#fanfiction authors

Carnation Books is accepting submissions of short stories which meet the following criteria: 

• Stories ranging from 8,000 to 15,000 words in length
  
• Focusing on a queer romance
  
• With a Happily Ever After
  
• By fanfiction authors (the work can be scrubbed or unscrubbed fanfiction, or an original story) 
  

We are seeking stories in the following categories: 

Stories about fandom romance: Characters can be members of fandom, discovering fandom, or meeting through fandom. Think fanfic authors, cosplayers, artists, bloggers, etc.! Do your characters meet online? At a con? Randomly somehow at the grocery store? The options are endless, and we want to read them all!

-OR-

Stories featuring a relationship involving at least one character who is genderfluid, and at least one character who is a paranormal/magical/mythical creature such as: shapeshifters, were-creatures, fae, banshees, incubi/succubi, ghosts, etc. We are looking for paranormal genderfluid romance. The genderfluid character does NOT have to also be the magical/mythical character, but certainly CAN be! It’s up to you! We are particularly interested in #ownvoices stories for this category. 

Submissionsmustmeet the above criteria AND fall into one of the above categories, but if your story falls into both categories that is really awesome, please note that in the summary field of your submission!

The following elements are always welcome:

• Erotica
  
• Representation of characters from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds
  
• Characters with disabilities
  
• Trans characters
  
• Non-binary/genderfluid/gender nonconforming characters (for both categories!) 
• Any genre, as long as the story is primarily a romance

SUBMISSIONS PAGE WILL CLOSE ON DECEMBER 31, 2019! 

EDIT: This deadline has been extended through January 30, 2020!

We will do our best to respond to all submissions. Please do not send inquiries about your submission. If your story is accepted, we will contact you via email. 

We look forward to reading your stories!

Click here to submit your story: http://carnationbooks.com/submissionsfall2019

Fandom is a giant online space place made up of thousands of tiny online places, and in this article, we’re going to talk about why it’s important for each author to find a tiny place of their own. Fandom corners are internet places where people connect in small numbers over highly niche interests. In our analysis of 29 hour-long interviews with authors, three central themes around fandom corners emerged: connection, encouragement and feedback. A fandom corner could take the form of a Discord server, a chat group on Facebook or Skype, a board on a less-traveled forum, or the right intersection of tags on AO3. Finding your corner means connecting with relatable people who make you feel comfortable, encourage you, and can give you feedback on your ideas and writing.

Connection and Comfort

Authors feel more connected in fandom corners because of the niche intersections of interests and identity that bring people together. For example, one author spoke with us about a set of Discord servers around a ship and fandom that brought together queer women:

“I particularly like that there’s sort of these little communities of queer women or mostly queer women or queer aligned groups… It’s just nice to talk to people who get it, who get why you’re so excited” (P4).

People in this group had common ground because they shared a traditionally underrepresented identity and they were into the same fandom. The term affinity has been used by internet researchers to describe shared interests and identities. In P4’s experience, affinity in the fandom corner created a safe environment to talk about writing queer sexuality in fanfiction.

“I’ve seen how friendly and nonjudgmental everyone is in responding [to others]. That makes me feel quite safe to go and ask them, ‘how do I write this thing?’ And it’s something that’s quite sort of deeply personal and intimate” (P4).

The community Discord provided authors with a safe place where they can connect to each other in a carefully moderated and curated group. But the feeling of small community extended into public spaces as well, where P4 noticed the same usernames coming up repeatedly in AO3 comments and on Tumblr. Although the overall community is large, the group of people interested in a few specific tags can be very small. P4 began connecting with others over private message.

“When I get the same people commenting on things that I’ve written, that makes me feel like I’m part of a little group… I’m part of the gang that does this. And privately talking to people who’s stuff I read who are other fans, it’s a quite nice feeling of belonging” (P4).

