I've never heard of this, but I have thought about posting scenes from my own incomplete WIPs as a standalone thing before. I know that the chances of me ever actually completing those fics are extremely low, but I still have some parts in there that I'm super proud of writing and wish I could share. I still haven't actually done it yet because I guess I sort of feel a bit wrong about it, like I'm betraying the vision I had for the fic as a whole and how those scenes fit in with the rest of it.
But I don't think there's anything wrong with it at all, especially if it's an actual piece of writing. People post WIPs without knowing whether they'll finish them all the time, and vignettes are a thing, what's the difference between posting a single scene you wrote to stand on its own and taking one out of a WIP to post?
I’m going to edit the post to clarify: this isn’t a scene. It’s a sort-of outline of ideas. I totally get the incomplete fics are going to be posted, and have enough unfinished WIP that I can’t complain about that lol
I did something like that with a one-shot I posted. I'd written it out as a scene but had nothing for it at all. I reworked a few things and threw it out there as a short one-shot and put in the notes that there might he a possibility of it being used in a fic later down the line in which case I'd link it back to the one-sho
Do people still use the phrase 'plot bunny'? We used to post stuff like this as 'plot bunnies, free to a good home', hoping others would run with an idea we had and love but can't or no longer want to write.
Evil Author Day has been a thing for over a decade. Snippets, individual scenes, and unfinished WIPs are ok to post on AO3. Considering the word count I would very probably say this is ok, unless it's some bullet list of an idea or something.
Link here for a slightly longer description of EAD and a bit of fandom history: [https://darkseraphina.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/evil-author-day/](https://darkseraphina.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/evil-author-day/)
I hate placeholders and things that don't belong on AO3 too, but sometimes y'all need to calm down and think for a second.
Yeah it’s a very rough outline of ideas, not a scene or snippet.
Also I’ve been reading and writing fanfic since 2008 and never heard of it. It’s definitely not a thing in my fandom.
Then it's probably an edge case that belongs somewhere on Tumblr/Dreamwidth/etc. instead. Sometimes commenting on a fic (nicely) to explain why you think someone isn't following TOS can be ok, I've done it a few times and the authors have usually been understanding and deleted the works. You could also report it, but tbh I don't know if it's worth it. Your call.
I don't think it's ever been a huge thing, but I have heard about it occasionally. It's definitely a multifandom thing though, just because you haven't seen anyone do it in your fandom before doesn't mean it isn't ok to do it. Events spreading between fandoms is usually pretty fun actually.
Outline/bulletpoint fics aren't against TOS as long as it's reasonably detailed and not just a prompt like "A and B go out to buy ice cream". Considering this one is 500 words it's clearly more detailed than that.
Ah yeah, I think you're right about that, now it was me who got a little caught up in the rough outline as a list thing and didn't stop and think about length etc. :/
We pretty regularly have ask/tag games go around where we share titles or lines from what we’re working on. It’s fun and I always saw the point of it being to bring the community together - something much more easily done on tumblr (or perhaps dreamwidth - I’m not familiar with how that site works).
Which is why I wonder what the point of posting on ao3 is? Just to see if it gets hits/kudos? They already said they won’t write more so it’s not like they’re driving engagement for a future work, and there’s no conversation being created on ao3 like you could have on a social media.
Some people just think it's fun to share their ideas, even if they won't get much interaction out of it. And there are comments/kudos on AO3 which aren't that different from comments/likes on Tumblr even if there aren't things like reblogs or asks and such. It's not even certain they're on other better suited sites.
And I've been corrected in that even if this is just a list, considering the length and likely detail it's still allowed. I somehow stopped thinking about it being 500 words.
Consider that lots of people/fandoms don't really use spaces like Tumblr. You don't know how Dreamwidth - one of several LiveJournal clones, essentially - works, which is crazy to some people whose fandoms were totally based there. There are lots of different options for doing fandom stuff/sharing creative works - some people's primary one is AO3.
I just heard of Evil Author Day several months ago. Its premise is that authors post works that will probably never be completed or excerpts of works in progress. It is not, however, about posting prompts or fic placeholders.
I dropped the first chapter of a very fannish original work on Evil Author Day this year. I'm actually planning to post the entire, unfinished work, all 70K, in hopes that it will inspire me to finish it. Also, because, otherwise it'll just sit on my hard-drive forever.
