༉˚*ೃ 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐂-𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄.

i know that this book is technically for writing tips, but if you happen to be a reader who's stumbled upon this, or who a disgruntled fanfic writer has sent you this link to, welcome! this'll be a rundown on how to be a helpful and encouraging fic reader, and exactly what not to do, because i've had people do these "what NOT to do" on all my fics and they always make me feel,,, less than satisfied.

all of these "what to do"s and "what not to do"s have been collected from authors i know on this site and who've either sent in these points to me, or who i've seen conveying how much it has hurt them before, so please remember that we authors are real people and not just writing machines for your enjoyment! we are real, even though it can seem like we're just invisible beings behind the screen, and we have feelings too. thank you to my mutuals and followers who sent these in!

also, just to clarify in case people reading this don't get the abbreviations: oc = original character; fc = faceclaim; og = original.

WHAT TO DO.   →      *   .    &

.     &     ━     engage with wips    →   any engagement is wildly appreciated. votes, comments, anything of the like. just don't be a ghostreader! we work super hard for free (ik a lot of authors might mention the "for free" part but please understand, we spend enough time writing on here that this could be our full-time job, except we make absolutely zero money off of it, and it often intereferes with our real life job or schooling) and getting no interactions can be discouraging! i spend approximately 40 hours a week (sometimes more) working on fics, between my time at university and my actual job, it's a lot of effort to be a fic writer! it's really helpful to get kind feedback and encouragement !

.     &     ━     follow the author's social medias!   →   most of us have writing-related or personal instagram, twitter, tumblr, spotify and pinterest (sometimes more) social media accounts in the bios on our profiles, where we post more about our stories, etc! it's always encouraging when we get followed on there, and it's a good way to see what we're working on next or get previews of new chapters / stories .

.     &     ━     consider donating to our ko-fis or pledging to our patreons   →   not everyone will have them, i only know a few writers on this site who have a writing behind-the-scenes patreon, but they really help us out! remember that we do this for free and sometimes money is appreciated, since we still have to work real jobs between writing chapters .

.     &     ━     comment on fics   →   no matter long or short, drop some comments! they can be as simple as "i love this story", or longer. i've gotten long paragraphs before and they completely and utterly warm my heart. they mean the world to us. i screenshot every single nice comment or paragraph i've ever gotten and save it to a folder on my phone, that way, if i'm ever discouraged, i look back and smile and get teary because these comments are really some of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me. if you're unsure of what you should be commenting, inline comment your reaction on every few lines or paragraphs, they're really sweet and enjoyable to read. or you can comment on the situation, the characters, what they meant to you, etc. some of the nicest comments have been ranging from paragraphs worths to ones as simple as: "god i lOvE tHis woMaN"; "WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED [...] I HAD TO COVER MY MOUTH"; "james come to me. james. james. I WILL KILL U"; "i'm so glad that you wrote these stories... and for some reason i'm absurdly proud of you"; like they don't HAVE to be long, but they can make me almost cry with how happy they make me. trust me, letting people know you love their characters or story, or how much it means to you, it'll make their world! i look back on all of them and smile. like i have CRIED before because people can be so nice. be that good reader that authors will look back on and smile .

.     &     ━     don't be afraid to comment on older works too!   →   it's lovely to see people still appreciating our old writing, after such a time has passed !

.     &     ━     leave votes   →   votes help us to know we're appreciated! although they're nowhere near as meaningful as a comment, they're definitely important and helpful in letting us know you enjoy the story !

.     &     ━     recommend fics to friends / followers   →   will make us melt, can confirm .

.     &     ━     re-read   →   i always recognise when people re-read because i remember users, so i'm like OMG HI I SEE YOU AGAIN

.     &     ━     be patient and encouraging   →   please understand that writer's block and other priorities are a thing! we can't be updating all the time, and sometimes we'll get in a creative slump where we might not update for weeks. if we apologise about it, please be supportive and kind! it can really suck not having the creativity or motivation to continue a story you love, so don't just spam "update" comments, be a supportive and encouraging reader! we'll be so appreciative of it !