Finding a space where a small group of people connect over niche interests can help authors to feel like they belong, give them a comfortable place to talk about sensitive topics, and help them find people to connect to over private chat. As we discuss next, these connections and comfortable places are also support writing as authors receive encouragement and feedback from their communities.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Fandom corners are helpful spaces for authors experiencing writer’s block. Almost everybody we interviewed mentioned a time where they felt stuck, unable to make forward progress, or that a scene was just not working. A common strategy was to take a short break from writing and come back to it, but sooner or later authors would turn to others to vent their frustrations or get help. A small community provides the perfect setting for authors to feel comfortable talking about their frustrations and supported by people who are close to them.

“There was a chat that I used to visit a lot… We will be very encouraging toward one another and to encourage others to just continue writing even though we were complaining” (P3).

Small groups provide a space where authors can commiserate about the sheer difficulty of writing, letting them vent out frustrations to an audience that really understands. The encouragement they receive helps them keep going. In addition, authors might send a snippet of their writing and receive fresh ideas that help them to get unstuck.

“I’d copy out a section and paste it into discord… they read the part where I was stuck and said just keep doing this, I think what you’ve done here is cool and maybe try doing this as well” (P12).

“Sometimes just, even though I’m very introverted, turning to my trusted group of friends and having them help me troubleshoot is very, um, it turns a problem into something that’s really fun and silly” (P10).

Because they were comfortable enough to share rough writing when they’re stuck, authors could get encouragement and new ideas to help them move forward. Communities also organized ‘sprint’ events, where writers held each other accountable for writing as much as they could for a short period of time.

“We will set time and be like “in the next 30 minutes, we are going to write as much as you can and when we come back, share the sentences”. So kinds of being forced to write. Some people come back be like “I wrote a thousand words” and I will be like “I got 10”. I will be like I didn’t come up with anything but they will be like “well those 10 words you didn’t have them before. So overall it’s a positive thing” (P3).

The closeness people feel in fandom corners creates an environment where they can commiserate, give each other encouragement, and be accountable for writing. This does a great deal to help authors break through and make progress when they’re feeling frustrated or stuck.

Feedback

A fandom corner is the perfect place for authors to get feedback on their writing. Since these small communities are places where people share interests and build relationships, authors felt that there was a high likelihood that others would be interested and respond to requests for feedback.

“There’s a couple of different communities where there’s people that I trust, and I might post a general message saying ‘Anyone willing to give a look at this, and tell me what you think?’ And then usually then somebody will reply” (P1).

Authors preferred to get feedback from people they already knew and trusted, especially when seeking feedback on unfinished work. So an online space frequented by those folks was a great place to ask for help. Authors would often get immediate responses when they posted to group chats, allowing them to ask for help as they were in-process with their writing.

“I’ll post a snippet of a scene and it will be hey how do you guys think about this part I am working on it right now. With the discord group they are very immediate. They’re really good for in the moment help…We have a very close friendly relationship” (P15).

Having an ongoing relationship with feedback providers also helped authors to get deeper, more thoughtful feedback. They felt understood by their in-group because of their shared context. If someone has read all of your prior fic, they start with a lot of common ground for giving feedback.

“They’ve all read my fic pretty in depth. So I can be like remember when this happened, or where should I go for this part of, you know, my next venture into this universe or whatever. They know what’s up there so I don’t have to reexplain everything or force them to watch the show or something, so they can understand what I’m thinking all the time” (P17).

The benefit of fandom corners boils down to being understood by others. Authors in these tight-knit communities mutually understand each others’ interests, their writing contexts, and the experience of writing fanfiction. That’s why others in the fandom corner will offer encouragement and comments to each other in public spaces like Tumblr and AO3.

“I feel like there’s a sort of comment exchanging between writers in fanfic, you know, I’ll comment on yours and you’ll comment on mine, cause we all know how much we love it.” (P4).

People maintain the same connection whether they’re in a small group chat or a public internet space. This begs the question: is the fandom corner the small group chat, or is it the tightly-connected people who are there? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments.

Conclusion

For every combination of tags, there is an opportunity for people to connect and form a small, close community around their shared interests. Wherever fandom corners emerge, people feel comfortable, build relationships and find support. These little groups are great places for authors to connect with each other, get encouragement when they’re stuck, and get helpful feedback on their in-progress writing. So go find your corner!

