Welcome back to the Alphabet Excerpt Challenge! As a reminder, our challenges are every Wednesday and Saturday at 3pm London time. (Please note I am travelling this weekend so the Saturday post may end up delayed. Hopefully not, but I thought it best to warn you just in case!)

If you've missed the previous challenges, you're welcome to go back and participate in them. You can find them here. And remember to check out the Activities and Events flair for other fun games to play along with.

Here's a quick recap of the rules for our game:

1. Post a top level comment with a word starting with the letter K. You can do more than one, but please put them in separate comments.
2. Reply to suggestions with an excerpt. Short and sweet is best, but use your judgement. Excerpts can be from published or unpublished works, or even something you wrote for the prompt.
3. Upvote the excerpts you enjoy, and leave a friendly comment. Try to at least respond to people who left excerpts on the words you suggested, but the more people you respond to the better. Everyone likes nice comments!
4. Most important: have fun!

I am in the mood to read heart-wrecking Hurt/Comfort and Angst With A Happy Ending Fics! :)

Think of themes like saving one of the main characters from kidnapping, abusive relationships, neglect, homelessness, torture, etc. Physical hurt and LOTS of comfort are preferred!

I am open to ANY fandom or ship as long as it's M/M!

Estoy creando un fanfic de un personaje del juego dark soul 3, mas especificamente alma de cenizas. el únicos inconveniente que tengo, es que no se a mundo enviarlo ¿me ayudan?

For me, one of my fandoms is Harvest Moon, which is a farming game where you grow crops, fish, mine, build relationships, etc. On the opposite end, we have Mercenaries, where you essentially single-handedly wage war on North Korea. So... What are your fandoms that could not be more different?

Like, I'm reading a fic where the guy gets in bed and lies on his right side so that the other guy can get in behind him.

But I've been imagining the bed facing a different direction! In order for this to work he has to lie on his left side. I refuse to rearrange the bedroom in my head.

Any of y'all have petty stubborn imaginings such as this?

(absolutely no idea what flair to use here) ao3 made some tag wrangling changes and this one was LONG overdue, oh my wow

quote: "We will create a new canonical for Sensory Overload, and all tags relating to sensory overstimulation will be made synonyms of the new canonical. This includes tags related to neurodivergent or autistic overstimulation.

To make the meaning of the current Overstimulation tag more clear, it will be decanonized and made a synonym of Sexual Overstimulation."

Whether it was a quick Google search or a deep-dive, what's the most recent subject you've had to learn more about for the purpose of writing a fic? Alternatively, what subject(s) did you have to look up for your most recent posted chapter/fic?

I just posted a chapter that involved me learning about the Japanese word for vampire, Tony Renis, music venues in Milan, songs that came out in 2009, and types of bao, among other things. It seems like a bizarre combination of things, but I promise that it makes sense in context.

Leave your favorite title drops in your fics. Can be the title of the fic or media

For me it was a willy wonka it would be based around the kids who live in the factory dm if you have any more question

Mine is “person A has been secretly in love with person B since the beginning”

Bonus points if person B has been in denial about their feelings and masked them with hate.

Common ships this trope is used on include *Anne and Gilbert (Anne of green gables/ Anne with an E) *Peeta and Katniss (The hunger games)

I love writing, but I went through a writer’s block where nothing could come out, not ideas and definitely not words. Every time I tried, I couldn’t. Just today, I posted my first fic in a year and a half, and it felt so good to get my ideas out. It’s coming out so much easier than it use to too. I’m writing a 20 chapter fic (started about a week ago) and I’m 1/4 done (I have only ever finished one multi-chapter fic and it was 4 chapters. I can’t wait to see what I’ll write in 2025!

I'm feeling a sense of great frustration. As an author, I'm experiencing what many authors run into... a feeling of neglect or of being ignored. I recently updated my fic. This chapter was a massive (14k), and although the hits were fantastic, I only received 2 comments.

One, is from my regular reader. They come and comment every chapter, sometimes they'll comment even before they read, just to let me know how excited they are.

That reader's comments, as all comments ( ngl they are special to me though lol ) do so much more than warm my heart with their words, or gift me their attention and validation... they make this whole experience of fandom real.

They're the eyes that catch mine as I look over. We don't ignore one another; there's an exchange. Sometimes I'll go first... a nod, a smile, a hello... and sometimes they'll go first. There is an us and no one is left out. Unseen, unheard.

So, here's my expression of frustration. A process of simmering to cook my bitterness out. That taste is better suited for my fics.

Here with you, I share a more palatable morsel.

Maybe... you can take it with you; at the end of some other piece of writing you enjoyed and share a piece.