.     &     ━     browse our accounts and look at our other stories   →   if you really like the story you're reading, and are waiting for updates, or just finished it, etc, try looking around the rest of our accounts! usually we have a lot of books you'll also enjoy and reading our other stories is always appreciated .

.     &     ━     drop a message on our message boards   →   kind messages on our message boards are always lovely and appreciated <3

.     &     ━     make art   →   it's always best to ask for permission first, but if you do really love a fic it's always lovely when someone makes art of your oc or your ship, based on your fic! art, graphics, anything like that are always so sweet to make as gifts for authors to show you really appreciate them! again, not necessary by any means, but it's always a gesture authors will really appreciate .

.     &     ━     just give authors some love   →   i feel like fanfiction writers are wildly unappreciated nowdays (i'm not just talking about me), especially on this site (tumblr is much better at circulating fics and fanwork!) and i also feel like readers don't really understand how much work goes into a chapter! after all, you just read a 2,000-7,000 word chapter in less than 10 minutes, how hard can that be? to lay it out for you, my day (as i'm currently on university holidays and writing fanfics on this site full-time) goes like this: i wake up somewhere between 9 and 11 am, get out of bed and sit at my desk with a lit candle and some breakfast. i then write, with sometimes a break at lunch (or i skip lunch and just keep going because i'm so invested), until dinner at 7:00, and sometimes pick it up again afterwards, writing until anywhere from 12 - 3am. i do this every day, because i love it and i wouldn't give it up for anything, but i work like it's a full-time job i'm getting paid for. except i'm not. that can be up to 10 hours each a day. usually i have other things on, like going for a half-hour walk or catching up with friends, but i usually end up writing for at least 30 hours a week if i'm being optimistic. that's a lot of work, and some fic authors write more. so, please remember to support us! i know it's easy to just skim through a weekly chapter in 10 minutes and be done with it, but for us that chapter took anywhere from 1 to 8 hours to write, so give the chapter and the author some love! outlining takes even longer, and i cannot even begin to fathom how many hours i've spent planning, outlining and writing my longest ongoing fic series (which is currently at about 500,000 words), which is over 333 hours i've spent approximately just writing it, not including the brainstorming, planning, outlining or editing. point is, support the authors you love! it's really not hard to comment, and it makes our world, so drop something kind every so often to let us know we're appreciated !

WHAT NOT TO DO.   →      *   .    &

these lists of points below will not apply to every writer. i know a handful (a smidge of a handful) of writers who aren't annoyed by those "update" comments (when i mean a smidge) and some who aren't put-off by comments referring to other pieces of media, but here are a collection of generally what to do and what not to do when reading fanfics. some of these points are very disheartening or offensive, and can get on writers' nerves very quickly. you have to understand that we are putting out all this content for free and regularly, without asking for much in return. please try to be kind and not rude, we're really just trying to write the stories close to our hearts.

.     &     ━     tell us to "update"    →   any comment being like "update", "please update", "when is the next update?", "update soon", are the literal bane of my existence. here's why: writing is hard. it takes a long time, a lot of work, editing and effort. we authors try to get chapters up as soon as possible, but it's really hard sometimes. uploading a chapter and seeing people only comment "update" feels like people don't appreciate us as human beings, if that makes sense. it makes me feel like my readers see me as some kind of robot who just churns out chapter after chapter. especially if the person has not commented anything else or voted up until this point. that really pisses me off. i 100% understand when you're so invested in a fic that you just want to read more!! but commenting that just comes across as insanely rude. there are a range of different types of "update" comments. the ones that are like "update" or "update soon" just come across as super rude to me. like, why are you demanding that of me? i understand it's because they're invested, but, seriously, do people not understand how rude that comes off as? it really makes me feel unvalued. adding a "please" makes it better, but not by much. for me, i don't mind so much if the person hasn't been a ghostreader on my story, and is more polite about it. a "i love this story so much, when will it be updated next?" or something along those lines is okay to me. that might sound selfish or ego-pleasing to you, with the "i love this story" but i just think, if you're going to comment "update" you're clearly invested enough in the story that you must appreciate it. so tell me and it won't come across as rude? it at least makes me feel valued as a person and a writer. "update" is just so demeaning to me. it makes me feel like people expect me to churn out material 24/7 and nothing else. to non-writers this rant might come across as bitchy, but when you spend 2-6 hours writing a chapter and posting it and then you get comments immediately after (or even weeks after, it's still annoying) just telling you to update, and nothing else, it makes you feel really shitty. if you genuinely want to know — don't just demand — then just ask and be kind about it. we have personal lives too, we do this for free and it's not always our top priority, no matter how much we love it. i can't spend all my time writing, i would if i could, but comments like that make me feel really undervalued. it makes me feel awful every time i get a comment like this. especially when they've been a total ghostreader up until that point. all the authors i know HATE being rushed and being told this, so just don't .

