Fic Feedback

[mcpa1597]

@Claire encouraged me to open a forum topic for feedback on my first fic. It's a vanilla story.

It's a DC/Baldur's Gate 3 crossover. So basically, an idea I've had in my head for a while. Basic concept, it's one of those bad futures timelines where, after an unknown catastrophe (I decided to keep it vague), Batman, Nightwing, and Robin died, Jason Todd regressed to his darker instincts. After a devastating loss, he crosses the despair event horizon. He then cashes in a favor with John Constantine, who sends him to another world for a fresh start. After a year of trying to drink himself to death to hide his shame, Jason gets kidnapped by mind flayers, and ...well. Basically, he just takes Tav's/Duurge's place as the protagonist. I was gonna wait till I get to at least the middle Act 2 to post 1, but I figured if I do this, considering I've never wrote or published fanfic before, I could use some feedback.

Jason Todd/BG3 Pitch draft

100 pages in my actual fic and I already have ideas on what I could change and refine. Also some atrocious spelling and grammar errors I missed.

[Shocker]

I’m in two minds about the setup. Lifelong Batman fan, but Jason Todd is one of those characters best left dead.

[Claire]

@mcpa1597 I gave it a quick read. But I'm probably not the best person to read this because I know little about Batman beyond the various movies and I never played any of the Baldur's Gate games. From that perspective, I felt like the prologue expected me to be familiar with a lot of things I simply wasn't. That is not necessarily a bad thing, though. You are writing fanfiction after all. So maybe the Batman community will eat this up. What I'm unsure about is whether Batman and Baldur's Gate is a very fruitful crossover? Is there a significant overlap between these two communities? I honestly don't know, but it's not the first combination of fandoms that would come to my mind.

Maybe @sinfulwords can weigh in? She has the most experience posting fanfiction on AO3 of all of us here. Maybe she can give you some pointers regarding tags etc that would you get some more eyes on your story over there.

Purely from a writing perspective, I'm a bit baffled by the second person narration. Second person narration is rare and its general purpose is to put the reader directly into the shoes of the character. But the character you are addressing as "You" is a well-established fictional character. I find it hard to imagine myselff being the "You" that gets addressed while I also know that the narration is not talking to me, but to Jason Todd? Maybe I'm missing the deeper reason, but the choice feels odd. The "You" feels off and I don't see what the story gains by choosing that perspective.

Other than that, I don't think you need to hide your writing. If you want to conjure up some smut for our little forum here, I'd think you'd do just fine. While I can't comment on how the Batman/Baldur's Gate communities will like this, I think your prose is definitely strong enough to produce some nice stories and will only get stronger as you keep writing. Left a kudos and a bookmark on your story for you!

[mcpa1597]

@Claire

Purely from a writing perspective, I'm a bit baffled by the second person narration. Second person narration is rare and its general purpose is to put the reader directly into the shoes of the character. But the character you are addressing as "You" is a well-established fictional character. I find it hard to imagine myselff being the "You" that gets addressed while I also know that the narration is not talking to me, but to Jason Todd? Maybe I'm missing the deeper reason, but the choice feels odd. The "You" feels off and I don't see what the story gains by choosing that perspective.

That's fair. I picked that because that is the style of the narrator of Baldur's Gate 3, who takes the tone of a Dungeon Master from a DnD Campaign. I wanted to emulate.

I honestly don't know, but it's not the first combination of fandoms that would come to my mind.

Yeah, the idea was just some wild shit I cooked up while bored. I figured, considering the fuckery that fanfics get, I could get a pass.

Maybe @sinfulwords can weigh in? She has the most experience posting fanfiction on AO3 of all of us here. Maybe she can give you some pointers regarding tags etc that would you get some more eyes on your story over there.

Would you recommend I DM her?

@Shocker

I’m in two minds about the setup. Lifelong Batman fan, but Jason Todd is one of those characters best left dead.

I acknowledge that Jason is one of the more divisive characters in the franchise. I'm on the "love him" side, but the writing choices around could be trash.