About This Series

This series is a breakdown of findings from an interview study run by a fanfiction research group within the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. In January and February 2019, we interviewed 29 fanfiction authors to understand how they connect with each other, build relationships, and seek out writing feedback. We learned profound lessons about the importance of building connections, the reciprocality of relationships and feedback, and the intersection of fandom with real life identity.

Authored by Regina Cheng and John Frens. 

This work was first posted to tumblr in August & September 2019.

It is challenging for writers to get feedback for in-progress works. Fanfiction authors, especially those who recently started writing fanfiction, report facing various barriers connecting with feedback providers. Some frequently-mentioned barriers in our interviews include the anxiety of reaching out to people and requesting feedback, the difficulty identifying people with the right knowledge, skills and interests that they are looking for, and the lack of a community where they can ask for feedback. Fortunately, we’ve found fanfiction authors use multiple strategies to overcome these barriers. One important strategy we are going to talk about in this blog post is participating in fanfiction-related events.

During our interviews, 16 out of 29 authors mentioned events as an important part of their experience in fanfiction communities. These events include a range of experiences, such as “bangs” where artists and fanfiction authors create based on one another’s works, exchanges where authors share story prompts and write stories based on those, and many informal activities such as writing sprints, roleplays and many others. Participating in these events can result in positive effects on fanfiction authors in many different ways.

Exposure to the community

Getting exposure to new stories and authors is a direct benefit of participating in events. Many of the authors told us that they get to know more people and works in the community. “Secret santa for example is something that makes you possibly read something from someone you otherwise may not read before…” one author said. “There might be good works but I just don’t know because I just don’t read them. So in the whole thing you definitely get more exposure to people you haven’t read their work before.” - p9

Especially for authors who newly entered the community, contributing to events is a good way to get their work read by more people and become recognized in the community: “People aren’t going to see your story if you’re starting out. But if it is for a fest people will check the fest stories on AO3. The fest will be promoting your work. It’s a good way to get involved, a good way to get your work seen by people”. -p13

Connecting with beta readers and feedback providers

Authors get to find beta readers and feedback providers through participating in events. In many formal events, organizers will pair participating authors with beta readers who have similar interests: “They do a good job of making sure if you can’t find a beta, they’ll have a list where people are ready.” - p13 “At some point they’re going to ask the writers to send a rough draft of what they have, and send that to the beta readers. -p24”

For authors who’ve had difficulty finding good beta readers, it’s a great opportunity to try out working with one during an event. We heard stories from authors that they first met their long-term beta readers when they were paired with them in an event. After they worked together, they discovered they had matching tastes and could work well with each other, so they continued beta reading and feedback exchange for later works. “That was another sort of Big Bang event where they had originally been assigned to me as a beta to sort of critique and give feedback on my story as I was working,” one author said to us as they were describing how they first met their beta reader, “so I’d found that connection with them as someone who was really good at giving feedback and someone whose feedback I trusted.” -p1

Writing together and building community

Writing has long been regarded as an individual activity, but events provide fanfiction authors opportunities to write with others, and to build bonds with people in the community. Many events provide their own group chat for discussion such as a discord channel, where people carry out informal writing activities and chat about their in-progress stories.

Activities such as writing sprints may help authors with writers’ block. Authors encourage each others while writing: 

“I was always on there (a discord channel for National Novel Writing Month) doing writing sprints with other writers, encouraging other writers being like hey even if you can’t write today, or like even if you didn’t hit your word count today, you still wrote something, which is better than zero…Because we’re also in the middle of a sprint together, we’d celebrate being like oh my god, it was ten minutes of hell but it was worth it.” -p20

Authors also discuss the writing process in event group chats. Compared to beta reading, this form of feedback exchange is less formal and structured, but equally beneficial: 

“We would just throw ideas at each other, oh this character did that? It would be really cool if this person reacted in that way. Or I think that’s kind of out of character, maybe this should happen instead, kind of thing. Because it was an online group, just a group chat, it was just like immediate responses.” -p20

Many authors told us that they appreciate this kind of dynamic feedback exchange during an event. By actively reading about others’ progress and giving each other timely suggestions, authors feel a sense of community and close bond with people in the chat: 

