# The future of furry writing



## KatmanDu (Mar 28, 2010)

I attended most all of the writing track seminars at FWA this weekend. They were very informative, but depressing. I had  sussed out most of the issues already, but hearing them from someone  else just confirmed things. Three key issues to making furry fiction  successful: 1) achieving penetration into mainstream markets 2)  Increasing the quality of the fiction overall and 3) monetizing the  market. For issue 1, current mainstream publishers- and certainly the  "big" print houses- don't want "talking animal" stories... unless  they're cleverly disguised as something else. Which leaves the furry  author with having to use the fandom outlets, like Sofawolf, or print on  demand. (I hope the SFWA showed everyone the dangers of using vanity  presses by now.) Issue 2, I think, would sort itself out with  editorship. Issue 3, however... the big print houses are facing the same  changes and dilemmas that the music industry giants have and still are  facing: electronic distribution and the death of traditional means of  publishing. The print houses are in big, big trouble, and they know it.  They knew it ten years ago, but the growth of e-readers like the Kindle  means the end is in sight; and now Apple's thrown their hat into the  ring with the iPad- and if they're not nervous about that, they should  be. The iPod and iPhone signaled a huge change in those industries that  left many of the former big names in both wetting their respective beds.  Even Amazon peed a little at the announcement of the iPad.

Personally, I think that some of the publishing biggies have seen the  writing on the wall and are re-inventing themselves for this new,  electronic market; and outlets like Amazon and iTunes will become the  next publishing big names. The monetization will be there, but you still  won't get rich as an author (except in very rare instances). Mainstream  market penetration will still be an issue, because purely furry stories  are still a niche market (again, unless they're cleverly disguised as  something else)... but the furry community is growing at an astonishing  rate as well.

Issue 2, again... As long as there is a publishing entity, whether it's  Kindle Books or Baen gone electronic, there'll be some sort of quality  control. But there's still the issue of dilution; so much crap out there  that no one bothers to wade through it for the few gems. This takes  longer to do with the written word, after all, than with visual works.  But it was suggested at these seminars that the fandom create something  along the Science Fiction Writer's Guild; a group that sets high  standards of craftsmanship and gives people a benchmark. The Ursa awards  could provide a benchmark as well, along the lines of Hugo's and  Nebula's in the science fiction world, so long as they can shake the  image of favoritism. I'm all for some sort of anthro writer's guild; I  feel it can only improve the writing craft.

What are your thoughts? Do you see the same issues with respect to furry writing, or different ones?


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## TakeWalker (Mar 28, 2010)

Honestly, I'd rather see a body of works written by furries than some 'furry writing market'. Whether they're talking animal stories or whatnot, I don't care. Furry is never going to be mainstream, not unless the fandom magically become mainstream first.


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## Atrak (Mar 28, 2010)

TakeWalker said:


> Honestly, I'd rather see a body of works written by furries than some 'furry writing market'. Whether they're talking animal stories or whatnot, I don't care. Furry is never going to be mainstream, not unless the fandom magically become mainstream first.



Brb, creating a virus that will turn everyone into furries bringing about a minor apocalypse.


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## duroc (Mar 28, 2010)

I usually don't do a good job getting my ideas out, but I'll give this a shot.

The most important issue of the three, at least for me, is the second one.  If you have quality fiction, then it will be accepted both inside and outside the fandom.  And quality fiction will sell if it's promoted well, which is something that I think definitely needs to happen more around here.  I mean, people can't buy or read quality fiction if they don't know it exists.  And right now, people only know about a few things that are pushed through Furplanet or Sofawolf.

Yet that's really where the biggest problem is in my eyes.  Not many people want to support or promote quality fiction for a number of reasons.  The issue I see is the fandom has become a large group of _individuals_ that try to support themselves instead of looking at the larger picture.  Now, I understand that if you don't focus inward and do things to improve yourself, you won't get anywhere.  But if people don't take the time and do something to help writing as a whole, they're doing all this self improvement for nothing.  That is, unless they're talented enough to get noticed and/or picked up by a mainstream or a fandom publisher.

Another issue is that a lot of people simply write for fun and they don't take any of it seriously.  Or they just don't really care about anthro fiction period. 

The other problem is that everyone's definition of quality is going to be different, so it will be difficult getting people to agree upon that idea.  Establishing a furry writer's guild would go a long ways to help, but then a whole other host of problems surface.  Like who would be in the guild, and how would they decide who becomes a member?  And the reason for this is because if your purpose is to focus on quality writing, you wouldn't just let anyone join.  If you do that, you return into the issue of dilution where you're filtering through tons of crap writing to find the gems.  Yeah, it'll probably upset a lot of people if you limit who can join, but the point is that if you want to run with the top writers in the fandom, then you need to put in the effort and improve your work.  Watts Martin's Claw and Quill website will do some things to help with  this problem if I understand his concept correctly, but it isn't up and  running yet.

Which then takes us back to one of the other problems, can you get enough quality writers together that will actually work in collaboration and do things that will promote and support the best anthropomorphic fiction?  Again, I see a fandom filled with a lot of individuals looking to do their own thing, but there are other issues that come into play too.  I mean, most of us have our own lives, whether it's school, jobs, family, and other things going on that make such an idea difficult to come together.  But if people want to do things to help improve writing and fiction in the fandom, then they are going to have to take the time and actually _do something_.  Like purchase fandom books, organize a writer's guild, or simply go out there and read stories, then nominate and vote for the best fiction in the Ursas(but then again, it would help if the Ursas would actually change their format, which is a whole other issue all its own).  

Anyway, that's just my opinion.  I probably didn't cover everything fully, but I'll leave it at that.


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## panzergulo (Mar 29, 2010)

Ah, the thread title is very misleading. It should be "The future of publishing furry fiction" or "The future of making money with furry fiction". Sorry, if this sounds cynical or arrogant, but when I talk about literature, I mean the books they have in my local library, and when I talk about furry writing, I mean these nerds who write about talking animals and publish their works on the net. These two rarely overlap. I seem to have the same problem as these publishers: I just don't take "talking animals" fiction seriously.

That said, nothing said in this thread is of concern to me. I know I won't ever publish anything of mine, I'm just not good enough, and when I read real books, I read them outside of the fandom, thus never reading anything really published by a furry writer.

My concern is much more local. I think the dilemma that would earn the title "The future of furry writing" is the nonexistent recognition writers and furry writing gets inside the fandom. I have seen people saying all furry writing is not writing at all, or that it is fanfics, yiff, or just immature rubbish by immature and talentless writers so many times it isn't fun anymore. Maybe you should talk about fixing this problem before you talk about making real Earth money with your writings. If writers aren't even recognized by their own fandom, is there any sense trying anything outside the fandom? Maybe only if you cleverly disguise the "talking animals" story into something else, as mentioned in this thread.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 29, 2010)

This comes down mostly to definitions, but I don't think 'furry' fiction will ever become mainstream, because it's not really a genre.  You say it must be 'disguised' as something else.  Well, no, I think it just has to BE something else.  I think the novel I'm editing right now has a chance in the mainstream, because it's a fantasy novel.  The main character is an anthro, sure, but that can be part of the fantasy genre.  Anthros show up all the time in fantasy and sci-fi.  Not always in a leading role, certainly, but it doesn't create a whole new genre just to feature them more prominently, I don't think.
Really, trying to call 'furry' a genre is like trying to call 'gun' a genre.  You know?  The former is any kind of work that happens to feature furries in some important sense, the latter one that features guns.  You go through the writings on this site and what do you find but various kinds of stories, from sci-fi to romance to mystery to high school dramas (all mainstream genres), which just so happen to feature animal-people instead of humans (to varying degrees of success).
So I consider 'furry writing' to be just writing, but including some kind of anthro character.  Some of it has a better chance of being accepted for mainstream publication than others (fantasy and sci-fi would probably be more reasonable choices than, say, romance), but it still all fits within previously defined genres of writing quite nicely.  In which case, you combine numbers one and two, because in the end the quality should be what gets things accepted by publishers, mainstream or not.

Anyway, I think what would make me appreciate furry writing more, at least, is less obvious self-reflection on the writers' parts.  In other words, right now what we have is people writing furry literature with the very obvious intent of starring anthro characters because it's, like, totally different and more interesting than just using regular humans, right right.  You see these covers on books that have, say, a human male in a tender embrace with a fox-taur with long blond hair, and it just screams "Look at all these perceived cultural barriers I'm trying to break!"  Which is a huge turnoff to me, and probably to the average reader, because I just automatically assume that this book isn't going to be about any two characters so much as it's about the author struggling to show another side of a debate that doesn't even exist in the real world.  Which in turn tells me that this book isn't about any characters or any story; it's about the author.  And I see that all over the place in furry writing.  It's like furry writers are always trying to _prove_ something.
So what I would rather see is more writing that still stars anthro characters, but that isn't ABOUT them being anthro.  The story needs to still be the main thing, and the anthro thing needs to enhance and work with that story, but not be the main focus.  Since you can't really make 'furry' into a genre, what furry writers should be doing is trying to more seamlessly incorporate anthros into the other genres in artful ways that don't gross everybody out.
_That's_ what I see as the major problem furry writing is currently running into.

Anyway, these are all really general statements about a vast body of work based only on what I've read within the fandom, so I'm clearly making big assumptions that I shouldn't be making.  I wonder what you guys think, though, you who've read more from the decent furry publishers than I have.


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## Scarborough (Mar 29, 2010)

Re Kindle/iPad: Is this actually true? I mean, I've never seen an actual set of accounting tables that reflect the whole death-of-the-published-book trend, but I've never gone out of my way to look for said tables.

It's not true for me, anyway, and I know it's not true for the majority of people I know who read books. Most people (I know) don't like to read large amounts of words off a computer screen, because it's way too damn straining on the eyes. Similarly, most people I know don't read enough books to cover the cost of buying a Kindle/iPad. It's possible that myself and my friends aren't the big book buyers who will make or break the industry. But that's the only evidence I have of book sales, so there.

If anything, I think the lending library should have been the death of big publishers, yet after the lending library came about, books were still being sold by the millions.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 29, 2010)

Personal opinions follow.

First, I do not believe there is a problem.  Furry will not be mainstream, and we can have furry writers who are quality writers who want to write furry.

Second, print on demand and vanity presses are two different things.  The things that the SFWA warn you about are not what Sofawolf, Furplanet, Bad Dog Books, etc, are doing.  The things they warn you about are paying for the ability to print.  If I write a book, and take it to Lulu and have it run off, that doesn't make me bad.  It's not something I need to be "warned" about.  Self publishing is NOT the Vanity Press fears the SFWA is warning you about.  It can be valuable in a niche market such as Furry.

Third, good writers don't necessarily equate into mainstream published.  Here's one of the biggest shockers in the industry, but.. the well written, high quality works of fiction aren't necessarily published.  What is published are the things that the industry knows will get money (Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, John Grisham) , and a few new authors that they think MIGHT get money.  The big guys pulling the train are the best sellers, and everyone else are people that either will make it big, or will vanish after a two book deal.  You don't have to be "good" to be published.  You just have to be RIGHT.

Furry is niche.  It always will be.   The future of it will be niche.  The past will be niche.  When Furry is "mainstream", there won't be a Furry Publishing house.  There will just be publishing houses that carry Furry items.


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## TakeWalker (Mar 29, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Really, trying to call 'furry' a genre is like trying to call 'gun' a genre.



Fucking sigged.


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## Poetigress (Mar 29, 2010)

First, it sounds like the panels referenced by the OP weren't really talking about the future of furry writing, or even furry publishing. It sounds like they were talking about the future of _mainstream publishing_, which doesn't necessarily affect the fandom as much, or in the same ways, seeing as so much of what's published in the fandom is self-published or via small independent publishers.

Incidentally, I'm one of the few people who _does_ see furry as a genre, albeit a subgenre of sf/f, but I'm tired of beating my head against that particular brick wall, so I'll just agree with MLR that sf/f markets/publishers are a writer's best bet for selling a furry story to the mainstream. (After all, anthro characters don't exist and could only exist 1) in an alternate Earth scenario, 2) on another planet, 3) via magic, or 4) via scientific engineering of some sort, all of which are part of sf/f.)

Basically, there are some types of furry stories that will sell in the mainstream, but there are also some types that simply won't, regardless of their quality, and I don't really see that changing a whole lot. I think because of how insulative the fandom is, we tend to forget how... well, I'll be kind and say "unusual"...  anthro characters can seem to those who aren't that familar with furry fiction. It's hard to see furry going truly mainstream, so there's always going to be a need for quality markets for readers within the fandom. And that's what gets so depressing to me -- I mean, it sounds like this panel focused entirely on getting published in the mainstream, and if that's the case, I wonder if that was maybe because things are so bleak anymore for writing in furry itself. 

The way things stand right now in the fandom, short story writers, and particularly erotic short story writers, have it okay (not great, but okay); there are at least a handful of markets to send stuff to (even if not all of them pay). If you're writing novels, though, things are much tougher. As far as I know, there are three editors in the fandom who could potentially publish your book (maybe four), but none of them solict manuscripts outright, so you have to work to build a relationship with them if you have any hope of them taking a look at what you're doing (usually through short stories, so if your strengths are more in the novel format/structure, you're out of luck) -- and if you can't get anyone out of this handful of people sold on it, or don't want to work with one or another for whatever reason, you're basically down to self-publishing through Furplanet or Lulu or what have you. Which is not the end of the world for getting something out to the fandom, but as has already been pointed out, winnowing out what's worth reading isn't easy.

I've been hoping for some time now that perhaps having more quality markets and publishers in the fandom would lead to more visibility for the good writers out there, instead of every author having to fend for themselves quite so much, and would provide the readers who do want to read good stuff with more places to go. I haven't completely given up on that, and I still think the good markets that exist are worth supporting, but what I'm also coming to terms with is that, in the end, it's about what the audience wants, and more importantly what they're willing to lay out money for. And that locks fandom-based success into a pretty limited demographic. If, for example, you write erotica and can do it well, you have a better chance of getting people to take notice of what you're doing. That _doesn't_ mean you can get away with just writing crap, but it does mean you have a significant marketing advantage, because the audience for adult works (particularly m/m, but other orientations as well) is fairly large and well established, and they're willing to buy. If you're writing something else, then you're essentially writing for a niche market _within_ a niche market, and that's naturally a lot tougher to sell (either financially or just using "sell" in terms of readership). 

As might be obvious from this reply, I'm nowhere near as optimistic about publishing within the fandom as I used to be. People might say they want one thing or another, but when it comes down to actually putting forth time or money to help support or promote something, things fizzle. I don't know anymore if it's realistic to expect anything to improve for writers in the fandom. I've been told that I would have really liked the fandom in its earlier days, when there were all kinds of zines and so on happening, but I don't see those days coming back.

So, while I'm not saying things are totally hopeless -- of course it's still worth doing your best and building an audience, regardless of how large or small that audience may be -- I think writers do have to resign themselves to some of the fandom's limitations (working within them if they're fortunate enough to be able to do so), and above all realize that they're going to be working within a self-publishing (and self-marketing) model.

The idea of some sort of furry writers' organization is a good one, if one can sort out the potential problems with its structure. I'm not worried about the elitist type of drama in terms of who gets in or doesn't, because you'd have to have some sort of objective criteria if it's really meant to be something on the order of SFWA. It's hard to use SFWA as a model, though, because membership there requires not just a certain number of publication credits, but a certain number of publication credits in professional-level markets (currently defined as paying at least 5 cents a word -- which is a fairly small group of markets as it is, these days, particularly if you're writing short fiction). 

Even considering that the furry version of SFWA would have to reduce the payment threshold to be more in line with what the fandom's publishers offer, there are so few publishers in the fandom as it is, that if the criteria involves only publication in the fandom, it doesn't seem entirely feasible -- you'd probably end up with something looking more like the Sofawolf Authors' Guild, in all likelihood. But you couldn't drop a publishing requirement entirely, because then you'd have the sort of guild that you only have to declare yourself a member of, which to my mind is essentially worthless. One possible solution to this might be to open up the requirement to any paying market inside or outside the fandom -- not a perfect solution, but it might give something to work with, anyway. I've long ago lost much of my enthusiasm for trying to orchestrate such a thing myself, but I could certainly support it if someone wanted to have a go at setting it up.

(And as an aside, I think panzergulo has a good point in that aspect of, how can we expect furry fiction to be recognized by the mainstream when we don't recognize it in the fandom. I don't know how anyone could reasonably expect that furry is going to become the next big thing out there when, in here, among the people most open to the very concept of anthropomorphic characters, who claim to love this sort of stuff, writers get so little support. Though again, I doubt anyone other than me cares about furry even being considered a legitimate subgenre, so I guess it's kind of a moot point anyway.)


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## duroc (Mar 29, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> I don't know how anyone could reasonably expect that furry is going to become the next big thing out there when, in here, among the people most open to the very concept of anthropomorphic characters, who claim to love this sort of stuff, writers get so little support.



That sums up my thoughts in one sentence.  And you're not alone, PT.  I'm with you on the furry subgenre.


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## KatmanDu (Mar 29, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> Personal opinions follow.
> 
> Second, print on demand and vanity presses are two different things.  The things that the SFWA warn you about are not what Sofawolf, Furplanet, Bad Dog Books, etc, are doing.



I realize upon re-reading my OP that it does seem that I'm implying that; but no, I do know the difference between print on demand and vanity presses; and know that Sofawolf, et. al. are not vanity presses. Apologies if that's the impression I gave.

As for the topic of a "furry genre"... Was Watership Down a mainstream publication or a furry one? Or both? What made it one or the other? Was it the quality of the writing, the plot and storyline, the engaging characterizations? And, for that matter, what is "mainstream"? In my mind, "mainstream" is a traditional print house; Daw, Tor, Baen, something like that. I've been told that this is unfair, that print-on-demand could still be considered mainstream... and, in fact, if the market changes to a viable electronic distribution model, this may be true.

I agree with PT that some furry fiction will sell in the mainstream and some will not. A fanfic, no matter how well written, probably won't. (Is Whitley Streiber's "Wolfen" furry, or not? What about *shudder* Twilight?) Where the dividing line is, I don't know.  For that matter, look at the base fandom that furry grew from- science fiction. What makes a sci-fi story sci-fi, as opposed to "mainstream" literature? Is "Slaughterhouse Five" literature or sci-fi? Fahrenheit 451? Sci-fi has a stigma that still hasn't been erased, despite the number of major publishing houses devoted to it; hell, some want to call it "speculative fiction" to avoid the stigma. Vonnegut's "science fiction ghetto" is still there... but there is still mainstream science fiction, even if the purists don't want to admit that their favorite piece of literature is still, at it's heart, science fiction. I think that furry stories can be published in the mainstream, but that they'll be few and far between, and won't be labeled as "furry" when they are- even if that's what they are at their core.

Re: a furry writer's guild- I mentioned to the panel leader that while I thought a guild would be a good idea, the unbelievable amount of bawwing and butt-hurt that would ensue when someone got rejected would make it hell on the organizers. It'll take a thick skin, that's for sure.


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## Poetigress (Mar 29, 2010)

KatmanDu said:


> A fanfic, no matter how well written, probably won't.



Well, a fanfic isn't going to sell anywhere, by definition. 



> the unbelievable amount of bawwing and butt-hurt that would ensue when someone got rejected would make it hell on the organizers. It'll take a thick skin, that's for sure.



If you have objective criteria for membership like publication credits, with qualifying markets that are clearly spelled out without exceptions, then anyone getting upset over not getting in would just be showing an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 29, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Well, a fanfic isn't going to sell anywhere, by definition.
> 
> 
> 
> If you have objective criteria for membership like publication credits, with qualifying markets that are clearly spelled out without exceptions, then anyone getting upset over not getting in would just be showing an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.



But then we launch to the initial problem here.

We don't have many markets that are really and truly furry.  If I go to ralan or something similar, if lucky I can maybe find ten furry markets that publish on a regular basis.  Everything else is a once a year publication, if that.  Even then, much of it is for the love.  

So yes, to avoid the butthurt, we'd need a quantifiable set of requirements.

But there aren't enough places to obtain that yet.

EDIT: 

And now I realize that you said that.

See, I don't know if there IS a valid reason for a furry writer's guild right now.  What purpose would one serve, really, if not to walk around and say how "good" we are?

We need to get people reading.


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## Poetigress (Mar 29, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> See, I don't know if there IS a valid reason for a furry writer's guild right now.  What purpose would one serve, really, if not to walk around and say how "good" we are?
> 
> We need to get people reading.



And it could help do that, potentially. At the very least, such an organization could be the basis for a furry literary award that could be a solid alternative to the Ursas (with voting limited to members). There could be a private discussion forum and/or critique site, a blog, a podcast to promote works of interest and news about furry fiction, perhaps an APA-style e-zine... whatever. Having the organization would basically get a good number of serious, experienced writers together in the same place, and various things could happen from there.

I know a number of people are anticipating Watts Martin's redesign of Claw & Quill as a potential gathering place, with it being a story site only and not open to other media. I'm not 100% sure, though, how much vetting is going to be going on there in terms of quality, or if it's going to be more like just making sure people can write a coherent spellchecked sentence.

Also, to clarify something from my earlier post: I just saw that, as of March 23, Sofawolf Press does have novel submission guidelines on their website. So we now have one market that's officially open to book-length projects... which means probably one open slot per year, I would think, assuming they continue publishing their current authors as regularly as they have been.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 29, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> And it could help do that, potentially. At the very least, such an organization could be the basis for a furry literary award that could be a solid alternative to the Ursas (with voting limited to members). There could be a private discussion forum and/or critique site, a blog, a podcast to promote works of interest and news about furry fiction, perhaps an APA-style e-zine... whatever. Having the organization would basically get a good number of serious, experienced writers together in the same place, and various things could happen from there.
> 
> I know a number of people are anticipating Watts Martin's redesign of Claw & Quill as a potential gathering place, with it being a story site only and not open to other media. I'm not 100% sure, though, how much vetting is going to be going on there in terms of quality, or if it's going to be more like just making sure people can write a coherent spellchecked sentence.
> 
> Also, to clarify something from my earlier post: I just saw that, as of March 23, Sofawolf Press does have novel submission guidelines on their website. So we now have one market that's officially open to book-length projects... which means probably one open slot per year, I would think, assuming they continue publishing their current authors as regularly as they have been.



Furplanet does too.. but theres is not very well defined.  They basically on the website say just to send your ideas in a summary form.  I got a bit more out of them this weekend at FWA and was told that the industry standard summary and first chapter after a query letter was good enough for them.


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## Poetigress (Mar 29, 2010)

I thought Furplanet was a POD option like Lulu, except furry-based -- essentially a self-publishing outlet. Do they publish traditionally (in other words, using editors) as well?


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## GraemeLion (Mar 29, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> I thought Furplanet was a POD option like Lulu, except furry-based -- essentially a self-publishing outlet. Do they publish traditionally (in other words, using editors) as well?



