Bughead Author Spotlight: sylwrites

From Fanlore
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Interviews by Fans
Title: Bughead Author Spotlight: sylwrites
Interviewer: bughead-fic-request
Interviewee: sylwrites
Date(s): August 2017
Medium: Online
Fandom(s): Riverdale
External Links: "Interview". Archived from the original on 2017-11-25.
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

sylwrites was interviewed in 2017 by bughead-fic-request. The interview is part of the Bughead Author Spotlight series.

Excerpts

17. How do you come up with the ideas for you fic(s)? Do you people watch? Listen to music? Get inspired by TV/movies?

Usually it starts with a basic plot point. In the case of Fall in Light, for example, it was – hey, let’s write a roommates AU. Then it just got way darker. Sometimes it’s informed by life experiences (I’ll go camping then suddenly sit with an idea about camping for two days, for example).

24. How do you handle bad reviews or comments?

Really, really poorly, which is why my anon ask is not on and why for the first bit I didn’t even allow anonymous commenting on AO3. I totally welcome and love legitimate feedback, but rudeness for the sake of rudeness isn’t something I deal with well.

28. Do you have an advice for writers that want to get into this fandom but might be scared?

A few key points:

  • Make a plan/outline, that’ll help to keep you going forward if you get distracted or lose your drive halfway through
  • Get a beta reader to help keep you consistent, in-character and on track
  • Get a tumblr to introduce yourself to the community and help promote your work

Then, once you have a finished product: just post it! What’s the worst that can happen?

If people are wondering about comment/kudo ratio and hit count and ways to increase all of those things, I’d say that length and frequency of updates are a couple other contributing factors to success (in addition to what a lot of other people have said in great posts elsewhere on tumblr). If you’re concerned about not having a lot of time to write in between updates, I encourage people to stockpile a few updates and release them at a reasonable rate so that you don’t put a lot of undue stress on yourself later when you have twenty-five asks all bugging you for updates. I think this goes without saying, but nobody who is writing fic is doing it for any reason other than enjoyment, and if it starts to cause you stress and unhappiness, that goes against its entire purpose. This is one of those areas where I am a big hypocrite, because I never do that (see: my impatience, greed, and need for validation through the kindness of internet strangers), but I do think it’s a great concept if you would like to keep your fic in the top few most recent pages of the Bughead tag without sacrificing quality because of frantic late-night writing that’s done simply to appease reviewer644 in Tulsa, or whatever.

Bughead Author Spotlight series