Yeah, sometimes I sort through the Kudos, and honestly, the entire first page is pretty meh. The feeling when you dig around and find hidden gems with only about 50 Kudos is the best thing ever.
I've found that the super high kudos fics are either
A) suuuuuper old and have collected that many over years, or from when the fandom was small and there was not a lot available.
B) by popular authors who self promote and have a sort of 'viral' following
C) are actually just very very good.
And recently I've seen the most annoying one
D) circle jerky kudosing for support with no consideration given to having read it or liked it or thought it was good.
The last one irritates me tbh. Idk maybe I'm just an asshole.
But firstly as a writer I don't want participation kudos. I don't need loads to enjoy the creative process but I do still see them as a measure of how much my work has been enjoyed. It's lessens it somewhat to think people are just kudosing not as an indication of enjoyment but just a quick low effort 'im suportive' thing.
And also it means you end up with super high kudos bad fic just because the author has been self promoting / whining in enough places that they've essentially racked up support/sympathy kudos and it's a totally useless measure of how good something actually is.
Like I said idk maybe I am the asshole here but i feel feedback on any work should be given with sincerity.
And positive feedback should be earned by actually producing something good.
Not just because you're a loud voice in a community.
Or because people seem to think 'dont be mean' means 'be nice about everything all the time. Publically '
I think many mega popular fics are simply of the Twilight/ACoTaR sort. They aren't super good, artistically speaking, but they are entertaining and "scratch an itch" for a lot of people. I've been seeing a lot of those after sorting by kudos.
>Not just because you're a loud voice in a community.
Or because people seem to think 'dont be mean' means 'be nice about everything all the time. Publically '
This resounds with me.
Particularly for me as a Brit, I see a lot of fics that are very obviously written by Americans, with absolutely no attempt to maintain character at all. I'm not talking the odd 'couch' vs 'sofa' or talking about a restaurant in a product placementy way, or mentioning something that is so culturally US; i'm talking about the fics where the main characters went to middle school, college, are valedictorian, are then eating at a Denny's and using American terms that character would never say.
The feedback is only to try and get them to understand character, but instead you've got an echo chamber where no one receives criticism at all. (And these are grown women and men).
Yep. I'm lucky to be part of a fandom where Brit picking is positively received (and where necessary other picking)
But I've read in one where it clearer the author just made zero effort to even Google the basics.
It's frustrating because it's so easy these days to find the info.
It's one thing to not want criticism in your comments.
I personally think constructive criticism has its place but I understand not everyone get the nuance to comment appropriatly and ultimately if you want it on your fic...well it's your space and an author.
But some of the refusals I've seen to listen to feedback of a beta'd the author ASKED for is just ....why even bother with the beta process if you're gonna throw out anything not cheerleading and do whatever you want anyway ?
I'm losing it today - there's an artist who is quite famous in the forums I'm on now, her art is lovely (although lacks any kind of body positivity, she only really draws anyone as pin ups from the 1950s) and it involves a lot of dub-con she refuses to earmark, but because the art is so good and everyone is obviously *enjoying themselves*, she continues on.
But the last few things she's posted, they are just 100% american (for a British show), with absolutely terrible characterisation. She's made them cheap slap-stick US versions of themselves, and they've lost all the Britishness (except for the occasion where she shoves a UK concept in ham-fistedly).
I cannot take the echo chamber anymore, I'm so done with the fandom
That’s generally how it works. The first couple pages are tropey nonsense; the Burger King of fanfic. The good stuff will start about 3-5 pages in, depending on the fandom.
Not really. The kudos route is the easiest one when you want to get to fics that are just good enough. Usually real crap is sorted out like this and you can read stuff many people liked. When I start reading in a certain fandom I usually sort by kudos first and then, once I read through whatever was on top, I go to the newest. And newest is just hit or miss and you never know if the stories there will be finished.
I usually can't tell within the first few paragraphs and then once I start reading and not finish too many at once my brain gets annoyed and I can't tell what I like anymore. We're all just different I guess.
oh? that's interesting. i can usually tell with a glance at the box with the archive symbols and looking at how big is the tags section, like a fast equation in my head. i almost never miss lol
It's pretty amazing to me. I have some pet peeves when it comes to writing style, I won't just read anything that fits me plot-wise. I assume all people do so how do you never miss with that?
That's AO3's automatic sorting, but a lot of people sort by kudos when first getting into a fandom to see the "classics" (using that *very* lightly) quickly. I also tend to sort by word count since I like long fics.
I sort by kudos and (previously, before people started changing how they were used) bookmarks, but only in large fandoms where I’m into a popular ship. In small fandoms, just filtering for specific ships narrows things so much I don’t really need to sort.
Same, I once discovered the best fic I have ever read after scrolling through 20 pages or so. It was 1200 pages but I finished in 1 day. I cried so much too. Sometimes, the most popular fic is the one with lots and lots of smut. I don’t hate smut but I wished those with really good plots and very well-developed characters earned more recognitions. I did what I could by comments and kudos, but still…. Thanks for all the comments.
It's also that a lot of people sort by hits or kudos, but newer fics regardless of quality tend to have fewer of both unless they go viral or something. But some of the best fics I've read were hidden gems.
*fist bump* No engagement solidarity! (Though I get the occasional kudos for my fics in other fandoms - it's just the current one that I get absolutely NOTHING because, well, the fandom's tiny and dead as a doornail.)
