your under-loved fic/art

[lettered]

The AO3 stats meme is going around. I love this meme because people talk about their stories and their readership(s). I always sound like I'm whining when I talk about readership, but sometimes I really just want to make observations about why people read the things they do. Also, apparently I don't like to do memes I just like to do meta on memes. So here we go!

Please comment to this post with a link to a fic/art/meta you're really proud of having created, that hasn't received the attention you felt it deserved. Tell us what the story/art/meta is about, what you really liked about it, and tell us why you think it didn't get as many hits/kudos/comments/replies/recs/etc as you'd secretly hoped.

I'm not promising to read your story/meta/look at your art, because I might not have time, but I find this interesting and cathartic to talk about. If you are not a writer/artist, comment with a fic you like that you wish had gotten more love. Please feel free to direct people to this post so that they can share the fic they're proud of and discuss things like readership.

ETA: The fic doesn't have to be on AO3. Also, the hit/kudos/comment/whatever count doesn't have to be low. For instance, the fic I have that feels under-appreciated got a lot of nice comments and nice attention. I still feel sad that it didn't really get the wide readership I feel it deserves. This is your place to talk about that without feeling self-conscious about wishing something got more attention.

Comments

[quinara]

Well, once upon a time I decided that the Buffyverse deserved an epic poem. Three years and fifty-thousand words of iambic pentameter later, I had something I was happy to call finished, though possibly only three-five readers max. :( People seemed to like the concept when I started, but basically I think it was like I pushed a gimmick waaaaaaay beyond the initial novelty value people were willing to read it for (even though for me it was never a gimmick but my very favourite narrative medium). It was really kind of a blow, because it's not even that Spuffy in the end (certainly not enough, I don't think, to put off the gen/concept people, if any of them still really read Buffyverse stuff) and while there are (IIRC) a few rushed transitions, it was the first time I managed to draw together a plot longer than 20K words and I love Illyria's story in it. In general I think it's quite good. To be honest, I'm not sure I've ever quite recovered from working that hard on something and posting it for 0-1-2 initial comments - but I don't blame anyone for that. Sometimes fandom and me just don't click on these things.

[lettered]

I imagine it intimidated a lot of people? I always wanted to read it, but things that I think might make me think too hard get put on a shelf for when I have the time and am in the mood, and sometimes I forget they're there. I know that this is not really comforting to you, but anyway I've been reading Mrs. Dalloway for approximately three years; every time I go back to it I read about 400 words and have to stop and think for days, and then I feel overwhelmed and don't go back to it. When I think that that might happen to me (even with fanfic; there's quite a bit of fanfic that is extremely thought provoking!) sometimes I just get discouraged. This is a nice reminder though, since I love the idea of this story and stultiloquentia praises it to the skies :o)

[quinara]

I did get some feedback from someone (who was reading it as part of a concrit cicle) that they found it intimidating... But that once they got started it was OK? (She says only to report the anecdote, with no wish to apply any pressure at all!!!) I know exactly what you mean about intimidating reads, though, and can see why anyone would put off starting - I suppose I'm just not sure what to do to make it more inviting, or how you make any long thing more inviting. I always feel like I'm on a similar knife-edge with longfic - I can't work out whether people don't want to start reading unless they know the ending's there and they won't have to wait for it to be posted, but then no one goes 'ooh, 50K+ words; I'll get started on that over my toast'. My problem, I think, is that I do both of these things readily, at the same time as willingly going through any number of click-throughs to find fic, or putting up with bad grammar in the first chapter if the story has potential... I don't know how to relate to my fandom/readership a lot of the time, because it sometimes feels as if people genuinely just aren't that interested in fic anymore. (The LJ fic culture I remember for the Buffyverse still seems to be alive on certain archives, I should say, but I've never really found my groove with them, mostly because of the fear that I forget to be Spuffy enough.)