.     &     ━     "imma use this"    →   how dare you comment on lines of author's stories, declare that you're going to steal a line of their work, and then proceed to steal those lines or our OCs. what are you doing? that's plagiarism? how rude and egotistical do you have to be to plagiarise and steal our work while boasting about it ?

.     &     ━     start an unnecessary argument, or be rude to other commenters    →   i don't know why i have to say this, but please don't be rude towards other random commenters if it's totally unwaranted. i've seen people calling other commenters "dumb" and "wrong" in the comment section of my chapters for no reason. it's extremely rude? not only to the person you're insulting but also to me because i can see all of your comments and replies, i get a notification for every one, so don't start a fight for no reason please. i get this a lot and it gets on my nerves !

.     &     ━     give us unwanted criticism    →   i know that people will say "well, you've put this on the internet for free, we can critique it all we like" and i get that, but that's just not true. yeah, it's on the internet, yes, criticism is good for an artist, but we don't want you to critique it. we write for fun, for our readers to enjoy. if you're going to come on and say "this story is bad, these characters are flat and the plot is boring", just, why are you here? if you don't like it, move on to a different story. there's nothing respectful or helpful giving us unwanted criticism if we never asked for it. writers still grow without unwaranted criticism, this is practice for a lot of us, and unless we ask for critiques, hold back from rating or critiquing our stories please .

.     &     ━     "i hate this faceclaim"    →   okay, but that's how i imagine my character's appearance so why are you telling me this? you don't need to like the fc as a person to just imagine the character looking that way. anyway, just don't comment stuff like this. i don't know if readers understand how much it sucks to have your only comments be stuff like this, it's very discouraging !

.     &     ━     "i hated this ending"    →   this SUCKS. again, why do you need to be so rude? we wrote it that way because that's how we see our characters and their story finishing. we just finished what could be a 60,000 word up to 500,000 word series and all you can say after all our work is "that ending sucked". if you think it, whatever, but what does telling us that achieve? other than being cruel? it won't change anything, it's how we chose how our stories and characters would end. some of you might think i'm making comments like these up but i have seen so many of my wattpad mutuals get comments like this. i can't imagine how awful it must make them feel .

.     &     ━     only pointing out mistakes or plotholes    →   sometimes this kind of thing can be helpful, sometimes writers will thank you for this. most of the time, it's just seen as rude. a lot of the time, writers know these mistakes or plotholes! sometimes we're in the middle of rewriting the story and are, yes, aware of this mistake we made when we were fifteen. others just don't know how to solve it and can't be bothered rewriting their whole fic to fix it. chances are, if you're pointing it out, you're about the seventh person who's done so. sometimes, you've even commented directly after three inline comments saying the exact same thing. it's really rude and not helpful. again, it's very discouraging if you've been a complete ghostreader up until this point (no comments, no votes) and only ever comment to point out issues .

.     &     ━     correcting grammar or typos    →   again, sometimes this can be helpful, but it is also usually extremely infuriating. like, yes, i made one mistake in a 6,000 word chapter. editing over and over is hard and draining, we will often miss things, but it doesn't mean that the only thing you should comment is wording or grammar mistakes. most of the time we'll pick them up and correct them ourselves in re-reads anyway! also, please consider that the author's native language might not be english .