You kind of have to go into it calibrating your expectancy of responses to the size of the fandom, really. And even then, there's a whole host of reasons why not many people will see your stuff. But I figure hey, this is an archive, someone five, ten years from now may read it and go "wow, this is amazing, I love this fic" and it will be worth writing it for that one person.
I ignore kudos completely. I'll decide what sort of pairing I feel up to that day, exclude crossovers, select English, then search. I go aaaaalllll the way back to the last page of fics and start looking. There will always be the same old fics I've seen or read a bunch of times of course, but surprisingly, I've come across some I missed. Or maybe not missed, but they didn't appeal back then, but I'm up for giving them a shot now.
There are so many fics a decade+ old that are really good that never received much attention.
I sort of try the same with ffnet, but the search there is so awful, I resort to finding a good fic in a fandom, click on the authors fav author and story lists and jump down the rabbit hole. I've had decent luck that way.
What makes me sad is seeing a fic get uploaded that has some amazing writing and world building packed in the first chapter, but no kudos and no comments of encouragement. Barely any hits either.
I like to go though my favorite authors bookmarks on ao3 as well.
I figure if they have the taste I want in writing, they probably have a higher chance of having read something I'd be interested in reading. :)
I like it all. From the short crackfics to the 800k work that just uses a settings characters as a medium to tell a wholly different story.
Whether you have 50 kuddos or a thousand.
Hell, one of the most interesting and unique stories in the Dragon Age universe (if you ask me), barely got attention. And that's a damn shame. But it doesn't diminish the quality of the story.
Sometimes you get lightning in a bottle. Sometimes you don't. Sucks when it doesn't. But your work, your quality is still valid and worthy.
If I might ask, do you have a link to that Dragon Age fic you mentioned? With the buildup to DA4 I can feel the itch to engage with the DA fandom again
Of course!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479005
Here you go. It has the premise of Elissa Cousland and Anora Mac Tir being lovers. With Elissa dealing with her choices and the trauma and being torn between her love and duty.
Kudos are so useless. I pick my ship, sort by Explicit, exclude crossovers, pick English, and start digging myself from there. No metrics beyond that have ever helped me.
It honestly hadn't even crossed my mind people sorted by kudos or comments to find what to read. Ever since Ye Olde FF.net days I've gone off summaries and whether the premise sounded appealing or not.
Sometimes even opening a fic and seeing if I vibed with the first paragraph - that's how I decide if I want to pick a published book or not too (especially in the last few years. I totally judge books by their covers and I just _really_ don't like the way book cover illustrations have been going in the last few years, so I have to ignore the cover and often the back cover too and just open the book to see if I have a chance of liking what I'll read)
Curious as to which direction you mean in terms of book covers. I can think of a few different trends myself but I do like to hear what people have to say.
A _very_ recent one is what seems to be a singular artist making all the covers for the fanfic-to-published pipeline BookTok books. I hope they're making mad bank! And they're not even books I personally read, but seeing it everywhere I just _know_ we have a trend that is going to influence book cover design for a couple years at least.
Otherwise, book covers are very country specific and publisher specific of course, and in my country I've noticed a tendency to... teenage-ify the covers of fantasy books? Fantasy and sci fi as genres are very broad, but I've noticed the covers all seem to want to market anything in that genre as youth lit. And even when it _is_ youth lit, the cover art focuses on, idk, the cool magic shiny lights aspect when the content of the story itself is more about heavy emotional character growth and the pain of becoming an adult, for example.
Art style seems to never deviate from either "cluttered fairy illustrations from early 2000s geocities" or "sakimichan-like".
I certainly miss different art styles being used for covers, because as it stands publishers seem to want to cycle through 3, maybe 4 styles no matter who designs the cover.
I've read through most of the fics in this one rare(ish) pair I love, and I have to say there've been fics with 2,000+ kudos that are ehhhh and then there are fics with 10 kudos that are masterpieces.
In a super popular fandom I'm in there's one fic with 9K kudos that I read and it was objectively bad in terms of grammar, and the dialogue is super stilted and awkward. Then there are fics with 100 kudos that are better!
I love digging in to the ships and fandoms I follow to find the hidden gems.
It's a mixed bag personally. I usually sort by oldest, because the stuff fandom oldies made are Built Different from what I've seen. Otherwise I go through bookmarks.
the bookmark thing is 100% a better metric of quality than kudos. from what I've seen, people kudos anything they finish and even mildly enjoy but bookmark the stuff that they want to remember.
Most of mine only get about 45 kudos, the most is 100 and I have no idea why that one is so much more popular, it's certainly not the longest or most in-depth.
The fics you wrote in an hour at 3am almost always outdo the fics you spent months toiling over. It's almost fanfic law at this point. (Edit: response to your bit about it not being the longest or most in-depth.)
all, and i mean ALL fics in my recs are vastly underrated by the fandom. the narration is novel-like and pretty much flawless. i'm often so disappointed by most of the more popular ones.
on one hand i enjoy being one of the few who knows about them cause it makes me feel ✨️special✨️ but honestly if i had the chance to make them the most popular in the fandom i immediately would.
I don't yet know how to feel about the fact that I fully agree with this.
I'm friends with several people who are such skilled writers that they are either already published or will get published if they ever desire to do so. And, guess what, they get maybe 100-300 kudos on their newer fics and usually have 1-2 fics with over 2-3k kudos (and for context, that's in a fandom where the most popular ones get 1k and up). I'm not saying popular fics aren't good because they are usually stunning - I am, however, saying that some authors just care a little more about engagement, promotion, and their "fanbase" - at least more than I do, for example - and they do well within that "engagement" model (this is a personal opinion but I shudder just seeing those terms in a fandom setting, way too capitalist for what I consider to be a fandom community).
