No Comments?!

I was reading My Super Hopeless Romance the other day and noticed something peculiar about it... it doesn't allow comments! A blog fiction without comments? What's the point? Just write web fiction. Actually, web fiction is more fun with comments too... So you may as well just write a book. Seriously, without comments, I can't give feed back, can't interact with the character, and I can't interact with other readers.

One of the words in Blog Fiction is 'Blog'. While the comments function is not necessary for a website to be called a blog, it is important. As Wikipedia says:

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

Comments is one of the cool inventions that made blogs so popular. So while a blog fiction that doesn't have comments is still technically blog fiction, it's peculiar and... just not as fun.

Use Wikipedia to promote yourself? Don't Bother

I was checking out twitter and found this tweet about Wikipedia from Muse's Success.

Added our link to the Blog Fiction article on Wikipedia. Let's hope it doesn't get removed!

The link did not last more than a day before being removed as "spam". Compared to how quickly most links get removed from Wikipedia articles that's practically a record. Wikipedia is meant to be used as a research tool, not a promotion tool. The editors have a lot of rules in place to keep the site from being used for promotion.

Wikipedia has a "bot" (computer controlled editor) that looks through all articles and removes the most obvious self-promotion updates. What criteria does it use? I'll let the XLinkBot article answer that:

XLinkBot is primarily intended to deal with domains which may have a legit use on-wiki, but are frequently misused by new and anonymous users (or have a history of being misused). The bot allows established users to add links, while reverting links added by others. IP's and new users can still edit a page that contains links on the bot's revert list, they won't be reverted unless they add or change a link themselves.

So if you add an external link, and you aren't a frequent editor, it will remove your link by reverting the article. So, if you're a blog fiction writer, don't bother trying to promote yourself on the wikipedia page. All that will happen is that you'll add an external link to your site and seconds later it will be gone.

Even if you somehow manage to defeat the XLinkBot's logic, you'll still have to deal with human editors. If they think that your link was either self-serving or irrelevant, guess what? It's gone.

It's not worth trying to get your link on the site. This blog was around for nearly a year and a half before someone finally decided to add me to the external links portion of the Blog Fiction article. Now that I'm listed I get about 1 hit every other day from it. So getting listed on that page is hardly worth the time. Rather than trying to defeat the bot and other wikipedia editors, might I suggest something more constructive, entrecard, Web Fiction Guide, or Muse's Success.

A splog stole my content! Now what?

When I started offering full text rss feeds, I knew that I was putting my content at risk for easy theft. I received a google alert for my keyword on a website I didn't recognize. When I checked it out I found a splog that had my last few posts on the website. Eventually, I got the content removed. Being successful, I thought that the steps I took might be of interest to others who have had their content stolen.

1. The first step was of course finding out that my content was stolen. I'll again direct you to Kate's brilliant tactic on prevening rss scrapes for details.
2. My second step was to search around the website for an email address or contact page. I could not find one.
3. My third step was that I left a comment on each post of mine that was stolen. I said, "Stop stealing my content you are commiting a crime by doing so." I then left a link to the original post.
4. Unfortunately, the comments required moderation. I waited 4 days and nothing happened. I decided to go after his hosting company.
   
5. I opened up a command prompt(start-> run-> type "cmd"-> press enter
6. I pinged the domain name to get the IP address of the website (ping domain.com)
7. Once I had the IP address, I went to this website and typed in the IP address and got the information on the name of the company that owned it.
8. I googled the name of the company and found their website. The company was indeed a web hosting company.
9. I located their "terms and conditions" page and discovered they posting copyrighted material was against their rules.
10. I found the company's "abuse" email address and wrote them an email explaining the situation. I included links to the offending content as well as links to the original content. I asked that they contact the owner and have the owner remove the content, or, failing that, take down the website as he was violating their own terms and conditions.
11. A day and a half later the content was removed. I sent a follow up email to the webhosting company thanking them for their help.

I never received a follow up email from anyone, so I don't know if it was the webhosting company contacting the owner, or it was the comments that I left that eventually prompted the offending content being removed. I don't know if following these steps will work for everyone, but they did work for me. Hopefully, they'll work for you too.

Voice of the given up

The Voice of the Living has closed up shop.



It's a shame when Authors do not receive the attention and audience that they are entitled too...

Short Posts or Long Posts

Is it better for your blog fiction to have a lot of short posts, or is it better to have fewer long posts? This is something I've thought about a lot. When I'm reading Blog Fiction, I prefer nice short, bite-sized posts; however, when I'm writing, I seem to prefer writing longer posts. In deciding which is better, I broke it down by pros and cons for each.

