22 May 2010

Q: Why Megami Tensei instead of Persona Series?

Sort of a boring question this week, but one worth answering:
Q: Why is this story in the "Megami Tensei" section and not the "Persona Series" section (or both)?

A: Because of carelessness and rules.


First, some background:

When I first got the idea of writing this story, I decided to return to Fanfiction.Net after a several year hiatus. I had always enjoyed the opportunity of getting feedback for a story that FF.Net provides (since no one ever sends me direct messages about stories on my personal site), but it had been years since I'd written anything fandom-related that was worth what I considered the adolescent nonsense of dealing with the site.

I had pulled up stakes from FF.Net because a series of my stories had been deleted for no expressed reason. I believe it may have been because I had labeled a couple of different (complete) stories as parts of a timeline, and someone had misjudged them as being one large story, rather than arcs in an overarching timeframe. (Sort of like seasons in a television series. Each one complete but relating to each other chronologically and event-wise.)

Deciding to take my ball and go home, I left FF.Net for several years...only to return when writing within fandom once again appealed to me. The best place (of which I knew) to "publish" the story was FF.Net. I thought I could get some feedback, and I knew that it would be seen by more than a handful of family and friends...most of whom really don't care about my writing, anyway.

Searching through the list of fandoms, I first stumbled upon the Megami Tensei section, and I recognized it as representing the SMT: Persona 4 game fandom. So, I put the first chapter of "1 More Chance!" there.

I just didn't scroll down far enough through the titles to look for the Persona Series section. So, it was just carelessness/laziness on my part.

I've thought over time of switching the story to the Persona Series section, but I get a little concerned that readers who have been following the story will miss it if it jumps sections. Plus, the Persona Series section gets updated with new stories much more quickly, which means that my story would not remain on the front page for very long. That problem doesn't seem to happen in the Megami Tensei section.

And, I won't post a duplicate instance of the same story within two different sections, because that's against the rules of the site. Other writers do it, and that's their decision, but I won't. Maybe it's my Type A personality at work, following the letter of the law, but rules are rules, and I don't think that it's costing me any more readers than having the M Rating does.

I may decide to switch sections for the story once it's finished, as I'll need to figure out where the remaining stories are going to go, and I don't want to run into this conundrum again. But that's a Rubicon for later.

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