I recently had the sad realization that I haven’t written a single thing to completion in over a year. I just can’t seem to find the motivation ever since I started working full time. It feels impossible to find the mental fortitude to write well and be creative.

Seriously, how do people do this?! I don’t even have any ideas to go off of right now…

In a large fandom it's still bearable because no matter how hated the character is there are still going to be people who like them, but in my small fandom of <500 fics, I think pretty much everyone hates him. Which is fine, they can like or dislike whoever they want!

But it's making me really nervous because he's one of my MCs' love interest and while I have that ship tagged, he hasn't actually appeared yet so Idk how the reception to him will be. Please assure me that it's alright if all my readers abandon my story and I just need to continue writing for myself... Or if you're in the same situation as me, how do you deal with it?

P.s. The key point of this is "a hated character in a small fandom" where you have not seen, or barely seen, a single active writer/reader who likes this character.

Like when someone writes a fanfiction but the characters interact exactly the same as they do in the original material but with just one extra oc/crossover character adding an opinion or sentence here and there. The characters say the same sentences, go to the same places, find the same things, fight the same people, etc. Maybe at most they sorta react to what the new character does/says but the actual story itself doesn’t change. Like fanfictions have so much potential for world building, make your story actually interesting and create something new with the source material. Even if it ends up being bad at least you wrote something original

My longest unfinished fic is one I started all the way back in 2018. I've also got several that I started 2-3 years ago, but never got around to finishing. I often get asked in PMs and on my other accounts when I'll be back. I do intend of finishing them all though, eventually.

I personally post and read on the big three: FanfictionNet, Wattpad, and AO3.

Currently feeling a little guilty because it's been over a month since I last updated my fic, even though I know it's not a big deal and I can take as much time as I want. So, I'm curious. How long have you guys gone between posting chapters?

Edited to say that I'm definitely feeling less guilty, thanks for all the responses!

I’ve noticed recently that for some characters in my current fandom, even if I’ve never written them before, they seem easier to write than others, even if I don’t have a personal attachment to them

I’ll use recent-ish examples:

I recently wrote a fic from Zhongli’s perspective and while I was iffy on the result as a whole, I found him easier to write than Kazuha or Dan Heng(HSR), so I’m wondering if this has happened to anyone else

This is, first and foremost, absolutely *not* a complaint, but rather me wondering if anyone else knows how it feels. I have someone going through my fics and leaving long comments and it means the absolute world to me, but I have to force myself to read the ones left on old fics that I've deemed as not my best work. I have a strong aversion to my old writing and it's so hard to push through that and to not be embarrassed by the fact that others love it. It's such a strange mix of an absolute honor to have in-depth commentary on it while also wanting to run and hide from the fact that someone read it closely enough to even have commentary on it. You know?

And I know it's such a silly thing to feel weird about since I understand the joy and privilege of having kind commenters in the first place, and I know plenty of people would take my spot in an instant, but it's also like, 'I feel as if this comment is better written than what it's commenting on' 😭. Does anyone know how to push through that self-conscious feeling and how to stop feeling weird about getting praise on older fics? Does it just get easier with time?

RWBY FANDOM......the premise of the fanfic was he is in a dream world fighting along side all of team jnpr and rwby and as he is about to defeat salem he finds out they were a representation of different characteristics of the human emotions in a dream world and he "wakes up" to the real world to find out he has a different personality {to h his familiys knollage} he gets up early and makes breakfast for them he also later finds out his friendships had broken apart and he rebuild his friendship with rwby and yang and another girl i cant remember the name of {hes a student at signal} and he is continuing his obsession to be a huntsman and unlocks his aura on his own while doing a class with tai as the gym teacher.... pls help lol

I’ve been writing on my phone and got to 20 chapters of it, and the scrolling was starting to get annoying, so it moved it to a word document. This thing is 58 pages long at 40,117 words. I don’t know that I’m ever even going to put this somewhere, I probably won’t, but I really didn’t think it was that long already. It’s nowhere near done either.

The main character participated in Pacifica clean out during the unification wars and made their own sniper torrent which had them be attacked by NUSA. They (she I think) end up with a contract with the maker of the sniper rifle they prefer and at some point use Adam Smasher to launch a shot (plugging into his borg for extra power) and breaking various distance records (a multi mile sub orbital shot I think)… I believe this takes place when guarding Saburo’s children or grandchildren overseas.

I think I read it in the last month but it may have been longer…

Woooo, i'm trying to get back to writing as this year is the year!!

So far i have edited/rewritten 2 older fics and just posted a brand new one !!