Nope, they are a full fledged printing house.  Their submission guidelines are here: http://furplanet.com/shop/custom.aspx?recid=8 and they are currently publishing the Cupcakes line.  (Bridges, by Kyell Gold, is the first one)

Editors and everything


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## Tyvara_Panther (Mar 29, 2010)

You're not alone Poetigress. I share your genre dream.


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## KatmanDu (Mar 29, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> If you have objective criteria for membership like publication credits, with qualifying markets that are clearly spelled out without exceptions, then anyone getting upset over not getting in would just be showing an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.



Oh, I agree... but I still smell a lot of butthurt on the horizon. 



GraemeLion said:


> We need to get people reading.



And I completely agree with that.


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## Altamont (Mar 29, 2010)

atrakaj said:


> Brb, creating a virus that will turn everyone into furries bringing about a minor apocalypse.


 
HA! You know, I see a seed for a story in there...hrm...

You know, I'm about to order Furry! The Best Anthropomorphic Fiction off of Amazon, which is, as far as I know, the only non-webcomic furry work to get AY kind of mainstream. And on the issue itself, I'm torn:

1. It would be awesome to be able to get ahold of some relatively professional furry fiction and media at the bookstores and stuff.

2. Realistically, it won't happen. The closest thing the furries have gotten to a serious treatment in the mainstream recently was Wes Anderson's amazing "Fantastic Mr. Fox". And that in and of itself was a minor miracle.


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## Alexis (Mar 30, 2010)

Wait.

What about Redwall, Peter Rabbit, Pokemon and Animal Farm?

These are all furry stories that hit the mainstream because:
1. The author pushed for it to be published
2. There was a niche to be filled
3. The quality was excellent
4. They got their buddies to rave about it.

The above is all we need to do to enter the Fantasy fiction genre


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

Altamont said:


> You know, I'm about to order Furry! The Best Anthropomorphic Fiction off of Amazon, which is, as far as I know, the only non-webcomic furry work to get AY kind of mainstream.



FYI, _Furry!_ was originally published as _Best in Show_ by Sofawolf Press. It was then picked up by whatever that publisher was, reprinted under the new title, and then I believe that publisher promptly went under. Last I heard, Sofawolf Press was still trying to get the rights back to be able to reprint it. So I don't know that I'd consider it a success story.  



> The closest thing the furries have gotten to a serious treatment in the mainstream recently was Wes Anderson's amazing "Fantastic Mr. Fox". And that in and of itself was a minor miracle.



And it had nothing to do with furry. It was based on a children's book by Roald Dahl, if I remember correctly, so to me that isn't quite the same thing as a studio coming up with that sort of idea on their own. 



> What about Redwall, Peter Rabbit, Pokemon and Animal Farm?
> 
> These are all furry stories that hit the mainstream because:
> 1. The author pushed for it to be published
> ...



It's far more complicated than that, though. _Redwall_, again, was a children's book. Juvenile fiction has a long history of using animal characters, so it's nothing new or unexpected there. (Clare Bell's books are published as YA, for example.) I believe _The Tale of Peter Rabbit_ was originally self-published by Beatrix Potter because she couldn't get publishers interested. Any Pokemon books are media tie-ins, which are a completely different thing. _Animal Farm_ was social satire, which is one of the few places you can get away with talking animals and not have it thought of as children's fiction.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but you do have to think of what kind of story you're telling. Having animal characters in a story for adults just because it's cool is unlikely to work in the mainstream, no matter how good the quality is and how many buddies you have raving about it.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

And also, as someone brought up Redwall, it was not a Furry book.  It was a book containing characters that could be considered Furry.  Brian Jacques knows about furry and considers us a problem in society.  Well, at least he did before his strokes.

What we're talking about is a story written to be furry, not a story that has been written for children and happens to include Furries.  

If that makes sense


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

Well, here we start to get into semantics. I see what you're saying, but I consider "furry" to mean "involving anthropomorphic characters," with people in the furry fandom being people who like things involving anthro characters (either bipedal or zoomorphic). The question of whether Redwall (or Lion King, or anything mainstream) can be called "furry" depends on what your definition is. I know a lot of people use "furry" to mean "created with awareness of the furry fandom (and/or by someone approving of the fandom)," which boxes things in quite a bit, and some even use "furry" to strictly mean bipedal anthro characters, thus excluding things like Watership Down that are essentially physical real-world animals who have speech, culture, etc.

Though yeah, something written for a younger audience, where as I said there's a long tradition of using animal characters, isn't exactly the best example for furry (as in, the furry fandom) somehow going mainstream.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

True.  It's just a pet peeve of mine.  People taking things like "Aesop's fables" and saying "Aesop was a FURRY!" 

No, Aesop wasn't a furry.  He likely would take a look at conventions and shy away from them nervously twitching.   

If we are to be mainstream, and we are to consider it a "furry win" of the mainstream, we have to have a fur like Kyell Gold or any of the other published ones make it in the mainstream world with Furry characters.    

It just drives me kind of crazy when we see something and adopt it after the fact.   Like you said, youth publications tend to like the animals.   

But getting back to the future of furry writing, I think the best thing for the future right now would be some sort of periodical and community based around it.  I know there's Anthro, but I don't see much of the audience of Anthro, and there's not much encouragement to the audience to engage the authors.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> If we are to be mainstream, and we are to consider it a "furry win" of the mainstream, we have to have a fur like *Kyell Gold* or any of the other published ones make it in the mainstream world with Furry characters.



I'm probably mistaken. But isn't Kyell Gold the guy that wrote all those gay stories that seem so popular in the fandom's low circles?

Has he written something that does not fit that description?

EDIT: Aheem, or something that is actually good and does not feel rushed?


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

You can like or dislike Kyell, and you can call it "low circles" or not.. but the fact remains, he's the highest published furry author right now inside the fandom.

There is no doubt of his furriness, he has written "for this genre" or whatever classification you favor.  

The fandom's "low circles" are where the majority of readers are.  If you have some belief that writing is a craft that will show everyone how "high-brow" you are, then I have some bad news.  Genre fiction usually feels about as rushed as Kyell's stuff, and sells FAR better than the "edgy literary" category.

(And, if you read genre fiction like mysteries and such, you'll find there's just only a little bit more sex in Kyell's stuff.  That stuff has sex too  )

But yes, I do mean Kyell Gold, the #1 published author inside the Furry Fandom.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> 1. You can like or dislike Kyell, and you can call it "low circles" or not.. but the fact remains, he's the highest published furry author right now inside the fandom.
> 
> 2. There is no doubt of his furriness, he has written "for this genre" or whatever classification you favor.
> 
> ...



1. So your point is that if he started writing more "mainstream" stuff, it would become "mainstream" just becuase he is himself and therefore popular?
2. That means he has written other stuff aside form the one I pointed? Or the opposite?
3. By "low circles" I mean "people who read porn" (a circle where I used to be I admit, but one I don't want to return to). The high circles would be "people who write other stuff and NOT porn". And the fact something sells does not make it automatically good. If I had to choose, I'd buy a well written book than a New York Times best-seller.
4. I do not have a clear understanding of what genre-fiction is. I guess  you mean "deliberately made to fit a certain genre". Could you add more on this? When I read, I catalog books by period and style, not by genre.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

1. Yes.  If Kyell Gold wrote in the mainstream market with his furry stuff, then we'd know that a furry writer has made it into the mainstream.  This reverse adoption stuff of things like Redwall/etc is not proof that Furry is mainstream.  Mainstream = money, comparatively

2. He has written mostly gay fiction, yes.  He's also written other things.

3. The low or high circles are just moral standpoints.  The facts remain that without the best sellers, you get none of the rest of it.   This market, in Furry, requires the "low circles" to be able to sell the "high circles."  The Bestsellers ALWAYS pull the train.

4. Genre fiction is your typical book store fluff.  Harry Potter, Sue Grafton, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, etc.  Literary fiction is your "higher circle" stuff, like Poisonwood Bible, Osmeros, The Great Gatsby, etc.  Genre fiction is sometimes called "popcorn fiction."


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> 1. Yes.  If Kyell Gold wrote in the mainstream market with his furry stuff, then we'd know that a furry writer has made it into the mainstream.  This reverse adoption stuff of things like Redwall/etc is not proof that Furry is mainstream.  Mainstream = money, comparatively
> 
> 2. He has written mostly gay fiction, yes.  He's also written other things.
> 
> ...



1. I can see why that would be a good thing for us. I'm still doubt why someone would want literature with anthros to become "mainstream" though. It is not such a big issue after all (or so I think now).
2. That's good to know.
3. That seems to work under the same logic of "reading will lead people to find better books", which I do not necessarlly agree with (in the case of modern literature). Still, your point in bold is valid.
4. I see, I don't read those. Most of the authors I read are people that established their careers in the past centhuries (dead, old, thoughtful,  and in my opinion excellent authors, when the market was more focused in writing itself than in the money).


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Martino Zorrilla said:


> 4. I see, I don't read those. Most of the authors I read are people that established their careers in the past centhuries (dead, old, thoughtful,  and in my opinion excellent authors, when the market was more focused in writing itself than in the money).



The market has always been focused in the money.

People like Dickens used to be serialized in magazines.  Many of the "classics" you read nowadays, people paid for in magazine installments and waited for them every month.  

It's always been about the money.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> The market has always been focused in the money.
> 
> People like Dickens used to be serialized in magazines.  Many of the "classics" you read nowadays, people paid for in magazine installments and waited for them every month.
> 
> It's always been about the money.




I knew that. But it is said by many that those texts were higher in quality than most texts nowadays. Is it becuase all that had to be written was written already? Are we just left with fresh twists on old ideas? Perhaps.


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> but the fact remains, he's the highest published furry author right now inside the fandom.



I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but... there is something here that might be worth discussing, leaving aside questions of who likes or doesn't like what Kyell writes, etc.

A lot of this thread has been about taking furry fiction (and perhaps by extension the furry fandom) into the mainstream. And there have also been some opinions (understandable) about not wanting furry to be part of the mainstream at all, assuming it's even possible for it to be.

I guess my question becomes, what are the motives for publishing furry fiction in the mainstream? For me, from a personal perspective, it's a matter of... well, ambition, not to put too fine a point on it. I write a lot of work with anthro characters, not all of which I think needs to be confined to the fandom, and as I've already talked about, the opportunities in the fandom are somewhat limited anyway.

From a broader perspective, though, it sounds like the desire to take furry mainstream (speaking about that desire generally, not just as it's been expressed in this particular thread) might be based on what outsiders think of the fandom, and wanting the fandom to be viewed in a more positive light. Of course all of us want what we write and what we enjoy to be respected and seen as something worthwhile. And I think we're all aware of the kinds of stereotypes that exist in the mainstream about furry (when people outside the fandom are even aware of it at all).

That said, from my experience -- and I could be wrong; this is just my own experience -- the biggest stereotypes I see/hear about furry are that it's 1) primarily, if not completely, a sexual fetish, and 2) primarily a gay sexual fetish. (And yes, I know full well that that _isn't_ all that furry is about.) So if the goal is to dispel/subvert stereotypes (and that may not be the goal; I'm just curious as to whether it is), it would seem... somewhat ironic... to put forward an author primarily known for writing gay furry erotica, with the hopes of representing furry in the mainstream.

Again, I'm not making any value judgements on the quality of his work, or anything to that effect, in case that's not obvious. I'm speaking entirely about perceptions.

And now I wait to be dramatically misunderstood.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> I'm not trying to start a flamewar here, but... there is something here that might be worth discussing, leaving aside questions of who likes or doesn't like what Kyell writes, etc.
> 
> A lot of this thread has been about taking furry fiction (and perhaps by extension the furry fandom) into the mainstream. And there have also been some opinions (understandable) about not wanting furry to be part of the mainstream at all, assuming it's even possible for it to be.
> 
> ...



No miss, your thoughts are exactly mine and I do understand your points. I admire people like you who dare writing what they think, do it well, and don't fear what others will say.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Well, PT, that's a good question and a good point.

The reality of it is, though, it is a primarily gay fandom.  It is, in many regards, very fetish oriented.   That doesn't mean it ALL is, but it does mean that we have to accept that as a reality when we go forward.    It means if writers like Kyell were to hit mainstream, his representation of Furry would be gay fiction.

But then again, it comes back around, doesn't it?  What sells?  Gay fiction.  Why does it sell?  Because there are more in this market that are gay than not.  

See, to be mainstream, you must be able to sell.  That's what mainstream means.  It's in the main flow.  If furry is to be mainstream, then that means that our most popular aspects (by dollar cost) will be aligned with the "mainstream" market's popular items.

It's not about "porn" or "notporn."  The fact is, if you read much of what Kyell writes and you go out and pick up some fantasy novels, you'll find about an equal amount of sex.  Sometimes it's gay sex in the fantasy novels, sometimes it's straight sex, but it's always sex.  

The world, the mainstream world, is all about sex too.  Writing about it is nothing new.  You hear authors all the time saying things like "increase the sexual tension.  There better be a sexual payoff here.  But not here.  HERE."    

I think people forget how much is in those books we consider mainstream.  Or in movies.   

There's softcore EVERYWHERE, and some hardcore too, and I'm not just talking romance novels.

(EDIT)

The other thing I've noticed amongst furry works is that we tend to actually differentiate between "clean" and "adult" products.  The modern bookstores and mainstream books tend not to do such a thing.  It's a little secret, but I can walk into most any bookstore in the country, and buy hardcore gay fiction.  I can't do that with furry novels at conventions.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GrameLion: Are you implying that you would not mind if Kyell became "mainstream" with his gay fiction and represented the furry fandom that way because sex is already mainstream? Are not furries trying to change their image? Do not you think there is something wrong with sex being mainstream as it is? Why is selling your main point? Furthermore, why do you imply that furry would become mainstream selling that kind of stuff? Wouldn't that limit the market even more? What would be the social repercussions of it on the fandom?
EDIT: I get the feeling I'm sugarcoating the fandom.


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## panzergulo (Mar 30, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Though yeah, something written for a younger audience, where as I said there's a long tradition of using animal characters, isn't exactly the best example for furry (as in, the furry fandom) somehow going mainstream.





Poetigress said:


> So if the goal is to dispel/subvert stereotypes (and that may not be the goal; I'm just curious as to whether it is), it would seem... somewhat ironic... to put forward an author primarily known for writing gay furry erotica, with the hopes of representing furry in the mainstream.



I agree with the first one. Something featuring anthropomorphic animals doesn't make it automatically "furry". Calling anything produced outside of the fandom "furry" seems quite egocentric anyway... anthropomorphic animals are much, much older -- probably as old as storytelling -- than the fandom, which is quite a young little thing, when you put it into the right perspective. I understand young people tend to get things mixed up, but let's try and call things with their right names here, shall we? Furry is the fan, anthro is what he or she is interested about, but something featuring anthro doesn't make it "furry".

I agree with the second one too, but this is more because of an opinion, not because of truth or anything else. If furry goes mainstream, I would not like it to be recognized as "gay" fandom.



GraemeLion said:


> The reality of it is, though, it is a primarily gay fandom.



Check your facts before making a fool of yourself.

http://www.klisoura.com/ot_furrysurvey.php
http://www.klisoura.com/ot_furrysurvey2009.php

The furry fandom might have more gays than population on average, but you can't really call the fandom "gay". In 'Furry Survey 2009', about one fifth of the respondents recognized themselves as "mostly homosexual" or "completely homosexual". I don't regard myself as homophobic, but I try to fight against this false stereotype whenever I can.

I'm sorry to say this, but I regard "furry" only as a meta-genre... I write fantasy, I write sci-fi, I write post-apocalyptic survival fiction... and the characters happen to be anthro animals. Maybe it makes it "anthro fiction", maybe "furry fiction", I dunno. But still, I regard it only as a meta-genre.

About fetishes and "porn/non-porn"... meh, you others can make your points, I just like writing some adult material now and then and it gets me more watchers, so I'm not going there and risk myself by making me sound like a hypocrite. Sure, I'm sad that my general rated stories won't ever get as much attention as my adult stories, and I'm sad that my erotica gets less attention than cheap fetish porn regardless of the quality... but how vanilla and straight my erotica might ever be, someone is always there to call me a porn writer. 

Aside people confusing children's stories and allegorical novels with "furry"... this is a great thread! Probably one of the best I've ever read in FAF.

I'm probably going to edit this after posting this... but we'll see. And I did. Sorry if this confuses anyone. I have "just one more point" syndrome.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

I know those surveys, and I'm of the opinion that there are some statistical problems with that.

That aside, look at the Ursa Major Awards.  Look at the conventions at what sells.  Look at the books.  Is it all about selling to me?  If the end goal is to be mainstream, YES.  That's how you get mainstream, by selling.   What's selling is gay fiction.  The fandom wants gay fiction.    The fandom wants gay artwork.  There's nothing wrong with that.

Finally, with regards to Kyell Gold "presenting that image of Furry", go to a Furry con.  That's an image we present to the public.  If someone from the public pays $40, they're IN.   They can walk all around and see what furry is about, and I'm pretty certain they'll see a lot of things that Kyell's books have. 

Kyell reflects the fandom, not the other way around.   If you have a problem with Kyell's works, you have a problem with the fandom. 

I'm not mad or anything.  PG is right, it's not a "primarily gay fandom" , and I spoke out of order with that.  But it IS a more gay fandom, and it is a more overtly sexual fandom.

EDIT: 

I'll edit mine too, just for fun  

Look, surveys say one thing.  But the problem I have with the surveys is that they give moral positioning.  They don't really show what people spend money on.    The Kyell Gold's and Doug Winger's and ASB's of the fandom are popular because people are willing to spend money on them.   The people view the adult stories more than the general ones for a reason.  In Freakonomics, the author states the premise that morality is what people say they believe, and economics is what people really believe.  I think there is a gulf between the two in Furry.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

So you are totally okay with the gay segment representing the fandom?


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Martino Zorrilla said:


> So you are totally okay with the gay segment representing the fandom?



I've got no real problem with it, no.  

Remember, anyone can log on to FA and see things right in front of them.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> I've got no real problem with it, no.
> 
> Remember, anyone can log on to FA and see things right in front of them.



Well, I cannot really blame you. I've no actual troubles with homosexuals either (unless they try to get me). 

And in this world, anyone who does is deemed as a "retarded and old christian conservatist". 

Morality has changed so much, in a few years, people will do it in the streets and anyone who challenges them will be deemed a "retarded and old christian conservatist". Guess I cannot do anything about it.

But I still do not want to be recognized in a "fetish fandom". More like a "fandom that has everything good and bad in this life".


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## panzergulo (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> This kitty has lots to say.



You have valid points, and I have to agree, because what is the truth and what is conceived are two different things... even if I don't like it. And you're saying that because the gays are the most vocal part of the fandom and spend the most money, we should sell the fandom as a "gay fandom", yes? Let's continue with this thought...

If we use the same logic, we should be also selling the fandom as "mentally unstable fandom" or "anything goes fandom". While majority of the fandom are mostly okay people who consider "furry" as a hobby and a nice way to interact with people with similar interests and other fairly "normal" stuff like that (or so I hope), it is often the more eccentric, the more extreme, and the freakier people who get their voices heard before anybody else. And if the most vocal person in a normal group of furries happens to be a lifestyler who yells "yiff" and "fursecution" whenever possible, pushes his or her interests and fetishes at other people faces whenever possible, and is otherwise being a complete a-hole, he or she should be made as our figurehead, just because he or she happens to be the most vocal of us?

I know this is a little exaggerating... but, it is something we should think about, if we are talking about making "furry" more mainstream... which might not be so good thing at the first place, in my opinion. Also, "gay fandom" would be much better than "mentally unstable fandom" or "anything goes fandom"... as long as they don't hit me, I'm okay with them. Heck, I have a feeling I read more gay male writers than straight male writers here in FA... although, most what they write isn't sexual at all.


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

Of course, it's all really a... I'm not sure what the proper term would be, whether 'rhetorical' or 'hypothetical' or something else, but a moot discussion, anyway ('academic'? 'speculative'? argh, it's going to drive me crazy until I remember the word I'm looking for) -- since nobody really gets to choose, deliberately, who winds up representing the fandom. (As we have seen, unfortunately, in media coverage over the years.) 

*shrug* It's not that I disagree with you, Graeme, but bear in mind that what you present is somewhat of a disheartening outlook for those of us who don't write either gay fiction or gay erotica -- which is kind of another reason I see more opportunity for what I write in the mainstream these days than in the fandom.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Well, it doesn't hurt that I am gay 

The thing is, though, Martino.. this is what it is.   I spent the weekend at FWA.  I watched it as a second to the dealer's room coordinator.  It's how this fandom works, because it's what the members of this fandom want.  If they didn't, 1500 people wouldn't have shown up and browsed and purchased in the Dealer Room.  

The fandom is this way because the people in it are this way. It's market forces.

As for mainstreaming it, well, I think that any male straight who is afraid of a gay guy hitting on them need to think about what they do to women.   And they need to think deeply about that.  I don't think gay guys are any more sexual than straight couples, I think that there is a massive double standard.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Of course, it's all really a... I'm not sure what the proper term would be, whether 'rhetorical' or 'hypothetical' or something else, but a moot discussion, anyway ('academic'? 'speculative'? argh, it's going to drive me crazy until I remember the word I'm looking for) -- since nobody really gets to choose, deliberately, who winds up representing the fandom. (As we have seen, unfortunately, in media coverage over the years.)
> 
> *shrug* It's not that I disagree with you, Graeme, but bear in mind that what you present is somewhat of a disheartening outlook for those of us who don't write either gay fiction or gay erotica -- which is kind of another reason I see more opportunity for what I write in the mainstream these days than in the fandom.



True, it is kind of moot.  since it isn't our choice 

I guess my whole point in this is, if we were to "mainstream furry", then we'd have to accept it at what it is, financially.

As for presenting a disheartening outlook, the neat thing about market forces is that they change.  Markets change.   I think, though, that with regards to mainstream works, there is a lot of sex out there right now in the NYT Best Seller list.  I think the problem people have is that they look at gay sex and straight sex differently, and are afraid of people being more offended by the gay sex.


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> 1. Well, it doesn't hurt that I am gay
> 
> 2. The thing is, though, Martino.. this is what it is.   I spent the weekend at FWA.  I watched it as a second to the dealer's room coordinator.  It's how this fandom works, because it's what the members of this fandom want.  If they didn't, 1500 people wouldn't have shown up and browsed and purchased in the Dealer Room.
> 
> ...



1. I was wondering whether you were, but I felt that asking would have been rude.
2. Like Poetigress said, it is kind of disappointing that things are like that (for us who do not want a fandom represented by sex, the problem is not so much the gay, but the sex).
3. Same as in 2.
4. Hey! Not all heteros are chauvinists hitting on random girls. Some of us know how to behave with them.

EDIT: Uh, oh. This how derailing of threads usually starts. Now I've polluted the writer's bloc. Could someone keep this on topic? Or lock it?


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

No, there's still time to get it back on topic.

 

Back to the writer's guild.  I guess the questions would need to be "how would one get in" and "what would it offer?"