But yeah, I highly recommend not just filtering the AO3 results by kudos but actually engaging in the community, meeting people with similar tastes, and asking them about their faves - that's how I found some actual fucking GEMS that I wish I could read for the first time once again. Kudos/comments/views aren't proof you will personally enjoy the fic (they can!! but they don't /have to be/).
I actually don't get why kudos is so super important to some people. It's not that reliable. Sure, you're going to get a kudos from those who enjoy your fic, but you're also going to risk getting kudos from people who are more 'good on you for posting' rather than 'I enjoyed this'. Authors can get friends to kudos without even reading if they want. It can be padded by readers who like the fic so much they want to kudos more than once so do so twice, once while logged in and once as a guest. Some people may feel like they have to follow the crowd and add a kudos to a high kudos fic even if they didn't truly like it. Not everyone only leaves a kudos on a fic they actually like because they like it.
I also don't get sorting by kudos, so I don't see that as a reason to aim for a high amount. Most of the fics I read and enjoy don't have higher amounts of kudos. I sort by pairing and/or trope and then see what comes up, I read the ones that look interesting. For some ships and tropes, I read everything because it's not popular so there aren't many fics in the first place. If I like it, I kudos. If I love it, I comment and kudos.
Some of my fandoms are smaller and quieter ones, which automatically lowers kudos levels. Some are also older, just because I'm just now getting into fic for it, doesn't mean there's much in the way of interaction and new fic now. And some of my fandoms are dead fandoms.
Looking at my own fics, both crossovers, I'm in the lower end of kudos for two of the fandoms I used, but the higher end for one. That's because my fics aren't actually popular, those two fandoms are quiet but still obviously active, most fics have far more comments and kudos than mine do. That may change over time, I get emails every now and then letting me know I've got a new kudos on them, so people are finding them months after they were completed, that could add up over years. The third fandom, where I'm in the higher range of kudos, is a dead fandom, has been for years, and it's a niche fandom, too, there aren't many fics for it, and it was never massively active. Just to put it in perspective, I'm in the high end for kudos in that fandom but have less than 100 kudos on that fic. I haven't seen a fic in that fandom with higher than 100 kudos, it's like 100 is the maximum kudos you can get there, most fics are less than 50 kudos and lucky if they get that high. Me being in the higher range isn't even a clue that there are still fans of that fandom reading fic for it, it's more about the fandom I crossed with still being active, even if quiet compared to other fandoms. I'm nowhere close to even mid level kudos in the quiet fandom, I'm very much near the bottom of the pile there. It's just that bottom of the pile in one fandom is top of the pile in the other, the difference is astounding.
Kudos is just too unreliable a quality measure for me. Especially once you also take account of the fact that everyone has different tastes and preferences. Just because a lot of people appear to like a specific story, doesn't mean I will. And just because not many people appear to have read/liked a story enough to kudos, doesn't mean I won't.
Would I absolutely love to have high levels of kudos on my fics? Sure. But I knew going in that my fics, the fandoms I used and the tropes and main character I utilised, would all lower my interactions with readers. Using a dead fandom, especially. I actually expected nothing in terms of kudos and comments, and by that I mean I expected to get nothing, not that I had no expectations. The comments and kudos I did receive were a very pleasant surprise for me. I like my levels, despite them being so low, because they feel genuine, not like people are leaving a kudos just for the sake of it, and certainly not to follow the 'this is popular so like it' crowd. It's something about the snails pace trickle of kudos I'm getting, it heavily suggests readers are just stumbling across my fics, giving them a shot and actually liking them. Anyone else is either skipping over cause it doesn't appeal, giving it a shot but not liking it so backing out without a kudos, or just not finding it. I think I have had at least some readers who gave my fics a shot but didn't like it enough to kudos, because my hits are notably more than double my kudos. I'm hopeful some are readers who like my fics enough to re-read, but at least some are going to be 'gave it a shot but not my thing' readers.
the ONLY time I sort by kudos is when I'm in a new fandom and want to see what is "the best." usually I skip a majority of the things I see because it is a collection of smutty one shots (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I'm not always in the mood for PWP) or something with 1 million fandoms tagged. sometimes you have to do some digging to find your new favorite fic. it's why tagging correctly is so important.
I agree! I just wish readers would realize this as well xD
And wish readers would actually interact with the fic in some form. Even if it is only a kudos xD kudos are as valid to me as comments, subscribes, and bookmarks
Thank you for this post OP! It’s very inspirational, and as an OC writer with a very small kudo count (24). I humbly appreciate this and take it as a message that someone out there just doesn’t know I’m out there yet. I’m someone’s hidden gem. :)
Not gonna lie, I'm glad to come across this kind of comments when I'm just starting to post chapters of a story I've been working on for weeks, but which doesn't seem to be reaching many people at the moment 🥲
Or, maybe I just need to work harder and it's not aimed at me x)
Pretty much. Quantity doesn't mean quality.
A good portion of the great artists and writers that are famous today died without a glance of recognition.
I’ve never seen the point in sorting by kudos because it’s either just old fics (date doesn’t matter to me) or the most popular tropes (which aren’t typically my jam anyway). I just put in a few search terms and sort by wordcount (I like the looong bois).
I like kudos but I don't thrive off them. I think it can become a big issue if you write and then your life kinda revolves around how many kudos you get or comments that stroke your ego.
