How to Beat the Newbie Blues
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| Title: | How to Beat the Newbie Blues |
| Creator: | Pequod |
| Date(s): | October 2001 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | The X-Files |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | How to Beat the Newbie Blues |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How to Beat the Newbie Blues is a 2001 essay by Pequod and was posted to Working Stiffs, an X-Files website.
It gives encouragement and hints to new X-Files fanfic writers.
The Essay
It's tough being a newbie in fanfic. By definition, no one's ever heard of you. You're just one tiny pebble on a beach littered with rocks polished smooth by time and the waves of experience. How are you ever going to be noticed? How can you get your stories read by people other than your mom and your best friend?
It is easy to sink into despair when you think you have a perfectly good, exciting story that you've worked hard on and despite your best efforts, the counter on Ephemeral struggles to reach double figures. What's worse is you know that half of those skinny numbers are as a result of your anxious checks to make sure the story looks good on the page. You've followed all the wonderful advice available on pages like this. You lurked for months before posting. Your story is grammatically correct and well formatted. You even had someone check it to make sure the characters rang true and the situation seemed plausible to another reader.
But still no one's reading!
Now while feedback and reader numbers aren't everything, and writing for personal satisfaction and to gain experience should perhaps have greater significance attached to it than is often the case, you are writing in order that someone will read and hopefully enjoy your story. It's perfectly legitimate to want to reach as wide an audience as possible and to want to know what they have to say about your work. For one thing, it's a great way to learn and improve, and for another, getting feedback can be a great confidence booster and can put a smile on your face for the rest of the day.
So what's to be done?
Well, the first thing is don't despair. As anyone will tell you who's been around the community for a while, it's rare that someone makes a big splash with their first story. There are many readers out there who actively seek out the work of newer authors and your story might just be the one they pick that day. But even if that's not the case and your hard work goes largely unnoticed don't be discouraged. And whatever you do, don't moan in public. I know it's easy to blame everyone else for not reading your work and when you see posts on the newsgroup from people stating that there are so many stories out there they only pick ones from authors they know and trust it can be frustrating. It's also easy to bump into another frustrated newbie and soon you're swapping long, bitchy e-mails about how unfair the fanfic world is and how there's no such thing as community and support for new writers. I know how easy it is because I've fallen into the trap myself. Moaning doesn't win you any friends, though, and friends are precisely what you need if you want to have a modicum of success with your writing.
I'm not being cynical when I say you need friends, as though there's some kind of secret network you have to belong to in order to break through, but I am trying to be practical. There's no doubt in my mind that getting your name known in the community will help you increase your readership. If people are being picky about what they read because the volume of fanfic is so great, then if they recognize your name and have read posts from you on other subjects, they're more likely to be interested in checking out your writing talent.
Becoming active in the community is a great way of getting known and the benefits to you are far greater than just getting more hits on Ephemeral. If you post regularly to the newsgroup, if you join a couple of lists that sound interesting and you get your voice heard then you're going to make a whole bunch of great friends. I guarantee it. Soon you'll be flying across the country to stay up for twenty-four hours straight watching your favorite XF episodes and talking, talking, talking about fanfic, life, the universe, and who's hotter-- Harrison Ford or Keanu Reeves. It could very well change, or enhance, your life. And it's a whole big heap of fun.
When you've gotten yourself onto a list, don't be afraid to have an opinion. Be respectful of others and play by the rules of fair debate, but if you have a point to make, make it! Let your fabulous personality shine like a beacon to everyone else on the list and talk to people. Send messages offlist, give good feedback, comment on other people's comments.
But the best thing you can do in order to succeed as a writer is to write. Just because your first story falls by the wayside doesn't mean it's crap or that you're a bad writer. Write another story. Practising your craft is the only way to improve and the better your stories are, the more likely it is that someone will eventually notice. Couple that with your participation in the community and you'll soon find that you're not just another pebble, indistinguishable from the rest. You're an individual with a defined personality whom people know, recognize and hopefully like. You're making a difference in the lives of the others in the community and you're probably enjoying yourself more than you ever thought possible.
And when do you stop being a newbie? I don't think you ever really do. I know of authors before whom I lie prostrate in awe and stupefaction at their talent and skill, and yet they still see themselves as minions when compared with authors who have been around longer and who were the big fish in the pond when they were tiny newts themselves.