.     &     ━     "you're wrong"    →   telling us we're "wrong" because something was different or didn't happen in the original source material. remember that the entire point of fanfics is changing the canon. things won't be the same, so don't try to tell us we're "incorrect" or have "written it wrong" .

.     &     ━     "this oc is a carbon copy of [this other character]", "all faceclaims for [this love interest] look the same"    →   maybe it seems like just a simple observation to you, but again, we get a notification for every single comment you leave. this just comes across as extremely rude because we try our hardest to make our characters our own and original, being told that our ocs are just like characters from canon or characters from other source materials is very disheartening. i've had several people on my bellamy blake fic comment on my faceclaim of naomi to say "all the faceclaims for bellamy's love interests look just like clarke" and while i get it might just be an observation, getting my stuff be basically called boring or unoriginal just because my oc is blonde really sucks . 

.     &     ━     "i hate this character"    →   when referring to a canon character in your story who you've expressed that you like, or is an oc's best friend, sibling etc. i CANNOT express how many people comment on my steve harrington fic telling me how much they hate nancy wheeler (which i think is bullshit and is just attributed to misogyny) when i've stated from the beginning that she's one of my favourite characters, and is literally my protagonist's best friend, and such a good friend in my fic (like she and sar are a f*cking incredible duo, they love each other and sar would beat your ass for saying that, why are you commenting that everywhere??). another one is commenting how much they hate charlotte from the 100 (which i GET, trust me) when she's my oc's sister. like i GET IT but 50 people have commented the same thing above you and it just starts to get discouraging. because either i like these characters and don't need you in my story expressing how much you hate them or how i should have written them differently, or they're a vital aspect to my story who i've tried to give depth, and you just smack it away with a "well, i still hate them". it starts to get very irritating and disappointing .

.     &     ━     RUDE READING LISTS    →   god this gets on my nerves so much, because it SUCKS. like, you know we can see every reading list our stories are added to, right? so maybe ditch your lists titled "meh", "shit", "sucks", "people that can't write", "horrible books", "wouldn't read again", "ew", because these are all lists that i've seen or been added to, and WHY would you think it's okay to title lists like that and add books to them? have some common decency oh my GOD. not only is it being awful, but it's publically being awful and humiliating everyone that's added to their list, times 10 because the author can't delete their book from the list like they can delete comments from their fics. not only are you saying it, but you're saying it for all your followers or anyone who stumbles across your account to see. god. and lists like "slow updates", "abandoned fics" or "waiting for updates" is again incredibly discouraging, especially when we've just uploaded a chapter for you to do that. rude reading lists drive me up the wall. i hope these people don't realise they're public and we get notifs when our books are added to them, and they're completely humiliated when they discover it because, yeah, you deserve that .

.     &     ━     comment rude things towards our ocs    →   this is by far the worst i would experience. i hope you know that our ocs are our babies, and being rude towards them makes us see red. "your oc is so rude", "i hate this character", "oMg i hAtE hEr DIE", "this character is so annoying", "i wish she would die lol", "literally why is she the main character",, PARDON? did i hear y'all right? how are you all so blatantly rude and cruel? our ocs are so important to us, often they reflect crucial aspects of ourselves — i know that can be said about most writers. my ocs are literally my darling children. i don't understand how you could be so blatantly rude like that? there's a difference between pointing out that something they did is bad, and fully just being hateful. if the character is rude or unlikeable to begin with, character development and arcs exist, you know. so do flaws. even if you do dislike our oc, don't comment it where the notification will pop up. it sucks when the only comment you get is one being hateful to your oc, for no good reason. please be respectful .

.     &     ━     correcting the way we wrote something, eg. an entire paragraph    →   again, it's not your job to rewrite our story for us. if you're going to tell us how we did something wrong and how you would fix it, kindly shut your mouth for a moment and reconsider how that's rude. it's like people who redraw art to "fix it" and then send it to the original person. it's our art and our writing, not yours? don't touch it ??