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

I think there is a difference, though, between books marketed as literary/genre and books marketed as erotica. There's some gray area, yes, but I think the intentions are different. There may be sex scenes (gay or straight) in lots of genre novels, but generally not of the volume and level of detail you find in novels published as erotica. 

I agree that there can be a double standard for gay sex and straight sex -- heck, even with something as basic as a simple kiss in public -- but I don't know that it's at play _quite_ that much here.

To go back to a point you made earlier, yes, you can walk into Borders or Barnes & Noble or wherever and buy erotica, without having to show an ID or whatever, whereas things are more segregated in a dealer's room. But first, as I recall, most of those mainstream books would still be in a designated Erotica section--for example, Circlet Press publishes erotic sf/f, but I've never seen them shelved in the sf/f section (leaving aside the question of whether genre truly exists or is just for publishers' marketing purposes). 

There may also be an apples-to-oranges component here, because the biggest difference I see between furry books that contain explicit sex and mainstream books that contain explicit sex is that the furry ones tend to include explicit illustrations as well, which get more attention and control in terms of age requirements. (I don't know how or whether this relates to any of the comics or manga stuff that's sold in bookstores, by the way.)


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## panzergulo (Mar 30, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Of course, it's all really a... I'm not sure what the proper term would be, whether 'rhetorical' or 'hypothetical' or something else, but a moot discussion, anyway ('academic'? 'speculative'? argh, it's going to drive me crazy until I remember the word I'm looking for) -- since nobody really gets to choose, deliberately, who winds up representing the fandom. (As we have seen, unfortunately, in media coverage over the years.)
> 
> *shrug* It's not that I disagree with you, Graeme, but bear in mind that what you present is somewhat of a disheartening outlook for those of us who don't write either gay fiction or gay erotica -- which is kind of another reason I see more opportunity for what I write in the mainstream these days than in the fandom.



I agree. I feel the same pain. And yeah, media uses whatever sells. If people like shock value, they shall picture furry fandom as a shocking fandom.



Martino Zorrilla said:


> EDIT: Uh, oh. This how derailing of threads usually starts. Now I've polluted the writer's bloc. Could someone keep this on topic? Or lock it?



No! This is a great thread. MLR probably will like this anyway. Besides, all this is on topic. If the future of furry fiction is in the mainstream, do we like if we are pictured as "gay fandom" of "fetish fandom" or whatever. As a straight guy who is not into fetishes and who writes mostly general rated prose, I, of course, wouldn't like it, even if I had to accept it as a fact. But if furry doesn't go mainstream, I'm not so concerned. My readers know where I stand and that's enough for me, and other people won't care.

But that's just an opinion, and they can change...


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## Ariosto (Mar 30, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> No! This is a great thread. MLR probably will like this anyway. Besides, all this is on topic. If the future of furry fiction is in the mainstream, do we like if we are pictured as "gay fandom" of "fetish fandom" or whatever. As a straight guy who is not into fetishes and who writes mostly general rated prose, I, of course, wouldn't like it, even if I had to accept it as a fact. But if furry doesn't go mainstream, I'm not so concerned. My readers know where I stand and that's enough for me, and other people won't care.
> 
> But that's just an opinion, and they can change...



Oh! So it's not a bad thread after all.

I'll say that I heartedly disagree with the "whatever sells" rule. Selling is not the only important thing, that's why nowadays teens are such a bad readers (usually), they take the popular stuff and come to like it becuase it was made to pander them. It's exactly the same problem with anime and moe.

Therefore, if furry writers trully wanted to become "mainstream" with merits, they should improve their writing skills and get someone who promotes them. And if they want to have it great, the should expand their writing topics and not dedicate solely to erotica/sex.

Think of Truman Capote, some of his writings and conversations are really dirty, but he was forgiven. Why? Because of his excellent writing and treatment of various real-life situations.
...

So, furries should try to follow Capote's path?


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

We have to differentiate two camps here.

For writers, what is on paper is the most important thing.

For investors/publishers, how it can sell is the most important thing.  

Writers like to eat.  It's handy.  If I were to write a literary fiction piece about a husband and wife lion and lioness who went around shutting down gay bars in Furville and stomped gay people for fun, it doesn't matter how well it's written.  It wouldn't sell well enough in furry, and no furry publisher would take it.  Which means, I don't eat.  (Well, I do.. but if the goal is to be mainstream, some writers need money.)

Money isn't bad.  Money is how people judge your work.  If you're good, you get MORE.    So yes, while the art is dreadfully important, even the masters all the way back got PAID.

Let's not forget that Leonardo DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa FOR someone.

Michealangelo sculpted David for someone.

Art has ALWAYS had someone commissioning and paying, and someone creating.    We don't talk about the commissioners now, we talk about the artists.   We don't talk about how Rembrandt sold his soul when taking money for "The Night Watch," but we do know he got paid for it.  There's a desire to lump money with selling out, and that's unfortunate.   There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to get paid AND doing what you love. 

I guess I'm not as worried as other people are about this.


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## duroc (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> Money isn't bad.  Money is how people judge your work.  If you're good, you get MORE.    So yes, while the art is dreadfully important, even the masters all the way back got PAID.



I don't really agree with this.  Money and sales is not a measure of quality.  A lot of good authors get overlooked and a lot of not so good authors sell well but are obviously overrated.  It really comes done to how the material is marketed and pushed toward a particular audience.



GraemeLion said:


> But then again, it comes back around, doesn't it?  What sells?  Gay fiction.  Why does it sell?  Because there are more in this market that are gay than not.



This is always one of those topics that puzzled me.  When it comes down to reading material in the fandom, whether it is comics or books, what is really out there that is marketed or pushed toward straight people(or even bisexuals for that matter)?  Let's look at some of the major publishers in the fandom.

Sofawolf:

Volle
Pendant of Fortune
Out of Position
Shadows of the Father
Fur-Piled
I.S.O.
Dog Days of Summer
X (Yes, this isn't completely gay erotica, but even Sofawolf says it's 70%)
Thousand Leaves
Waterways
Prisoner's Release
Heat(Again, not completely gay, but I would say it leans that way)

Furplanet:
Bridges
Carpe Diem
Profiles
Heathen City
Fang
Seeing Spots
Beyond Hollowed Walls
Within Hollowed Walls
A Single Quivering Note
Trevor's Tricks
The Hero

Rabbit Valley:
Associated Student Bodies
Spooo Presents(Again, not all gay, but I'd say it's 85 to 90% gay material)
Cocktails
Circles

These are some of the major things marketed, promoted, and pushed by some of the major publishers.  And by pushed, I mean when I walk up to a table at a furry convention, something from this list is usually recommended by someone at the table.  Now, where is the straight/bisexual material being marketed by these publishers?  There really isn't any.  Or there may be one or two things here and there, but they definitely don't get the same push as the gay material.  So how can the fandom say gay is the only thing that sells, when there really isn't anything else to even try and compete?

Now, I'm not saying that if there was straight literature available, it would immediately sell like hot cakes.  It wouldn't.  It would take time to build a market, and gay fiction has a big head start.  But if the fandom were to actually push and market some straight material, I'm curious as to what would happen over time.  I mean, even the owners of Sofawolf have said that straight people have bought and read Kyell Gold's books.  I myself have purchased a lot of things on the list above.  So way couldn't straight or bisexual stories be supported by the fandom's gay community in the same way the straight and bisexual community supports gay fiction?  

That's my thoughts anyway.  Hopefully this comes out okay and doesn't get twisted around somehow.


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## Alexis (Mar 30, 2010)

It does raise a question, most of the lit. I see about on the shelves is pretty conformist and boring... how come stories that involve gay/lesbian couples kept to the odd celebrity come-out here and there?

And as for some previous peeps comment on 'Characters that could be interpreted as furry', a talking badger that wears clothes seems like a furry toon to me .  So in that respect, furry is out there but there seems to be some confusion that humans are some sort of higher lifeform so animalforms get treated as animals not peeps


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 30, 2010)

I just have to butt in here and add one thing:
Why are you guys all ignoring the fact that two anthros having sex isn't the same as two humans having sex?  Because that just might be a huge component.
Yes it's true that a lot of novels of various genres contain sex scenes, and sex sells, so people buy those books like no one's business.  But I don't think that would work the same for furry literature, so I don't think you could sell furry as well in the mainstream if you put forward the sex first.  Yes, that sells _within the fandom_, because that's what the fandom likes.  But when you go outside the fandom, you don't think anyone would start crying bestiality?  And as soon as that happens, what happens to the publisher who agreed to publish your gay furry erotica novel?
I guess what I'm asking is, how many publishers would be willing to take that kind of risk, honestly?
In which case, what the market would end up wanting from furry is not the sex, which might just be a deathblow for their company, but rather the other stuff that's not as popular within the fandom.

Just an alternative to this line of discussion about getting it mainstream.  Furry erotica doesn't have the same mass-appeal as regular erotica.



			
				duroc said:
			
		

> So how can the fandom say gay is the only thing that sells, when there really isn't anything else to even try and compete?


That's a good point.  A good marketing campaign can make anything popular.  Just look at _Eragon_.  Convince one sheep, the others will follow.


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## Alexis (Mar 30, 2010)

I can see where peeps get confused, or maybe haven't seen the whole picture.

Sex is a major part of furry fandom. Its probably because the animals that some part of us seeks to emulate don't hide or pretend sex isn't sex when it is sex, we know that a lot of people who aren't furries like to sometimes break from the norm and just plain bone and be dominated.  So essentially, furries are more open about it.

Considering pretty much everybody is doing it all the time in some way or another, to pretend it isn't happening is juvenile, which is fine for kids but for grown adults it looks like it leads to unhappiness.  So furries don't hide it, we're open about it (Sometimes too open some might say) and so it _seems_ like sex is what being a furry is all about since you don't see it that often normally, unless you're looking.


*Maybe if peeps wrote less about sex for once then the overall image would change.*
I mean, there's plenty of non-sexual furry content out there on the internet, the problem is... its the internet.


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## KatmanDu (Mar 30, 2010)

Aaargh... is what I write "furry", then? I write sci-fi (none of which is on FA) and transformation stories- shapeshifters, werewolves and what have you. Furry? Anthro? Horror? I should know better than to post at work where I'm distracted.

I'd like to see a guild offer the same sorts of things the SFWA does... support, advice, promotion, advocacy... but it would be a long, long time before it could reach those levels. Most likely mentoring, support, and advice; and examples of what good fiction is. SFWA's membership requirements would be too steep, however; even if qualifying publications were Sofawolf et. al., how many authors meet that in this market?


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Alexis said:


> *Maybe if peeps wrote less about sex for once then the overall image would change.*
> I mean, there's plenty of non-sexual furry content out there on the internet, the problem is... its the internet.



Why?

I mean, I write non-sexual things.  I get ten or twenty page views.

I write sexual things.  I get 500 to 900 page views.

Let's imagine that I translate that into one story a week, and I charge $.50 a story, if you want to pay, and I get 5% saying yes, I'll pay ya $.50 a story.

That means my non-sexual stories get $26 at the top range.  My sexual stories get $1170.

It's not the authors.  The authors write what gets readers.  They write to the market.  

You're blaming writers for writing what the market wants.


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## panzergulo (Mar 30, 2010)

Alexis said:


> *Maybe if peeps wrote less about sex for once then the overall image would change.*
> I mean, there's plenty of non-sexual furry content out there on the internet, the problem is... its the internet.



(Emphasis is Alexis')

There's plenty of non-sexual/non-adult/general rated in the fandom, and in FA. As a writer of mainly general rated stories but also some adult stories, I can say the adult stories get a lot more attention. The problem isn't that I am not writing general rated stories. The problem is that less people are reading them. And I am fairly sure when I say that most more or less serious writers face the same dilemma in FA, or any other furry site that allows writing to be submitted. Porn is what furries want to read. And to some (most?) writers, this is a clear sign that they shouldn't be writing anything else than porn...

It's a vicious cycle. As I said in my first post in this thread, the problem that the fandom itself doesn't recognize writing, regarding it only as fanfics and yiff, is something much more important than how people publish and buy novels, book, or stories in the future. If furry writing of all ratings would get more recognition, people might start caring about things like quality and content again... But that's only my opinion.


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## Alexis (Mar 30, 2010)

kk, just two things Tigress;

If anthropomorphism is adding human traits to inert objects or other lifeforms, then surely human speech and any attempt at interpreting animal thought is anthro and therefore furry.

As for selling animal characters to adults, I'm gonna take up that gauntlet, watch my space


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> (Emphasis is Alexis')
> 
> There's plenty of non-sexual/non-adult/general rated in the fandom, and in FA. As a writer of mainly general rated stories but also some adult stories, I can say the adult stories get a lot more attention. The problem isn't that I am not writing general rated stories. The problem is that less people are reading them. And I am fairly sure when I say that most more or less serious writers face the same dilemma in FA, or any other furry site that allows writing to be submitted. Porn is what furries want to read. And to some (most?) writers, this is a clear sign that they shouldn't be writing anything else than porn...
> 
> It's a vicious cycle. As I said in my first post in this thread, the problem that the fandom itself doesn't recognize writing, regarding it only as fanfics and yiff, is something much more important than how people publish and buy novels, book, or stories in the future. If furry writing of all ratings would get more recognition, people might start caring about things like quality and content again... But that's only my opinion.



I have a writer friend who is nameless, but not Kyell, who is intending to write porn to build an audience, and then slowly scale back to general once he's got people interested in his characters.   It's a valid tactic.


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## panzergulo (Mar 30, 2010)

Alexis said:


> kk, just two things Tigress;
> 
> If anthropomorphism is adding human traits to inert objects or other  lifeforms, then surely human speech and any attempt at interpreting  animal thought is anthro and therefore furry.
> 
> As for selling animal characters to adults, I'm gonna take up that  gauntlet, watch my space



What did I say just a couple hours ago?



panzergulo said:


> I agree with the first one. *Something featuring anthropomorphic animals doesn't make it automatically "furry".* Calling anything produced outside of the fandom "furry" seems quite egocentric anyway... anthropomorphic animals are much, much older -- probably as old as storytelling -- than the fandom, which is quite a young little thing, when you put it into the right perspective. I understand young people tend to get things mixed up, but let's try and call things with their right names here, shall we? *Furry is the fan, anthro is what he or she is interested about, but something featuring anthro doesn't make it "furry".*



It's immature, naive, to label everything "anthro" as "furry". A medieval woodcarving featuring a werewolf? Yes, werewolves can be considered anthropomorphic animals... but they are not "furry". An ancient Egyptian painting of one of their animal-headed gods? Yes, sure we can regard it as some level of anthropomorphism... but "furry"... no.

Sorry, but your categorizing has flaws. "Furry" is a sub-group of "anthro", not the other way round. You can't claim everything featuring anthropomorphic animals as "furry". It's like saying... say... every geometrical shape is "a triangle". See that square there? Yeah, it's a triangle. See that rectangle there? Yeah, it's a triangle.

Nope. It doesn't work like that. Something being "furry" must be produced by a furry, to furries... or that's at least my definition. Tell, if you have better definitions.


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> I have a writer friend who is nameless, but not Kyell, who is intending to write porn to build an audience, and then slowly scale back to general once he's got people interested in his characters.   It's a valid tactic.



IMO, that IS selling out. :/ If you want to write porn, write porn because it's what you want to write, not because you're using it as a marketing scheme. I'm not denying that it might work, but that earns very little respect from me on a personal level.

Besides, that may well backfire on him. Once you make a branded name for yourself, it might be tough to get past the typecasting. (After all, Kyell may write more than gay erotica, but that's what his name is probably still going to be synonymous with for a long time to come, no matter what other projects he does.) What's more, you run the risk that your audience may prove fickle if they're not getting their fixes just the way they're used to.


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> Nope. It doesn't work like that. Something being "furry" must be produced by a furry, to furries... or that's at least my definition. Tell, if you have better definitions.



Panzer, there's a history of the term "furry" being used a different way. When I first found out about the fandom roughly 10 years or so ago, it seems that more people said "furry" when they simply meant "involving anthropomorphic characters." In other words, a list of "furry books" would be a list of books with anthro characters, not a list of books by writers in the fandom.

Over the years, apparently as the fandom has developed and grown larger, it's become far more common to use "furry" to refer _strictly_ to the furry fandom itself or things that are part of it.

So, to use an earlier example, no, I don't think Aesop or the ancient Egyptians or what have you were "furry" in the sense that the furry fandom uses the word today. But they did use anthropomorphic characters, so calling Aesop's fables "furry" could be seen as accurate _in the earlier sense of the word._

So it really does depend on your definition of the word. Obviously, I'm still clinging to a definition that seems to be terribly out of date anymore. :/


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## GraemeLion (Mar 30, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> IMO, that IS selling out. :/ If you want to write porn, write porn because it's what you want to write, not because you're using it as a marketing scheme. I'm not denying that it might work, but that earns very little respect from me on a personal level.
> 
> Besides, that may well backfire on him. Once you make a branded name for yourself, it might be tough to get past the typecasting. (After all, Kyell may write more than gay erotica, but that's what his name is probably still going to be synonymous with for a long time to come, no matter what other projects he does.) What's more, you run the risk that your audience may prove fickle if they're not getting their fixes just the way they're used to.



It may indeed bite him in the butt and he's mentioned that fear to me.  But as he put it , at least he'll have the readers rejecting him, instead of having no readers ever even giving it a chance.


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## panzergulo (Mar 30, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> So it really does depend on your definition of the word. Obviously, I'm still clinging to a definition that seems to be terribly out of date anymore. :/



I still think it's irresponsible to name everything "anthro" as "furry". Sure, it might work inside the fandom... "furry" is equal to "is of interest to a anthro animal fan". But outside the fandom... quite a few children's novelists and other people might get rather offended if some random web people came and labeled their works as "furry". Nope, I do think the new definition is better.

Another definition candidate: "If the artist/writer/person who made it says it's 'furry', it's 'furry'." This is also my definition for "furry" (person). "Someone is a 'furry' when they say they are a 'furry'." This would automatically exclude everything that is produced by a person who has died before the furry fandom was founded.

Exclude? Why not outclude? Include and outclude. English is a funny language.


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> But when you go outside the fandom, you don't think anyone would start crying bestiality? And as soon as that happens, what happens to the publisher who agreed to publish your gay furry erotica novel?
> I guess what I'm asking is, how many publishers would be willing to take that kind of risk, honestly?



There would have to be some overlap in one aspect or another. For example, an erotica publisher might be willing to publish a gay or straight furry erotic novel. (Maybe. I think things have warmed up a bit thanks to all the werewolf stuff.) By the same token, some of the more avant-garde independent GLBT publishers might be willing to have a go at something furry, either with erotica or something that just has a gay protagonist. These would most likely not be major publishers, though; you're right.

So again, to me this does illustrate the problem of saying, hey, this person is #1 in the fandom, so we need somebody like them to break into the mainstream -- since, as you point out, what's popular here might not work so well for those on the outside.


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## Poetigress (Mar 30, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> But outside the fandom... quite a few children's novelists and other people might get rather offended if some random web people came and labeled their works as "furry".



And that's because of the stigma that's grown up around the fandom over the years, unfortunately.



> This is also my definition for "furry" (person). "Someone is a 'furry' when they say they are a 'furry'."



On a similar point, there are a number of artists on FA -- obviously aware of the fandom and producing work that they think will appeal to it -- who produce work featuring bipedal animal characters, the same sort of stuff made by loads of other self-named furry artists, and yet these people would absolutely die before they would ever, ever call their work "furry". So who gets to choose what's "furry" in that case -- the artist, or the audience?


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## Altamont (Mar 30, 2010)

I personally think that the best way to go about thinking about all of this is to drop the "fandom" aspect of it altogether; I know, it might seem to defeat the purpose, but I think the very definition of what we as a group collectively identify ourselves as being aapart of, this "fandom", is inherently counterintuitive to the mainstream.

Think of it: There have been innumerable homoerotic and heterosexual novels written for every genre known to man, and it all sells. I personally don't think sexuality is the main point; as MLR said, it's the fact that the stuff is about anthropomorphic animals having sex that keeps it out of the mainstream. Again, as MLR said, that is what doesn't appeal to the mainstream, but doesn't appeal to us.

The _animals_.

So, as the above posts pontificated, what if the writers of Furry fiction focused less on porn and more on more...tasteful (?) prospects? I personally don't think much would happen. Because it isn't about the sex, it's because we're writing stories aimed at adults that focus on talking animals. The reason that's not going to enter the mainstream is, in my humble opinion, that our society views anthropomorphic animals as "kids stuff".

Keep in mind that when I say "our society" I refer mainly to the United States.

But look at it: what is the one medium where anthropomorphic _anything_ gets exposed to the point of becoming a convention that is borderline cliche? Children's films.

But nobody questions that, right? Rarely have I heard anyone complain about the number of children's films that concern talking animals, because that is where everyone believes them to belong. I personally think the reason that it is so hard for the furry sub-genre to breach in to the mainstream isn't because of sexual content but because people are uncomfortable with talking animals that engage in adult actions (adult as in mature actions, not as in sex) that are not allegorical for some higher, world-reaching theme.

We as a fandom are not bizarre for our love for talking animals, because nearly everyone in their lives has loved talking animals, and nobody I know would ever dislike them. We're considered bizarre by others, I think, because we take those anthropomorphic elements and put them out of the context that the rest of the world is by and large unfamiliar with. And since the world is unfamiliar with it, it doesn't like it.

Not to mention that a majority of the published furry fiction, erotic or otherwise, isn't particularly good, at least in my opinion. Save of course for Mr. Jaques, but I don't want to go near that potential Pandora's Box of flamez.

Sorry to go off on such a rant, but I felt as if I should ad in my two cents


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## bfoxxe (Mar 31, 2010)

This has ranged a bit far from the original topic, but I wanted to return to that for a moment with a point I have been hearing on numerous lips "in the biz".

"It's all about the niche."

As has been mentioned, the big distribution model is cracking. Jamming a huge bookstore (or even a small one) with a wide variety of books which you keep for a week or four before remaindering and junking isn't cutting it anymore. No one is happy (except for the shipping companies who make lots of money carrying cases of books around) and with margins tightening, bad things are eminent.

The answer many small publishers and writers are exploring is niche market publishing. The goal is to identify your niche, expand your presence, maximize your saturation, build outwards. There is plenty of success to be had ENTIRELY in the niche markets -- some would even say that on overall value/time ratio there is much more than hoping for that one in a million shot of a royalty advance from a big publishing house.

One author we are aware of wrote a book about the experiences his siblings had while finishing a boat building project after their father died. It was one of those "come together, feel good" things about the family re-connecting after having been apart -- BUT, it was also about boat building. Realizing the basic story was too uninspiring to be of interest with mainstream publishers he self-published and marketed it extensively to the boat building community. It took off. He now has a second book, a movie deal (likely as not will never be realized, but it was money regardless) and plans on how to work into side niches.

It's not that it was a BAD book (though I haven't read it myself -- reading is for those who still have time) it was just lacking a "hook" to folks in the mainstream. But not to those in the niche. He doesn't consider himself a "boat builder" or even has plans to continue the hobby -- and the niche doesn't care. He doesn't have to be ONE OF THEM, he just has to care to speak their language, speak it truthfully and well, and give them the respect they deserve.