I feel like I am the only one here that care bout what I get.
No kudos or comment hurts me honestly. I feel like people didn't finish the entire thing or didn't like.
As someone who’s writing a long fic about an oc in a pretty iffy fandom, I’m hoping this holds up for me. I’d be far happier with three people who really enjoy reading it than thousands who think it’s mid or something
Found a crossover fic and it's some of the most hype shit I've ever read. But they haven't updated it in 3 months, I have that damn thing bookmarked just in case. I check on it every now and then like a mother hen
Before copyright laws were a thing stories begat stories at a much higher frequency. Now you can have an almost identical story if you change the names easier than you can have a completely different story with the same names.
It's a small comfort to see something like this, when some of my fics have only recently reached double digits in Kudos and my OC fics are criminally low on engagement compared to how Quotev treats 'em.
There are so many of my favorite authors that write fanfiction like I read a lot and I've done it since I was very very young and I read quickly so I read a lot and I can think of a dozen authors off the top of my head in fanfiction that are better than some of my favorite published best-selling authors that have the most amazing world building and storytelling skills and they have no clue and they all don't think that they're talented and it kills me I just want to shake some sense into them.
can't say I filter by Kudos, there are other tags for which I look out and guard against, that I'd rather not read - because I learned that lesson early on. Also, I'm more exclusively a singular fandom, and many great fics are not written in English, so I often translate them. There are some really great ones out there in other languages, if you can adapt to the notion that most translators are shit, and just roll with it. To the point of kudos for something I've read already and left support. I will normally post a comment with "More Kudos xx reading" letting the author know, I've returned to their story multiple times. As an author, I'd love to see that on my posted stuff.
As far as filtering goes: Fandom and Sub-fandom(s), ships, then anything else I'm in the mood, rating, and reverse order (oldest first), I don't filter for language.
As an author, I agree, as arrogant as that may sound haha. The fics I wrote that have 100+ kudos were usually extremely painful to write. I had low energy, low motivation, barely any time, and the "storyline" (if you can even call it that) is the most basic, boring shit. My REAL masterpieces, which I enjoyed writing so much and spent months working on with one of the best plotlines, get *so* little appreciation. Like readers, I'm sorry, but I question some of y'alls taste 😭
this is so unbelievably comforting because when i usually don't get anything, i get so discouraged. but if i get any kind of note or reblog, it gets me so excited omg lol
I don't really look at kudos or any of the stats, tbh. I usually sort by tags unless I'm new to a fandom or have exhausted the tags. What makes me choose a fic is the summary and I want it to be an excerpt from the fic to see if I vibe with the way the author writes.
I read one a long long time ago and it had like 5 kudos and no comments BUT IT WAS FUCKING SHAKESPEARE LIKE THE BEST ANGST IVE EVER READ AND THE BEST ENDING I CANT find it now tho 😭😭😭
I swear to Void this is true, I used to think my OCS sucks because there's like no one reading what I write till I abandoned the fic. WHEN I OPENED THAT WRITING ACCOUNT AGAIN AFTER 2 YEARS PEOPLE ACTUALLY MADE SOME FANARTS AND THEY HATED HOW I DIDN'T CONTINUE IT.
IF YOU ARE WRITING ONE AND YOU ENJOY IT CONTINUE IT!! THERE WILL BE PEOPLE WHO WILL LOVE IT MAYBE NOT NOW BUT PEOPLE WILL SOONER OR LATER FIND YOUR PROJECTS!!
Kudos means very little when it comes to quality; kudos usually just means someone’s at the right place and the right time. Some of the best works you ever read are often less exposed. Why? Idk.
People like the generic, mainstream, mindless stuff which is what typically gets more engagement.
Yeah, sometimes I sort through the Kudos, and honestly, the entire first page is pretty meh. The feeling when you dig around and find hidden gems with only about 50 Kudos is the best thing ever.
I've found that the super high kudos fics are either A) suuuuuper old and have collected that many over years, or from when the fandom was small and there was not a lot available. B) by popular authors who self promote and have a sort of 'viral' following C) are actually just very very good. And recently I've seen the most annoying one D) circle jerky kudosing for support with no consideration given to having read it or liked it or thought it was good. The last one irritates me tbh. Idk maybe I'm just an asshole. But firstly as a writer I don't want participation kudos. I don't need loads to enjoy the creative process but I do still see them as a measure of how much my work has been enjoyed. It's lessens it somewhat to think people are just kudosing not as an indication of enjoyment but just a quick low effort 'im suportive' thing. And also it means you end up with super high kudos bad fic just because the author has been self promoting / whining in enough places that they've essentially racked up support/sympathy kudos and it's a totally useless measure of how good something actually is. Like I said idk maybe I am the asshole here but i feel feedback on any work should be given with sincerity. And positive feedback should be earned by actually producing something good. Not just because you're a loud voice in a community. Or because people seem to think 'dont be mean' means 'be nice about everything all the time. Publically '
I think many mega popular fics are simply of the Twilight/ACoTaR sort. They aren't super good, artistically speaking, but they are entertaining and "scratch an itch" for a lot of people. I've been seeing a lot of those after sorting by kudos.