.     &     ━     "you would be a good writer if you didn't write in so much detail"    →   okay? again, why would you comment this to someone? have you ever heard of something called a writing style? it means that everyone has a different personalised style and touch of writing. i myself, and many others, really enjoy writing in detail and poetic terms. others enjoy a more simplistic or dialogue-heavy style. if you don't enjoy the style, deal with it or pick up another fanfic. don't tell us it. it's so hurtful to be confident in or proud of your writing and your style, only for a reader to comment something like this. you're not a professional critic, we didn't ask you to critique our work for us, so why are you telling us that ?

.     &     ━     "this story is bullshit"   →   LITERALLY the exact comment i got on my favourite fic of mine, completely unwaranted. (they did go on to talk about how "the good days of the old good writers on fanfiction.net has come to an end", though). anyway, just don't comment stuff like this on the fic as a whole. "this fic sucks", "this book is awful", it hits the same way as someone hating on an oc would. totally unnecessary and unwanted. how is that even constructive critisism in the first place? and we never asked for criticism .

.     &     ━     dm us asking if we'll write a fic for you   →   i've gotten multiple messages like this from people who don't even follow me, requesting that i'll write a fic for them for a certain character. please don't do this! unless we have something saying "fic commissions open" or "fic requests open" in our profile, it comes across as kind of strange! if you have an idea for a fic or a writing collab, at least be a follower, or better yet a mutual or a friend. it's very odd getting dms from people i don't know and who don't follow me requesting i write a full-length story for them for free !

.     &     ━    self-promote   →   for the love of god, don't self-promote on our fics, message boards or dms! commenting "please read my fic" or "would you follow me?" honestly makes us want to do the opposite. it's very rude and inconsiderate! i understand you want to get your work more recognised but (and i'll make a chapter for that) that just takes a lot of time and work. self-promoting does nothing more than irritating the author you're commenting on, and they might block you. i think it's also against the spam policy .

.     &     ━    be homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, etc.   →   why do you exist? i can't fathom how someone would open a story, see that the oc is gay, and comment homophobic things about them. or anything against a minority that either the author is, an oc is, or a canon character is. please don't .

.     &     ━     plagiarise   →   why does this need to be said? don't EVER plagiarise a writer, it's illegal and will get you fucking slammed, why would you ever think it's okay to steal from an author on this site? it happens way too often — has happened to me and authors i know on here an insane amount of time — and just shouldn't be a thing. if you plagiarise, go to jail. it's our work, it's copyrighted, don't ever steal our hard work and blood, sweat and tears, please. since apparently it needs to be said, i'll be making a way longer chapter about this later .

.     &     ━     nitpick   →   picking apart bits of our story just because you can, or ridiculing our story ideas. totally unnecessary and rude !

.     &     ━     reply to celebs or og source material writers with our fanfics   →   why would you do this? unless it's explicitly stated by us that we want you to, never do this. it's a violation of our trust and privacy, and shady af. especially if the fanfic is a celebrity fic, it can be humiliating. it could expose us to harrassment from online trolls, don't post our stuff without our permission. recommending is a completely different thing than sending the person we're writing fanfics about our works. i would die on the spot .

.     &     ━     comment rude things on plot shops, graphic shops, etc    →   don't tell the author something "isn't fair" if their rules were set out for you to read right there. you also don't have any right to demand something of an author, and that will probably get you blacklisted. be kind to authors when they're offering you stuff for free .

.     &     ━    comment corrections based on whether you live in america    →   saying america specifically because most spellings are america vs the rest of the world. if someone uses "mum", not "mom", or "colour", not "color", please remember that not everyone lives in america and the world doesn't revolve around your country. commenting things like "omg, it's mom" or "why do you use celcius lol" is literally so annoying PLEASE stop .

.     &     ━     be rude about someone's graphics or manips    →   if you're going to comment on someone's graphics saying "this is awful omg" or "lol" just ?? rethink your life .

.     &     ━     "this is too similar to the original!"    →   again, why would you tell us this? even if you think so, just don't comment it. literally the only reason why a reader would ever tell us this is to make us feel like shit .