We're publishers, and Furry is our niche. (We happen to all be old hands in the fandom too, but that is beside this particular point...) Our job is to identify stuff we think people in our niche want to read, present it in as high a quality as we can muster, and at a price that keeps both us and our hardworking writers and artists afloat. It's fun (okay not all of it) and while we plan to keep trying to push the edges a little bit here and there, we've no plans or interest in trying to compete in the mainstream sea. Why would we?

As for the Kyell Gold discussion, I'll say this. Kyell writes what he likes (and does it very, very well). The market supports what he writes (over 1,000 copies of Out of Position sold in the first year of publication) and supports it. On top of that and the fact that he is a very good friend, he is a consistent producer (a novel of quality every year, without fail) and an author who turns in nearly print-ready material. ANY publisher ANYWHERE in ANY GENRE fights very expensive contract wars over retaining talent like that. I have little doubt that he could do as well in other niches as he does here, and am very grateful that he likes writing what he does.

Anyone else who can write on par (or even par +4) with Kyell: talent@sofawolf.com. We are ALWAYS looking for good material to add to the production schedule and would be delighted to start serving those under-served demographics in the Furry community. We're publishers, and Furry is our niche.


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## panzergulo (Mar 31, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> On a similar point, there are a number of artists on FA -- obviously aware of the fandom and producing work that they think will appeal to it -- who produce work featuring bipedal animal characters, the same sort of stuff made by loads of other self-named furry artists, and yet these people would absolutely die before they would ever, ever call their work "furry". So who gets to choose what's "furry" in that case -- the artist, or the audience?



Let's hear what the people think:

http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=67310

Switzerland is one of the most democratic countries in the world. That is because they vote about everything. And surprisingly, the people rarely do bad choices.



Altamont said:


> Sorry to go off on such a rant, but I felt as if I should ad in my two cents



Rant? I don't see a rant here. It was a fine speech. And you make many valid points. And as said before, I'm not really for furry going mainstream... not truly against it either, though.



bfoxxe said:


> Anyone else who can write on par (or even par +4) with Kyell: talent@sofawolf.com. We are ALWAYS looking for good material to add to the production schedule and would be delighted to start serving those under-served demographics in the Furry community. We're publishers, and Furry is our niche.



Ha. I'm not selling myself to you, or anybody else. As long as I upload my stories in public and let people read them without charge, I am my own man and I can call my writing 100% mine. Sorry, I'm a street performer.

Nah, the real reason I'm not selling is that I don't have talent.

Sorry about the last part... I'm feeling quirky early in the morning.


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## Altamont (Mar 31, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Well, a fanfic isn't going to sell anywhere, by definition.



And not to be a stickler, but there are numerous novels that could easily qualify as fan-fiction that are widely published; for example:

Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, a novel that focuses on the origins of Bertha Mason from Charllote Bronte's famous novel _Jane Eyre_.

Huck, a novel that elaborates on the life of Huck Finn's father

Pretty much anything written in regards to Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos.

Just to name a few


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## GraemeLion (Mar 31, 2010)

Yeah, very true.  Items that have exited copyright do have a ton of fan fic and derivative works published for them.  And it could also be said that licensed works is a form of fanfic  

There are some authors out there that only do licensed work, and have had real trouble exposing themselves outside that.

But, for the sake of definition sanity, I'm assuming fanfic to be unlicensed.


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## Fere (Mar 31, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> Nah, the real reason I'm not selling is that I don't have talent.



Everyone has some modicum of talent in any one particular field, or indeed fields. It's whether one has the committment and staying power through both praise and critique that defines a success. 

In this respect, I think we can count ourselves lucky to be a part of such a vibrant community that is more liberal, open and free-thinking than most can ever hope to be.



bfoxxe said:


> Anyone else who can write on par (or even par +4) with Kyell: talent@sofawolf.com. We are ALWAYS  looking for good material to add to the production schedule and would  be delighted to start serving those under-served demographics in the  Furry community. We're publishers, and Furry is our niche.



And this is a perfect example of such. The support base and routes/branches made available to us are as good as they can ever be, given the niche status. The health of furry writing lies within the community's structure, as an entity whose members actively seek to support one another. A continuation in seeing through the artistically niche/underground aspect of works, might encourage writers to see it all as an evermore 'common rarity'.

As one very famous man said... "power to the people".


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## Poetigress (Mar 31, 2010)

Fere said:


> community that is more liberal, open and free-thinking than most can ever hope to be.



In some aspects, that's true. In others... not so much. But that's another topic, and one that doesn't really relate to writing.



> The support base and routes/branches made available to us are as good as they can ever be, given the niche status.



I disagree with you there, but I think I've already covered where I feel some of the problems are.



> as an entity whose members actively seek to support one another.



And I have far less faith in that than I used to, honestly. Too few people want to support much of anything that doesn't personally and directly benefit them. But that's a human problem, I suppose, not one endemic to the fandom. *shrug*


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## GraemeLion (Mar 31, 2010)

Fere said:


> Everyone has some modicum of talent in any one particular field, or indeed fields. It's whether one has the committment and staying power through both praise and critique that defines a success.
> 
> In this respect, I think we can count ourselves lucky to be a part of such a vibrant community that is more liberal, open and free-thinking than most can ever hope to be.



As PT said, not so much in all aspects.    We'd like to think we are, but we have really no differences from a high-school clique in other areas.   But for another thread 


> And this is a perfect example of such. The support base and routes/branches made available to us are as good as they can ever be, given the niche status. The health of furry writing lies within the community's structure, as an entity whose members actively seek to support one another. A continuation in seeing through the artistically niche/underground aspect of works, might encourage writers to see it all as an evermore 'common rarity'.
> 
> As one very famous man said... "power to the people".



Well, perhaps, but there's a small problem with that.  It's easy to offer support to others, but I'm not going to offer a lot of editorial support.  I've rewritten people's stuff before, and I don't wish to do that again.  

And that's a great problem we have.  We don't have a community, really. We have people aligned towards goals that involve writing, but they aren't the same goals, they aren't the same ideas.

The future may indeed be bright, but let's not kid ourselves.  We have a long way to go to create a cohesive community that can offer the help you mention.


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## panzergulo (Mar 31, 2010)

Sorry, Fere, but I agree more with PT and GL here... whatever picture some try to create, furries are egocentric backstabbing a-holes like everybody else. Yeah, it's an exaggeration, yes , I know there are good people among us... but still, my experience says most people are a-holes. And I don't exclude (outclude) myself from "most people". I'm not really that nice person in the end, am I? ;Ã¾

But yeah, it's a discussion of another thread.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 31, 2010)

bfoxxe said:
			
		

> over 1,000 copies of Out of Position sold in the first year of publication


Damn.  That's pretty impressive, actually, considering the size of the furry market.  I suppose it helped that Blotch did the illustrations, but still.
I'm just wondering, though, how many people in the fandom actually consider themselves full-time writers, or the equivalent of (even if they work another job).  Because if we're going to talk about making a kind of writing society for the fandom, I should think it would need to be run by professionals.  I know on FA, professionals are very much lacking, and those who are here don't really have the time to be president of the Furry Writer's Guild (or whatever you'd want to call it).
Or maybe I'm being elitist by saying that.


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## Poetigress (Mar 31, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I suppose it helped that Blotch did the illustrations, but still.



And, see earlier discussion regarding his target audience and the demographics of the fandom.


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## Altamont (Mar 31, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I know on FA, professionals are very much lacking, and those who are here don't really have the time to be president of the Furry Writer's Guild (or whatever you'd want to call it).
> Or maybe I'm being elitist by saying that.


 
No, I'd also agree with that as well. I think one issue is that the community of writers in terms if those who are actually aspiring to produce and publish their own work is so...what's the term...

The professionals only know they're professionals due to what I might not be too inaccurate in calling meetings of happenstance. and even then, there's no real organization other than, "Hey, you write well!" "Hey, you do too! small world!"

I know my post-count isn't quite as, er_, _epic as many of the more experienced FA vets, but I for one consider myself an author who would like to create and share work of the anthropomorphic sub-genre that has real substance to it,  work that goes  beyond yiffy oneshots or what have you.  And, furthermore, I would like to know that that work can be evaluted and supported by a community that knows it salt, so to speak.

People have been talking about forming a Writer's Guild, so to speak, and I actually think that's an excelent idea. Forming a concrete and nurturing community, while admittedly difficult, is something I think that could support th growth of writers and other artists whose professionalism could do really good things for the fandom, and perhaps even for gaining some credit in the non-specalized mrkets as well.

Or am I just crazy?


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## bfoxxe (Mar 31, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Damn.  That's pretty impressive, actually, considering the size of the furry market.



Actually, though we don't collect extensive metrics on our traffic (someday), the ratio of totally new accounts to pre-existing accounts suggested to us a higher level of external (or at least new) purchasing than other novels by Kyell. It did after all win a juried mainstream romance award (albeit a first year one), and I think a lot came in from that.

Waterway has also been very popular outside of the fandom, as best we can tell. Kyell's sales rankings on Amazon.com (for at least one of his titles, I forget which one offhand) is also in the realm of what is considered fairly decent for an off-list genre writer of any stripe.

It's still niche -- it's just where Furry is intersecting with other niches. Which is precisely where the growth potential lies.


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## Kyell (Mar 31, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> I have a writer friend who is nameless, but not Kyell, who is intending to write porn to build an audience, and then slowly scale back to general once he's got people interested in his characters. It's a valid tactic.


 
For the record, my two stories nominated for an Ursa this year have--between them--one solo sex scene. That's it. Nobody seems to be tremendously disappointed by the lack of sex in either. Nor in the new novel, which has much less than previous Argaea books (more deaths than orgasms; I counted).

I'm writing what I enjoy. I didn't PLAN to build an audience through erotica and then branch out; it just happened. I feel tremendously fortunate that there are so many people out there who happen to enjoy what I do. And I have thought about why gay-oriented fiction is more popular in the fandom. My theory (which is mine) is that there is a TON of good straight fantasy out there. Not so much with the gay. I get letters from people who have literally never read another story with a healthy portrayal of a gay relationship. And gay men in general (IN GENERAL) are more tolerant of explicit descriptions of sex. 

It's the same with furry in general (so with the gay furry stuff, it's amplified). There's not much good furry writing out there (present company excepted). When supply is limited for something people feel so passionate about, they will be happy to buy it. Look at the other book released by Sofawolf this January, "The Seventh Chakra." No sex, not even romance. But Rikoshi spent a lot of time after his first book came out talking about it to friends and promoting it. That first one was good enough to get people to recommend it to each other, and to line up to buy the second one. I guarantee you that Sofawolf is not publishing that title at a loss, or simply to promote non-sexual writing. They're publishing it because it makes money. And it makes money without sex.

If furry writing does break into the mainstream, it will be with a book that is good enough to capture the mainstream's attention. I don't think that book has been written yet; not within the fandom, at any rate. Certainly if I want to reach beyond the fandom, I'll have to tone down some content. But I've been questioning lately whether I do want to reach beyond the fandom, or at least how much effort I want to put into doing so. The community is growing, and I would rather be reaching a small number of passionate fans than sitting on a shelf with a hundred other mid-list authors who are STILL not making a living off writing. And any movement I'd make to change my books to be more palatable to the mainstream risks diluting what the furry fans enjoy about it; any work I put into the mainstream effort is one less convention I can attend, fewer fans I can meet in person, fewer LJ or FA posts, fewer e-mails I can respond to. 

Anyway, this started with a brief response about sex in stories and went on rather too long. But my ears were burning, so I thought I'd chime in.


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## Altamont (Mar 31, 2010)

Kyell said:


> [Everything that Kyell said.]
> 
> Anyway, this started with a brief response about sex in stories and went on rather too long. But my ears were burning, so I thought I'd chime in.


 
Now that I can respect  The industry these days, furry or otherwise, is way too full of sellouts these days; anyone that can write what they love without compromise is a respectable one in my book. And as I stated before, I don't sexuality has any effect whatsoever on the quality of the fiction itself or its ability to penetrate the mainstream. It's just like he said, the book just hasn't been written yet. 

But, to plug my previous post while I elaborate on a point, I truly think the organization of some community that goes above an beyond the usuall "Submit and review" format could go a long way in helping realize that one book that is good enough penetrate the mainstream, or at least rovide that author with the validation and recognition that would otherwise be impossble in sucha niche community. 

I think that's what I really aspire to see; an environment where fans of anthropomorphism can write what they love but also reach a market large enough to make a living off of it.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 31, 2010)

Kyell said:


> Tons of words



I know.  I name dropped you in that one because I'd been mentioning your success prior, and I didn't want people to think you're on some gigantic scheme


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## duroc (Mar 31, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> I didn't want people to think you're on some gigantic scheme



I don't feel like that was ever implied.  I may be wrong, but I get the feeling some people might be taking this discussion as a small group of people bashing gay furry fiction(or Kyell Gold in particular), and I don't believe that is the case.  I just see different people expressing their views on writing within the fandom.  

And unfortunately, as of right now it's an issue of the haves and the have nots.  If you want gay fiction(whether it's erotica or not) you are in with the haves.  If you are looking for anything else, you're in the have nots(or you just have very little to choose from).   I guess for some people in the fandom who are seeking stories with anthropomorphic animals, it's just a bit disheartening to be in with the have nots at this point in time, whether you're a writer or a reader of furry fiction.

And this is coming from someone who has read and purchased gay erotic fiction within the fandom but would also like to see some of the other furry niches represented a bit more.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 31, 2010)

duroc said:


> I don't feel like that was ever implied.  I may be wrong, but I get the feeling some people might be taking this discussion as a small group of people bashing gay furry fiction(or Kyell Gold in particular), and I don't believe that is the case.  I just see different people expressing their views on writing within the fandom.
> .



Unfortunately, I've seen that happen in more than a few discussions.  None here, but I'm afraid my defense mechanisms of it might have gone up prematurely and proactively.    I felt it was worth saying "not Kyell" as I had previously been mentioning his work as a highly popular writer within the fandom and I wanted to differentiate Kyell from "Graeme's secret friend who has a plan."  I've gotten burned in the past by people skimming threads who've combined thoughts like that.

As for the haves vs the have nots, its important to remember that the distinction between the two is all about pushing what you want to see.  I think that a big part of "making it" in the furry writing scene is self promotion of yourself and promotion of writers you like.  There are a whole host of people who've written over on Anthro, and other places, that haven't done gayfic.  Getting them out there and pushing them will help raise awareness.

Ultimately, it comes down to having a good site that makes reading furry items easy.  I'm not entirely convinced FA is a good thing for authors.


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## panzergulo (Mar 31, 2010)

Kyell said:


> There's not much good furry writing out there (present company excepted).



Why do you except the present company? I think I am included into that company, and I don't consider my writings "good"... maybe "moderately good" or "mediocre"... but not "good".

Alright, my quirkiness aside... I agree with the statement and talking about it and other issues are the reason why I think this thread is so great. I might not take my writings too seriously... sure, it's nice getting better at something I like doing and it's nice to get a new reader now and then... but publishing, for example... nah, I won't ever become a published author... but still, improving the whole image of furry writing community would help me too. While I might not ever be part of any "furry writers' guild" or whatever, just making people more aware about furry writing and showing it can have quality too is of at least indirect interest to me. I honestly think the issues furry writers have are inside the fandom, that is, we don't get much recognition or support... and these are more important than furry going mainstream or furry writing getting published in mainstream or anything else. Just making furries more aware about different kinds of furry writing would be a good thing. How that is achieved and how difficult or easy it will be, that I do not know.

It would be great to see actually something happening. Furry fandom isn't that large, and writers inside the fandom are even smaller group... if you had only a couple people who would be interested to invest some time and effort, there could actually be something real created. I'm not aware how long these conversations have been on, and this might be just one more thread in a long string of threads dealing about "future of furry writing", "image of furry writing", "furry writing going mainstream" or "quality of furry writing"... and "furry writers' guild" or any equivalent of it.

So, is there somebody who has a crystal clear idea what this "furry writers' guild" should be and who would be willing to invest time and effort to something that would be more or less charity work? Talking about things is a one thing, but action (or at least good plans) would be something totally else.

Just saying, the conversation in this thread has gone from one side to the opposite side, there has been sub-conversations and all knowledge and opinions are all over the place. So, if there is somebody who wants to create something real, I would be interested to see what it would be and what would be its goals. All in all, from this thread, I get only this very vague picture of "doing something good for furry fiction and its writers". Does it mean helping people get their stuff published? Does it mean creating awareness of furry writing in general? Does it mean helping furry writers improve with their writings? Making readers and writers meet? Making audience and writing meet? Promoting written material of all types? Creating more publications and pushing more material on the markets?



GraemeLion said:


> Ultimately, it comes down to having a good  site that makes reading furry items easy.  I'm not entirely convinced FA  is a good thing for authors.



Creating a good site for writers and readers?

Also, GL, agreed. I'm on FA only because it's currently the biggest furry art site. And it might be the best, too. But it doesn't mean it's good... just better than any other site...

Hope anything of this makes sense. It's getting late here in Finland and I read through this thread and got million ideas at once... I'm looking forward to read what has been said during my night.


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## GraemeLion (Mar 31, 2010)

Oh, I think FA is exceptional for visual art.  I think it's lacking for written works, though.   I think it doesn't help people find good authors.  

If I want to find good visual artists, I can watch the front page for a week and favorite what I like.

If I want to find good authors, I have to go around and find them.  Oftentimes, that means finding them in another manner and then coming back to their FA page.

The writing guild is a great idea, but it would have to offer something that would point authors to each other, and readers to authors.   Or, at very least, it would have to leverage something that does.  At this point in time, I don't think we have that.  I think it's very ad hoc.


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## Altamont (Mar 31, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> Oh, I think FA is exceptional for visual art. I think it's lacking for written works, though. I think it doesn't help people find good authors.
> 
> If I want to find good visual artists, I can watch the front page for a week and favorite what I like.
> 
> ...


 
Ad hoc is the perfect way to describe it, for sure. And i've already been trying to brainstorm something, anything we could do.

I was thinking of starting simple, you know, like another sticky in this thread or something like that that builds on the foundations of everything we've been talking about, an then we could build upon that.

Just ideas obviously; I hae nether the influence nor the admin power to set that in motion by myself. But still...ideas...


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## Poetigress (Mar 31, 2010)

If you feel like starting simple, there's already a "Recommended Reading" stickied thread right here, meant to promote good writing on FA by others. Which gets far less use than I'd hoped for when I started it, I might add...


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## AshleyAshes (Mar 31, 2010)

My writing could never be mainstream.  It's a contemporary American world populated by talking animals for no other real reason than 'Cause I think it's cool'.  It could work as visual media, a comic book or animation but that's becaues the 'furry' angle gives it novelty.  In writing that same novelty isn't there, it's just a world of talking dogs and cats that might as well be talking humans.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 1, 2010)

panzergulo said:
			
		

> Just making furries more aware about different kinds of furry writing would be a good thing.


Well, keep in mind that getting even one author who has a distinct connection with the fandom into the mainstream would be one good way to accomplish that.  What better way to promote furry writing than to get a really good furry author a poster in a Barnes and Noble, or, one can only hope, on television?


			
				Poetigress said:
			
		

> Which gets far less use than I'd hoped for when I started it, I might add...


Haaa... I'm trying to be less guilty.  I've posted at least a few times in that thread.  It's the first thing I think of whenever I read something really good on the main site.
But, you know.  That's just coming back to the old problem this thread has been discussing.

Anyway, it kind of sounds to me like we might want some web-savvy person with a lot of time on his hands to start up a Yerf for writers, and then promote the bejeezus out of it.  And get people to judge the submissions.  It's probably harder and more time-consuming than judging art, but as long as you keep the entry-level submission word-limit to a reasonable minimum, I think it's doable.
But again, which philanthropist for the fandom wants to take that on, again?  We can discuss possibilities all week, but until we get someone willing to actually sacrifice and go through with them....


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## Duality Jack (Apr 1, 2010)

labeling yourself as a "furry writer" is a self limiting action and kind of damaging  to you having publishing potential 


Just sayin


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## Poetigress (Apr 1, 2010)

The Drunken Ace said:


> labeling yourself as a "furry writer" is a self limiting action and kind of damaging  to you having publishing potential



Um, no, not really. I consider myself a "furry writer." I also could call myself a soft sf writer, a fantasy writer, an erotica writer, a poet, and a children's/YA writer. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't occasionally write things that combine some of those designations or fall entirely outside them. I can see where perhaps having one label might present a problem in terms of being self-limiting, but unless you're calling yourself a "furry writer" in your query letter to a publisher, I really doubt it's going to make any difference in terms of "publishing potential."


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## Duality Jack (Apr 1, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Um, no, not really. I consider myself a "furry writer." I also could call myself a soft sf writer, a fantasy writer, an erotica writer, a poet, and a children's/YA writer. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't occasionally write things that combine some of those designations or fall entirely outside them. I can see where perhaps having one label might present a problem in terms of being self-limiting, but unless you're calling yourself a "furry writer" in your query letter to a publisher, I really doubt it's going to make any difference in terms of "publishing potential."


 then you are not the norm of who adapt the "Title" so to speak,


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## Poetigress (Apr 1, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Well, keep in mind that getting even one author who has a distinct connection with the fandom into the mainstream would be one good way to accomplish that.



Incidentally, the route was kind of backwards (she wrote the books and then found out about the fandom), but don't forget about Clare Bell. She's a professionally-published author of several (excellent) novels who has been to furry conventions and, what's more, isn't afraid to use the word "furry" in conjunction with her work and its promotion on Twitter, her blog, etc. Unfortunately, she doesn't update her FA page all that often, so she doesn't have even a quarter of the watchers she deserves there.



> Anyway, it kind of sounds to me like we might want some web-savvy person with a lot of time on his hands to start up a Yerf for writers, and then promote the bejeezus out of it.  And get people to judge the submissions.  It's probably harder and more time-consuming than judging art, but as long as you keep the entry-level submission word-limit to a reasonable minimum, I think it's doable.
> But again, which philanthropist for the fandom wants to take that on, again?  We can discuss possibilities all week, but until we get someone willing to actually sacrifice and go through with them....



The closest I think we're going to get is Claw & Quill, but again, I don't have an ETA for that, and I can't remember how much judging is going to be happening there. I know there have been 'editors' mentioned who would then release authors to be able to upload freely after a probation period of sorts, but I don't know what criteria are being used beyond obvious spelling/grammar problems and the like. I need to go back to some of Martin's posts and refresh my memory, but then, plans may have changed in the meantime.


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## Poetigress (Apr 1, 2010)

The Drunken Ace said:


> then you are not the norm of who adapt the "Title" so to speak,



I just haven't really seen it as a problem. The only people I can think of who are adamant about it are those who already have no intentions of writing outside the fandom anyway, or even writing for publication, so it doesn't seem to hurt them in that regard.