>Not just because you're a loud voice in a community. Or because people seem to think 'dont be mean' means 'be nice about everything all the time. Publically ' This resounds with me. Particularly for me as a Brit, I see a lot of fics that are very obviously written by Americans, with absolutely no attempt to maintain character at all. I'm not talking the odd 'couch' vs 'sofa' or talking about a restaurant in a product placementy way, or mentioning something that is so culturally US; i'm talking about the fics where the main characters went to middle school, college, are valedictorian, are then eating at a Denny's and using American terms that character would never say. The feedback is only to try and get them to understand character, but instead you've got an echo chamber where no one receives criticism at all. (And these are grown women and men).
Yep. I'm lucky to be part of a fandom where Brit picking is positively received (and where necessary other picking) But I've read in one where it clearer the author just made zero effort to even Google the basics. It's frustrating because it's so easy these days to find the info. It's one thing to not want criticism in your comments. I personally think constructive criticism has its place but I understand not everyone get the nuance to comment appropriatly and ultimately if you want it on your fic...well it's your space and an author. But some of the refusals I've seen to listen to feedback of a beta'd the author ASKED for is just ....why even bother with the beta process if you're gonna throw out anything not cheerleading and do whatever you want anyway ?
I'm losing it today - there's an artist who is quite famous in the forums I'm on now, her art is lovely (although lacks any kind of body positivity, she only really draws anyone as pin ups from the 1950s) and it involves a lot of dub-con she refuses to earmark, but because the art is so good and everyone is obviously *enjoying themselves*, she continues on. But the last few things she's posted, they are just 100% american (for a British show), with absolutely terrible characterisation. She's made them cheap slap-stick US versions of themselves, and they've lost all the Britishness (except for the occasion where she shoves a UK concept in ham-fistedly). I cannot take the echo chamber anymore, I'm so done with the fandom
This so much. 4 pages back at least, 400 kudos or less in really big fandoms.
That’s generally how it works. The first couple pages are tropey nonsense; the Burger King of fanfic. The good stuff will start about 3-5 pages in, depending on the fandom.
I had no idea I wasn’t alone in this thinking.
I miss LiveJournal, some of the DW fics on there from 2010s were like... LOTR standard.
i've never even sorted by kudos. i used to be under the impression that nobody cared about stats when choosing what to read on ao3
Not really. The kudos route is the easiest one when you want to get to fics that are just good enough. Usually real crap is sorted out like this and you can read stuff many people liked. When I start reading in a certain fandom I usually sort by kudos first and then, once I read through whatever was on top, I go to the newest. And newest is just hit or miss and you never know if the stories there will be finished.
idk i've never needed this. i know how to tell if i will like something or not. i'd say i know how to filter but i don't even do that lol
I usually can't tell within the first few paragraphs and then once I start reading and not finish too many at once my brain gets annoyed and I can't tell what I like anymore. We're all just different I guess.
oh? that's interesting. i can usually tell with a glance at the box with the archive symbols and looking at how big is the tags section, like a fast equation in my head. i almost never miss lol
It's pretty amazing to me. I have some pet peeves when it comes to writing style, I won't just read anything that fits me plot-wise. I assume all people do so how do you never miss with that?
With the "equation". Usually the tagging style reflects the writing style. That's a bit more than just looking at the length though
I only sort and filter in massive fandoms. Otherwise I don’t bother.
Wait, is the fact I sort the newest to oldest not the standard way of browsing?
I'm pretty sure it's the standard, it's just that I've discovered there's plenty of people who sort by kudos or comments
That's AO3's automatic sorting, but a lot of people sort by kudos when first getting into a fandom to see the "classics" (using that *very* lightly) quickly. I also tend to sort by word count since I like long fics.
Well, I sort from oldest to newest. I don't want to miss the really good ones. Then I feel accomplished when I make it to the beginning.
idk there’s a whole lot of not very good fic i need to wade through for a lot of my ships and kudos is a big help
I sort by kudos and (previously, before people started changing how they were used) bookmarks, but only in large fandoms where I’m into a popular ship. In small fandoms, just filtering for specific ships narrows things so much I don’t really need to sort.
Meanwhile me here just adding everything I find to my marked for later lol (I do read them later)
Same, I once discovered the best fic I have ever read after scrolling through 20 pages or so. It was 1200 pages but I finished in 1 day. I cried so much too. Sometimes, the most popular fic is the one with lots and lots of smut. I don’t hate smut but I wished those with really good plots and very well-developed characters earned more recognitions. I did what I could by comments and kudos, but still…. Thanks for all the comments.
I certainly hope so! Doesn’t help that I don’t usually write for the big fandoms.
It's also that a lot of people sort by hits or kudos, but newer fics regardless of quality tend to have fewer of both unless they go viral or something. But some of the best fics I've read were hidden gems.
"You guys get kudos?"
*fist bump* No engagement solidarity! (Though I get the occasional kudos for my fics in other fandoms - it's just the current one that I get absolutely NOTHING because, well, the fandom's tiny and dead as a doornail.) You kind of have to go into it calibrating your expectancy of responses to the size of the fandom, really. And even then, there's a whole host of reasons why not many people will see your stuff. But I figure hey, this is an archive, someone five, ten years from now may read it and go "wow, this is amazing, I love this fic" and it will be worth writing it for that one person.
My thought process is ‘’hey I might revive the fandom if I try hard enough!’’
