Podfic: An audiobook of a fanfiction. If you prefer to listen to stories, rather than read them, there are a tonne of amazing podficcers recording stories in multiple fandoms.

Five and One (and variations of): A story that depicts "Five times that Character [verb] [insert situation here] and one time [insert contradicting situation here]". It's basically 6 one-shots in a single story that has the last "one time" situation be a feel-good FINALLY ending. Some authors split them up into single chapters per situation, and others write the whole story as a single chapter.

Meta / Metafic: An essay or story based on analysing a piece of media. The Fic version expands upon a theory within a given fandom so that the theory fits into the narrative of the show.

WIP: Acronym for "Work In Progress", which is an unfinished published story. Some authors "write as they post" while others finish multiple chapters prior to posting them, but only post chapters one at a time on a scheduled basis, which keeps people coming back to the story until the end. The latter USUALLY guarantees a full-story inevitably being posted, so it is the more preferred type of WIP.

Short Story: a story under about 10,000 words

Novella: a story between 20 and 50K words

Novel: Anything over 50K words. I think past a certain number (100K?) it becomes an Epic, but I'm not 100 on it. Google says it's a story that spans multiple "books" and time periods, so I'm not sure.

Hope that helps a little bit, Nonny, and PLEASE don't hesitate to ask if you come across some other terms you would like to know from a fandom-old's perspective! We love helping y'all out! <3 NEVER feel dumb, please. There's no shame in asking for help. And if someone made you feel dumb because of it, FUCK 'EM.

#steph replies #my advice #fandom advice #fanfiction #chatting with nonnies #fandom life #fanfiction terms #definitions

[wangxianficrecs]

Follower Recs

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Wwx is frozen in ice and “time travels” to the future to meet lwj and the research team that excavated him. The story is fun and action-packed, but with really thoughtful character studies and deep dives into language, history, and the way we think about the past. Author is updating regularly on Saturdays! @bookworm4210

The Shade of Old Trees

by Kryal

T, WIP, 181k, Wangxian

Summary: “We rest in the shade of trees our ancestors planted.” They called the man in the ice Yiling Laozu, after a folk hero associated with the town in the foothills of the mountains where he was found. No one expected him to be alive!

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(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

#WIP Rec Week #WIP #Work in Progress #March 2024 #Wangxian Fic Recs #follower recs #follower rec #mdzs #MDZS #Mo Dao Zu Shi #CQL #Chenqingling #The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #The Untamed #Wangxian #The Shade of Old Trees #Kryal #Teen #epic length fic > 100k

[thecoramaria]

Hello! I'm starting off with my own long-ish fic (goal is 100k). Do you have any tips for writing 100k+ fics?

Thank you so much :)

Yes! I have five videos you'll hopefully find helpful.

This first playlist includes my longfic duology, as well as how to go about naming your chapters.

This second one is all about outlining, which should hopefully help you figure out which approach would be right for you. I'd argue that the longer your fic is, the more detailed your outline should be, since there's way more elements to keep consistent and tie together into a cohesive storyline, but others have found outlines to be the death of their longfics, so that's why I recommend using these videos to figure out which approach is right for you.

I also have a video on how to edit your fanfic in the works, detailing the process I'm using to edit my current longfic. Keep an eye out for that!

In terms of plot, I recommend this article. Bear in mind that this is written for original fiction writers though, so be sure to watch out for anything that may not apply to fanfic. What I like about it though is that it provides an understanding of plot that can be applied to stories of any length, from the shortest drabble to the longest of epics.

Anyways, hope all these help! Writing a 100k story is a big undertaking, but I can say from experience just how worthwhile that is. Wishing you all the luck~!

#cora's ask box #just fanfiction things #just fanfic things #cora's original posts #fanfiction resources #fanfiction resource #fanfic writing #fanfiction advice

[this-is-krikkit]

Hi Krikkit! How's your day going?

For the character game *drum roll*: LESLIE KNOPE

Thought I'd change things up a bit to explore some of our other shared fandoms 😅

xoxo

hey Alice, thanks for suggesting this one! i miss parks badly these days (tlou and nick offerman starring in it might have a lil to do with that) and i love that we share that fandom too, so kudos to you for that idea 🤗

favorite thing about her: her determination!!! she's so fucking stubborn when she wants to get something done, and she'll find a way to reach her goal no matter what! we have chosen to stan forever.

least favorite thing about them: how aware i am that i would not be able to stand her energy irl lmao like i love her a lot but anyone who tries to wake me up early the one time a month i get to sleep in WILL be killed

favorite line: "the only thing i will be waving is your decapitated head on a stick in front of your weeping mother!!" bc i love an overcompetitive drama queen who struggle to bury her feelings so deep that they end up sounding like over the top death threat during model UN ♥️♥️

brOTP: leslie x ron were always my fave friendship of the show, even before their epic scene in the last season

OTP: benslie is love, benslie is life. it's the healthiest relationship i've ever seen depicted on a TV show, and it's refreshing that they didn't destroy that for the sake of comedy like it happens so often (monica x chandler in friends, barney x robin in himym... i could go on)

nOTP: i guess anything that's not leslie x ben? i didn't like her with the cop dude, although he was funny. they never felt half as genuine and soft and perfect as benslie did from the very beginning

random headcanon: she tried being a supportive spouse and reading ben's star trek fanfiction once, thought it was cool but whatever yk, until ben joked that there probably were fanfic authors who wrote US historical figures fics out there. it was the beginning of a VERY long summer where leslie posted about 30 historically accurate M to E rated works on ao3, 2 of which were over 100k words multichapters. ben, half horrified and half impressed, commented dutifully on each chapter, even getting into virtual fights with rightists (is that a word?) who called leslie names bc they disagreed with the politics aspects of her fics, and even though nothing beats that actual real life punch he once threw to defend her honor, his internet chivalry effectively turned her on still. they had a short but intense reign as ao3's most productive power couple before the triplets came back from chris and ann's for school and they had to focus on their parenting roles + her presidential campaign again.