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## Duality Jack (Apr 1, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> I just haven't really seen it as a problem. The only people I can think of who are adamant about it are those who already have no intentions of writing outside the fandom anyway, or even writing for publication, so it doesn't seem to hurt them in that regard.


 I am in general against self labeling especially in groups who decide to make a micro-genre into a lifestyle,

I call myself awriter, most who read my stuff (which stays off the net as i am thinking of publishing) call my stuff "surrealist horror" but that does not mean i am a horror writer, just a writer who writes horror  more then other things,


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## nybx4life (Apr 1, 2010)

KatmanDu said:


> 1) achieving penetration into mainstream markets 2)  Increasing the quality of the fiction overall and 3) monetizing the  market. But it was suggested at these seminars that the fandom create something  along the Science Fiction Writer's Guild; a group that sets high  standards of craftsmanship and gives people a benchmark. The Ursa awards  could provide a benchmark as well, along the lines of Hugo's and  Nebula's in the science fiction world, so long as they can shake the  image of favoritism. I'm all for some sort of anthro writer's guild; I  feel it can only improve the writing craft.
> 
> What are your thoughts? Do you see the same issues with respect to furry writing, or different ones?


As I see this, it's all on willingness to participate in this. It might have been mentioned earlier, but people here do have lives, and to create a guild, or group to promote quality writing, to have the (shall I say) best writers there is a good thing. After all, when there is a definite group of writers within this fandom that can continue to write great works it will promote the fandom as a whole. Yet to do that, people have to be willing to take the time.



M. Le Renard said:


> This comes down mostly to definitions, but I don't think 'furry' fiction will ever become mainstream, because it's not really a genre.


 This is hard to see, but many things can become mainstream, even if it is not a genre (of course at this point I do not just mention literature alone, but also fashion, music, and the like). If there are enough fans, and it becomes accepted into the general public, it will come mainstream.


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## duroc (Apr 1, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Anyway, it kind of sounds to me like we might want some web-savvy person with a lot of time on his hands to start up a Yerf for writers, and then promote the bejeezus out of it.  And get people to judge the submissions.  It's probably harder and more time-consuming than judging art, but as long as you keep the entry-level submission word-limit to a reasonable minimum, I think it's doable.
> But again, which philanthropist for the fandom wants to take that on, again?  We can discuss possibilities all week, but until we get someone willing to actually sacrifice and go through with them....



I don't think an idea like this is ultimately going to come from one person.  It's going to be a collaborative effort.  Sure, Claw and Quill keeps coming up as a gathering place, and that's probably because no web-savvy people are coming forward.  I know I myself am not web-savvy, so maybe getting Watts on board would help in that regard.  But it doesn't have to be just a website.  It could be a matter of a few people having panels about a writer's guild at some conventions.  Maybe talking with several publications within the fandom and see if they're willing to endorse such an idea, similar to how the SFWA has publications that back them.  People twittering the idea.  Anything really.  Just get the word out and see who would be interested.  Like PT mentioned with Clare Bell, if someone like Clare would jump on board, it would most definitely add a bit of credibility to such a thing.  But in order for something like this to be successful, people are going to have to... you know... do something.


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## jinxtigr (Apr 1, 2010)

Kyell said:


> I'm writing what I enjoy. I didn't PLAN to build an audience through erotica and then branch out; it just happened. I feel tremendously fortunate that there are so many people out there who happen to enjoy what I do.



I believe I went the opposite direction. I wrote Kings of Rainmoor, which barely had sex in it but had some provocative bits sneaking in anyhow because some of the characters were more shameless than others. Then I wrote Ghosts of Rainmoor, which explored the consequences of the first book's choices but still was largely unsexual. Then I wrote Aquarius, which showed the first gay characters and had a lot more sexual situations, but still would not go into an explicit scene- it ends with an explicit scene heard through a door by a voyeur fox!

All of these, I did not promote. I basically don't promote, I just do. I write anyway, with or without readers, so the high water mark of my popularity has been having almost everything I've done 'five star OMG must read' on Miavir's old furry story index, which now has broken links- those books are now on the Tally Road site.

Then I started a webcomic, because at least you can get noticed on the Belfry list if you have a furry webcomic. It started off clean and then I went what the hell, and got into some very explicit, very twisted and intense erotic material, and discovered that the plots got even more interesting when this very powerful motivator was off the leash running around yiffing people  characters' reactions to sexual things can be powerful! Short of starving characters it's hard to get stronger tensions into writing 

The webcomic hovered around 40-50 on the furry section of the Belfry list, at about 300 readers a day- I quit it because I got to hate drawing and only wanted to tell the story, and switched over to straight up no pictures writing. I've done about 40K words so far and quite a bit of it has been explicitly erotic because the stories I'm telling this time live in that world- ironically, it's been all straight so far though I do have a gay/straight triangle in which the gay relationship is less screwed up than the straight side of the triangle. Almost none of my sexual relationships are really healthy, because it's writing and healthy people are less interesting  Because it's writing and not pictures, readership is down to about 100 readers a day, but still with no real promotion either from me or from any of the readers that I know of.

I disagree passionately that 'furry writer' is a label to avoid in favor of more general description. The last thing you want is to be passed off as 'versatile'- that's deadly for marketing- ideally you find a passion, pursue it whatever it is, and let yourself be defined by something you actually like. If 'furry' becomes a craze and the new SF- and face it, Avatar was a big hit for popularizing blue kitty lust- then everything could change rapidly. Plus, traditional print is in crisis- there is no benefit to being picked up as a midlist author by a publishing house that promptly dies.

As far as the furry writer guild thing- hell, I'd love a little more validation too, but I have a variety of life stuff to do as well as wanting to put out upwards of 2000 words a day- 1000 is OK, I'd like to be at more, like NaNoWriMo output levels just as a normal lifestyle. I don't know about the rest of you but I have to grab moments of cameraderie where I can- like hanging with Rabbit at FWA, which was great- because I don't normally have time for any of that because I have to WRITE.

Could be worse, I could still be having to draw 

My point being, validation and doing good work are not the same thing. It's great to want fandom support, but I wrote three novels without it and I'm still grinding away merrily in my little monastic nook- now, on a daily website. You can get a lot of validation from just ONE FAN who is reading along, paying attention, and knows your story. If the future of furry writing doesn't contain any fandom support or guilds or sense of belonging, I'm seriously okay with that, because that's what I've had for the last ten-twenty years and it just made me lonely, it didn't stop me being able to work.


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## Poetigress (Apr 1, 2010)

jinxtigr said:


> You can get a lot of validation from just ONE FAN who is reading along, paying attention, and knows your story.



And that's great. I'm not saying it isn't. But I don't think the fact that one fan is great means that you shouldn't want to work for more than one, for as many as you can reach. We all want to be read, and I'd like to think I'm not the only one who wants to be read by as many people as reasonably possible. 



> If the future of furry writing doesn't contain any fandom support or guilds or sense of belonging, I'm seriously okay with that, because that's what I've had for the last ten-twenty years and it just made me lonely, it didn't stop me being able to work.



Loneliness and not having support does hold people back, though. I know, this is the sort of thing that gets people going "bawww" or whatever stupid Internet term is trendy right now, but I do think having support structure makes a difference -- in the quantity and the quality -- in the work that's being produced. It might make one feel superior to say "oh, I don't need that, I'll just keep doing it no matter what," and perhaps in some ways that's true -- after all, I wouldn't stop writing even if no one else were ever to read anything of mine again -- but again, being able to do without something doesn't mean it wouldn't be a nice goal to work toward anyway. 

Nobody's saying that more support for writing in the fandom would be a substitute for good writing, or that good writing can't be done without it. But I think most anything is a lot more fun when you _do_ have support from your peers.

I guess the short version of what I'm saying is, I'm _not_ okay with it as long as there's still a chance of making things better.


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## GraemeLion (Apr 1, 2010)

Well, I think for a good start, we need to make things better by collecting a wishlist of desires for the site, and presenting them to Dragoneer.

I'm a coder myself, with some experience in requirements writing.  I'm certain many of us share similar high tech careers.  We already have the traffic here, we just don't have them directed.

If we run off to some other site, are we going to be able to regain that traffic?  

Of course, this all goes back to the core problem:  How do we get people to read our stuff?


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## jinxtigr (Apr 1, 2010)

For what it's worth, I support more peer support, fandom awareness, what have you- certain types of it I won't be much help with, some types I can be more helpful around.

I guess what _I'm__ saying is, I'm going to tend to be lonely and isolated anyhow, with or without peer support, so I don't tend to reach out much, and when I do it usually doesn't pan out. Go figure. It's much like being a working cartoonist- some art forms just isolate you and there's not a lot you can do about it.

I guess I'm questioning how much is lack of fandom support, and how much is just being a writer and experiencing what that's like... that said, we do get together at times and that can be a blast. Be sure and hit writing panels at cons- it's good to bring some positive energy into those


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## panzergulo (Apr 2, 2010)

duroc said:


> But in order for something like this to be successful, people are going to have to... you know... do something.



If it wasn't clear from my previous post, this was pretty much what I was trying to say in the middle of it all. Talking is fine. But if you want to see something happening, successful or not, somebody has to stand up and shove his hands into the dirt... possibly making a fool of him or herself at first... but hopefully coming through it and achieving something new. If it involved only sitting on my computer and sending a huge load of emails and being a general pain in the bottom towards other people, I would do it myself, but I don't have any name whatsoever, neither inside nor outside the fandom, so yeah, no luck there.


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## nybx4life (Apr 2, 2010)

Something I've realized, and this is just me here, is that the more regulars who post within this forum, such as Renard, Poetigress, Panzergulo and others, in my opinion have some sort of reputation, at least within this section of the forums.

With that being said, if you guys were to combine your efforts into such a project, it could work. I'm not sure of any more known writer in FA aside from you guys, anyway.


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## nybx4life (Apr 2, 2010)

But, just to add quickly, it might just be a willingness to do such a thing, and popularity has nothing to do with it. 
If that is the case, who's willing to stand up to it?


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## panzergulo (Apr 2, 2010)

nybx4life said:


> [...] Renard, Poetigress, Panzergulo and others [...]



There's somebody who doesn't fit into this group of writers. Lessee...

Out of these three, who speaks English as a native tongue?
MLR: yes
Poetigress: yes
panzergulo: no

Out of these three, who has been published?
MLR: yes
Poetigress: yes (quite a few times, if I have understood right)
panzergulo: no

Out of these three, who is going to be published in the future too?
MLR: yes (and I do believe in this)
Poetigress: yes
panzergulo: no (I admit, it's an opinion for now, and they can change... but for the time being... nah, I'm not gonna publish anything)

Out of these three, who has won 'Anthrofiction Network Short Story Contest' at least once? (Hey, I haven't taken part to other contests, so I gotta work with what I can, eh?)
MLR: yes
Poetigress: yes
panzergulo: no

How many forum posts these three have on FAF?
MLR: 2,585 (and he's a mod too)
Poetigress: 564
panzergulo: 172 (and half of them are about getting into flame wars anyway)

I could continue the list, but it's 11PM here in Finland, so I don't quite have the power anymore. But anyway, I am very curious... how did you pick up my puny user name into that very grand list of three writers and "others"? Also, I have understood most forum regulars hate me anyway, because I'm always causing mayhem and bullying newbies and stuff. MLR and some other people have probably got used to my quirks, like randomly insulting somebody, but I am not that easy person to cope with, at least at first, before they learn half of the time I'm just being quirky. I'm surprised I haven't yet been banned from FAF.

Anyway, my point is, if I (or somebody else who has more fame about being an a-hole than being a good writer and a conversationalist) started going around and poking people and making things happen, most of the time I wouldn't be getting any response... to someone who takes him or herself seriously, I'm just some annoying kid or, more likely, someone to be avoided. The person who should be in charge should have some completely other qualities than me. A bit of name and reputation of being easy to cope with are a good start, and a little bit of leadership instincts wouldn't be bad either.

My view of my online persona might be much darker than what it actually is... but it isn't so easy for me to figure out what other people truly think about me... so I go by with what I get... what isn't too positive.


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## Danale (Apr 2, 2010)

You may not be writing for children's entertainment, but this blog entry still has some valuable ideas and even covers a furry story/comic:

http://strawburrymiwk.com/2010/02/reinventing-childrens-entertainment/

*â€œPeople who want to keep on doing creative things for a living  must be vigilant about any new means of transmitting their work.â€*


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## nybx4life (Apr 2, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> I could continue the list, but it's 11PM here in Finland, so I don't quite have the power anymore. But anyway, I am very curious... how did you pick up my puny user name into that very grand list of three writers and "others"?
> 
> Anyway, my point is, if I (or somebody else who has more fame about being an a-hole than being a good writer and a conversationalist) started going around and poking people and making things happen, most of the time I wouldn't be getting any response... to someone who takes him or herself seriously, I'm just some annoying kid or, more likely, someone to be avoided. The person who should be in charge should have some completely other qualities than me. A bit of name and reputation of being easy to cope with are a good start, and a little bit of leadership instincts wouldn't be bad either.
> 
> My view of my online persona might be much darker than what it actually is... but it isn't so easy for me to figure out what other people truly think about me... so I go by with what I get... what isn't too positive.



I picked you only since I've seen you post here in the forums about as much as the others (if anything, it just says that I haven't been here very long). Besides, it is the internet. As I have seen (and going off to assume), the amount of English that you know is enough to communicate well with others.

I do agree leadership instincts and a more positive reputation wouldn't hurt, but don't forget that you're known here.


But, if you believe yourself to not be part of the group, forgive me. I don't come here often, and since I see you post a lot from the times I do come, I assume you to be known.

Back to my original point though, it still leaves Poetigress and Renard within the known and popular within these writer forums.


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## Poetigress (Apr 2, 2010)

In my experience, what it tends to boil down to is, the people who have the desire and/or time to do something often don't have the skills or experience, and the people who do have the skills and experience don't have the time and/or desire. 

While I wouldn't exactly put myself in that latter category, if we're talking about some kind of website, keep in mind that unlike most furries, I am decidedly not a computer geek, so I don't know how much I could help on the technical end of things. For other aspects, I'd be happy to help as I can, although I'm not 100% sure what I'd be volunteering for. Are we still talking about creating a formal guild, or simply a writers' website, or... what exactly?


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## nybx4life (Apr 2, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> In my experience, what it tends to boil down to is, the people who have the desire and/or time to do something often don't have the skills or experience, and the people who do have the skills and experience don't have the time and/or desire.
> 
> While I wouldn't exactly put myself in that latter category, if we're talking about some kind of website, keep in mind that unlike most furries, I am decidedly not a computer geek, so I don't know how much I could help on the technical end of things. For other aspects, I'd be happy to help as I can, although I'm not 100% sure what I'd be volunteering for. Are we still talking about creating a formal guild, or simply a writers' website, or... what exactly?



It's true, there's a lot of other things to consider
Unless there's someone who could start a webpage to start it, it could work here on FA, with a group account or something.

A good strong group here on FA (which could spread to other websites, such as DeviantArt) could be a great base to work with until there's someone who could help create a website to continue it.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 3, 2010)

I think you'd be a good voice to have, panzer, in a writer's guild.  If only because you seem to be really level-headed most of the time.
Honestly, I would love to start a website just for furry writers, and to run it, but at this point in my life I just can't make any kind of commitment, because I don't know where I'll be 6 months from now.  I also am severely lacking in programming skills and web design ability (though I'm trying to rectify that by teaching myself C++ as a starter language... yes, that's my new project), so that doesn't help.
I'm in limbo, waiting to see if I get into any grad schools, and preparing for a job search if I don't, so taking on a massive project like starting up a furry writer's guild just doesn't seem like a good idea right now.  So that's my excuse.  And I'm sure we all have excuses why we can't do it, and they're all valid.  That's the problem, obviously.


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## nybx4life (Apr 3, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I'm in limbo, waiting to see if I get into any grad schools, and preparing for a job search if I don't, so taking on a massive project like starting up a furry writer's guild just doesn't seem like a good idea right now.  So that's my excuse.  And I'm sure we all have excuses why we can't do it, and they're all valid.  That's the problem, obviously.



It truly is a problem, and nobody here is to blame. Hopefully we'll get someone who could start it up, or there is a group already out there that is possible to join.


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## Fere (Apr 3, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I'm in limbo, waiting to see if I get into any grad schools, and preparing for a job search if I don't, so taking on a massive project like starting up a furry writer's guild just doesn't seem like a good idea right now.  So that's my excuse.  And I'm sure we all have excuses why we can't do it, and they're all valid.  That's the problem, obviously.



Money and job are a constant bane in this respect. I find myself juggling a full-time job and out-of-work courses, with trying to get on with everything else. It is rather tough. The balance is fine, and the dedication to your out-of-work leisure time is both precious and essential.

So in this respect, I do partially agree with Poetigress. It can tend to be one or the other. But if you look at it (within your own logic) in another way, the people "without the skills/experience" have the most time to develop. Whilst those "with the skills/experience" will take that time to conjure up great stories.

I shall categorise myself in neither way, save to say that I have more than enough desire and, given the strength of the former and my own *dedication*, I will have enough time. "Enough time" for something like this is relative.

And if you want something badly enough, you'll get it.

Nevertheless, I truly empathise with those trying to get into work or college, whilst trying to complete lifelong desires/goals.


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## Foxstar (Apr 3, 2010)

Why does a writer have to be 'furry' at all? Does everything have to come from someone within the fandom?


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## duroc (Apr 3, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> so taking on a massive project like starting up a furry writer's guild just doesn't seem like a good idea right now.



Well, I guess I'm going to throw my hat into the ring as someone who is going to consider taking on such a project.  Though I'll be honest, I have no expertise when it comes to making a website and I'm not really sure where to start.  Here is sort of the idea I had in my head(and remember this is a very rough concept, so please feel free to chime in).

In my opinion, this is going to have to be constructed around its own website because I feel like furaffinity is not the appropriate place for such a thing.  I feel that the purpose of a writers guild is to help promote writers and help elevate the quality of writing within the fandom, so there will need to be ways to limit members to those who have proven themselves(I'm not quite sure how this will be accomplished, but I was thinking of something similar to how members are accepted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association).  And at the same time, I feel that such a site will give new and upcoming writers something to strive and work towards.  It can give publishers and writers a place to gather, get helpful information, showcase their accomplishments and promote upcoming projects.  It can have a forum to discuss important topics pertaining to writing(and hopefully there will be less flamers and people posting pointless nonsense for attention purposes), and it can be a place to help publishers, editors, artists, and readers find quality writers and reading material within the fandom.

I don't think it needs to be anything particularly fancy, but again, this is something where I'd be completely out of my element and it will likely take a lot of time to figure things out, as I do have many of the same real life responsibilities as most everyone else.


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## BatRat (Apr 3, 2010)

I wonder... What if it was a story that wasn't about the anthro animals, but the people in the suits? Like, a horror or realistic fiction that included people belonging to the furry culture?


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## Scarborough (Apr 3, 2010)

BatRat said:


> I wonder... What if it was a story that wasn't about the anthro animals, but the people in the suits? Like, a horror or realistic fiction that included people belonging to the furry culture?



I've done that before? And it turned out terrible?

Not because the concept is inherently terrible, but because the angle I chose to write from was terrible.


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## Altamont (Apr 4, 2010)

duroc said:


> In my opinion, this is going to have to be constructed around its own website because I feel like furaffinity is not the appropriate place for such a thing.



I agree with that wholeheartedly, because I think furaffinty works with a system thst is very good as a visual arts gallery, but certainly not so much as a writer's forum. In fact, I think it's almost impossible these days to get a piece of in-depth, quasi-professional, non-sexual (if that's what you wanna do) story read and adequately  criticized within the confines of the site.

That being said, as numerous people have already pointed out, it seems like the creation of a website, much less a formal guild, is something that might be a little more to bite off than we can collectively chew. To rush in to something that has the potential to be really important to a lot of aspiring and occasionally frustrated writers in this here furry community (read: me, lol) could kill the idea in its crib.

So I propose we start small, as in within the borders of this FA community, particularly in the forums. Why don't we start but just creating a mailing list, where all of the people who are seriously considering this project a viable and important one that they could invest a little of their time on. The mailing list could keep all of these people in contact so that they can share stories, constructive criticism, and ideas for expansion of the "guild" without having to worry about being swallowed whole by the rest of the community. A sticky on this Writer's Bloc board could be used as a community bulletin board, notifying story updates, organizing other places on the net to meet, or even simply scheduling mailing correspondences between writers. 

It's not complicated, and it has the potential to in and of itself provide a more personal and constructive structure for the writer's community here. Then, after enough time (years, even), a community would hopefully be build up enough to branch off in to it's own self-efficient entity.

Again, just throwing ideas out there, but I think it has potential; it feels really olds school, back when all the furries had were MUCKs, conventions, and underground magazines.

Not that I was actually around for any of that, mind you


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## panzergulo (Apr 4, 2010)

I somewhat agree with Altamont in this subject... just getting a bit more organized could be a good thing at first. Just having one place where we could appoint people at instead of giving random pieces of info and something between one and five directions would be a good step.

This is pretty much the list I give to a young writer in FA who seeks for help:

FA Writers: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/fawriters/
The Writer's Block: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/writersblock/
Poetigress' Thursday Prompts: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/poetigress/
and the FAQ of the previous: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/723637/
and the most recent Prompt: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1306715/
FAF's The Writer's Bloc: http://forums.furaffinity.net/forumdisplay.php?f=45
and its critique thread: http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=65484
and the collected links thread: http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=46619

...and this isn't everything I could give... so, if I could just say:

Go _*HERE*_.

...it would be so easy and convenient... and often people don't know about these things... and all the beginning writers or older writers seeking for help for the next step receive is just some random string of hear-say, rumors and opinions.

Now, a completely new site might be something a bit too grand now... but I wouldn't mind ditching FAF... honestly, just getting a forum with less harassment, trolling, flaming and side-tracking would be a good thing. Of course, we couldn't just leave FA... or any other site used by furry writers... but we could have a writer-driven hub of information and stuff... instead of this goddamned clusterfuck we are having now... excuse my colorful language... it's not easy to find a English word with the same meaning as _hÃ¤rdelli_, _hÃ¤rÃ¶pallo_ or _hÃ¤sÃ¤kkÃ¤_. ...and my military background also rises its ugly head... So, just getting people informed and at least a decent momentum by dragging somewhat known writers behind some new forum could be our first step.

Lessee what Google says about things...

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source...l=&oq=free+forum+&gs_rfai=&fp=bcdf8cbbf06dc4f

Yup... about 30 million hits for "free forum hosting"... I believe one "Furry Writer's Guild" would fit just nicely somewhere there.

So, expanding out from FA, creating a hub and getting more writers behind the cause and actually defining the short and long term goals of the cause could be some first steps in this matter. And mind you, we need names on our side, just some random group of furry kids won't make it, nobody would take it seriously. And cooperation is important. Cooperation with sites, cooperation with site sub-communities, cooperation with publishers. And information. Being inbred and closed won't work, people would need to spread the word, with whatever ways possible.