“It’s building something with my friends…I know these people better than some of the people who leave a wow I like that sort of comment on a story because there’s just more information shared, there’s more communication going on. It’s not just a simple exchange of a compliment and thank you. It’s not shallow.” -p12

Relationship beyond fanfiction

Many relationships between authors in the community stem from events. Giving feedback on fanfiction works is definitely an important part of these relationships, but they often develop into more personal connections and friendships. Working on fanfiction together during an event makes the bond between people stronger: 

“You know something about them, you’ve written something for them, you end up spending a little bit of time… I followed some people that I did exchanges with for the Sherlock fandom. I follow them on Twitter and Tumblr still. I mean I didn’t rock to them all the time, but I know who they are and they know who I am, it’s a mutual sort of thing.” -p3 

Working with others tends to increase mutual trust, and thus people become more open to discussing real life in addition to fandom topics. One author told us about people he had worked with during a roleplay event. “I spend a lot of time just talking about our days, venting our frustrations about whatever has happened in our lives or work.” - p12 

Another author shared their story of meeting a later good friend through participating in a bang event: “They paired me with an artist that then I had conversations with over email. I got to know her better because we had a back and forth about making the art… One of the things we talked about, if I was ever in her area I would let her know so we could meet in person.” They then added, “And I don’t know if we followed each other on tumblr before but we definitely followed each other after that. I read her posts sort of more than I read about other people’s on tumblr. We will sometimes comment on each other’s posts, we have more of a connection than usual on tumblr.” -p18

Our findings suggest that participating in events can be beneficial to fanfiction authors, both with their writing and in many ways beyond writing. Authors may wish to consider participating in events to practice writing and become more connected to others.

We are actively posting blog posts about other findings from our interview study. Check out our blog later for more findings!

Online connection changes lives. Authors we interviewed found support, feedback, friendship and even lifelong partnership from people they met online through fandom. People online can help authors develop their writing by providing feedback both in public spaces like AO3 and in private chat. But getting connected is not always easy. Several authors encountered difficulties with making new connections, turned away from their communities, or never connected much with others online at all. Feelings of social anxiety stopped people from reaching out, communities that didn’t feel like safe spaces turned people away, and a culture of fear towards internet strangers made others difficult to trust. In this post, we’ll describe the barriers that can make it difficult to connect in the fanfiction community. 

Social Anxiety

Talking to people is hard, and talking to people you can’t see on the other side of the computer screen can be even harder. An experience shared by many of our interviewees was a feeling of social anxiety. Social anxiety is a fear of judgment from others  that manifests in many ways, for instance, the perception (without any particular evidence) that the person you are considering reaching out to is not interested or welcoming towards being contacted.

“I’m a shy person, so usually I may not [reach out]. I just say I feel embarrassed in speaking to people that seem cooler than me, more experienced… maybe I’m bothering them. Maybe they don’t see me as a friend, they have just been polite, this kind of thing” (P11).

Contacting someone with a higher profile, such as a prolific author or fan celebrity, amplified social anxiety. Interviewees held the perception that these folks are likely overwhelmed with contact already and therefore would be unwelcoming.

“I wouldn’t want to reach out to them because they’re on a different level than me in terms of popularity and probably get hundreds of messages all the time” (P18).

Authors who were reluctant to reach out oftentimes waited for others to contact them first. Or, instead of reaching out online, they relied on irl friends outside of the fandom for writing feedback. As a result of social anxiety, people don’t take that first step of reaching out to an online stranger, and therefore they don’t receive the benefits of a potential connection.

Unsafe Spaces

Writing and posting fanfiction in a public space is, in a way, baring your soul to complete strangers, and one sure way to stifle the soul-baring process was the institution of discriminatory rules that disproportionately affected a subset of the fan community. Restrictions on free expression created the feeling of an unsafe space, and it is this feeling that drove authors away from the community. During our interviews, authors discussed situations where they left communities because they felt the space was unsafe. The ban of NSFW content from Tumblr after its acquisition by Verizon, widely viewed as an attack on sexual expression that disproportionately affected queer people, was a recent example.