.     &     ━     steal our ocs    →   another aspect of plagiarism, do not EVER plagiarise our ocs. this can go as far as using the same name, faceclaim and personality, or simply just copying vital original aspects of them. our ocs are so important to us, please don't do this .

.     &     ━     act like our ocs are your reader inserts    →   not necessarily rude but more of very bizarre and uncomfortable. thinking that the ocs are reader insults and commenting like them — which have happened to some mutuals of mine. commenting stuff like "no, come sit by me!" or "he loves me, i just know it!", or "woah, i'm a minor" when the oc is an adult or saying "ummm, i would never do this!" or "why would i do this?" an oc is NOT a reader insert, you can read other fics for that. an oc has their own personalities, flaws, drives, relationships, etc. most importantly, most writers' ocs contain aspects of OURSELVES, and are extremely personal. unless a book specifically states that it's a reader insert, stuff like this is very disrespectful to an author and their work, as well as very weird .

.     &     ━     asking for "better book" reccomendations in the comments    →   ???? why would you do this ?

.     &     ━     hypocrisy showing    →   one of my biggest pet peeves and something that happens to my stories ALL the time. readers might hype up the male oc/characters but criticise the female oc/characters for doing the exact same thing. "there are probably hundreds of brutal comments made towards the oc for stupid things, like an insecurity she had and even for handling a situation without being sweet. [...] to single out the female characters and demonize them for something they would cheer a male character on for is shitty. [...] long story short, i hate when readers pick apart every tiny detail of the female characters and judge them savagely, but will enable and encourage the male characters to do just that. they tear apart a female character with a bitchy attitude but love douchebag behaviour." and that's that on misogyny !

.     &     ━     hating on canon characters when the author gives them a character arc    →   getting annoyed when a canon character gets an arc or has a close relationship with the oc is pretty shitty — this is our story and we decide what we want to do with the characters .

.     &     ━     commenting on our old works about how they "don't make sense"    →   another one of my pet peeves. some of my stories were written in 2016, and the amount of comments i get saying that things don't make sense, or that the writing is bad, is insane. i wrote that over four years ago, yes my writing was going to be immature and yes i've improved. there's no need to be rude about works we wrote when we were young .

.     &     ━     criticise our characters' trauma or ND    →   i don't know why this has to be said, but making fun of our ocs coping mechanisms or struggles with trauma / mental illness, or neurodivergency, is extremely shitty. mostly because, once again, our ocs always have aspects of us in them, and in a lot of authors i know it tends to be their trauma, mental illness or neurodivergent traits. i know mine do. so if someone says my oc is "dumb" or "weak" for having panic attacks, experiencing depression or developing trauma — over something the commenter thinks is "small" — or god forbid someone ever comments "that was autistic" or "they're acting autistic", you're pretty much going to get my wrath. a lot of people who are neurodivergent (things like autism and ADHD) or mentally ill or traumatised will write their characters as such without even knowing it. most of my characters experience traits of anxiety, depression, adhd or autism because that's how i think, and in a way we all base our characters off how we ourselves experience life. so telling my character that their panic attacks "make them weak" or asking "why tf are they crying?" is also invalidating me and every author whose character experience trauma or ND traits, and it's really shitty. also ableist .

.     &     ━     "TRIGGERED" or "omg that triggered my OCD"    →   when you don't have OCD and mean perfectionism, or aren't actually triggered and just mean offended (which is fucking stupid). just don't say these anywhere. full stop. OCD is a mental illness and medical condition that ruins lives and is not just you wanting your pens lined up in rainbow colours on your desk, alright? a trigger is a psychological term related to trauma or mental illness, a reaction to a specific thing that could trigger a full break down, relapse, or panic attack, not something that means "i'm offended", and i find it disgusting when people use it to mean something stupid like that.  i'm sorry, but this makes me genuinely really angry. when i'm triggered by something, i go into full shut-down, i get the shivers and begin to sweat, i might have a sobbing fit by myself and struggle to breathe, i cannot think about anything else other than that. i basically have an anxiety attack. and as far as reactions to my triggers go, i have it pretty easy. so just REMOVE those phrases from your vocabulary altogether because they just make you look like a dickhead, and especially don't comment it on anyone's stories. unless it's an actual trigger that you've experienced in response to something in an author's work, in which you should request a trigger warning be put on the chapter or story. 