One long term goal could be: When a furry asks about anything relating to writing, the first person answering wouldn't say "I dunno" or "I think..." and continue with something random, but would say: "Ever heard about the Furry Writer's Guild? They have an answer for your question."


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## nybx4life (Apr 4, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> Now, a completely new site might be something a bit too grand now... but I wouldn't mind ditching FAF... honestly, just getting a forum with less harassment, trolling, flaming and side-tracking would be a good thing. Of course, we couldn't just leave FA... or any other site used by furry writers... but we could have a writer-driven hub of information and stuff... instead of this goddamned clusterfuck we are having now... excuse my colorful language... it's not easy to find a English word with the same meaning as _hÃ¤rdelli_, _hÃ¤rÃ¶pallo_ or _hÃ¤sÃ¤kkÃ¤_. ...and my military background also rises its ugly head... So, just getting people informed and at least a decent momentum by dragging somewhat known writers behind some new forum could be our first step.
> 
> Lessee what Google says about things...
> 
> ...



So, this has to come down to a basic following of a small, but good number of people.
Which is also a plus since I haven't seen too much trolling and such within these forums (the Writer's Bloc definitely, everything else doubtful). 
I think the first question is, who will participate in this? Since you don't believe yourself as a positive influence here Panzer, it leaves other writers here with maybe 25 or more people watching them to join. Small, I know, but the writer's community here on FA has been somewhat small (to my knowledge).
Next thing would probably also be advertising on other sites. For example, mentioning the group with the URL in the signature. Being known on those sites would help with circulation over.


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## panzergulo (Apr 4, 2010)

nybx4life said:


> So, this has to come down to a basic following of a small, but good number of people.
> Which is also a plus since I haven't seen too much trolling and such within these forums (the Writer's Bloc definitely, everything else doubtful).
> I think the first question is, who will participate in this? Since you don't believe yourself as a positive influence here Panzer, it leaves other writers here with maybe 25 or more people watching them to join. Small, I know, but the writer's community here on FA has been somewhat small (to my knowledge).
> Next thing would probably also be advertising on other sites. For example, mentioning the group with the URL in the signature. Being known on those sites would help with circulation over.



If I am _truly_ interested about this "furry writers' guild" is still unclear. Poetigress had this idea of some kind of organization for more advanced writers, sort of helping people over the gap of "being a good writer" and "being a published writer". If this is what this "furry writers' guild" would become, I would wish them good luck but keep out from it all. (Mind you, in my honest opinion, I couldn't quite see this working, as furry writing community is small as it is, and being exclusive instead of inclusive would make the sub-community _really_ small.) Now, if the idea would be more like "outsourcing FAF's writers' sub-forum's function and expanding from there", I'm definitely in. I'm just saying I wouldn't make a good leader nor good publicity figure.

I have one million and one things in my mind relating to this all, but everything is still so speculative I don't feel like writing too much about anything. I'll chime in again when it becomes clearer if something is going to happen and if it happens what will it be.


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## Altamont (Apr 4, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> If I am _truly_ interested about this "furry writers' guild" is still unclear. Poetigress had this idea of some kind of organization for more advanced writers, sort of helping people over the gap of "being a good writer" and "being a published writer". If this is what this "furry writers' guild" would become, I would wish them good luck but keep out from it all. (Mind you, in my honest opinion, I couldn't quite see this working, as furry writing community is small as it is, and being exclusive instead of inclusive would make the sub-community _really_ small.) Now, if the idea would be more like "outsourcing FAF's writers' sub-forum's function and expanding from there", I'm definitely in. I'm just saying I wouldn't make a good leader nor good publicity figure.



I agree. If we were to even come up with something as simple as an alternative forum for writers to head to, exclusivity would probably kill our chances ofr growing. We'd want to build a community to nurture as many writers as possible, not to get together every few weeks and shower each other with praise about how much better we are than the peasants at FA. It would defeat the purpose entirely.

That being said, I personally believe an important aspect of the entire idea of this "guild", or whatever one would wish to call it, is the fact that it should be recognized as a legitimate hub for writers to gather and grow as artists; for this to even work there would need to be some method of quality control on what actually is created within the community. If it becomes just another place for people to post 11th-hour yiffy stories, we might as well just stay on FA.

Basically, I think the biggest hurdle that the organizers would have to overcome isn't so much the creation of the community, which can occur naturally and successfully if properly mitigated, but the controlling of the essence of the guild as a place where more serious and aspiring writers wish to go while also making sure that we don't exclude anyone who's work doesn't coincide with our definition of "good".


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## Scarborough (Apr 4, 2010)

Altamont said:


> I agree. If we were to even come up with something as simple as an alternative forum for writers to head to, exclusivity would probably kill our chances ofr growing. We'd want to build a community to nurture as many writers as possible, not to get together every few weeks and shower each other with praise about how much better we are than the peasants at FA. It would defeat the purpose entirely.
> 
> That being said, I personally believe an important aspect of the entire idea of this "guild", or whatever one would wish to call it, is the fact that it should be recognized as a legitimate hub *for writers to gather and grow as artists*; for this to even work there would need to be some method of quality control on what actually is created within the community. If it becomes just another place for people to *post 11th-hour yiffy stories*, we might as well just stay on FA.
> 
> Basically, I think the biggest hurdle that the organizers would have to overcome isn't so much the creation of the community, which can occur naturally and successfully if properly mitigated, but the controlling of the essence of the guild as a place where more serious and aspiring writers wish to go while also making sure that we don't exclude anyone who's work doesn't coincide with our definition of "good".



I think that's going to help, if we're looking for some sort of "mission statement."

As in, how can we improve written art qua written art? Not, how can we improve written art for the sake of pornographic material and more +watches/+favorites.


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## duroc (Apr 4, 2010)

Altamont said:


> If we were to even come up with something as simple as an alternative forum for writers to head to, exclusivity would probably kill our chances of growing.



I don't think I made myself clear.  Exclusivity isn't the idea, but I do feel that there should be some added focus toward members who have established themselves in some way.  This will limit people coming around who don't want to improve, have no serious goals when it comes to their work and just want to write stories solely for attention purposes.  My goal is to promote quality work, give talented writers a means to standout, and have a place for writers of all levels to gather information and find the tools they need to develop on their own(how I'd accomplish this, I'm not quite sure).  Then from there, writers(whether they are new or established) can go out to the many available places online for writers to post their work and get readership or critique(Furaffinity, Furrag, the upcoming Claw & Quill).  I wouldn't want to create another one of those.  I don't feel like we need another one.

The point is that new writers and aspiring writers need something to shoot for, a goal to achieve, because no amount of readership or critique is going to help a writer unless they truly have the desire to improve.  If they want to succeed and grow, they will seek out the necessary tools to work toward that goal because the information is out there.  Some people may not know where to find it, but it's out there if they truly want to look.   

The forums or FA doesn't need another group or page or thread for writers to gather because, number one--I don't feel that a lot of people(not everyone, but a lot) use the resources available to them here now.  And two--as someone else told me, this place(at times) can be a toxic environment for writers.  The thing is, if I or somebody else creates a guild for writers, the ones that want to participate in it, will.  And that's what I feel writers need, a place where people will come who *want* to participate and actually *want* to improve and do good things to help out others.


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## Altamont (Apr 4, 2010)

duroc said:


> I don't think I made myself clear.  Exclusivity isn't the idea, but I do feel that there should be some added focus toward members who have established themselves in some way.  This will limit people coming around who don't want to improve, have no serious goals when it comes to their work and just want to write stories solely for attention purposes.  My goal is to promote quality work, give talented writers a means to standout, and have a place for writers of all levels to gather information and find the tools they need to develop on their own(how I'd accomplish this, I'm not quite sure).  Then from there, writers(whether they are new or established) can go out to the many available places online for writers to post their work and get readership or critique(Furaffinity, Furrag, the upcoming Claw & Quill).  I wouldn't want to create another one of those.  I don't feel like we need another one.
> 
> The point is that new writers and aspiring writers need something to shoot for, a goal to achieve, because no amount of readership or critique is going to help a writer unless they truly have the desire to improve.  If they want to succeed and grow, they will seek out the necessary tools to work toward that goal because the information is out there.  Some people may not know where to find it, but it's out there if they truly want to look.
> 
> The forums or FA doesn't need another group or page or thread for writers to gather because, number one--I don't feel that a lot of people(not everyone, but a lot) use the resources available to them here now.  And two--as someone else told me, this place(at times) can be a toxic environment for writers.  The thing is, if I or somebody else creates a guild for writers, the ones that want to participate in it, will.  And that's what I feel writers need, a place where people will come who *want* to participate and actually *want* to improve and do good things to help out others.




Exactly, I agree one-hundred percent. I was actually just reacting to panzergulo's fears of exclusivity; I think you have the absolutely right idea.

But, it all comes down to the same thing; even if we are going for something simple, we still have to_go for it_, you know? I think we really have a great idea on our hands, but there has to be a way to take some action that doesn't involve tech skills our months of devotion (well, at least _not yet_). I think the most successful way to go about doing this is actually reaching out to those writers not already in this forum who wish to be apart of a community they can work with and grow with. Of course, it would be foolish to promise something like a new/alternative writer's forum and then never provide it, so there does have to be a shop for us to actually set up in. I just worry that if we spend too much time focusing on the logistics we'll never get to actually accomplishing it.

I'm skilled with computers but by no means would I be the go to guy to set up a forum and/or webpage or anything like that. But I could definitely help get the word out once/if this ever gets set in to motion.


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## nybx4life (Apr 4, 2010)

Altamont said:


> I think the most successful way to go about doing this is actually reaching out to those writers not already in this forum who wish to be apart of a community they can work with and grow with. Of course, it would be foolish to promise something like a new/alternative writer's forum and then never provide it, so there does have to be a shop for us to actually set up in. I just worry that if we spend too much time focusing on the logistics we'll never get to actually accomplishing it.



It makes the best sense to take action, and see what go on from there.

After all, if it was focused on more popular members here to take action (again, Renard and Poetigress as an example), we can't be sure when things will get done, since they cannot focus on this 100 percent.

I guess I'm just throwing ideas out to help, but one thing I could do myself is search other writers on FA, and assist them with critiques and such. Like a person-to-person service of writing critiques and such.

If doing things as a whole group seems a bit of a stretch, then more individual acts are needed. When we have the time to fully partner up to a group, we will.


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## panzergulo (Apr 4, 2010)

duroc said:


> Exclusivity isn't the idea, but I do feel that there should be some added focus toward members who have established themselves in some way.  This will limit people coming around who don't want to improve, have no serious goals when it comes to their work and just want to write stories solely for attention purposes.  My goal is to promote quality work, give talented writers a means to standout, and have a place for writers of all levels to gather information and find the tools they need to develop on their own(how I'd accomplish this, I'm not quite sure).  Then from there, writers(whether they are new or established) can go out to the many available places online for writers to post their work and get readership or critique(Furaffinity, Furrag, the upcoming Claw & Quill).  I wouldn't want to create another one of those.  I don't feel like we need another one.
> 
> The point is that new writers and aspiring writers need something to shoot for, a goal to achieve, because no amount of readership or critique is going to help a writer unless they truly have the desire to improve.  If they want to succeed and grow, they will seek out the necessary tools to work toward that goal because the information is out there.  Some people may not know where to find it, but it's out there if they truly want to look.
> 
> The forums or FA doesn't need another group or page or thread for writers to gather because, number one--I don't feel that a lot of people(not everyone, but a lot) use the resources available to them here now.  And two--as someone else told me, this place(at times) can be a toxic environment for writers.  The thing is, if I or somebody else creates a guild for writers, the ones that want to participate in it, will.  And that's what I feel writers need, a place where people will come who *want* to participate and actually *want* to improve and do good things to help out others.



I agree with most of this.



Altamont said:


> But, it all comes down to the same thing; even if we are going for something simple, we still have to_go for it_, you know? I think we really have a great idea on our hands, but *there has to be a way to take some action that doesn't involve tech skills our months of devotion* (well, at least _not yet_). I think the most successful way to go about doing this is actually reaching out to those writers not already in this forum who wish to be apart of a community they can work with and grow with. Of course, it would be foolish to promise something like a new/alternative writer's forum and then never provide it, so there does have to be a shop for us to actually set up in. I just worry that if we spend too much time focusing on the logistics we'll never get to actually accomplishing it.
> 
> *I'm skilled with computers but by no means would I be the go to guy to set up a forum and/or webpage or anything like that.* But I could definitely help get the word out once/if this ever gets set in to motion.



Services providing free forum hosting provide also pretty easy tools to modify the forums, anybody can go and make a forum nowadays. I know people to whom "drag and drop" was the most advanced level of computer skills they could reach and they managed to administrate a fairly successful forum. Plus, many bigger forums have started as something small, using the services of free forum hosting. The downside are ads... although, I haven't seen ads since I added an advanced ad-block to my browser. So, that's a poor excuse anyway.



nybx4life said:


> It makes the best sense to take action, and see what go on from there.
> 
> After all, if it was focused on more popular members here to take action (again, Renard and Poetigress as an example), we can't be sure when things will get done, since they cannot focus on this 100 percent.
> 
> ...



I agree again.

@Duroc (or anybody who's willing to take the lead): Wait a couple weeks, or at least a couple days after the easter, so that people who have something to say can have their say. Start a new thread and present your refined idea, whatever will it be, and maybe put up a poll to ask if people are interested to help, to get some starting members of whatever you're creating. Then ditch FAF, put up a forum of your own and watch what will happen. It's not that hard to start a new community. And the worse thing that could happen is the free forum host deleting your forum after six months because of lack of new posts.

http://www.freeforums.org/forum-error.php?u=furry.freeforums.org ;Ã¾


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## KatmanDu (Apr 4, 2010)

Webspace won't be a problem; I've got two shared server accounts with plenty of space and bandwidth and a server at home (though it's more of an experiment to teach myself the basics of server management, and not yet a "production" machine), and I've managed forum sites before. Anything more complex than that, though, is beyond my abilities.


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## sunandshadow (Apr 4, 2010)

Wow, I'm impressed with this thread.  There are enough logical, philosophical posts in it that it will actually take me a few hours to read through, and be worth the time spent.

A few initial comments on what I've read so far:

 - I'm in the group of people who sees anthro fiction as properly being science fiction or fantasy, not a genre of its own.

 - If we're talking about starting some sort of writers' community, I would personally be interested in joining a plot-focused critique group.  Specifically, something where people exchange synopses and try to help each other develop higher quality plots.  It would have to be erotica-friendly since I pretty much only write erotic romance.  It would be really nice to be able to talk to a group of others who write adult science fiction and fantasy, I haven't found a community with that focus anywhere on the web.  Oh, and if there was a section matchmaking writers with artists into teams which could make comics, that would be awesome.

 - But on a less optimistic note, I've been the moderator of a writing-for-videogames forum for several years, and it has repeatedly been my experience that writers don't want to work.  There's probably no easier way to make a forum of writers go dead silent than by trying to assign them homework.  On the other hand, writers love reading and discussing mini-lectures and essaies on various aspects of the craft of writing.  So if you want to build a writing community, getting several people to contribute articles and publishing one to the forum every few days might be very effective.  I have previously-written writing theory material I could donate for this purpose if the forum-creator desired.  I'd need some topic suggestions in order to come up with new material.


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## SALUQI (Apr 4, 2010)

sunandshadow said:


> - If we're talking about starting some sort of writers' community, I would personally be interested in joining a plot-focused critique group.  Specifically, something where people exchange synopses and try to help each other develop higher quality plots.  It would have to be erotica-friendly since I pretty much only write erotic romance.  It would be really nice to be able to talk to a group of others who write adult science fiction and fantasy, I haven't found a community with that focus anywhere on the web.




I'll second that.  Going back to one of the original points of this thread, "improving the  quality of the fiction overall"; I'm one of those that feels good,  high-quality erotic writing is almost completely lost among the  incredibly large volume of tasteless smut around here (I'm sure Panzer can  back me up on this point).  So, were there to be a place that really  made an effort to focus on _quality _erotic works, I'd be quite  interested.  I don't think of myself as an erotic writer, per-say, but I  _do _feel that it's a theme I'd really like to focus on  developing, because I feel it provides a lot more latitude for the kind  of emotionally expressive writing I'd like to be able to do well  someday.  My only concern (and it's what's kept me from partaking in  many of the existing critique groups) is the expectations of the  community.  Anyone here who's followed my work knows that I'm an  extremely low-volume writer, due largely to the fact that I'm mired in  an extremely intense course of study 9 months of the year.  I don't want  to come off as a deadbeat who's not interested in truly being involved -  and I can certainly participate at some level year-round - but  realistically, I'd only be able to give it 100% seasonally.  I don't  want to suggest that any proposed group should be allowed to dry up at  busy times of the year, but perhaps there could be some kind of  provisions for people who are interested in developing their work, but  don't necessarily have the time to do so year round?


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## sunandshadow (Apr 5, 2010)

SALUQI said:


> I'll second that.  Going back to one of the original points of this thread, "improving the  quality of the fiction overall"; I'm one of those that feels good,  high-quality erotic writing is almost completely lost among the  incredibly large volume of tasteless smut around here (I'm sure Panzer can  back me up on this point).  So, were there to be a place that really  made an effort to focus on _quality _erotic works, I'd be quite  interested.  I don't think of myself as an erotic writer, per-say, but I  _do _feel that it's a theme I'd really like to focus on  developing, because I feel it provides a lot more latitude for the kind  of emotionally expressive writing I'd like to be able to do well  someday.  My only concern (and it's what's kept me from partaking in  many of the existing critique groups) is the expectations of the  community.  Anyone here who's followed my work knows that I'm an  extremely low-volume writer, due largely to the fact that I'm mired in  an extremely intense course of study 9 months of the year.  I don't want  to come off as a deadbeat who's not interested in truly being involved -  and I can certainly participate at some level year-round - but  realistically, I'd only be able to give it 100% seasonally.  I don't  want to suggest that any proposed group should be allowed to dry up at  busy times of the year, but perhaps there could be some kind of  provisions for people who are interested in developing their work, but  don't necessarily have the time to do so year round?


One online writing group had a system that I liked - new members were required to crit 4 people before they could post one of their own pieces to be critted.  If you gave a crit, you were allowed to name at the end the piece of yours you wanted the recipient to do in return.  Beyond that it was volunteer.  So basically if you didn't have a piece you wanted critiqued, you had no obligation to critique others

The other option would be to limit the number of synopses which could be presented per week, and people would only be able to present theirs if they had participated the previous four weeks if one thing was being critted each week (or two weeks if two things were being critted each week).  In that system you would always have to give four crits to get one crit session.  Again, people who wanted to crit but didn't have anything to present would be welcome to crit as volunteers.


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## Atrak (Apr 5, 2010)

KatmanDu said:


> Webspace won't be a problem; I've got two shared server accounts with plenty of space and bandwidth and a server at home (though it's more of an experiment to teach myself the basics of server management, and not yet a "production" machine), and I've managed forum sites before. Anything more complex than that, though, is beyond my abilities.


 

Where in GA are you from?

I may be near you.




sunandshadow said:


> *One online writing group had a system that I liked - new members were required to crit 4 people before they could post one of their own pieces to be critted.* If you gave a crit, you were allowed to name at the end the piece of yours you wanted the recipient to do in return. Beyond that it was volunteer. So basically if you didn't have a piece you wanted critiqued, you had no obligation to critique others
> 
> The other option would be to limit the number of synopses which could be presented per week, and people would only be able to present theirs if they had participated the previous four weeks if one thing was being critted each week (or two weeks if two things were being critted each week). In that system you would always have to give four crits to get one crit session. Again, people who wanted to crit but didn't have anything to present would be welcome to crit as volunteers.


 
Actually, we require that people critique two others before posting their own stories for critiquing.

The problem is that most of us don't actually spend a lot of time on here, and/or have a lot of time/motivation to critique another person's work, unless we know them personally.

I think that one way to improve this would be to have 'group critiques,' where a group of people would get together and critique one of their members' pieces together.

The problems with this is that it would require everyone to be on at the same time, and would also require some kind of IM system, as well as an editing system that they can all use.

I hear that google.doc has something like this.


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## GraemeLion (Apr 5, 2010)

A forum system isn't going to solve this.  We have a large enough base here and we don't need to move it elsewhere.  What'll solve this is a custom website designed to provide criticism and comments, while encouraging members to contribute.    Potentially, it'd also be nice to produce a print anthology from the website's offering in order to generate a level of income for it.  

And then, even then, if we did this at an outside site, we'd need to have marketing involved to swing furries over to the site.

It's not as simple as setting up a forum.  Anyone can do that.


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## jinxtigr (Apr 5, 2010)

I do not think a community critique system will help furry writing. Full stop.

Here's why- reader engagement isn't driven by lack of mistakes. It's driven by the particular flavor and character of the work, and that's a balancing act between flavor and outright error. Virtually no style points are above serious criticism. Criticism is a means by which people practicing an art can get to a level of competence- competence with the mechanics of the art, competence with knowing the basic expectations for an enlightened audience.

Yet many of the biggest popular successes in any creative field (certainly writing, cartooning etc) contain howling mistakes when viewed in a really strict critical way...

It's possible to crit/review with an eye to that larger scope, but very difficult, because you have to be quite an open book to yourself and also fearless of outside contempt- to go 'people have terrible taste, so this should suit them fine' is missing the mark horribly. It's in essence being ready to say "YES, this is why Pokemon/Harry Potter/Jacqueline Suzanne/Journey feels good" and put it in a critical context where you can explain some of the mechanics of that without trying to explain away obvious faults also present.

Most of the people you'd crit on that level are already beyond criticism, in that they're dedicated to their path and won't be changing anything to suit you anyhow...


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## panzergulo (Apr 5, 2010)

jinxtigr said:


> I do not think a community critique system will help furry writing. Full stop.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Most of the people you'd crit on that level are already beyond criticism, in that they're dedicated to their path and won't be changing anything to suit you anyhow...



The statement above is pretty much why I don't go begging for critique anymore. While I always welcome critique -- is there really any other way to improve one's writing than reading critique written by other people -- I don't actively put myself into critique circles and critique threads and such. I've pretty much learned that inside the forum I am using I won't ever get wide enough critique for it to really help me anyway. The last time I gave something to 'The Writer's Block' to be critiqued, I got no critique, and previous time to that, I got one serious critique and couple people saying "good work" or something like that. And in the end, critique is only an opinion of a one person. Three or more would be a sufficient number of critiques for one piece of writing, any less than that... it's like asking two people if they like mushrooms. Some like them, some don't.

I believe I don't do glaring errors anymore in my prose... so, what it comes down to is matter of style. Yup. I would be much happier to see analysis done to my stories... I receive analysis even more seldom than critique.

For those who don't know what analysis is, this is analysis:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1893009/#cid:18775793

I do analysis on other people's writings now and then and they seem to be very thankful for it. It seems people can't really analyze fiction.

So yeah, critique is good for people who are still learning. But I think I agree with jinxtigr (how are you supposed to pronounce that?), critique isn't the thing that will help furry writing. Awareness and information would be much more important, in my opinion.