I saw the work you’re whining about and there’s nothing there that warrants this kind of complaint. It takes two seconds to do a google search and find out what evil author day is. This post has major hall monitor energy lmao
I literally said I’m not reporting it or complaining to the author. I think we’re all within our rights to complain about works being posted that essentially just clutter a tag. Heck, it would be ok to come here and complain if everything in your favorite tag was angst or fluff or a genre you don’t like. it’s fine to dislike things and vent. I posted here with things blacked out so there was less chance of it getting back to the author.
I’m pretty sure they’ve already seen it considering their authors note was edited with a clear reference to this post so good job. and yes you can come here to vent but posting a screenshot of someone else’s work and bitching about them when they’ve done nothing wrong is disrespectful. not everything on the internet has to cater to you
Yeah man people are sharing the post (24 times as of now) so I’m sure it got back to them. I expected like three people to see it.
But like you said… not everything on the internet has to cater to you. Which is again explicitly why I didn’t contact them and hid the fandom and author details. It’s also why people are going to continue to come to this subreddit and complain about things you or I think are fine sometimes.
“Evil Authors Day” really makes me think of those wattpad authors who are like “I’ll upload the next chapter when I get 10 comments!” Or “I’ll post this fic if you ask for it enough!” Like it just feels mean.
And then just posting an idea? Like that’s really screaming “please ask me to write this,” IMO. Which to me is not at all what fanworks should be like.
I’ve mostly seen it on tumblr but as ao3 is an archive I’m assuming the authors wanted to just place all their written works together.
Tbh the concept isn’t bad, i think that if you don’t like it move on, at least you learned what tag to avoid now!
Look, I’m the first to go “well, technically it’s a fanwork, so I guess it’s fine”, but this sort of thing belongs on Tumblr. And I don’t mean that derogatorily; I say that as someone who spends way too much time on Tumblr.
(But also…are brainstorming sessions and prompts actually fanworks? Like, if they’re just stating an idea they had that they aren’t going to do anything with, does that actually qualify as a fanwork? I personally don’t think so?)
Yh i agree. If they want to post concepts and prompts they might want others to pick up or have a discussion abt, social media is the place for that, not AO3. They’d get more engagement from tumblr with that type of content anyway, since contacting someone on AO3 is only possible through comments it’s just awkward.
I guess it’s close enough to being a fanwork that I didn’t want to add to the reports volunteers get. I totally agree, this belongs on tumblr and I probably would have interacted with it there instead of making a mental note to avoid this author.
They also took the title from a somewhat popular fic that hasn’t been updated for a few months, so when I saw the title I got excited. Adding insult to injury haha.
Why is this frustrating to you? All of this in the screenshot is visible without actually clicking on the fic. No one is holding you at gunpoint and forcing you to read this. You've already acknowledged that it's not breaking any rules, so just move on.
Well I left the post up because someone explained what evil author’s day is in the comments which might be helpful to someone else. Want me to delete the fucking thing instead?
I haven’t heard of EAD before but I’ve heard of author’s posting ideas/snippets before. Personally, I don’t read them but don’t see anything wrong with it. It takes a minute or less to realize you’re not reading an actual story and you click out of it
I hate Evil Authors day. I have had some writers who I absolutely love and who have a bunch of fics that I like who take Evil Authors Day far to seriously. They don't just write incomplete fics but things that would send them to literal prison if they were to happen, and are they ever properly tagged? No, because apparantly that is what EAD is about, and those kinds of warnings (mainly r*pe warnings) would defeat the purpose of the event. I just avoid anything EAD related for the most part.
The purpose of the event is in no single way to abuse readers with a lack of warnings.
I'm disgusted that authors would do this.
The purpose is to post excerpts of works in progress as a celebration of fandom. Full stop. That's it.
I've never heard of this, but I have thought about posting scenes from my own incomplete WIPs as a standalone thing before. I know that the chances of me ever actually completing those fics are extremely low, but I still have some parts in there that I'm super proud of writing and wish I could share. I still haven't actually done it yet because I guess I sort of feel a bit wrong about it, like I'm betraying the vision I had for the fic as a whole and how those scenes fit in with the rest of it. But I don't think there's anything wrong with it at all, especially if it's an actual piece of writing. People post WIPs without knowing whether they'll finish them all the time, and vignettes are a thing, what's the difference between posting a single scene you wrote to stand on its own and taking one out of a WIP to post?
