Where to post?

After destroying my mind with a full six hours of _Daria_ episodes in a single sitting (it was only the second time I saw the show, too), I felt compelled beyond reason to write a piece of fanfic, which I have now completed and am in the process of editing. The story is a bit odd : in the setting of the 'Sick Sad World of Darkness', Daria and Jane are Awakened mages trying to come to grips with their 'psychic powers', putting their famed skepticism to the test. A bit silly, perhaps, but that's what fanfic is for, right?

What I'd like to know is : would this be an appropriate place to post it? If not, where should I post it? Would an inordinate number of Daria fans be put out by such a story, and if so, why would this bother them more than those by, say, Michael Pfeffer or Sean Callahan (not that I'd much want to be in the same catagory with them)? Most importantly, would the readership of this group be willing to criticize it fairly, rather than simply dismiss it as trash (it *is* trash, but I'd like at least a chance to improve my work)? TIA.

In article , [email] wrote:

This newsgroup doesn't have that much traffic. I don't see any reason not to post it here.

• Don

In article , [email] wrote:

Not really. Excessively long newsgroup posts cause problems for some people...and binary attachments (such as text files, WAVs, GIFs, and JPEGs) cause other problems. Usenet isn't really intended for that sort of thing.

A number of the Daria web pages feature extensive selections of fan fiction. I'd suggest offering it to one of them.

Since I'm not familiar with the work of either author, I can't guess!

Hey, we're not even fair to Three Stooges fans. :-)

But don't take such a self-disparaging attitude toward your own work! Virtually every writer or creative person feels that way about each new piece he or she has just completed; it's partly the natural result of "coming down" from the artificial "high" of being totally wrapped up in the process of creation. Well, that and natural insecurity and self-doubt. Not that I'd know anything about that, of course, but this is what people tell me.

My advice is, find a home for your story on a Daria web site, and remember: imagining rejection is about a thousand times worse than actually experiencing it.

Uncle RAB

Well, that shouldn't be too big a problem - its broken into six parts the longest of which is only 20K (about five printed pages) - but its a good point nonetheless. That sort of thing is common on fiction groups such as alt.devilbunnies or the alt.stories.* subhierarchy, but flooding a disscusion group with a half dozen story segments may not be very polite.

They are best noted for...well, check out the Planet Daria archives and see for yourself. It isn't pretty.

Yah, I caught that bit. You can't please everyone, I guess (not that I'm exactly a Stooges fan, myself).

Thank you. I know that, I suppose, but its still quite hard to shake.

Oh, of course not :-)

True. I'm not really expecting it, but...well, I'm more an essayist than a fiction writer, usually. I'm aware that there are problems with pacing and characterization in the story; I've already asked some people what they thought. I'm hoping to improve, and I need to know what I'm doing wrong first.

[email] (Richard Bensam) writes:

Fanfic tends to be plaintext, and not excessivley long. I don't consider fanfic to be in the same category as multimedia files. Usenet is for plaintext, and fanfic is plaintext. I vote "post it", personally.

• Ian

Joseph Osako wrote:

Sounds like you know what you're doing, though. And on reflection I have to admit that Don's quite right -- the day when we have to worry about this newsgroup being "flooded" by anything is not imminent.

In other words, you already know about the fan fiction archives on the web...and I should have realized this from your original references to other writers of Daria fan fiction. Oops! That'll learn me not to be so patronizing. (What do you want to be I keep on doing it anyway, though? Don't answer that.)

RAB

This is quite true. For instance, on my ISP, the news server just expired my only post to alt.fan.daria.

May I make a suggestion: elementary though it may seem, the word "fan" is the beginning of "fanfic". In answer to the question of "Where to Post?", maybe alt.tv could stay strictly discussion (an ersatz .d group) while the fanfiction goes over there (ie, alt.fan.daria).

Steve Wright

By that I meant, "... leaving it empty."

On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 09:24:53 -0400, hazelNut wrote:

Unfortunately, my news server doesn't seem to include alt.fan.daria in its spool. I'll try to see if I can post there, though; it may force the server to 'find' it.

"I personally am far too abundantly endowed with the three cardinal virtues of programming, to wit, laziness, impatience, and hubris, to undertake any such project." - Gregg Reynolds, on comp.lang.sather Schol-R-LEA;2 *** Now 'scholr' at 'slip.net'

On Wed, 29 Apr 1998 03:15:59 GMT, [email] (First Speaker

Well, I tried it, but the newsgroup still doesn' appear on my spool - and I have no way of saying whether or not my msg appeared on alt.fan.daria, or even if the group exists still (has it been rmgrouped to oblivion?) I'll probably post here, or perhaps send it to Plaent Daria, tho' I'm still waiting on 'critical response' from the first few people I sent it to for advice.

#define KINSEY rand() % 7 ______ Schol-R-LEA;2 LCF ELF JAM BiWM BigTimeHardLineBadLuckFistFuck \ bi / "Like marmalade on burnt toast" Want some catsup for your menu? \/ Now on Slip '.' Net as 'scholr' Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the scholar among his books

You're still doing better than Myself.

I seem to have latched firmly onto the notion that I probably won't be able to contrive _any fanfic in the near or far future. I am not quite sure, but I think today's reruns had something to do with it. How in the sick sad world (yet another co-optation -- I'm getting dangerous with those) is one supposed to hold onto any hope to do better than the lot when all one gets for inspiration /besides one's own life, oc\ are sodden second-season repeats?! The best I can glean from this shameful circumstance is that the Next Season (cw being what it is about added mediocrity and empty commercialism) will supply no more inspiration than do these reruns.

Steve Wright aka gearnann.

I would not worry about using excesive bandwidth, there are only 45 messages here at the moment. provided people know a message is large they won't mind waiting for it to download. There are lots of picture based groups ( like the porn ones ) with thouseds of messages of 40-200K A website won't nececerily display what you send them, newsgroups are where you can get whatever you want into the public domain, people may flame you but they can't stop you

What a charming attitude.

I don't consider "You can't stop me!" a valid reason to post something somehwere inappropriate. There are binaries-only newsgroups, and that's where binaries should go.

-Monty

In article , [email] says...

And besides, they CAN stop you. It is against most ISP's TOS agreement to violate the FAQ of a group <which they don't have here> OR repeatedly post binaries to non-binary groups.

If they do it enough, and more than three or four people complain, the ISP will yank the account faster than you can say "insolent". ISP's would rather yank an account that a few people complained about, then keep the user and have them repeatedly bother the people on the net. Postmasters and abuse admins are NOT mellow people, and they have a short amount of patience.

But then, wouldn't you if you had to put up with people who say things like this:

"newsgroups are where you can get whatever you want into the public domain, people may flame you but they can't stop you"

I know I would if I had to put up with that crap all day.

Greycat

In article , "newsreader" wrote:

Shut the hell up until you understand more about the Internet. If I see anything else from you giving bad advice like this I'll complain to [email] about you and you'll lose your account.

Simon.