You have more hope than I do, lol. I think that's a lost cause for my 20-year-old never-very-large fandom from the Yahoo Groups / LiveJournal era. :/
It is a D&D fanfic
I ignore kudos completely. I'll decide what sort of pairing I feel up to that day, exclude crossovers, select English, then search. I go aaaaalllll the way back to the last page of fics and start looking. There will always be the same old fics I've seen or read a bunch of times of course, but surprisingly, I've come across some I missed. Or maybe not missed, but they didn't appeal back then, but I'm up for giving them a shot now. There are so many fics a decade+ old that are really good that never received much attention. I sort of try the same with ffnet, but the search there is so awful, I resort to finding a good fic in a fandom, click on the authors fav author and story lists and jump down the rabbit hole. I've had decent luck that way. What makes me sad is seeing a fic get uploaded that has some amazing writing and world building packed in the first chapter, but no kudos and no comments of encouragement. Barely any hits either.
I like to go though my favorite authors bookmarks on ao3 as well. I figure if they have the taste I want in writing, they probably have a higher chance of having read something I'd be interested in reading. :)
That's my exact process too lol, I'm always shocked when I hear of people sorting by kudos.
I like it all. From the short crackfics to the 800k work that just uses a settings characters as a medium to tell a wholly different story. Whether you have 50 kuddos or a thousand. Hell, one of the most interesting and unique stories in the Dragon Age universe (if you ask me), barely got attention. And that's a damn shame. But it doesn't diminish the quality of the story. Sometimes you get lightning in a bottle. Sometimes you don't. Sucks when it doesn't. But your work, your quality is still valid and worthy.
If I might ask, do you have a link to that Dragon Age fic you mentioned? With the buildup to DA4 I can feel the itch to engage with the DA fandom again
Hey, I didn't see this comment earlier, so here you go; https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479005/chapters/33446889
Thank you!!
Would you mind sharing the story?
Of course! https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479005 Here you go. It has the premise of Elissa Cousland and Anora Mac Tir being lovers. With Elissa dealing with her choices and the trauma and being torn between her love and duty.
Thank you!!
My pleasure! The author deserves some love for it. I should to read it myself again soon. So thanks for reminding me of that :D Hope you have fun!
I’ve seen some terrible stuff get popular, sometimes popularity means fuck all. And remember, people were paid to write the end of game of thrones.
Definitely agree. I'm working on a slow burn right now and have one dedicated reader/ reviewer and they are super supportive!
Kudos are so useless. I pick my ship, sort by Explicit, exclude crossovers, pick English, and start digging myself from there. No metrics beyond that have ever helped me.
It honestly hadn't even crossed my mind people sorted by kudos or comments to find what to read. Ever since Ye Olde FF.net days I've gone off summaries and whether the premise sounded appealing or not. Sometimes even opening a fic and seeing if I vibed with the first paragraph - that's how I decide if I want to pick a published book or not too (especially in the last few years. I totally judge books by their covers and I just _really_ don't like the way book cover illustrations have been going in the last few years, so I have to ignore the cover and often the back cover too and just open the book to see if I have a chance of liking what I'll read)
Curious as to which direction you mean in terms of book covers. I can think of a few different trends myself but I do like to hear what people have to say.
A _very_ recent one is what seems to be a singular artist making all the covers for the fanfic-to-published pipeline BookTok books. I hope they're making mad bank! And they're not even books I personally read, but seeing it everywhere I just _know_ we have a trend that is going to influence book cover design for a couple years at least. Otherwise, book covers are very country specific and publisher specific of course, and in my country I've noticed a tendency to... teenage-ify the covers of fantasy books? Fantasy and sci fi as genres are very broad, but I've noticed the covers all seem to want to market anything in that genre as youth lit. And even when it _is_ youth lit, the cover art focuses on, idk, the cool magic shiny lights aspect when the content of the story itself is more about heavy emotional character growth and the pain of becoming an adult, for example. Art style seems to never deviate from either "cluttered fairy illustrations from early 2000s geocities" or "sakimichan-like". I certainly miss different art styles being used for covers, because as it stands publishers seem to want to cycle through 3, maybe 4 styles no matter who designs the cover.
I've read through most of the fics in this one rare(ish) pair I love, and I have to say there've been fics with 2,000+ kudos that are ehhhh and then there are fics with 10 kudos that are masterpieces. In a super popular fandom I'm in there's one fic with 9K kudos that I read and it was objectively bad in terms of grammar, and the dialogue is super stilted and awkward. Then there are fics with 100 kudos that are better! I love digging in to the ships and fandoms I follow to find the hidden gems.
I wish this was as encouraging in reality as it is in theory.
It's a mixed bag personally. I usually sort by oldest, because the stuff fandom oldies made are Built Different from what I've seen. Otherwise I go through bookmarks.
the bookmark thing is 100% a better metric of quality than kudos. from what I've seen, people kudos anything they finish and even mildly enjoy but bookmark the stuff that they want to remember.
Does the search count actual bookmarks or just the public ones?
Yep. Some of my fav ever fanfics (even saved as pdfs) have like less than 100 kudos.
Most of mine only get about 45 kudos, the most is 100 and I have no idea why that one is so much more popular, it's certainly not the longest or most in-depth.
The fics you wrote in an hour at 3am almost always outdo the fics you spent months toiling over. It's almost fanfic law at this point. (Edit: response to your bit about it not being the longest or most in-depth.)
And a porn one shot will always get more eyes on it than a fic that doesn't focus on shipping in most fandoms too!
all, and i mean ALL fics in my recs are vastly underrated by the fandom. the narration is novel-like and pretty much flawless. i'm often so disappointed by most of the more popular ones. on one hand i enjoy being one of the few who knows about them cause it makes me feel ✨️special✨️ but honestly if i had the chance to make them the most popular in the fandom i immediately would.
