Story Archives Discussion

[lustful_orcs]

I'm wondering at what archives writers here post their stories on besides GA, or more in general: what are good archives to post stories on? It never hurts to have an extra archive to display your works on, especially a quality archive with kosher rules and guidelines.

 

Let's discuss archives, their fine print and the degree to which gay fiction is welcomed there.

[NickolasJames8]

Well there's NIfty, then there's the other sites like The Talon House, CRVboy and Awesomedude

[Lucy Kemnitzer]

Awesome Dude

RCWP

CRVBoy

The Doghouse

 

These are all gay themed archives. These are not, but at least one author from here has his work there as well:

fictionpress

Adultfanfiction

 

The first four are all easy to use as a reader. The first three all update fairly regularly, almost like clockwork. The Doghouse goes through periods of regular updating. They all have good stories on them and each is the primary home of a writer I like.

 

I don't much care for the last two. They are so big that individual stories are hard to find. There doesn't seem to be a culture of beta reading or even proof reading, so the stories can be hard to read due to grammar, spelling, and punctuation problems, not to say structural and language problems. So stories which are posted in those archives can be lost in a kind of discouraging space.

[Dio]

fictionpress

I don't much care for the last two. They are so big that individual stories are hard to find. There doesn't seem to be a culture of beta reading or even proof reading, so the stories can be hard to read due to grammar, spelling, and punctuation problems, not to say structural and language problems. So stories which are posted in those archives can be lost in a kind of discouraging space.

 

Like any large unmoderate archive, there are good stories and bad. However, I have found several excellent stories on fictionpress that aren't available anywhere else (to my knowledge). Yes, many of them are unedited, but the same can be said for archives like nifty. Take the good with the bad. Fictionpress at least has an excellent search function.

 

If you are looking for gay stories, you can usually narrow the search down to M ratings, or seach directly for tags like [slash] or [yaoi] within the story summary. It takes more effort, but sometimes it's highly rewarding. Checking out how many times a story has been reviewed can also be a good indicator as to how well it is written and edited. (Of course, there are exceptions. I read one story that looked like it was edited by a three year old but was reviewed 1025 times by rabid fangirls who don't really care how bad the medium is). Also, limiting your search to >20K or >40K words will aid in weeding out the garbage extra junk we all so detest.

 

And technically you aren't supposed to be posting graphic stories on FP, but that doesn't stop anyone from posting juicy sex scenes >_> Or reading them, for that matter. They are very accepting of gay stories though.

 

 

I can't say I care for adultfanfiction. The brief period I tried to post stories the site was laggy, crashed, and was generally just crappy on a broad scale. I'm boycotting it out of bitterness.

 

-db-

[Graeme]

DeweyWriter is another gay story archive, with a mainly PG rating.

 

The Fort Family is a collection of related gay-themed story sites, many of which concentrate on stories set in the Clan Short Universe (star-trek alternate universe), though other stories and genres are also hosted.

 

As with most of the sites mentioned so far, these are story archives that host selected authors. They are not open for posting by anyone, though most (if not all) are always on the lookout for new authors.

 

Just to show I'm totally biased my stories are hosted at AwesomeDude, DeweyWriter and The Story Lover's Home (one of the Fort Family sites).

[Jack Scribe]

I'm wondering at what archives writers here post their stories on besides GA, or more in general: what are good archives to post stories on?

 

The compilation of the lists mentioned in the other posts should be added in a writer's (and reader's) MY FAVORITES. Excellent suggestions. Please consider the following:

 

Nick Archer's Archerland - http://archerland.disbelieve.org/. Good solid variety of material. Nice selection of adult-themed stories. The only negative is the lack of an updating notation.

 

IOMFATS - http://www.iomfats.org/. Primarily appealing to the teen reader.

 

Mail Crew - http://www.themailcrew.com. Squeaky-clean for the younger crowd.

 

Lastly, I need to plug a good friend's site:

 

My Gay Stories - http://www.mygaystories.com/index.htm. While Terry Audette only posts his stories here, he has a "Stories I Like" section that is continually updated. The blog is very personal and amusing.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Jack

[Graeme]

Mail Crew - http://archerland.disbelieve.org/. Squeaky-clean for the younger crowd.

The Mail Crew site is http://www.themailcrew.com

 

While they have some stories on their site, they do not consider themselves to be a story site. They are certainly not a story archive site.

 

Having said that, they have a great site and I'd recommend to everyone, especially any teen members, to have a look at it.

[Dusk]

In addition to the sites I mentioned in this post and this post, I've posted stories at BDSM Library (which doesn't have many gay stories, but my stories are likely to stand out for that very reason) and Slash Cotillion (which hosts historical fiction and historical fantasy).

 

I'm really more enthusiastic, though, about announcing stories though LiveJournal (as I describe in that first link) than about archiving. If I'm going to submit a story to three archives, it will take me about two hours to reformat the HTML file three times (in order to get it to fit with each archive's particular requirements) and go through the submissions procedure three times. In the same amount of time, I can post a single announcement a hundred times on LiveJournal.