unpopular opinion: idk how unpopular it is, but there was never a doubt in my mind that she's the president at the very end of the series?? like ik they left a doubt there on purpose, but seriously, does anyone really think leslie's story ends with her being the first lady and not the fucking president when it's been her dream forever?? how rude can the universe be

song i associate with her: sadly, the get on your feet and make it happen campaign song x) anytime i hear her name that's what i think about and it's horrible bc it won't leave my headdd

favorite picture of her: leslie in a suit!!!!!!!!?????? 😍🥰🥵 that hair length and color suited her best too imo, oh god i miss her now 😭

#leslie knope #parks and rec #ben wyatt #ron swanson #headcanons #i miss parks :/ #mutuals #wanderlustqueen writes #asks

[roughdrafthero]

Hello RDHero, I have a fic rec. Spare the Rod by dementian on ao3 is a very well written, epic saga of a fic if you like a/b/o that explores the social dystopia that happens when secondary genders and patriarchal systems get out of control. Despite the length and darker parts, it’s not purely depressing and keeps your interest throughout. It reminded me of tsgdt in that there is a defiant omega/guide challenging a flawed system, but beyond that they are two very different stories with different themes. But both stories are grounded and plot heavy for their genre, which is why I wanted to tell you about this fic. I also saw that you watched downton abbey back in the day, and this is a downton abbey fic centered around Thomas, a working class omega. The scenario it sets up where a/b/o meets the Edwardian class system is a double whammy. Don’t let the Robert/Thomas tag put you off, it’s a precautionary tag. There’s a main love interest that I won’t spoil, but his presence is an interesting incorporation of a real “historical” figure into an a/b/o fic universe.

I’m reccing an a/b/o fic first because you’ve written in that genre before and I rather hoped it would catch your interest. But in case you’re looking for something less dark and “out there”, Dementian’s other downton fics are very good. They have an almost original fiction quality to them, where the plot stands on it’s own with twists and resolutions, while at the same time being intrinsically connected to core characterizations and well researched canon historical settings.

Bad Harvest, in particular, might be up your alley. It’s an m/m/m crime thriller with hints of dom/sub. (There’re ropes and DP if that’s up your alley.) Beyond being hot and plotty, it also has a super well written female character whose steely strength and kindness is a joy to read, and villains that are three dimensional and human. If you enjoy Thomas barrow and co. that’s a bonus, but you could honestly read it as an original fic. Both fics are around 500k, a word of warning for those who are looking for short and sweet. But as someone who has never read anything over 100k, these flew by. I felt rather spoiled by the author, as if I were reading a series of published novels (albeit less marketable novels that had graphic m/m smut and grey moral decision making.) As someone who usually prefers original work, I was able to get lost in these two fics and hope you might find some enjoyment out of them as well.

Wow, thank you, i'm definitely going to check this out. "Can be read as original" is like music to my ears. Now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like I was reading a Downton Abbey omegaverse wip back in the day ... maybe this is the same one!

[veliseraptor]

Hi Lise! A quick question if you don’t mind: when you write, do you set a goal for how many words you’d like your fic to have? And if it’s too short in your opinion, does it bother you? I know most of your fics are around 8k-10k words which is super cool and I wish I could write this much in a fic of mine. Anyway I guess I’m just here because lately I feel like my word count for each fic keeps getting lower, and it kind of frustrated me. So I’d like to know if you ever dealt with this kind of frustration and if so how do you deal with it?

I think I wrote a thing about this somewhat recently but I don't actually expect people to read everything I put on this blog, I'm aware it's a lot.

and actually the truth is that I used to worry about things being too short! I used to worry about it a lot. at this point I don't mostly because I have the opposite problem at this point where I end up with fics I feel like are never going to end. but also I think it's an artifact of just...having been writing for longer and tying less worth to how long a given fic is. one of my favorite fics I've ever written is just over 1k and I think it would be weaker if I'd tried to stretch it out to something longer.

in answer to your original question, I never start out with a goal for an individual fic of how long I expect it to be. sometimes I'll have a vague sense of "this one's going to be long" or "this should be a relatively short one" and sometimes (often) I'm drastically wrong one way or another. I just kind of...write as feels right to me, and as long as I feel like I need to in order to tell the story I want to tell.

which I think is part of how I ended up making peace with the length of a fic when that nagging sense of "this is too short" comes back: "the story I wanted to tell here just didn't need too much page space. I don't need to make it longer for the sake of making it longer."

it is also worth remembering: a lot of people prefer shorter fics, aren't interested in a 100k epic, and find more satisfaction in something more bite sized. shorter isn't worse. you tell the story in the amount of words it takes to tell it; sometimes that's a lot and sometimes that's half a page. and you can pack a lot of impact into a small space; often, I think, it takes a lot of talent to do that kind of compressed storytelling.

#conversating #anonymous #advice column apparently #confessions of a frustrated writer