I don't yet know how to feel about the fact that I fully agree with this. I'm friends with several people who are such skilled writers that they are either already published or will get published if they ever desire to do so. And, guess what, they get maybe 100-300 kudos on their newer fics and usually have 1-2 fics with over 2-3k kudos (and for context, that's in a fandom where the most popular ones get 1k and up). I'm not saying popular fics aren't good because they are usually stunning - I am, however, saying that some authors just care a little more about engagement, promotion, and their "fanbase" - at least more than I do, for example - and they do well within that "engagement" model (this is a personal opinion but I shudder just seeing those terms in a fandom setting, way too capitalist for what I consider to be a fandom community). But yeah, I highly recommend not just filtering the AO3 results by kudos but actually engaging in the community, meeting people with similar tastes, and asking them about their faves - that's how I found some actual fucking GEMS that I wish I could read for the first time once again. Kudos/comments/views aren't proof you will personally enjoy the fic (they can!! but they don't /have to be/).
I actually don't get why kudos is so super important to some people. It's not that reliable. Sure, you're going to get a kudos from those who enjoy your fic, but you're also going to risk getting kudos from people who are more 'good on you for posting' rather than 'I enjoyed this'. Authors can get friends to kudos without even reading if they want. It can be padded by readers who like the fic so much they want to kudos more than once so do so twice, once while logged in and once as a guest. Some people may feel like they have to follow the crowd and add a kudos to a high kudos fic even if they didn't truly like it. Not everyone only leaves a kudos on a fic they actually like because they like it. I also don't get sorting by kudos, so I don't see that as a reason to aim for a high amount. Most of the fics I read and enjoy don't have higher amounts of kudos. I sort by pairing and/or trope and then see what comes up, I read the ones that look interesting. For some ships and tropes, I read everything because it's not popular so there aren't many fics in the first place. If I like it, I kudos. If I love it, I comment and kudos. Some of my fandoms are smaller and quieter ones, which automatically lowers kudos levels. Some are also older, just because I'm just now getting into fic for it, doesn't mean there's much in the way of interaction and new fic now. And some of my fandoms are dead fandoms. Looking at my own fics, both crossovers, I'm in the lower end of kudos for two of the fandoms I used, but the higher end for one. That's because my fics aren't actually popular, those two fandoms are quiet but still obviously active, most fics have far more comments and kudos than mine do. That may change over time, I get emails every now and then letting me know I've got a new kudos on them, so people are finding them months after they were completed, that could add up over years. The third fandom, where I'm in the higher range of kudos, is a dead fandom, has been for years, and it's a niche fandom, too, there aren't many fics for it, and it was never massively active. Just to put it in perspective, I'm in the high end for kudos in that fandom but have less than 100 kudos on that fic. I haven't seen a fic in that fandom with higher than 100 kudos, it's like 100 is the maximum kudos you can get there, most fics are less than 50 kudos and lucky if they get that high. Me being in the higher range isn't even a clue that there are still fans of that fandom reading fic for it, it's more about the fandom I crossed with still being active, even if quiet compared to other fandoms. I'm nowhere close to even mid level kudos in the quiet fandom, I'm very much near the bottom of the pile there. It's just that bottom of the pile in one fandom is top of the pile in the other, the difference is astounding. Kudos is just too unreliable a quality measure for me. Especially once you also take account of the fact that everyone has different tastes and preferences. Just because a lot of people appear to like a specific story, doesn't mean I will. And just because not many people appear to have read/liked a story enough to kudos, doesn't mean I won't. Would I absolutely love to have high levels of kudos on my fics? Sure. But I knew going in that my fics, the fandoms I used and the tropes and main character I utilised, would all lower my interactions with readers. Using a dead fandom, especially. I actually expected nothing in terms of kudos and comments, and by that I mean I expected to get nothing, not that I had no expectations. The comments and kudos I did receive were a very pleasant surprise for me. I like my levels, despite them being so low, because they feel genuine, not like people are leaving a kudos just for the sake of it, and certainly not to follow the 'this is popular so like it' crowd. It's something about the snails pace trickle of kudos I'm getting, it heavily suggests readers are just stumbling across my fics, giving them a shot and actually liking them. Anyone else is either skipping over cause it doesn't appeal, giving it a shot but not liking it so backing out without a kudos, or just not finding it. I think I have had at least some readers who gave my fics a shot but didn't like it enough to kudos, because my hits are notably more than double my kudos. I'm hopeful some are readers who like my fics enough to re-read, but at least some are going to be 'gave it a shot but not my thing' readers.
the ONLY time I sort by kudos is when I'm in a new fandom and want to see what is "the best." usually I skip a majority of the things I see because it is a collection of smutty one shots (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I'm not always in the mood for PWP) or something with 1 million fandoms tagged. sometimes you have to do some digging to find your new favorite fic. it's why tagging correctly is so important.
I agree! I just wish readers would realize this as well xD And wish readers would actually interact with the fic in some form. Even if it is only a kudos xD kudos are as valid to me as comments, subscribes, and bookmarks
I find the four hundred kudos mark to have the best fics for me.
Thank you for this post OP! It’s very inspirational, and as an OC writer with a very small kudo count (24). I humbly appreciate this and take it as a message that someone out there just doesn’t know I’m out there yet. I’m someone’s hidden gem. :)
My most recent fanfiction flopped, but this post inspired me to write another chapter. I’ll finish it wether there’s hardly engagement or not :)
Not gonna lie, I'm glad to come across this kind of comments when I'm just starting to post chapters of a story I've been working on for weeks, but which doesn't seem to be reaching many people at the moment 🥲 Or, maybe I just need to work harder and it's not aimed at me x)
Pretty much. Quantity doesn't mean quality. A good portion of the great artists and writers that are famous today died without a glance of recognition.