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## nybx4life (Apr 5, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> A forum system isn't going to solve this.  We have a large enough base here and we don't need to move it elsewhere.  What'll solve this is a custom website designed to provide criticism and comments, while encouraging members to contribute.    *Potentially, it'd also be nice to produce a print anthology from the website's offering in order to generate a level of income for it.  *
> 
> And then, even then, if we did this at an outside site, we'd need to have marketing involved to swing furries over to the site.
> 
> It's not as simple as setting up a forum.  Anyone can do that.



You make good points, but let me see if I got this straight:
You wish to do something similar to other lit magazines, placing together people's work (who of course, agree to donate a piece), so it could be sold online, or at least used for online advertising.
If that's the case, it makes great sense.



jinxtigr said:


> I do not think a community critique system will help furry writing. Full stop.
> 
> Here's why- reader engagement isn't driven by lack of mistakes. It's driven by the particular flavor and character of the work, and that's a balancing act between flavor and outright error. Virtually no style points are above serious criticism. Criticism is a means by which people practicing an art can get to a level of competence- competence with the mechanics of the art, competence with knowing the basic expectations for an enlightened audience.
> 
> ...



This is also true. People's styles are definitely unique, and very hard to change if you want anybody to improve.
Yet, the thing is, it is agreed that a large number of stories submitted to FA are smut material. If anything, instead of saying things are downright horrible (which may or may not be the case), I believe it takes some people a good trip around the bases to improve their writing.

A teacher once told me you have to know the rules to break them. For them to go off so badly, without knowing the basics, makes things worse than better.


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## jinxtigr (Apr 5, 2010)

But- most people who are writing really terribly will not get better! Focusing on them is a mistake, not least because the only thing that'll help them is READING MORE, and they may be too busy writing badly to read.

I feel I get to say this because I drew terribly, still basically do despite learning all sorts of important art things, and continue to be not very picture-oriented. I do better pictures in words, and all the time I was trying to draw, I turned to reading for relief. In a lot of ways I didn't get better, which makes me sad, but the background just wasn't there for me.

If we want to reach people who're writing lame stuff for peer asspats, there's no point critting them. You have to produce stuff for them to absorb or they'll just read each others sonic/evangelion mpreg fanfic. I wasn't reading Shakespeare while I grew up, I read sci-fi, which started out with little more acceptance (or literary merit!) than furry lit.

In the beginning, the middle and the end is the deed. I'm going to write furry lit today- in fact, I do it pretty publically. If you're not writing anything today, I'll ask- why the fuck not? 

...waiver for if you are so busy reading that you lost track of time! In a way that's the real beginning and end of it all, and our writing just feeds that eternal drive...


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## darkr3x (Apr 5, 2010)

So, i registered to respond to this. (horray for side thoughts in parentheses) XP

I'm a writer on FA but I don't consider myself furry (though i do concede that i am very raccoon-ish in nature and do identify with both the strengths and weaknesses of the animal), nor do i write  (many) stories where antromorphs feature as mains (if at all). 

(If that bothers you, or renders my comment, invalid proceed with your  life citizen and ignore the blarg) 

[blarg]
I came to FA because of PT's Thursday Prompts (a something i have  woefully behind on) and the small community of writers who hang out around them. I've met a fair number of people who i now regard highly and i also somewhat understand the fandom a bit more. (albeit there are things i'll never quite understand, like 'why do anthro reptiles have boobs?' but, it's not a major draw back ) Before this i wrote a little bit and posted it on Gaia (of all  things, hey everyone is young at some point) and I'll tell you a site that's barely interested in what you  have to say (FA) is loads better than a site that never even looks your way. (Gaia)  FA has been the first place where i actually felt one step towards  people giving a rat's ass. Any budding author (of any genre, mainstream or non) has a hard time getting going. 

In short, a guild to help fur writers would be awesome (i'd even be willing to help build it), but why just fur (stories)? 

I'm not aware (so please correct my if I'm wrong) of any sites for budding (or worse intermediate) authors of any genre (that feel welcoming. I tried writing on DA, the non-attention is even worse there)
[/blarg]


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## Atrak (Apr 5, 2010)

darkr3x said:


> *In short, a guild to help fur writers would be awesome (i'd even be willing to help build it), but why just fur (stories)? *



If we made a 'guild,' I doubt we would be able to do it for just furry writings.


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## darkr3x (Apr 5, 2010)

atrakaj said:


> If we made a 'guild,' I doubt we would be able to do it for just furry writings.



No doubt, I've just noticed an isolation that seems to happen (for obvious, albeit stupid, reasons) when the community embarks on endeavor. Even if the intent isn't to be mainstream, why cut off a reader who might bring a different perspective, especially if your intent is to write in general?

...that came out oddly >,<


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## Poetigress (Apr 5, 2010)

Boy, go away to spend Easter with family, and this whole thread just sort of explodes...

I think before anyone goes forward with anything, some major decisions need to be made.

*1) Are there going to be objective requirements for membership, or will it be open to anyone?*

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. I admit I still like the idea of having an organization that requires members to meet some sort of criteria (publication credits would be the easiest), but a solidly-worded mission statement could potentially be enough to make it clear who would find a warm welcome and who might not. I still feel there's a need for a group where the focus is on actively submitting work to editors (inside and/or outside the fandom), which would also help keep the membership 'walking the walk,' so to speak, but whether that's important or not, the first question is definitely who this group is supposed to serve. (Also, particularly if it's open to everyone who wants to join up, this is where questions come in like, are there going to be content restrictions? So far it sounds like erotica should be included, based on what I've read here, but does anything go as far as fetishes?)

*2) Is critique the only important factor?*

If all we're really talking about is more of a critique-focused site that caters primarily to furry topics, it really looks like FurRag is going in that direction these days, from what I've seen recently. It might be better to participate over there and/or talk to some of the mods in their forum about redesigning that site, instead of putting something together from scratch.

Or, if you're determined to put something together from scratch, first go over to CritiqueCircle.com and see how they do things; I haven't seen a better structure yet in terms of posting work for critique, and if you're going to make a new site, there are far worse models to use.

*3) If we're talking about something that's going to manifest as a website, is it going to be a place primarily serving readers or writers?*

I think it's important to remember that no website (or at least, no website that isn't huge and probably segmented into public/private areas) is going to serve readers and writers _equally._ This was the same discussion we got into way back on FurRag. I'm not saying that a site geared toward readers won't help writers (usually by giving them more opportunity to build readership), but based on what I've read here, it sounds like part of us are talking about some kind of alternative to FA, and part are talking about a critique group or something that would be serving writers more than readers. If that's the case, those are two very different setups.

Personally, on the reader side of things, I do see a need for more of a juried gallery site where readers could easily find material that is at least of basic quality, without having to wade through Sonic fanfics and whatever. (I have long advocated for a writer's site that is set up something like the way Artspots originally was, where writers would submit a 'portfolio' of some kind before gaining an account, but that suggestion generally gets me charged with elitism -- never mind that if your goal is publication, there are _always_ going to be people having extraordinarily arbitrary say over whether your work is good enough or not, so you might as well get used to it.)

On the writer side, I do think there's a need (at least from where I'm standing; maybe I just don't know about some good place that already exists) for more of a private discussion forum where ideas can be exchanged among writers with similar goals -- I hesitate to use the term "serious writers," because that can be misunderstood, but I'm essentially talking about people who view their writing as more than something they're doing because they can't draw. IMO there's also a big need (and, I think, a growing desire) for more of a juried furry literature award to be an alternative to the Ursa Majors, and if membership in this hypothetical association's forum would be limited by some sort of objective criteria, that award setup could then potentially grow out of the association (though the awards structure would likely be an entirely separate discussion in itself).

Just my thoughts. I admit I skimmed a lot of the posts made over the weekend, as my brain is somewhat fried after work this morning, so if I've missed anything crucial (or misunderstood anything horribly), fill me in.


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## Poetigress (Apr 5, 2010)

darkr3x said:


> No doubt, I've just noticed an isolation that seems to happen (for obvious, albeit stupid, reasons) when the community embarks on endeavor. Even if the intent isn't to be mainstream, why cut off a reader who might bring a different perspective, especially if your intent is to write in general?
> 
> ...that came out oddly >,<



Because everything gets diluted, and next thing you know you have yet another writing site that maybe has a significant furry presence but isn't really helping the people it was originally supposed to help.

If I want general critique that isn't furry-based, I can go to sites like CritiqueCircle.com. (If I want sf/f/h-based critique, I can join up with Critters.org or the OWW.) If I just want to put work online, there's Writing.com, and there are a few more gallery-type sites, but I forget the names offhand (there's something with "fiction" in the title, I think?). It looks like Scribophile.com is kind of a mix of gallery and critique, as you can have works public or members-only.

To me, the whole idea is to promote furry writing -- not just writing that happens to be by furries -- so if it becomes open to absolutely everything, what makes it any different from anything else that's already out there?


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## Scarborough (Apr 5, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> *1) Are there going to be objective requirements for membership, or will it be open to anyone?*
> 
> There are advantages and disadvantages to both. I admit I still like the idea of having an organization that requires members to meet some sort of criteria (publication credits would be the easiest), but a solidly-worded mission statement could potentially be enough to make it clear who would find a warm welcome and who might not. I still feel there's a need for a group where the focus is on actively submitting work to editors (inside and/or outside the fandom), which would also help keep the membership 'walking the walk,' so to speak, but whether that's important or not, the first question is definitely who this group is supposed to serve. (Also, particularly if it's open to everyone who wants to join up, this is where questions come in like, are there going to be content restrictions? So far it sounds like erotica should be included, based on what I've read here, but does anything go as far as fetishes?)



I was wondering if a possible requirement could be having one reject letter from one publisher (because damned if reject letters aren't easy to get these days). But at the same time, that discourages people who are joining for literature qua literature. Unless you meant something else by "publication credits."

I agree that a solid mission statement could easily filter out some people, but I wonder if we'd need to filter out people at all. The kinds of people who consistently write terrible pieces for the sake of +watches/+favorites are not the kinds of people who will seek out this kind of community. Furthermore, it's not like empty numbers take up lots of space.

I think what we'd need is a different general atmosphere. I know when I'm reading stuff on FA, even if you have a piece that has :iconilovecritique: slapped all over it, I'm still tentative to just go out there and give the person critique, because I'm simply not sure how serious this person is about getting critique. And because FA isn't exactly an atmosphere that fosters critique.

Furthermore, I agree with jinxtigr that a solely critique-based group may not fly. Not just because a lack of participation (see Critique Thread), but also because critique isn't the only thing that improves writing. And especially not critique re plots. I know that if I found a group that spent a sizable amount of its time critiquing plots, I would be hesitant to join, largely because many prominent writing styles post-1950s do not have significant plots as the backbone of their stories (cf. anybody from Raymond Carver to Donald Barthelme to Mark Danielewski).



Poetigress said:


> *2) Is critique the only important factor?*
> 
> If all we're really talking about is more of a critique-focused site that caters primarily to furry topics, it really looks like FurRag is going in that direction these days, from what I've seen recently. It might be better to participate over there and/or talk to some of the mods in their forum about redesigning that site, instead of putting something together from scratch.
> 
> Or, if you're determined to put something together from scratch, first go over to CritiqueCircle.com and see how they do things; I haven't seen a better structure yet in terms of posting work for critique, and if you're going to make a new site, there are far worse models to use.



I think part of it could be just group reading.

And I don't mean group reading entire books. I hate group reading books. I tried to group read The Life of Pi and couldn't get through it because Martel's style simply wasn't my cuppa. I think maybe we could group read short stories?

That's my input?



Poetigress said:


> To me, the whole idea is to promote furry writing -- not just writing that happens to be by furries -- so if it becomes open to absolutely everything, what makes it any different from anything else that's already out there?



The difference is you all are less scary than other websites. >.>

But that's a good point? And I have no way to address that. XD


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## darkr3x (Apr 5, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Because everything gets diluted, and next thing you know you have yet another writing site that maybe has a significant furry presence but isn't really helping the people it was originally supposed to help.
> 
> If I want general critique that isn't furry-based, I can go to sites like CritiqueCircle.com. (If I want sf/f/h-based critique, I can join up with Critters.org or the OWW.) If I just want to put work online, there's Writing.com. For a mix of gallery and critique, Scribophile.com. There are a few more, but I forget the names offhand (there's something with "fiction" in the title, I think?).
> 
> To me, the whole idea is to promote furry writing -- not just writing that happens to be by furries -- so if it becomes open to absolutely everything, what's the point?



Wow didn't realize there was so many other options, i feel silly. >.<

They as friendly?


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## sunandshadow (Apr 5, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> To me, the whole idea is to promote furry writing -- not just writing that happens to be by furries -- so if it becomes open to absolutely everything, what makes it any different from anything else that's already out there?


I think having a goal of promoting furry writing, and a requirement of writers who have already finished pieces and been confident enough int heir quality to be seeking publication, are inherently contradictory. :/  Those are exactly the people who already have an established style and technique that works for them, and probably don't need or want critique except with the goal of improving a specific piece.  These should be the mentors, not the students.  The only restriction I personally would put on the forum would be by age.

The group of people I'm interested in is entirely different - people who haven't been published, people who have difficulty finishing pieces because they haven't yet found a workflow that gets them there without too much hair-pulling and block, people who no one cares about their ideas so why should they kill themselves striving to create literature, people with a weak area like plotting or character that they want mentors to help them study.

So, I'd like to see several subforums, one where people who want plotting help submit synopses and concepts, one where people who want character help submit material related to that (a scene introducing a character, a piece of dialogue developing a character, a synopsis focused on character arc and relationship development rather than plot...), a discussion forum for writing theory and technique where mini-lectures are presented weekly as well as independent topics allowed, a forum focused on multimedia team projects such as manga/video games/animation, and finally you can have a subforum for people who want critique on a specific piece intended for publication.  Maybe even a roleplay forum which encourages co-writing with intent to produce publishable fiction and shared universe fiction.  And above all, this Fur Affinity forum isn't suitable because of the crippling pg-13 rating restriction.  How is anyone supposed to critique erotica in an environment like that?


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## duroc (Apr 5, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> I admit I still like the idea of having an organization that requires members to meet some sort of criteria (publication credits would be the easiest)



I think that's what I was trying to get at, and then this whole thing just--went everywhere.  

I don't believe we need another group, website, or forum aimed at critiquing.  There are plenty of places available for that already.  And I do believe this "website" needs to have membership qualifications.  Again, the point I made was, if you want to be in this group, then work toward it.  Now you have a goal to strive for and this can and should help elevate the writing in this community.  Just my opinion.  



Poetigress said:


> but a solidly-worded mission statement could potentially be enough to make it clear who would find a warm welcome and who might not.



And that has failed to surface in this discussion, but so far, I'm in agreement with the ideas you've brought up.  I do feel like erotica should be included, and I think by keeping the membership inline, it would help keep away the fetish writing, but it might not curtail it completely.  I was thinking maybe a "side forum"(if that's even the right way to put it) for this site could be open to all writers.  That way, it might allow writers who haven't reached the credits to qualify for membership to still be active and in some way contribute.  But I was still thinking the main portion of it this needs to be limited to specific members.  That's probably why this exploded.

I also think the site should primarily serve writers, but I believe the idea will ultimately serve readers as well, though I don't think it should be a "readers" site where stories are posted.  Again, there are already sites for this sort of thing in place and/or are in the works of being made.


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## panzergulo (Apr 5, 2010)

sunandshadow said:


> I think having a goal of promoting furry writing, and a requirement of writers who have already finished pieces and been confident enough int heir quality to be seeking publication, are inherently contradictory. :/  Those are exactly the people who already have an established style and technique that works for them, and probably don't need or want critique except with the goal of improving a specific piece.  These should be the mentors, not the students.  The only restriction I personally would put on the forum would be by age.
> 
> The group of people I'm interested in is entirely different - people who haven't been published, people who have difficulty finishing pieces because they haven't yet found a workflow that gets them there without too much hair-pulling and block, people who no one cares about their ideas so why should they kill themselves striving to create literature, people with a weak area like plotting or character that they want mentors to help them study.
> 
> So, I'd like to see several subforums, one where people who want plotting help submit synopses and concepts, one where people who want character help submit material related to that (a scene introducing a character, a piece of dialogue developing a character, a synopsis focused on character arc and relationship development rather than plot...), a discussion forum for writing theory and technique where mini-lectures are presented weekly as well as independent topics allowed, a forum focused on multimedia team projects such as manga/video games/animation, and finally you can have a subforum for people who want critique on a specific piece intended for publication.  Maybe even a roleplay forum which encourages co-writing with intent to produce publishable fiction and shared universe fiction.



And my mind started going "lalalalala..." while reading this. Nobody can do everything that. Come on. Poetigress, Duroc and some others seem to have a decent, workable idea here... if you try doing _everything_ at once, I doubt there'll be any success... too much stuff on one plate.

Also, the age thing is a tricky one. Sure, you get more experience with age and after being influenced to culture and literature you might stop writing Mary Sues and other crap, but still... I've seen people in their late teens producing material far better in quality than some middle-aged furry smut writers.



sunandshadow said:


> And above all, this Fur Affinity forum isn't suitable because of the crippling pg-13 rating restriction.  How is anyone supposed to critique erotica in an environment like that?



I don't understand this argument.

Okay, lessee... You are not supposed to critique anything on the forums. You submit your art, in this case, writing, prose or poetry, in the main site. After you have your story up, you come to the forums and post a request for critique in the critique thread. Then, the person doing the critique goes back to the main site, reads your stuff, and writes his or her comment/crit _on the main site_. Forums being pg-13 has no effect on anything.

@Duroc and maybe Poetigress: Looking good. I like your ideas. Like I said, sleep on it, refine the idea and present it after some time and see if people like it. I like the general direction all this is going. Even if I'm not sure if this whole idea is relevant to my interests in any way... apart from improving the image of furry writing as general, of course.


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## GraemeLion (Apr 5, 2010)

As I've said, the ideas that PT and Duroc have are awesome.

I think the one thing that will make it a success, though, would be to have a way for non-writers to enjoy it.  Otherwise, what's the point?  It's nice to have a furry writing guild and it's nice to have a community of writers.  But we do need to heavily focus on what can be done to get READERS.  The problem I face (and others face) is that people read my porn, but not much else.  And arguably, my non-porn is better quality than my porn. 

There exist a number of furry and furry-like markets out there that no one has ever heard of.  What's going to make this thing any different?


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## Poetigress (Apr 5, 2010)

Scarborough said:


> I was wondering if a possible requirement could be having one reject letter from one publisher (because damned if reject letters aren't easy to get these days). But at the same time, that discourages people who are joining for literature qua literature. Unless you meant something else by "publication credits."



By "publication credits," I mean actually having something published in an edited market (that is, not just self-published by putting it up on FA or one's own website or whatever). This could be either a market inside the fandom (_New Fables, Heat, Roar, Anthro_, etc.) or any market outside it as well.

I think using a rejection letter would make things a little too easy, personally (and see below), but you might be right in that it's enough of a required action that it might at least weed out the people who would be too lazy and/or not interested enough in publication to bother.



			
				sunandshadow said:
			
		

> I think having a goal of promoting furry writing, and a requirement of writers who have already finished pieces and been confident enough int heir quality to be seeking publication, are inherently contradictory. :/ Those are exactly the people who already have an established style and technique that works for them, and probably don't need or want critique except with the goal of improving a specific piece. These should be the mentors, not the students. The only restriction I personally would put on the forum would be by age.
> 
> The group of people I'm interested in is entirely different - people who haven't been published, people who have difficulty finishing pieces because they haven't yet found a workflow that gets them there without too much hair-pulling and block, people who no one cares about their ideas so why should they kill themselves striving to create literature, people with a weak area like plotting or character that they want mentors to help them study.



I think you're putting published writers on a bit of a pedestal here.  There are plenty of published writers, myself included, who know full well they still have a ways to go and still want to improve. Yes, I may have established style and technique and some methods that I know will probably work for me. But I still have difficulty finishing pieces. I still hit roadblocks and would like to have a supportive, private environment to develop ideas in. And we all, published or not, have weak areas.

You say that published writers "probably don't need or want critique except with the goal of improving a specific piece." Here's the thing, though -- all critique is really about is improving a specific piece. It's true that, over time, and especially if you develop a relationship with the people critiquing your work, you can get a bigger picture of what your overall weaknesses and strengths are, and develop in that way. But critique is not some kind of magic-wand workshop where you automatically learn what you're doing right and wrong overall. You learn it story by story, crit by crit. Every story is different; what works in one may not work in another. That's all critique is. Figuring out what's working, what might not be, and what could be improved _in a specific piece._

The truth is, it is not as hard to get a short story published as I think most people around here think it is. Into the top markets, yeah. But there are tons of places out there publishing fiction, many of which (especially a lot of online markets) cater to new and beginning writers. So to me "published" doesn't automatically mean "arrived" or "expert" or even "professional." 

I know some people might think, "yeah, well, easy for her to say," but I just honestly don't think it's a bad thing to have to attain a certain level on your own, to then be able get into something like this. I think that's what Duroc is getting at, that the point of this is to encourage people to aim for something. One of my biggest pet peeves with writers in the fandom is that there can be a massive lack of initiative in terms of learning the basics of the craft. I don't mean that people don't want to learn (well, some really don't, but that's not what I'm talking about). I'm talking about people who expect someone to hold their hands and tell them step-by-step how to write a story, how to do this aspect, how to do that, how to send something to an editor, on and on and on. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not talking about just one or two questions or something specific to a particular story where somebody wants to talk shop. I'm talking about people who don't seem to understand that there's a wealth of knowledge available with a simple Google search or, far better, a trip to the local library and/or bookstore to look at a few books or magazines about writing. These are people who want to be published, and sometimes I wonder if most of them grasp the fact that writing does kind of require the ability to do some basic research and not expect to be handed everything you need. 

I do think an age requirement will wind up being a must if there's going to be erotica involved, simply to satisfy potential legal issues or issues with wherever this site would be hosted. That said, there are some sites that have a forum/area specifically for teen writers, but that may or may not be warranted in this case.

I'm not arguing for these types of requirements so that the members can sit around and enjoy feeling superior to all the poor slobs who aren't published. I'm not arguing for them in order to keep people out. I'm arguing for them because I believe that, in the end, it makes for a much more supportive and productive environment when people have similar goals and (more or less) similar levels of committment to whatever the purpose is. If you can do that with a mission statement or some other kind of requirement, then that'll work, too.


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## Aeturnus (Apr 5, 2010)

Why don't we just drop the 'furry' part and promote stories as a work of fiction? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd rather classify my work as either drama and/or thriller with a bit of fantasy, the fantasy part having to deal with 'furry' characters.


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## sunandshadow (Apr 5, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> And my mind started going "lalalalala..." while reading this. Nobody can do everything that. Come on. Poetigress, Duroc and some others seem to have a decent, workable idea here... if you try doing _everything_ at once, I doubt there'll be any success... too much stuff on one plate.