“When Tumblr banned not safe for work, it was really distressing for a bunch of us who don’t really fit on the very heteronormative sexual scale. So there was a lot of trying to figure out where we were going to go now, where we were, how would we stay connected, how would we continue to figure out and find stuff that we enjoyed” (P25).

Long-time fandom authors told us of similar exoduses from LiveJournal and Fanfiction.net after similar content bans and mass content deletions. These actions by platform owners divided fan communities and forced authors to find connections elsewhere.

In addition to institutional actions, individuals who made personal attacks or used hate speech also made authors feel unsafe. These antisocial actions happened in prominent fandom spaces.

“P27: There are people who write things that a fandom may consider controversial. This could cause them to get unhelpful criticism, rude and discouraging comments, so they will be constantly discouraged from writing.

Interviewer: That would happen on AO3?

P27: Both AO3 and tumblr, that’s where I know it happens.

Interviewer: And you’ve seen other people treated like that?

P27: Yes.” (P27).

One author spoke of an experience where she was berated for years by a reader because she wrote about drug addiction.

“Because [my fic is] about drug addiction, that brought a reaction that I really didn’t expect… sometimes [readers] impose their views. I got bullied for a couple of years, and even when I went on hiatus that person came back… they were imposing what they thought on me” (P7).

A single bully discouraged and pushed away this writer, even as they received an outpouring of messages from readers who connected with the story.

Another author discussed how controversy over a gay character sent them elsewhere:

“At the time I was writing about neon genesis evangelion. And it turns out at the end of the show, the main character Shinji Ikari is gay. Well, it’s revealed he has a thing for this guy. And I was writing this kind of thing too, and people got super angry. So they’d leave because, oh my God, he’s gay and that was terrible at the time. So, uh, yeah, I quickly left” (P8).

Fanfiction authors tackle difficult, important and controversial topics, and they need a space where they can find others to relate to without fear of harassment. If personal attacks, hate speech, or discriminatory rules are present, they may feel they can’t stay connected and will be forced to go elsewhere.

Personal Disclosure

Navigating personal disclosure can be difficult for authors when they’re interacting with internet strangers. Although authors disclosed deeply personal facts about themselves through fanfiction writing itself, some preferred to avoid connecting their fanfiction identity to their offline identity. Others wanted to protect themselves and their families from potential exposure on the internet. Identity and safety concerns associated with online personal disclosure slowed relationship building between authors and online friends.

Is this faceless individual actually a murderer, merely feigning deep interest in Star Trek and waiting for an opportunity to strike at unsuspecting fans?

Being raised to fear internet strangers was a shared experience among several participants in our interviews. Authors chose different degrees of disclosure they were comfortable with, and made nuanced decisions about who to reveal information about themselves to, where and when.

“There’s not any set guidelines. I think it really depends on who you talk to… how long have you been with the person? What type of things do you talk about? Do you feel like it’s safe to give that information?” (P21).

Oftentimes, the decision of whether to reveal a piece of identifying information had to be on-the-spot. P21 had to decide whether this person who wanted to be co-author was someone who could be trusted.

“… You kind of have to sometimes make a snap judgment and ultimately it worked out fine in this one case… it really does have to come down to instinct, gut, sometimes, there’s no kind of set formula to be sure” (P21).

Personal disclosure and relationship-building go hand-in-hand. But In an environment where personal disclosure requires caution and nuance, building connection and relationships becomes much more difficult.

To Be Continued…

There are powerful isolating elements like social anxiety, unsafe spaces and stranger danger keeping fanfiction authors apart. How do authors overcome these barriers to make connections, build relationships, exchange feedback and change lives? Stay tuned for the next part of our series on connection and feedback in fanfiction communities.

About This Series

This series is a breakdown of findings from an interview study run by a fanfiction research group within the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at University of Washington. In January and February 2019, we interviewed 29 fanfiction authors to understand how they connect with each other, build relationships, and seek out writing feedback. We learned profound lessons about the importance of building connections, the reciprocality of relationships and feedback, and the intersection of fandom with real life identity.