My most popular stories have been the ones where I’m just fictionalizing things that I’m actually feeling and add a happy ending. I assume they will be unpopular, because frankly I just kind of prattle along and drivel about my character’s feeling, and next thing you know I’m up around 10k words.
Like my most liked story, “Something New,” is just me pretending that the straight farmer woman I had a crush on was actually a lesbian. My second most popular story “Mistakes” was about my feelings after having lunch in a diner parkinglot with the exgirlfriend I was so not over, but in reality controlling bitch is her type and she’s happier with the controlling bitch than she was with laid back me.
I’ve written shorter simple fantasies, they aren’t as loved. It surprised me. My sci-fi, dystopian future and urban fantasy stories, which tend to be shorter, aren’t all that popular either. I plan to keep writing them when the ideas pop into my head anyway.
I get the impulse to want to write things people will like, but I find that rarely actually leads to people loving them. I think it’s a bit like dating and the very cliche advice about being yourself. I never really understood that till I realized how happy the exgf “Mistakes” was based on was with the controlling bitch. I considered trying to win her back by being a controlling bitch, but it wouldn’t have worked in the long run. I would have just driven myself crazy trying to constantly pretend to be someone I wasn’t, and eventually I would have slipped back into my relaxed ways and just let her be herself, and she’d have just gone back to the actual controlling bitch again.
As for what I want to read, short and simple or long and complex? Just depends on my mood.
