don't hate what you can't imitate —

To start off, this is going to be short and sweet. This is just going to be a little tidbit of information on how to deal with haters and how not to be/turn into a hater.

One thing I hate is subscribers who aren’t loyal to the stories they subscribe to. Another thing I hate is when people subscribe and then unsubscribe when the author doesn’t update as frequently as they want or if something happens and they disagree with what happened. Get real, okay? If you aren’t writing something than you have no right or room to complain about stuff nobody cares about.

There recently has been a Tumblr account that was created almost with the sole purpose to make fun of authors from AFF. It’s ridiculous because some things are true (i.e. clichés) and others are completely unfair and untrue (i.e. AFF writers being untalented and stupid). If you ever see your name mentioned in something that makes fun of people (i.e. AFF writers, because that’s what I’m talking about here) ignore it. Just appreciate the fans you do have and eventually the haters will realize that hating isn’t bothering you and they’ll simmer down/become less vocal.

Now, if your writing is ever copied don’t get pissed off first. First feel flattered, why—because someone took enough time to take their writing and poorly attempt to make it their own (assuming that) because your writing is popular they want theirs to become just as big. After you feel flattered for a span of a minute or so, that’s when you can get pissed and report them for plagiarism.

Sometimes it’s almost like when people plagiarize they are unable to come up with clever, eye-catching ideas of their own. I’ll tell you how you can! Find something of common interest. Let’s give you a scenario. You’re a senior in high school trying to write a full three act play for your drama class but you have no idea where to start. Say, you have one hundred people at your school take a poll. The poll is asking what genre for a play seems most interesting. You give them the options of drama, romance, comedy, tragedy.

Stop! I’m sure you’re asking yourself why I listed drama and tragedy seeing as how they seem to be similar in some ways. Well they aren’t when you really think about it. I don’t even need to give you their definitions from the dictionary to show you that they aren’t alike as they appear. As per usual, I’ll give you two examples; one of something you’d see in a tragedy and the other you’d see in a drama.

TRAGEDY

I watched teary eyed as my beloved was taken away from me on the long stretcher. As much as I didn’t want to and as much as I tried, I ended up gazing at the limp arm hanging off the stretcher’s side all lifeless. A part of me couldn’t help but feel that his accident was my entire fault. I did the unthinkable. Men were loading the stretcher into the ambulance, gaining distance in between the two of us. My legs lunged forward, rushing to Junhyung. Our fight, the crash, his injuries, everything is my fault.

DRAMA

Muttering to myself, I covered my ears and sunk down to the floor. They were talking about me and it was far from good things they were saying. I took deep breaths in and out; eager to see Junhyung so he could save me from the mess I was turning into so easily in the middle of the school hallway. What made me deserve all this gossip and lies about me?

I hope you can see the difference. Tragedy can, most of the time, be associated with some kind of death or accident of some sort. A drama can pretty much be associated with anything that isn’t necessarily peaceful or happy. Drama is mostly applied to stories in order to add suspense and effect. They are almost always used in different ways but can appear in the same story due to their similarities in theme—I repeat, theme, not genre.

Back to the scenario (now that things are explained). The people you have vote on the poll are completely unbiased and unknowing of what it is for, thus they are good candidates for having an accurate percentage of votes of who likes what. If they were biased there is a slight chance they would choose a topic that you are capable of writing that way you get a better grade, being unbiased in truth does make a difference.

The result of the poll then is romance.

I’m sure you’re probably thinking that that was a pointless situation/scenario that I made you read. There is a reason for what seems to be rambling though. I just gave you a perfect way of figuring out what to write about, genre wise. You can always apply this to real life when coming up with a new story idea. The only difference from my scenario and real life is that, you most likely won’t get one hundred people to take the poll unless you nag them or you’re just really popular.

As a warning, making people take a poll (if you choose to do so) might not work out as planned. Not too many people take polls, especially if your subscribers aren’t like those of the top 10 authors on AFF. People are known to go blog hunting and comment endlessly on what people write. It’s not too common for polls though. Quite obviously my poll idea isn’t full proof, after all I’m not a writing genie or anything, my tips aren’t perfect—they’re just almost perfect.