But I'm just agreeing with what others have said - there are plenty of sites focused on critiquing specific pieces of fiction already, another one wouldn't accomplish anything.  If I may paraphrase you, I also feel that the idea poetigress is developing doesn't seem relevant to my interests.

My intent was just to describe the kind of group I'd want to join and actively participate in.  I know what I want isn't particularly important, but I thought it was a useful data point about what writers' community needs I think aren't currently being fulfilled.  And I'm offering to help with the weekly discussion topics and plot critique forum.  All I want is a place where erotica writers are welcome, not treated like second-class citizens.



> Okay, lessee... You are not supposed to critique anything on the forums. You submit your art, in this case, writing, prose or poetry, in the main site. After you have your story up, you come to the forums and post a request for critique in the critique thread. Then, the person doing the critique goes back to the main site, reads your stuff, and writes his or her comment/crit _on the main site_. Forums being pg-13 has no effect on anything.


Can you post scrap scenes and synopses to an FA account?  I thought it was  supposed to be art and finished stories?  But thank you for explaining  that the critique is supposed to be done in the comments of the pieces  insted of in a forum thread, I didn't understand that.  Although I  joined FA a while ago, I didn't join the forum until a few days ago and I  haven't tried to join in with the critiquing yet so I hadn't read up on  how it works here.  But if I can post synopses, I'll stick some up, give some crits to earn membership, then request to be critted in return and see if the results are actually useful and friendly.  I'm kinda skeptical because in the few days since I joined this forum I've overall been getting the feeling that there's some unpleasant anti-erotica or anti-fetish sentiment going on here.  But it's worth a shot.


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## Poetigress (Apr 5, 2010)

GraemeLion said:


> I think the one thing that will make it a success, though, would be to have a way for non-writers to enjoy it.  Otherwise, what's the point?  It's nice to have a furry writing guild and it's nice to have a community of writers.  But we do need to heavily focus on what can be done to get READERS.  The problem I face (and others face) is that people read my porn, but not much else.  And arguably, my non-porn is better quality than my porn.
> 
> There exist a number of furry and furry-like markets out there that no one has ever heard of.  What's going to make this thing any different?



We're back to serving one or the other, but not both very well. I'll let Duroc take up this question because it sounds like he's taking the lead here, but I don't think the idea that's developing is really meant to be a market per se; it's more of a supportive network. I think the idea is to promote quality writing with anthro characters and themes, generally, going on the assumption that this would then give readers of existing venues better stuff to read, and the editors better work to choose from and publish. No, that's not the same thing as the type of juried gallery site I was describing, that would be a great thing for readers -- but I'm beginning to think that the ideas in this thread could easily foster two or three different websites serving different aspects of writing in the fandom.


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## Scarborough (Apr 5, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> By "publication credits," I mean actually having something published in an edited market (that is, not just self-published by putting it up on FA or one's own website or whatever). This could be either a market inside the fandom (_New Fables, Heat, Roar, Anthro_, etc.) or any market outside it as well.
> 
> I think using a rejection letter would make things a little too easy, personally (and see below), but you might be right in that it's enough of a required action that it might at least weed out the people who would be too lazy and/or not interested enough in publication to bother.



See, the only problem I have with publication credits is that you're probably alienating a large amount of people, notably (as an example), panzergulo, who, as he's stated, has not been "published," which I'm assuming to mean that he's not been published outside of FA, or at least not published in an edited market.


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## sunandshadow (Apr 5, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> By "publication credits," I mean actually having something published in an edited market [...] it might at least weed out the people who would be too lazy and/or not interested enough in publication to bother.


Well, I have no interest in attempting to get published at the current time, so you'd be 'weeding' me out.  I don't write short stories, I'm only interested in working at novel length (or writing a script for a graphic novel, but getting an artist to illustrate a script is next to impossible if you can't afford to hire one).  And while I'd like to work on a novel length piece with a goal of publication, it would probably be a year before I was ready for critique on actual chapters and two years before I was at the "collecting rejection letters" phase.

But if you don't want your proposed group to include people like me, I'll accept that.  One of the writers' groups local to me only allows published novelists in, and I understand why.  They critique chapters every two weeks and I wouldn't be able to participate or benefit from that because I don't have chapters ready to critique.  It is what you were saying about people having similar goals.  I was just imagining a site where each subforum might be a group of people with similar goals, then the forum as a whole could have room for writers at different stages and with different goals.  I have more than 8 years of experience critiquing fiction, I think I could be helpful to people who wanted chapters or pieces critted, I just want people to in turn help me develop a good synopsis which would be worth me writing up as a novel and polishing for publication.


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## Poetigress (Apr 5, 2010)

sunandshadow said:


> If I may paraphrase you, I also feel that the idea poetigress is developing doesn't seem relevant to my interests.



*nods* I think we all have to remember that no one place is going to work for everybody. At the risk of sounding like a snob, a site geared more toward brand-new writers isn't going to be as relevant to my own interests.  I know we're all, myself included, putting forth our own perfect setup that will serve our needs -- as I just said in the reply to Graeme's post, there's more than one possible site concept here, because there's obviously more than one niche that's going unfilled.



> All I want is a place where erotica writers are welcome, not treated like second-class citizens.



And I think erotica can be a part of it. I realize the earlier part of this thread might have given the impression of an anti-erotica bent among those here. If I personally gave that impression in terms of what I said (and I probably did, but I'm sure not wading back through four pages to find out at this point!), I need to clarify that I don't honestly have an anti-erotica vendetta myself. I've written erotica in the past (furry and non), and though I've kind of cycled out of it for now, there's a good change I'll wind up writing it again sometime in the future. I do recognize it as a valid genre and one that can be just as professional and high-quality as anything else. So as far as the anti-erotica deal goes, I can only really speak for myself, but I think the sentiment boils down to just getting tired of feeling like erotica gets a disproportionate amount of the attention and opportunity in the fandom, even within one's own body of work. That doesn't mean the work itself can't be worthwhile, or that those who write it are all sellout hacks. 



> Can you post scrap scenes and synopses to an FA account?  I thought it was  supposed to be art and finished stories?



Doesn't have to be finished at all. In terms of text, people have posted RP logs, recipes, school reports, random rants, character descriptions, whatever. Myself, I tend to use Scraps for anything unfinished or done as an exercise, and the main gallery for finished pieces, but as far as I know, there are no hard and fast rules about what goes where.


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## KatmanDu (Apr 5, 2010)

atrakaj said:


> Where in GA are you from?
> 
> I may be near you.



Live off exit 126, I-85.


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## darkr3x (Apr 5, 2010)

sunandshadow said:


> Can you post scrap scenes and synopses to an FA account?  I thought it was  supposed to be art and finished stories?



(Almost) everything I post is a working draft; heck most of what is up in my gallery is at least version 2. It's actually a reason i like posting here, i can update something and not re-post it.


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## Altamont (Apr 5, 2010)

Wow, I only posted a a couple days ago and I'm already two pages behind 

In regards to the concerns over requiring authors to be published, I'm on the fence about that one. On one hand I also have never had anything officially published (and I haven't actually posted any of my non-poetry work here yet, as I'm meticulous about my work's revisions to a fault; though a Thursday prompt is quickly developing in to a 50 + page short story, which is exciting  )

On the other hand, I do believe that is a good way to ensure that the members of the guild are striving for something in their writing that goes beyond a hobby. It's a struggle, because I would want what's best for the community but I want to be apart of the community and I feel I would deserve the honor personally...

How about auditions? I know, it is something that has the potential for needless complication, but hear me out.

A main purpose of the guild, as PT and Duroc both pointed out earlier, is the fact that the guild is a goal for others to strive for, to be recognized for one's own accomplishments and to serve a role in a community that was previously too large, chaotic, and cumbersome to make a name in. And an audition, among things like the reviewing of previous work and publication history, could do just that. There could be sign up lists so that submissions don't come flooding in, a word limit for manageability, and multiple reviewers (head members of the guild or perhaps people specifically appointed to the task), who could review the audition and then use that to help decide eligibility.

I'm an actor and a director as well as a writer, so perhaps that's why the process seems to make the most sense to me. There are plenty of working actors who are absolutely terrible compared to "amateurs" I know personally with unbelievable loads of talent. Similarly, just because someone has been published doesn't necessarily reflect their actual value in regards to the guild. 

Which is not to undermine publication in any way, shape, or form; obviously if someone has been published they're doing something right. I just think adding in an "audition" factor would allow for non-published writers with talent and drive to have their own opportunities in the guild.

In fact, I think this would be a perfect exclusive for non-published members. If you're published, that's fine and dandy, but if not, you'll have to send in an "audition" piece to prove you're the real deal.

And aside from raw talent, the audition could also help in showing that the person in question is working towards the guild specifically and not just submitting something they wrote years ago, demonstrating a potential at least for not only a talented writer but a valuable member of the community.

Thoughts?


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## sunandshadow (Apr 5, 2010)

sunandshadow said:
			
		

> So, I'd like to see several subforums, one where people who want plotting help submit synopses and concepts, one where people who want character help submit material related to that (a scene introducing a character, a piece of dialogue developing a character, a synopsis focused on character arc and relationship development rather than plot...), a discussion forum for writing theory and technique where mini-lectures are presented weekly as well as independent topics allowed, a forum focused on multimedia team projects such as manga/video games/animation, and finally you can have a subforum for people who want critique on a specific piece intended for publication.  Maybe even a roleplay forum which encourages co-writing with intent to produce publishable fiction and shared universe fiction.  And above all, this Fur Affinity forum isn't suitable because of the crippling pg-13 rating restriction.  How is anyone supposed to critique erotica in an environment like that?


It occurred to me that it might be useful to mention AbsoluteWrite as my model for imagining how several subforums could work together to make a writing community.  The only thing I don't really like about AW is how the Show Your Work forums, where critique happens, are hidden away from the rest of the discussion.  I personally think a lot more critique would happen if people posted stuff they wanted critiqued in the genre-appropriate discussion forum.

I also think it would be easily possible to have one subforum be more exclusive, it could be restricted to people who are published or who have tried out or whatever, so they would have a private space without totally excluding writers who don't qualify.


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## nybx4life (Apr 5, 2010)

Altamont said:


> Wow, I only posted a a couple days ago and I'm already two pages behind
> 
> In regards to the concerns over requiring authors to be published, I'm on the fence about that one. On one hand I also have never had anything officially published (and I haven't actually posted any of my non-poetry work here yet, as I'm meticulous about my work's revisions to a fault; though a Thursday prompt is quickly developing in to a 50 + page short story, which is exciting  )
> 
> ...



You know, this idea is really great. Truly, it is.:grin:

Because, after all, I feel it would seem a bit elitist if there's a requirement of only authors that are published. As for now, I believe there should be some requirements, not only for entry, but for staying in the group.
After all, people's motivation can run dry at times, which will make them with low working output for a short to a *very long time.*


I'll post up more ideas as things come along. I got to catch up a lot to this stuff.
This thread is on fire.


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## panzergulo (Apr 6, 2010)

sunandshadow said:


> panzergulo said:
> 
> 
> > So, I'd like to see several subforums, one where people who want plotting help submit synopses and concepts, one where people who want character help submit material related to that (a scene introducing a character, a piece of dialogue developing a character, a synopsis focused on character arc and relationship development rather than plot...), a discussion forum for writing theory and technique where mini-lectures are presented weekly as well as independent topics allowed, a forum focused on multimedia team projects such as manga/video games/animation, and finally you can have a subforum for people who want critique on a specific piece intended for publication. Maybe even a roleplay forum which encourages co-writing with intent to produce publishable fiction and shared universe fiction. And above all, this Fur Affinity forum isn't suitable because of the crippling pg-13 rating restriction. How is anyone supposed to critique erotica in an environment like that?
> ...



Hey! Don't put your own words into my mouth! Just saying... all that in your quote that is claimed to be said by "panzergulo" is actually your own words... so, would you please be so kind and edit that one post to remove my user name?

Aside that and regarding the earlier question... yeah, yeah, you can post whatever you might ever want in FA as long as it is textual. I bet your synopses/plot summaries are better reading than full-length short stories by some other people... and yes, people do post whatever textual material under "stories"... rants, political speeches, journals, character reference sheets, program code, writing tutorials... you name it. It's very unlikely anybody would come and say "this does not belong" if you just go and submit those unfinished things of yours.



Commenting the general direction of the conversation... it looks like the time has come... I've never been published in edited markets, and nor do I plan to... and "audition", whatever that might ever be in the end, sounds like "torture" to me... so, I guess I say "good luck to y'all", smile, wave my hand and exit the conversation.

Lookin' good, men, women... I like the ideas you have, it just seems to me that whatever it'll be, it'll be irrelevant for my interests. Oh well...


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## sunandshadow (Apr 6, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> Hey! Don't put your own words into my mouth! Just saying... all that in your quote that is claimed to be said by "panzergulo" is actually your own words... so, would you please be so kind and edit that one post to remove my user name?


:shock: I have no idea how that happened, but sorry, it's edited now.

I did put up some of my synopses in my gallery.


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## panzergulo (Apr 6, 2010)

Sitting at my comp, jawing with online friends via Skype and browsing randomly through FA... and I found these:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1316715/#cid:11025098
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1316715/#cid:11025484
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1316715/#cid:11025325

So, to those who'd like FA improve the way it presents writing... seems Dragoneer has some ideas already and might be even welcoming new ideas.



@sunandshadow: Yay. Hope ya get yer crits.


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## duroc (Apr 6, 2010)

Altamont said:


> How about auditions?



I think auditions would just be to difficult and complicated to sort through, plus a system like that could easily be abused.  It can be hard for people to make time for things in their lives right now, let alone attempting to go through the ins and outs of an audition process.  I think similar problems could surface if a juried voting system were to come about, even though I very much like the idea of having a counter point to the Ursas and I think it'll need to be done at some point in time(and I believe a support group with qualified members is a great step toward this goal).  Basically, we're going to have to start small here, and even though it'll probably hurt some feelings, I think having a qualification for membership is still in the best way to go.  



GraemeLion said:


> It's nice to have a furry writing guild and it's nice to have a community of writers.  But we do need to heavily focus on what can be done to get READERS.  The problem I face (and others face) is that people read my porn, but not much else.  And arguably, my non-porn is better quality than my porn.



I think PT pretty much nailed the idea that was in my head.  It's not going to be a market, there are already places like that available for writers to post their work and establish readership.  

I get that people want their stories read, but just simply writing and posting isn't going to garner readers.  You have to push yourself, take risks with your writing, improve in the craft, and you have to put yourself out there--like here's an example.  I see no link in this forum to your FA page.  That's just one way of people stumbling across your work.  If they don't see your writing, how can anyone read it?  And getting readers is not only a self improvement system, but it's a give and take system.  Readers are usually other writers.  If you read, comment, favorite, critique, and generally support other writers, it will come back to you as long as you keep trying to improve.  You can not just stay stagnant, post stories and expect people to read.  And if you post porn, those readers are not the same readers that read non-porn.  So you have to reach out to the non-porn reading audience.  

But I'm getting way, way off track now.  The idea in my head is not a market, but(like PT described)a supportive network of proven, qualified writers trying to promote quality fiction with anthropomorphic characters.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 6, 2010)

Actually, what ArtSpots does now-a-days is to accept any and all applicants, but then include a separate audition system for artists to be granted what is essentially 'you are awesome' status (you get a little icon by your username).  This promotes your work more, because once you get that status you suddenly get top billing (I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I think your work has a much better chance of showing up on the front page, and other things like that).  So in this way, it's inclusive to anyone who wants to join, but it promotes improvement by giving you a goal to reach.  And it's easier on the admins, because they don't have to go over every single new artist who applies to the site, and instead can concentrate on those who seriously wish to join in with the big dogs.  You apply, submitting three pieces that demonstrate various things (they have a rubric, to avoid making style into an issue), they do a redline (the artists' version of a critique) and make a decision on whether or not you're welcome in the top leagues.  And every artist has unlimited chances.
Now, I'd still prefer a bit more exclusivity, but if it turns out that's not going to work, this is an alternative.  We could even do a sort of e-zine format where we collect all the really good works and post that monthly or bi-weekly on the front page, or something of that nature, so the casual browser always has somewhere to start.

Personally, I don't like the whole idea of 'publication credits' all that much.  Mainly because it would be a little difficult to implement.  For example, in my case, yeah, I've been published once, but God help me if I could actually get access to my work.  Laurus is only published within the U. of NE, and even when I was there, getting hold of back issues was downright impossible (I had to go request one from the dean of the language department, and even then I couldn't keep it).  And the website (which is hard to locate) doesn't seem to list all of the stories or all the issues, so I'm not finding my work there either.  In short, I could tell you I've been published, but I have no way to prove it!
Not to mention, it takes months for even the smallest publishers to get back to those who've submitted, so if we turn someone down for not being published, they won't get another chance to apply until sometimes years later.  That's just not a very effective way to run a website.  Revenue comes from ads and traffic.

By the way... thanks so much, KatmanDu, for starting this thread.  It's been brilliant so far, even if nothing ends up coming of it.


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## Poetigress (Apr 6, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Not to mention, it takes months for even the smallest publishers to get back to those who've submitted, so if we turn someone down for not being published, they won't get another chance to apply until sometimes years later.



Assuming you only have one single work you're sending out, yeah, and that none of those publishers you're sending it to accept simultaneous submissions.

I think, again, it's a matter of conflicting visions -- I can certainly see the argument for making something that the largest number of people can participate in right off the bat, but for me personally, a lot of my concept hinges on trying to give writers something to work toward, so that joining is in itself an achievement, and being a member really means something beyond just "I write furry stuff." I could definitely support the audition idea, but I also agree with Duroc that that type of setup would make for a lot of extra work.


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## Altamont (Apr 6, 2010)

duroc said:


> I think auditions would just be to difficult and complicated to sort through, plus a system like that could easily be abused.  It can be hard for people to make time for things in their lives right now, let alone attempting to go through the ins and outs of an audition process.  I think similar problems could surface if a juried voting system were to come about, even though I very much like the idea of having a counter point to the Ursas and I think it'll need to be done at some point in time(and I believe a support group with qualified members is a great step toward this goal).  Basically, we're going to have to start small here, and even though it'll probably hurt some feelings, I think having a qualification for membership is still in the best way to go.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Personally, I think the audition system would be far less complicated than you may be fearing, especially if we limit the number of applicants at any one time. If we only auditioned, say, ten or fifteen people a month, it shouldn;t be too difficult. And again, it would only apply to people who have no publishing history.

But you are right, starting small is definitely the way to go. I was just throwing out ideas that I think could help the idea grow down the line.

How about this, in regards to exclusivity. If nothing else, we (or perhaps "you", seeing as my qualifications may not be in line with what you guys have in mind) could at least set up an Aspiring Member Support area of the guild; I think that it would be unfair just to provide a mission statement and expect the writer to just go and get published (an exaggeration, of course, to make a point). I think one thing that the guild could do is help writers know what exactly can make a story good enough to be published.



M. Le Renard said:


> By the way... thanks so much, KatmanDu, for starting this thread.  It's been brilliant so far, even if nothing ends up coming of it.



I second that opinion  It's been a long while since I've been able to partake in such intelligent discussion with any fellow writers, and I certainly can's recall doing much of it on the forums (with exception going perhaps to the 'I Suck' Thread).

And I just thought I'd say that even though I may not be the kind of qualified that some of the more experienced writers here are looking at in regards to the guild, I'm glad I've participated in this workshop. Not only has it reminded me of why I love writing in the first place, it has helped me further get to know an intelligent and amiable group of people, and a goal to aspire to and work for


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## nybx4life (Apr 6, 2010)

Now, because I personally believe there is some worth to this thread instead of hopeful what-ifs, shouldn't there be someone that personally notes down what is mentioned?

After all, this is somewhat a large concept, with each subsection needed to go on.
It's best to record what is said, so few repeats are given.


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## duroc (Apr 6, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Personally, I don't like the whole idea of 'publication credits' all that much.  Mainly because it would be a little difficult to implement.



See, and to me, the publication credit is simple, cut and dry.  Here's my issue with auditions.  I just see it being abused, or it'll make people feel even more hurt in the long run.  I mean, who's going to be responsible for the audition process?  Is it the person who runs the site, or specific members, or all members?  If it's the person running it, people will see it as that person playing favoritism depending on who gets in and who doesn't.  If it's specific members making the calls, it'll come across as clique-ish.  If it's every member, than I can see it as somebody's friend's friend's friend getting in, and we're right back where we started.  A bunch of writers, and not everyone's there for the right reason.   I guess we're screwed if we do and screwed if we don't.  



Altamont said:


> Personally, I think the audition system would be far less complicated than you may be fearing



Please read above because I'm lazy.  Thank you.  



Altamont said:


> How about this, in regards to exclusivity. If nothing else, we (or perhaps "you", seeing as my qualifications may not be in line with what you guys have in mind) could at least set up an Aspiring Member Support area of the guild; I think that it would be unfair just to provide a mission statement and expect the writer to just go and get published (an exaggeration, of course, to make a point). I think one thing that the guild could do is help writers know what exactly can make a story good enough to be published.



And that was part of the original purpose.  Look, if anybody wants to look at the idea I was thinking about, go take a look at the SFWA website.  

www.sfwa.org

That site is not limited to just members.  Yes, there is a members section, but parts of the site is open to all writers.  Another thing that I would like to see is not only a forum exclusive to members, but also a forum open to all writers.  My plan wasn't to have this specific writers club, but a site anyone can use.  But yes, I'd still like to see a membership with qualified writers.  This isn't about helping a small group of published writers, but helping anthropomorphic writing as a whole.  

I feel like I'm totally not making myself understood.  :|


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## jinxtigr (Apr 7, 2010)

I can cite professional publication- hell, I can cite worldwide professional publication as a writer- but it's as an AUDIO writer. I ran a couple pieces in 'The Absolute Sound', more than a decade ago.

If it's about getting into the decaying hulk of SF/fantasy short story markets or novel publication, I am absolutely not interested in dealing with it. I'd happily make an exception for say Sofawolf, but I feel they have enough people bugging them already and haven't inquired beyond the most basic pleasantries.

One thing about it, though- you can be comfortably certain that anyone who IS managing any form of career in the fringes of professional publication and doing the 'query, get lost in slushpile, copy out stack of MSS pages to send off to bored and overwhelmed agents yet again' dance is at least working hard at their career, and that is probably the key point here. They may just not HAVE a career in that sense- just the qualifications for one.

I'm curious about what constitutes pro publication- does nonfiction count?

However, I think it is sort of a grandfather clause, because the odds of even talented writers jumping on THAT bandwagon are nil with print in crisis. It's a dumb requirement if you want to bring any new people in.


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## Poetigress (Apr 7, 2010)

Audio and electronic/online markets are considered publication, so the "print in crisis" aspect is a nonissue in that regard. 

As to whether nonfiction would count in this case, that would be something to discuss. I think the concept of the site, though, is geared toward writers working in fiction, so if that's the case, I don't know if nonfiction publication could be considered for qualification.


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## jinxtigr (Apr 7, 2010)

Oh noes, scorned! ;P hehe


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