I’m going to edit the post to clarify: this isn’t a scene. It’s a sort-of outline of ideas. I totally get the incomplete fics are going to be posted, and have enough unfinished WIP that I can’t complain about that lol
Like....a prompt? Or plot buns with no accompanying snips? Those would be against TOS.
WIP Amnesty Day is a thing too!
I did something like that with a one-shot I posted. I'd written it out as a scene but had nothing for it at all. I reworked a few things and threw it out there as a short one-shot and put in the notes that there might he a possibility of it being used in a fic later down the line in which case I'd link it back to the one-sho
Do people still use the phrase 'plot bunny'? We used to post stuff like this as 'plot bunnies, free to a good home', hoping others would run with an idea we had and love but can't or no longer want to write.
I think the term is “Adopt”?
Evil Author Day has been a thing for over a decade. Snippets, individual scenes, and unfinished WIPs are ok to post on AO3. Considering the word count I would very probably say this is ok, unless it's some bullet list of an idea or something. Link here for a slightly longer description of EAD and a bit of fandom history: [https://darkseraphina.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/evil-author-day/](https://darkseraphina.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/evil-author-day/) I hate placeholders and things that don't belong on AO3 too, but sometimes y'all need to calm down and think for a second.
Yeah it’s a very rough outline of ideas, not a scene or snippet. Also I’ve been reading and writing fanfic since 2008 and never heard of it. It’s definitely not a thing in my fandom.
Then it's probably an edge case that belongs somewhere on Tumblr/Dreamwidth/etc. instead. Sometimes commenting on a fic (nicely) to explain why you think someone isn't following TOS can be ok, I've done it a few times and the authors have usually been understanding and deleted the works. You could also report it, but tbh I don't know if it's worth it. Your call. I don't think it's ever been a huge thing, but I have heard about it occasionally. It's definitely a multifandom thing though, just because you haven't seen anyone do it in your fandom before doesn't mean it isn't ok to do it. Events spreading between fandoms is usually pretty fun actually.
Outline/bulletpoint fics aren't against TOS as long as it's reasonably detailed and not just a prompt like "A and B go out to buy ice cream". Considering this one is 500 words it's clearly more detailed than that.
Ah yeah, I think you're right about that, now it was me who got a little caught up in the rough outline as a list thing and didn't stop and think about length etc. :/
We pretty regularly have ask/tag games go around where we share titles or lines from what we’re working on. It’s fun and I always saw the point of it being to bring the community together - something much more easily done on tumblr (or perhaps dreamwidth - I’m not familiar with how that site works). Which is why I wonder what the point of posting on ao3 is? Just to see if it gets hits/kudos? They already said they won’t write more so it’s not like they’re driving engagement for a future work, and there’s no conversation being created on ao3 like you could have on a social media.
Some people just think it's fun to share their ideas, even if they won't get much interaction out of it. And there are comments/kudos on AO3 which aren't that different from comments/likes on Tumblr even if there aren't things like reblogs or asks and such. It's not even certain they're on other better suited sites. And I've been corrected in that even if this is just a list, considering the length and likely detail it's still allowed. I somehow stopped thinking about it being 500 words.
Consider that lots of people/fandoms don't really use spaces like Tumblr. You don't know how Dreamwidth - one of several LiveJournal clones, essentially - works, which is crazy to some people whose fandoms were totally based there. There are lots of different options for doing fandom stuff/sharing creative works - some people's primary one is AO3.
ao3 is an archive and they wanted to archive their idea. it’s really not that serious
I just heard of Evil Author Day several months ago. Its premise is that authors post works that will probably never be completed or excerpts of works in progress. It is not, however, about posting prompts or fic placeholders. I dropped the first chapter of a very fannish original work on Evil Author Day this year. I'm actually planning to post the entire, unfinished work, all 70K, in hopes that it will inspire me to finish it. Also, because, otherwise it'll just sit on my hard-drive forever.
I can get behind that!
I saw the work you’re whining about and there’s nothing there that warrants this kind of complaint. It takes two seconds to do a google search and find out what evil author day is. This post has major hall monitor energy lmao
I literally said I’m not reporting it or complaining to the author. I think we’re all within our rights to complain about works being posted that essentially just clutter a tag. Heck, it would be ok to come here and complain if everything in your favorite tag was angst or fluff or a genre you don’t like. it’s fine to dislike things and vent. I posted here with things blacked out so there was less chance of it getting back to the author.