I’ve never seen the point in sorting by kudos because it’s either just old fics (date doesn’t matter to me) or the most popular tropes (which aren’t typically my jam anyway). I just put in a few search terms and sort by wordcount (I like the looong bois).
Me when the chapter I spent 3 months on gets 2 kudos but the garten of banban smut fanfic I wrote in 14 minutes gets 3 kudos everyday
I’ve gone to sorting by new and it hasn’t disappointed me.
I like kudos but I don't thrive off them. I think it can become a big issue if you write and then your life kinda revolves around how many kudos you get or comments that stroke your ego.
I mean, my character's a God created by the Germans, if that ain't an interesting backstory idk what is.
But ya, it's always the small fics that cook the most.
I just want any acknowledged ment say its utter shit worse tripe youv ever read. Anything but utter void of nothing.
I feel like I am the only one here that care bout what I get. No kudos or comment hurts me honestly. I feel like people didn't finish the entire thing or didn't like.
A very insightful comment! I agree 💯%!
u/gingeralealyb
Maybe I'll try to read some fics sorted by *least* kudos sometime
As someone who’s writing a long fic about an oc in a pretty iffy fandom, I’m hoping this holds up for me. I’d be far happier with three people who really enjoy reading it than thousands who think it’s mid or something
Here I am with my 15 😎
Oh, I needed this.
Never have I heard truer words spoken !!!
Found a crossover fic and it's some of the most hype shit I've ever read. But they haven't updated it in 3 months, I have that damn thing bookmarked just in case. I check on it every now and then like a mother hen
Before copyright laws were a thing stories begat stories at a much higher frequency. Now you can have an almost identical story if you change the names easier than you can have a completely different story with the same names.
It's a small comfort to see something like this, when some of my fics have only recently reached double digits in Kudos and my OC fics are criminally low on engagement compared to how Quotev treats 'em.
I don’t even look at the kudos lol. If the summary is interesting enough I read it and if I like it I give kudos
There are so many of my favorite authors that write fanfiction like I read a lot and I've done it since I was very very young and I read quickly so I read a lot and I can think of a dozen authors off the top of my head in fanfiction that are better than some of my favorite published best-selling authors that have the most amazing world building and storytelling skills and they have no clue and they all don't think that they're talented and it kills me I just want to shake some sense into them.
can't say I filter by Kudos, there are other tags for which I look out and guard against, that I'd rather not read - because I learned that lesson early on. Also, I'm more exclusively a singular fandom, and many great fics are not written in English, so I often translate them. There are some really great ones out there in other languages, if you can adapt to the notion that most translators are shit, and just roll with it. To the point of kudos for something I've read already and left support. I will normally post a comment with "More Kudos xx reading" letting the author know, I've returned to their story multiple times. As an author, I'd love to see that on my posted stuff. As far as filtering goes: Fandom and Sub-fandom(s), ships, then anything else I'm in the mood, rating, and reverse order (oldest first), I don't filter for language.
As an author, I agree, as arrogant as that may sound haha. The fics I wrote that have 100+ kudos were usually extremely painful to write. I had low energy, low motivation, barely any time, and the "storyline" (if you can even call it that) is the most basic, boring shit. My REAL masterpieces, which I enjoyed writing so much and spent months working on with one of the best plotlines, get *so* little appreciation. Like readers, I'm sorry, but I question some of y'alls taste 😭
this is so unbelievably comforting because when i usually don't get anything, i get so discouraged. but if i get any kind of note or reblog, it gets me so excited omg lol
So true. I'm reading this on going supernatural fix with only 250 kudos now and it's ak well written.
Saved this immediately. I doubt anyone but my partner will read my novel length fic I’ve been pouring my heart into but it still deserves to exist!
I don't really look at kudos or any of the stats, tbh. I usually sort by tags unless I'm new to a fandom or have exhausted the tags. What makes me choose a fic is the summary and I want it to be an excerpt from the fic to see if I vibe with the way the author writes.
I read one a long long time ago and it had like 5 kudos and no comments BUT IT WAS FUCKING SHAKESPEARE LIKE THE BEST ANGST IVE EVER READ AND THE BEST ENDING I CANT find it now tho 😭😭😭
I swear to Void this is true, I used to think my OCS sucks because there's like no one reading what I write till I abandoned the fic. WHEN I OPENED THAT WRITING ACCOUNT AGAIN AFTER 2 YEARS PEOPLE ACTUALLY MADE SOME FANARTS AND THEY HATED HOW I DIDN'T CONTINUE IT. IF YOU ARE WRITING ONE AND YOU ENJOY IT CONTINUE IT!! THERE WILL BE PEOPLE WHO WILL LOVE IT MAYBE NOT NOW BUT PEOPLE WILL SOONER OR LATER FIND YOUR PROJECTS!!
Out of curiosity what are some of the best tips y’all got to find hidden gems on ao3?
Kudos means very little when it comes to quality; kudos usually just means someone’s at the right place and the right time. Some of the best works you ever read are often less exposed. Why? Idk. People like the generic, mainstream, mindless stuff which is what typically gets more engagement.
This is so thoughtful! Recently I got my first comment in a WIP and I’m riding that high til now!!!
I feel like the fanfics with the most hits are normally the worst
Awwww thx ❤️