There are a lot of things I like about short posts. They are easier for me to read. I can read a short post quickly and get a sense of satisfaction very quickly. When I write short posts that means I can (usually) write more total posts, even if the word count is the same. With more posts, that gives readers more of a reason to frequently check the website for updates.

One of the cons to writing short posts is that your writing can get choppy. If you're stringing together a lot of events, readers may forget certain details. When it comes to new readers, they may get lost because there won't be much context in shorter posts. As a writer, you have to be more careful to provide backlinks or sidebar summaries for your new readers.

There are a couple reasons that long posts are better in Blog Fiction. First of all, when it comes to fiction, most readers are used to long passages when reading fiction. A post that is considered "long" by Blog standards would more than likely be considered very short in terms of chapters in a book.

Another advantage to long posts is the ability to have a more contained story in each post. Each post has a better chance to entertain and interest new readers. A longer post could be more likely to be linked\stumbled\dugg\reddit\etc... That of course means more readers for your blog fiction.

There are of course some disadvantages to longer posts. The biggest thing is that longer posts is going to reduce the frequency of new posts. That means readers are going to be very disappointed if the writer misses a post. This places a burden on the writer to make sure to post on schedule. If you're posting long chapters once a week and miss a week, that means readers will think they have to wait a whole week for an update. Whereas if you're posting short articles everyday, it just means that they only have to wait one more day for an update. In the A.D.D world of the internet and blogs, that might mean losing readers.

Speaking of A.D.D., that brings me to the other disadvantage of longer posts. They are going to be harder to read. Internet readers are used to nice short posts. Better yet, they prefer nice bulleted top 10 lists. It's just like when reading a book. When I read a book, I'm always more likely to read "just one more chapter" before putting it down if the next chapter is only 3 pages, as opposed to 30 pages.

Which is better to do? I'm not sure. As a general rule, I prefer reading blog fiction that has generally short posts (with occasional long posts being tolerated). I'd like to hear from you what your preference is when reading blog fiction (or any online fiction): Long posts? Or Short posts?

Anonymous Lawyer Back!

It appears that Anonymous Lawyer is back from a year long hiatus. Looks like he's been back since mid-April. Based on looking at his posts, it looks like the current world wide recession provided the writer with some inspiration. Almost all of his posts since April make reference to cutbacks and layoffs. It's another example of Blog Fiction giving Instant Literary reaction.

Interacting with a blog fiction

Okay, I think it's time to discuss the concept of "suspension of belief", and, how it relates to Blog Fiction. If you've never heard of the term, I'll direct you to this media glossary article.

In the world of fiction you are often required to believe a premise which you would never accept in the real world. Especially in genres such as fantasy and science fiction, things happen in the story which you would not believe if they were presented in a newspaper as fact. Even in more real-world genres such as action movies, the action routinely goes beyond the boundaries of what you think could really happen.

In order to enjoy such stories, the audience engages in a phenomenon known as "suspension of disbelief". This is a semi-conscious decision in which you put aside your disbelief and accept the premise as being real for the duration of the story.

When it comes to Blog Fiction, the reader must also suspend their disbelief and accept that they are reading the blog of a fictional person. If the writer of a blog fiction wants the reader to believe that they are reading a blog of a fictional person, that illusion needs to be maintained as much as is practical.

So why do I see so many blog fiction sites where the *Author* is the one responding to comments? When this happens it completely breaks the illusion of reading a blog. It is a reminder that you are reading a blog written by a writer not a character. It jars the reader out of the illusion - and that is not good if you want to keep your readers interested. Evangeline's ride is a good example of how jarring it is. Almost every entry I am thrown out of the illusion when I read about how the Author has been busy, or how she's improving her writer, etc...

Some sites, like Fate's Acquittal, started out leaving comments as the Author, but transition to responding "in character" as the story unfolds. I think it got better when this happened as it allowed the writer a second tool to reveal what the character was thinking. It also gave some foreshadowing for the thorough reader.

To those who are reading blog fiction, this article is for you too. If you're reading a blog, be sure that your comments are left for the character as well. If you want to talk to the author directly try looking for an email somewhere on the site. Please don't be like Ian over at Flyover City. In this case you, the reader, are ruining the illusion for other readers.

10 reasons SG-1 more badass than Star Trek crew

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't been posting much. Well, I'll be honest with you. I've been watching too much T.V. My wife and I recently splurged and got a duo-deca-super-mega-kamehameha cable package and ended up with a DVR. I've been taping and watching a whole bunch of scifi shows that I only used to watch occasionally. I've been watching old and new(er) star trek and also stargate. I've just about finished watching the last season of stargate and I have to say, I think I like stargate better. The characters on SG-1 are just so much more badass than those wimps on Star Trek and I'll tell you why. So here it is, my top 10 reasons the SG-1 crew is more badass than the Star Trek crew.