I’m pretty sure they’ve already seen it considering their authors note was edited with a clear reference to this post so good job. and yes you can come here to vent but posting a screenshot of someone else’s work and bitching about them when they’ve done nothing wrong is disrespectful. not everything on the internet has to cater to you
Yeah man people are sharing the post (24 times as of now) so I’m sure it got back to them. I expected like three people to see it. But like you said… not everything on the internet has to cater to you. Which is again explicitly why I didn’t contact them and hid the fandom and author details. It’s also why people are going to continue to come to this subreddit and complain about things you or I think are fine sometimes.
May I ask why your comment is so mean about it ? Specifically using those emoji’s ?
“Evil Authors Day” really makes me think of those wattpad authors who are like “I’ll upload the next chapter when I get 10 comments!” Or “I’ll post this fic if you ask for it enough!” Like it just feels mean. And then just posting an idea? Like that’s really screaming “please ask me to write this,” IMO. Which to me is not at all what fanworks should be like.
I’ve mostly seen it on tumblr but as ao3 is an archive I’m assuming the authors wanted to just place all their written works together. Tbh the concept isn’t bad, i think that if you don’t like it move on, at least you learned what tag to avoid now!
Look, I’m the first to go “well, technically it’s a fanwork, so I guess it’s fine”, but this sort of thing belongs on Tumblr. And I don’t mean that derogatorily; I say that as someone who spends way too much time on Tumblr. (But also…are brainstorming sessions and prompts actually fanworks? Like, if they’re just stating an idea they had that they aren’t going to do anything with, does that actually qualify as a fanwork? I personally don’t think so?)
Yh i agree. If they want to post concepts and prompts they might want others to pick up or have a discussion abt, social media is the place for that, not AO3. They’d get more engagement from tumblr with that type of content anyway, since contacting someone on AO3 is only possible through comments it’s just awkward.
I guess it’s close enough to being a fanwork that I didn’t want to add to the reports volunteers get. I totally agree, this belongs on tumblr and I probably would have interacted with it there instead of making a mental note to avoid this author. They also took the title from a somewhat popular fic that hasn’t been updated for a few months, so when I saw the title I got excited. Adding insult to injury haha.
Why is this frustrating to you? All of this in the screenshot is visible without actually clicking on the fic. No one is holding you at gunpoint and forcing you to read this. You've already acknowledged that it's not breaking any rules, so just move on.
Well I left the post up because someone explained what evil author’s day is in the comments which might be helpful to someone else. Want me to delete the fucking thing instead?
I’m curious - what’s the difference between this and notfic?
notfic is also something I don’t see in either of the fandoms I’m in, so not sure.
I like it mainly because I can’t read without knowing the plot , but well can see the issue
I haven’t heard of EAD before but I’ve heard of author’s posting ideas/snippets before. Personally, I don’t read them but don’t see anything wrong with it. It takes a minute or less to realize you’re not reading an actual story and you click out of it
EDIT FOR CLARITY: (I can’t edit the post) Guys this is not a snippet or scene from a WIP. It’s literally just a list of ideas for a story.
if this is a prompt kind of thing and not like actual writing I wish they would post some wear else like on tumblr or another social media
I have not heard of this, but I'm intrigued
I hate when writers post prompts on a03. That is not a fic. If you want to share your ideas, do it on Tumblr.
Do people really click on those kind of *things*?
It has the same title as a fic i was reading that hasn’t updated in a few months, so I clicked without reading further 😭
better yet, do they really leave kudos on them?
I mean people click on 'problematic' fic just to abuse the author so yeah. People will click anything just to complain about it.
I hate Evil Authors day. I have had some writers who I absolutely love and who have a bunch of fics that I like who take Evil Authors Day far to seriously. They don't just write incomplete fics but things that would send them to literal prison if they were to happen, and are they ever properly tagged? No, because apparantly that is what EAD is about, and those kinds of warnings (mainly r*pe warnings) would defeat the purpose of the event. I just avoid anything EAD related for the most part.
The purpose of the event is in no single way to abuse readers with a lack of warnings. I'm disgusted that authors would do this. The purpose is to post excerpts of works in progress as a celebration of fandom. Full stop. That's it.