I see I have your attention. Good!

This week's discussion is about applying good business practices to your fannish activities in the hopes of winning more minions, I mean friends, to your cause. Which is you. So yes, I mean minions. Deal with it.

One of the first laws of any business, be it manufacturing, a political campaign, or even a non-profit fundraiser for blind puppies in Ecuador, is: do not piss off the person who is about to give you money. Now Dr. Merlin, you say, one of the very first rules of fanfic is that we don't get money for our efforts. And I will agree that is the case. But money is generally defined as the default token of value exchanged for goods or services, and in fandom, the payments come in the form of good reviews, recommendations, and acknowledgement throughout your sphere of influence that you rock. It's not a portable currency, except sometimes between fandoms (and sometimes not -- it's a hard lesson to tell someone new that you're the best-known writer in Blue Monkey Eagle Dog fandom, only for them to ask wtf Blue Monkey Eagle Dog is) but payday always puts a smile on your face, and the residuals can roll in for years.

So if our payment is in accolades, and our customers are the people reading our stories, visiting our websites, and so on, our goal should be not to piss them off. Why? They'll go somewhere else. That's why. And the more people you piss off and encourage to go elsewhere, the fewer folks will stick around and continue to send in the good vibes. Plus, if you piss off enough people, your reputation could spread to piss off people you've never even "met," driving off customers before they've had a chance to see anything you've done.

That sucks. You don't want to lose readers and viewers before you've even had the chance to piss them off yourself, much less entertain them so they'll leave comments and feedback and recs and all the good things in life.

How then do you avoid pissing off potential fans?

There are many ways to piss someone off, *insert small insect of choice here*. As ingenious as fanficcers tend to be, I am sure they develop new ones every day. Let us examine a few of the biggies.

- Shipbashing and character bashing. There's a difference between writing a 'ship that competes with another, and taking that other 'ship, staking it through the heart, burying it at a crossroads, then peeing on the grave. You don't have to like the other 'ships in your fandom. Buffy/Angel may be like nails to the chalkboard of your soul, and you may want to set kittens on fire every time you see a Jack/Owen listing in a header. Those feelings are valid. Use them, experience them, revel in them, and then set them the frack aside while you're writing so you can tell your story and be honest to the characters, not just your own kinks. If half of your Stargate: Atlantis story is there to show people how terrible Teyla is so that John will run into Rodney's much more deserving arms, you're going to piss off the people who like her. If you instead take the time to do justice to the other character, giving him/her realistic motivations (wrt canon, natch) and a plausible reason to be absent other than "exploded from jealousy and then died in the resultant fire, omg," you may win that most coveted of feedback comments: "I'm normally a fan of Clark/Lana, but you've made me a believer in Clark/Lex!" That increases your fanbase. That brings people back to your stories for more. If curious Clark/Lana fans dip into your 'fics and only find loathing for Lana, if Lana's their favorite character they're not going to be reading your 'fics for more. You don't have to like Lana (or Sam, or Spike, or Dana, or Kennedy, or Bela, or any of the three thousand fannish Jacks, or anyone) but you do have to stay true to the character and it helps if you stay respectful of the fact that some people like that character.

- Spelling, grammar, and all those other things you forgot from English class. Everyone tells you that you need to edit your work to within an inch of its life. They're right. What they also need to do is remind you that very few people will forgive your blatant problems just because you’re you. Special snowflakes need not apply. As an example, a few years back I opened a story written by someone I recognized from an earlier fandom and recalled as a passable writer. When the lead (canon) character's name was misspelled multiple times, I closed the story and have yet to open another from the same author. I have a good friend who will take stories like that and c&p them to Word, then search and replace the offending text. I figure if the author wasn't going to look up how to spell the character's name, the same author was probably not going to have spent enough time on the story to make it worth any effort on my part. You're going to run into readers with a whole range of expectations when it comes to the readability of your fanfic. Bad spelling, poor grammar, and lack of basic research will piss off people quickly.

- Politics. This one is tricky. Fandom tends to lean liberal, mainly because most people really can't manage to write explicit porn featuring a furry, winged alien ghost vampire and his male, hardboiled, human partner without eventually thinking maybe gay marriage won't destroy society as we know it. The mental gymnastics involved are possible, but they stretch thinking muscles usually reserved for the "only me exception" in moral quandaries. You'd think that fandom would be a good space for letting that flag fly free. And in some cases, that's true. If your SG1 story is all about "don't ask, don't tell," and your favorite couple is Jack/Daniel, you're going to have a hard time not putting down pretty plainly on the page that you think DADT is pretty FUBAR and should STFU so your OTP can FLBTTHC. And you're probably not going to find a lot of fellow Jack/Daniel 'shippers reading your story and thinking that Jack ought to be drummed out of the service, because those particular fans probably stopped reading at the header. Just keep in mind that the more blatant you make your opinions known, the more likely it is that someone will avoid your work because they know in advance your opinion on the invasion of Granada will make their brains leak out their ears.