.     &     ━     referencing other fandoms in a book that isn't in that fandom    →   you would have no idea about how much this ticks authors off. i understand being excited about another fandom but!! please leave it to that fandom! just because a female character and loses her shit and screams, it doesn't mean she's lydia martin. not everything is a teen wolf, marvel or supernatural reference. the thing is, we'll probably already have at least 10 other comments telling us that exact same thing. i get excitement, but the point is that this is our story in our fandom! we won't always get the references, they can leave us confused or just plain annoyed. not every author will be irritated by this, but a large amount of my mutuals are. because we have large readings, and we get a lot of comments like this. just try to keep the comments related to the fandom or our story !

.     &     ━     being weird or over-familiar when we aren't mutuals or friends    →   i'm ALL for making friends through being a reader or writer, all my closest friends from this site are because either they read my book or i read their book! but there's a difference between being very active on commenting, being friendly and excited about our books (which is a good thing, and can lead to friendship or being mutuals), and acting like we're BFFs when i don't know you at all. a lot of my readers now i know because they comment all the time and have been since the first chapters, when we're now 500,000 words into the story, and i'm okay with them acting familiar because i consider us friends. but if i've never spoken to you before, be aware that posting things like "YOU'RE SO ANNOYINGGG" and "I HATE YOU" or doing challenges on me when i don't know you at all can be very uncomfortable and strange. over-familiarity is a big problem on all platforms of social media — twitter and wattpad specifically — and i'm aware it makes a lot of people extremely uncomfortable. stuff like "OMG I LOVE YOU FOR THIS" is fine for me, because i understand its intentions and that a reader is enjoying my story, but there's a barrier you cross when you joke things that could possibly come across as rude, when we've never interacted prior to this. i don't exactly know how to set the line, because i have some readers who i'm very familiar with and some who i'm just not, but just don't comment like you're friends straight off the bat, and if the author hasn't replied to you in a friendly / familiar manner. commenting sarcastic jokes and over-familiar things like we're buddies right off the bat when we've never interacted before can make me very uncomfortable — especially as online it can be hard to tell if someone's joking, and sarcasm can come across as very rude (particularly to neurodivergent people). this always makes me really uncomfy so just please know the line !

some of these that i've listed in the "don't do" section seem super far-fetched and like they could have never possibly happened, but these are all examples that have happened to me or other authors i know on this site. please try to remain kind and keep a good reader etiquette when reading fanfics or stories — whether or not we're fanfic writers, we still deserve to be respected, and we work incredibly hard. just don't be rude to us!

this wasn't supposed to be me complaining, or being sensitive, it's more just that getting hundreds of comments like these start to really get on authors' nerves. i understand how thinking we just get a few of these comments on our fics could come across to you as us being "overreactive", but seriously, we get hundreds of these, mostly pointing out the same stuff, and at some point it starts to get very discouraging. after seeing so many of my mutuals complain most days about very rude readers they have, i chose to make this list with their input.

please feel free to send this link to someone if they don't understand why they're being rude, i'm happy to deal with them. also, let me know here of other rude comments or things readers have done to you so i can add them to the list of what not to do; or comment here the nicest thing a reader's ever done to you, so i can add it to what to do!

i myself can admit that i've done a few things on this list (like requesting updates, or commenting about other fandoms) when i was younger (around 12-14), probably new to the site, because i just didn't understand the etiquette yet. it's very easy to think that the author behind the screen is some kind of far-off, invisible entity, but we really aren't. i'm an 18 year old girl from australia, balancing my wattpad "career" with my university degree and an irl job, i have my own life and hobbies and personality, and so does every single author of every single book on this site. so please be considerate. we see all of your comments, and the ones we appreciate are cherished, the ones that are rude and scathing hurt. please remember that :)

word count: 6,584

26.09.2020.