coaltide | Don't Stop Coal Now!

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2021

Don't Stop Coal Now!

Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real coal time
I feel alive
And the exchange I'll turn it inside out, yeah
I'm floating around in agony
So, (don't stop me now)
(Don't stop me)
'Cause I'm having a coal time, having a coal time~

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This is, somehow, the way it always seems to go.

Does anyone know why? Or is it that we just notice it more when this happens because psychology?

I think probably because psychology. If you expect something to do well (or bad), and it does, you don't think twice about it.

I have a couple of theories that could be completely wrong. One is that last-minute fics are probably shorter, and shorter fics are likely to get more readers. The other is that last-minute fics probably tend to be more laser-focused on something like a single iddy trope, which can be more appealing to a wider audience than a technically better story with a well-researched plot.

DC

I also think there might something to be said for last-minute fics being at the top of the section/relevant tag in terms of posting date. I wrote multiple treats for the same relatively big fandom, and the one I posted last is doing way better than the ones I posted earlier. I do feel like there's a kind of a snowball effect where one fic gets read first for whatever reason (short, first in the tag, whatever), starts to accumulate feedback quicker than anything else, and then people see that and are more likely to check it out because it seems disproportionately popular, so it becomes kind of self-perpetuating.

I don't think it's universal, it's never happened to me and some of it probably is an illusion, but I suspect there's a couple real effects too.

-some people kill their writing with overthinking, and over editing. If this happens to you a lot, and not always in the same contexts, maybe rethink your editing priorities or switch up your betas

-fandom in general prefers light, breezy stuff, even if it's not objectively better. Or maybe most accurately; the Venn diagram of different fans' likes tend to overlap most heavily there. Even if the deep fic you put work in is better to people who like both, it just won't get the same amount of readership as something with more general appeal (often in this case the better-crafted one does have a longer tail.)

- for treats vs assignments in particular, you picked a treat prompt because you found it most appealing out of a whole a lot of options, it shouldn't be surprising if other people do too. Your assignment didn't get winnowed that way.

two-hour-fic vs more-hours-fic subthread OP: you know, it's interesting you say that, because I've been thinking that about overthinking and overediting for previous fics I've written. I have a beta who is really great at putting their finger on things that don't work, but they also can tend to overedit, and in the past I've often taken their advice uncritically and ended up with work I don't like as much when I reread it later. Lately I've realized I've had to push back in my head more -- like, this isn't really a beta problem (and they're perfectly nice regardless of whether I do or don't take their advice), it's a me problem because I'm the writer and I should be figuring out for myself when the advice works for me and when it doesn't.

In this case I don't think that is actually the problem (I'm pretty happy with both fics actually), but I'll be very interested to see which one of these two has the longer tail, as you say. I think maybe part of what's going on is that fics that I write quickly (though admittedly in this case partially because I was pushing up against deadline) often do pretty well, because there was something that was compelling enough about the fic that I was able to write it quickly.

there was something that was compelling enough about the fic that I was able to write it quickly

That's a good point. There might also be a correlation where a fic that's easy to write quickly is also easy to read quickly, without too much effort, compared with other fics that might require more attention/concentration from the reader. (I was super sleep-deprived on the day of YT reveals and there were several stories I tried to read but gave up on because they were too involved and I just couldn't focus. I'm going back to some of them now that I can actually think again.)

Oh, hmm, that's a good point too. Interesting.

NC

How would you describe over-editing? How does it affect the final fic?

So in my case, what can sometimes happen with over-editing is that I'll try to over-correct/over-optimize one thing at the expense of another, which especially seems to backfire for me when that means getting a little clever about the edit at the expense of honest feeling. For example, there was one fic where my beta and I got overexcited about trying to make the last part of each section reference the same major theme of the fic (think e.g. mentioning nature each time). Which isn't a bad thing, and I've written other fics where things like that work out. But now that I look back on that particular fic, I feel like because it was so late in the edit process, those particular thematic references come across as a little artificial/tacked-on, and dilute the emotional impact of the fic a bit, and now I wish I'd either made it much more subtle or left it out completely. IDK if that makes sense! I'm kind of rambling.

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