The characters you write will not always agree with you on certain issues, and as before, you need to be true to those characters without treating them as mouthpieces for either side of a debate. If you can't, focus your writing elsewhere (or keep reading -- we'll get to when it's a good idea later in the essay).

- Crappy subtext. This goes back to character bashing, and can often overlap with politics. The majority of fans are sick and tired of having the racism/sexism/homophobia/ableism/religious discrimination/etc. discussion and would rather not think about it. Then there's everyone else, the folks who have to live with those issues every single day and can't turn them off just to have a good time. They're going to be reading your stories too, and they're going to get really pissed off if every female character is a shrieking, jealous harpy, if every gay character lisps and then dies, if every non-white character talks in stereotypes and exists only to help out the white characters' troubled relationships, and so on. Don't be afraid to write characters outside of your comfort zone, just be willing to step back enough to ask yourself (and other people who will be honest with you) if what you're writing is going to offend your potential readers, and if so, to fix those problems as they arise. No one's going to assume or ask that you come from a perfect place of cultural appreciation and sensitivity to all peoples, just that you engage your brain, do your best, not actively try to piss people off, and apologize and do better next time if you screw up anyway.

An example: a well-known blogger recently published her first book, wherein certain pictures portrayed the blonde heroine fleeing a mob of bemasked, dark-skinned natives. The imagery was intended to evoke the notion of women trying to evade male oppressors, but instead many readers (and viewers online of the images) took away the '50s-comics-derived sensibility of the pics, and got pissed off at the racial subtext. The author was promoting her book to a diverse audience but managed to alienate many potential readers, who then would not spend money purchasing the book.

- Eye-bleeding site design. The best-crafted story on your flashy royal background with red text will remain an unread story. Blinky things on the page, starry backgrounds, text overlaid on a busy background, anything that disrupts the eye of your reader away from your story? Bad. Pisses them off. Makes them click away. A few hardy souls might c&p to read in Word, or highlight and try to read the highlighted text instead. But all of them will hate you for making them do it. Keep your design simple, keep it contrasting without being obnoxious, do not under any circumstances center everything, and learn what paragraph breaks are used for. Otherwise you're going to piss off people before they've even begun reading your story, and if you give them enough headaches, they won't ever come back. This also goes for making people jump through hoops to get to your story. One click away from a reading list is simple, two will lose people who thought they were going directly there, and three means your reader base just shrunk to the people who already like you.

- Respond to the comments people leave on your stories. Yes, sometimes this takes a while. It's still polite to say "thank you," even if it takes a while for you to do it. Pick a time once a week if that's what it takes. While you're watching the lead-in show to your favorite series, or your wind-down show, shoot off a pack of thanks. Not only will it keep people from getting pissed off at you, it'll make them think you're cool.

Again, there are many, many other ways to piss people off. Lie. Be boring and yet simultaneously over-inflated with your own importance. Run over their dogs. Offend their favorite deities while performing a song and dance routine with puppets. Tell them their stories suck. You may even now be thinking of brand new ways to piss off potential readers and friends. (It's a hobby, I guess.)

And then there are the times when pissing people off is what you need to do. There are times when pissing people off is secondary to helping someone else or standing up for something you believe. Take a quick look at the quick list above again, and realize that what you write may very well piss off half or more of the people who read your work or visit your site, and you'd better decide up front that a) it's worth it, and b) you're willing to stand by your work when the fan gets hit by the flaming excrement.

Maybe you're writing in a ficathon or fic exchange. You've put down what you want to see, and then your recipient requests a story where a particular character is set on fire, decapitated, resurrected, and then flayed alive. When you write the story, however you choose to fill the request, you probably won't receive much flack when you post it to the exchange site. However, before you post elsewhere, consider your wider audience. You may wish to disclaim the story as being written per request. Or, you may have decided the tale says exactly what it needs to say. Just be aware that some fans are not going to be amused, and will flame accordingly.

Maybe, as above, there's a particular political statement you want to make, and need to make with these particular characters. Maybe you're the one who has to tell the story of how Hermione obtained an abortion in her fourth year via a particular spell which McGonagall helped her work. Maybe it's important to you. So write it, because you need to write the stories that nibble at your toes and rob you of sleep, and if/when you go to post, understand you're going to piss off people. Potential readers may be turned off by the subject, others will likely eschew your future work. If you can handle that, if it is indeed more important to you to be true to what you need to say, post it. Say it. Piss people off and stand up for the work you've done when they let you know in great detail just how pissed off they are. Try not to take it personally. (Also, don't dismiss the possibility that even the flamers could have a point, because you never know.)

Above all else, above the advice I've just given you and any other advice you ever get anywhere else, be true to yourself and your story. Always tell the story you need to tell. Once you've written it out, take a look, try to see what you've done from a few other perspectives (beta readers are fantastic for this) to see if you've screwed the pooch in some unintended fashion, and if you post something you know is going to upset someone, be damned sure it's someone you want to be upset at you.  If it's not, say you're sorry and don't do it again.  If it is, put on your asbestos panties, sit back with a bag of marshmallows, and wait.