1. More seasons.
10 freaking seasons. Do I really need to say more? The original series only lasted 3 seasons. The next generation, deep space nine, and voyager all only lasted 7 seasons. Star Trek Enterprise only managed to last 4 seasons("Way to kill the franchise, Bakula!").

2. Commited More Deicide than the Klingons
Star Trek crew fought a Greek God and won. Also, they traveled through The Great Barrier, met God, and wasn't impressed. However...

SG-1 killed dozens of gods. Seriously, they would wake up and just say, "I think I'll kill a god today." Apophis, Anubus, Ba'al, Hathor, Ra, Sokar, Yu... the list just goes on and on. Oh and after they killed all of the gods in their own galaxy, the SG-1 team got pissed and decided they weren't done commiting Deicide. SG-1 then traveled to another galaxy, found a bunch of gods, gave 'em all the middle finger, and killed all of them too. Damn! that's badass.

3. Better Resurrection
Spock died and came back to life. Daniel Jackson died and came back to life... twice! Bonus point, Daniel Jackson didn't make his friends spend an entire terrible movie uniting his mind and body. Advantage: SG-1.

4. Medicine
When you're off fighting the badguys, eventually you're going to get hurt. If you're hurt, which would you rather do? Go see a Doctor with a bad attitude or take a nap in Sarcophagus? yeah... I'm going with SG-1 again.

5. Engineering Skills
What's a good scifi show without some good far-fetched technology. The coolest thing Star Trek ever did was create a planet. Pretty badass. But on the other hand, SG-1 would frequently find, escape and manipulate BLACK HOLES. You know, those things that crush and pull everything into them, and here's SG-1 playing around in them like they're a jungle-gym.

6. Enemies
The enemies SG-1 faced were always scary and formidable. Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, they all had about the same level of skill and technology. SG-1 however, always faces vastly superior numbers and technology, and they still blew them the 'F' up. Badass!

7. Alternate Realities
If alternate universis in Stargate are better. Star Trek only had one alternate universe. Granted, that one was pretty badass, but star trek crew ruined it. SG-1 dealt with millions of alternate universes. They even repaired a "rift" between them. They also never convinced their alternate selves to quite fighting which lead them to their eventually downfall.

8. Stress Level
Like any good action show, the people in Star Trek and SG-1 are always fighting for their lives. However, every once in a while the stakes are raised a bit. The most stressful thing for Star Trek was that they had to save Earth. Now don't get me wrong. The fate of an entire planet is one hell of a burden to carry, but, once again, SG-1 was worse off. SG-1 was constantly trying to keep the entire galaxy from being destroyed by, mechanical spiders, power crazy go'uld, and power crazy ascended beings. Yeah, I think being in SG-1 was a little more stressful.

9. Best "Macgyver"moment
When you're off saving the day, every once in a while you have to be channel your inner Macgyver and be resourceful to get yourself out of a sticky situation. Now, Kirk once made a cannon out of bamboo, sulphur, potassium nitrate, charcoal and then fired diamonds into the heart of his enemy. I have to admit that's pretty badass. However, SG-1 HAS Macgyver on their team.

10. Most Cold Blooded Act
Part of being a badass means that once in a while you got to do something cold blooded to let people know what a badass you are. Keeping this in mind, Spock once tried to kill his Best Friend over a women. So much for Bros before Hos. While that's cold, SG-1 wins this category too. How? you might ask. I watched an episode where Daniel Jackson did the most cold-blooded thing I'd ever seen from any character in movies or tv. Goodguy, or badguy. What did he do? Brace yourself.

Daniel Jackson tried to shoot and kill an 8 year old girl.

This really needs repeating. Daniel Jackson, the "HERO" character of the show, tried to shoot and kill... an 8 year old little girl. The only reason he didn't succeed was because his friend stopped him. And the stopping him wasn't one of those cheesy, "don't do it, you're better than that" scenes either. I mean he pointed the gun at the girl's head and was about to pull the trigger when his friend pushed and ruined his aim at the last minute... as the gun went off. Yes, he pulled the trigger without hesitation. Cold! Blooded!

I will say this, Jackson did know that the little girl in question was going to grow up to be like Hitler on the galactic scale... but still. There's that old ethics question, "If given the chance, should we kill Hitler before he killed anyone". Well, if you're Daniel Jackson, not only is your answer "yes", you'll ask for the nearest gun and aim for the face.

Dr. Daniel Jackson... Archeologist and BADASS!
(who shoots little girls)