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SECTION: GENERIC RANTS RANT TOPIC: CLICKBAIT FICS WORD COUNT: 921 WORDS
𖤐₊ ˚ .༄𖤐
CLICKBAIT FICS. What are they? More importantly, why they need to be stopped. This rant comes from a discussion with my old friend lex-uh (I think the username was changed since this rant was written back in the day) who introduced me to what I like to call "clickbait fanfics." It's a term that I've coined when I first wrote this rant but once I explain what it means, you'll probably know what I'm talking about.
Clickbait fanfics, in essence, are fanfics that have a bunch of fancy summary pages and endless graphic chapters with maybe one or two actual chapters about the fanfic itself.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all here for aesthetic formats! It took me up to this year (2021) to realize that the whole format of this book was ugly enough as it was and now here I am redoing my chapters and making this whole book look more aesthetically pleasing to my eye. It's okay to have a chapter dedicated to your cast, to the summary of your story and the occasional two chapters that contain aesthetics, graphics, playlists and whatever else you want to add in to suit the vibe you're trying to convey for your fic.
When I refer to clickbait fics, I mean the fics you see roaming around where there's like three or four chapters that contain graphics, playlists, more graphics, sometimes thank you's to one person for making a whole new cover. The funny thing is, there's the summary and maybe even one chapter amidst all of the other things they have going on about making their book look fancy as possible. Sure, we all want to have an aesthetic book, but I would like to read a story where I don't have to go through NINE pages of just graphics before actually getting into the story itself.
Mind you, there are more graphics in the whole book than words themselves. I remember onetime reading this fic that I thought would be interesting only for it to have like five long chapters worth of aesthetics and maybe two chapters of the book itself. The chapters weren't even long there were even MORE graphics in the fic and barely enough for me to understand what the whole point of the fic was. Which sucked because the plot seemed wonderful but there was an unequal ratio between graphics and chapters.
I'm not trying to imply that graphics are bad at all. I'm all for seeing those pretty crackship gifs and playlists that many authors spend their time making. I'm just tired of seeing fics where you could be reading two chapters of the story and when you're about to read the next chapter it's just one page saying: "thanks so much to @/certainperson for making this cover!" I just want to know what happens to your story, not who makes your covers every other week!
If you're so keen about showcasing all of your graphics there are other ways to show them off rather than placing them after every chapter you write. There are books called graphic showcases where you can showcase all of the graphics and things dedicated to your book especially rather than spamming them in your story. Sure, we would all love to see your playlists and gifs, but there's so much you want to see especially when your readers have more of an intention on wanting to know more about the plot of your fic.
It's going to come to a point where your readers are going to stop keeping that book in their libraries and waiting for that new chapter to show up. Judging by how many times they'll open the book only to see like ten words thanking someone for a new graphic or cover instead of knowing what happens next. Not only is it annoying, but that's not fanfic you're writing. You're just showcasing your graphics in the form of fanfic. That's the difference.
An example of a clickbait fic could look like the following (taken from a fic that I actually tried to read one time because the plot looked interesting) example below:
1) EXTENDED SUMMARY 2) CAST 2) PLAYLIST 3) AESTHETICS & GIFS 4) GIFSET 5) REST OF THE GIFSET 6) COVERS & AESTHETICS PEOPLE MADE FOR THIS BOOK 7) DEDICATIONS 8) TRAILERS 9) CHAPTER ONE
That's exactly six chapters dedicated towards graphics (unless you add in graphics in the cast chapter), an extended summary, dedication page and last of all one chapter. I don't know about you but that SCREAMS clickbait fanfic in so many ways. You would not believe how aggravating it was for me to move from the extended summary —which was quite detailed— to almost six chapters of non-stop graphics to get to chapter one which was shorter than the summary itself.
Just keep this in mind for notice. If you want to showcase your graphics maybe make a new book instead of spamming your readers about who made a new cover for you or who made some moodboards for your OC. I can vouch for myself when I saw I don't want to see six chapters of graphics only to get to a chapter with fewer words than the graphics combined. Also, comment here if you have found any clickbait fanfics! I'm curious to know if you've stumbled upon these fics too.