[RapeU]

Mod note: This thread seems out of place in the "features of the forum" section. But I'm not sure where the best place to move this thread is. Do we move it to "Book Club" or is it more of an "Author Story Collection" since it's an author asking for feedback for specific work?

Reader note: I don't know much about the DC Universe or Batman universe beyond a couple of the movies I saw years ago, Static Shock, and Justice League (the cartoon tv show not the movie that I heard was bad.) I had to look up who Jason Todd was. I also never played the Baldur's Gate games. So essentially, I'm not the audience for this kind of story. Sorry that I can't be more helpful reader wise.

[mcpa1597]

@RapeU

Do we move it to "Book Club" or is it more of an "Author Story Collection" since it's an author asking for feedback for specific work?

Which do you recommend?

I don't know much about the DC Universe or Batman universe beyond a couple of the movies I saw years ago... I also never played the Baldur's Gate games. So essentially, I'm not the audience for this kind of story. Sorry that I can't be more helpful reader wise.

I did not consider that.
Then again, this site caters to a different taste, so to speak.
In hindsight, I think when I told @Claire that I was working on a fic, she was probably expecting something else.

[Vela Nanashi]

I will move this to book club for now, we can move it again if it belongs better someplace else, but in here nobody will see it

[mcpa1597]

I also went back and edited the work.

The spelling and grammar mistakes were atrocious.

[RapeU]

I don't know much about the DC Universe or Batman universe beyond a couple of the movies I saw years ago... I also never played the Baldur's Gate games. So essentially, I'm not the audience for this kind of story. Sorry that I can't be more helpful reader wise.

I did not consider that.
Then again, this site caters to a different taste, so to speak.

Just to clarify, yes we are an adult theme sex story website but that doesn't mean you can't put other kinds of stories on here. I don't mind your feedback request. I was just saying that I couldn't be helpful with what you need because I have significant gaps of knowledge regarding the DC universe.

[sinfulwords]

Thanks for ating me @Claire I think I can definitely be of service here in the way of traction

Hello, @mcpa1597 I’m Sinful and I’d like to help where I can here.

As someone who’s enjoyed decent success on A03 I would be honored to impart my knowledge unto u Now I generally like to keep my feedback positive but considering you’re directly asking for constructive help I’m gonna be as candid as possible, but I don’t mean to be overly harsh

First off: in my opinion your summary needs a major overhaul. It’s too verbose. I’d 86 telling folks this is ur first fic (u can put details like that in the authors notes section), the summary should be a couple of cryptic sentences about the broad strokes of ur story. You also don’t have to tell people “basic concept”…that’s literally what the summary is just launch right into the synopsis. It also seems like you’re explaining the entire story (or first act) within the summary. The summary should be like a trailer for a film, tease your audience with mystery and intrigue; you wanna Keep it as short and sweet as possible.

Now as far as tags go, they’re the opposite of everything I just told u about the summary USE LOTS OF TAGS! Think of using tags on AO3 as the opposite of using hashtags on TikTok. On TikTok using too many tags makes u seem thirsty and people shy away from ur posts, but on AO3 the more the merrier. Give the readers lots of specifics, so, if there’s kissing put a kissing tag, if there’s bromance put a bromance tag, if there’s vaginal fingering, u guessed it, put a tag on it a lot readers exclusively use tags to search for new stories to read, so, USE them generously. There’s damn near a tag for anything u can think of!

Now I’m not a Batman fan nor the other things you’re crossing over so unfortunately I can’t be of service in telling u if the piece is properly geared toward their interests or not, but, what advice I can give u is: look at successful stories within these fandoms and study what they do….also follows Claire’s advice about writing prose. She knows what she’s talking about

Another thing to consider is: some fandoms just don’t have a lot of traffic. Like I have stories in popular fandoms that have broken 3k kudos while others in more obscure fandoms struggle to break 50. So, you should keep in mind how popular the fandoms are and how big of an audience they have on AO3, then manage your expectations accordingly.

Hope some of that helps feel free to reach out if you have any other specific questions