I don't think the point of this thread is to find out that most fan fiction are crap, but which stories are over rated. That means it has a lot of hype, and a lot of people love it, but it's not really as good as it is said to be. And yes, if you don't know what to look for, most of the stories on fanfiction.net suck.

 

Whydoyouneedtoknow and her danger-verse.

As the favorite fanfic of the sister of the girl who originally linked me to fanfiction.net, it was one of the first HP fanfiction I checked out, at the time it was awesome, and while I still have a little soft spot for the beginning (even if it's overly sugary sweet and hurts my teeth), the sequels and about anything in Hogwarts and with the heir-house bracelets (or whatever they were,) are introduced is shit, and even when I first read it I noticed that the story had gone out of it's original lines somewhere.

Even so the stories have a shit load of reviews, their own crossovers, Au-fics, and an audio-book version.

 

I remember reading the first fic of the Dangerverse when I was still a noob. It was interesting to me then but nowadays I doubt I'd be able to stand it. From what I remember it uses a great number of clichés and uses them badly. OC!Saviour that is a seer and hooks up with Lupin. They then proceed to cast a curse that has never successfully been cast before (Curse of the Righteous!) despite the fact that there are tons of people out there who have had worse childhoods.

Plus it got really boring after a while since there was very little actual character development or plot moving that I read before I quit.

 

A Story of Hallow's and Horcurxes by Johnny Farrar.
It's not that it's a bad story, but it's not a great story either, the fighting scenes are okay but the dialogue, for me, isn't great, but my biggest concern is the random updates. He only has 4 chapters over the time period of a year and the way people talk about this story makes it seem as if nobody's ever written a story where Harry abandons his friends to search for Horcruxes.

 

I have to say that the most overrated fic I have read is An Aunt's Love by Emma Lipardi, a story filled with so much shit that has gained to many reviews.
It has over 11000 of them.

 

I remember seeing that fic for the first time and thinking "Hmmm, over 10000 reviews, this must be awesome". Needless to say, I was horribly disappointed. Anyway, I have to agree with all those who mentioned the Stranger-verse and for some reason I wasn't as in love with Jbern's works(Bungle and Lie) as some other people.

 

Despite how many seem to love it, I've never gotten past the beginning of Jberns Bungle. I just cannot get used to the 2nd person perspective. I love The Lie I've lived, but Bungle just annoys me.

As for An Aunts Love, its awful for the following it has. I disagree with the poster above me though about it having cliche's. Have you really read that many stories where Harry is sent to a Muggle mental institution where he receives daily therapy, and even becomes an actor?

 

I didn't know such a fucking abomination even existed, nor did I want to.

 

It has produced much lulz for DLP, though.

 

I must say that I'm a bit flattered to find my story here, even though I don't think that it deserves to be called over-rated. The story is hardly talked about all that much. At FF, it has nearly 100 reviews for 25k words. Fairly decent, though it still doesn't compare to some of the stories that I've seen with over 500+ reviews for the same word count. Here at DLP, it isn't all that talked about other than in the WbA thread for the fic. You won't find people recommending it or anything or people singing its praises.

Other than that I agree with just about everything you said. Dialouges aren't great, especially in the opening chapter. I've been thinking about going back and changing the dialogues slightly. I probably will after I finish it. On to updates, yeah, I know they have been fairly sporadic, I intend to finish it before the year end though.


For me the most over-rated story would be Jono's Stranger fics and Flamata's Traitorous from the top of my head. I've read them and liked them overall, but I don't think it is quite as good as all the hype makes it out to be.

As for under-rated stories, all the fics by enembee and Caliburn's Ambient are extremely under-rated at FF.

 

Truth ;D

By the Divining Light has 50 for the same word count. Sigh.

 

I will add that I do enjoy reading your stories, they are better than 90% of the shit out there, and I think your new story is ten times better than Hallows.

 

It takes genius to recognize genius!

 

This is how you make your stories more popular.

1) Shorten chapter length to no more than 2000 words, and even then you are pushing it. I recommend 1100.

2) Make daily or twice daily postings, so you are flooding their email boxes with updates.

3) Include as many cliches as humanly possible.

4) Have secondary characters be gay, but not the main ones so you don't alienate the heteros and you bring in the gays to the mix. Be sure to keep in mind rule 3 when following this as you include Harems into the mix if you do it right... if you do it badly it really doesn't make a difference, the reviews will keep on coming.

5) Veela Draco, I'll say no more.

6) Have no actual plot beyond making sure to fulfill rule 3. For God's sake don't try to be intelligent or intriguing with your plots. People don't like to think... at all... ever.

7) Whine constantly about the meanies at DLP and how you are misunderstood in your author's notes that you weren't supposed to post in the first place.

Follow the rules at a minimum and you'll soon have a blockbuster 10,000 review story!

 

Speaking from experience?

But fast updates actually do help. Not so fast that readers take them for granted, but not seasonal either.

 

Step 8: Profit?

You and your damned truth telling... this is so true it makes me weep.

Add a step where your grammar and spelling are horrendous to the point your story is barely decipherable and, when the odd reviewer with half a brain tells you that your story reads like a cuneiform tablet, you will have LEGIONS of loyal zealots jumping in on your behalf to call him a stupid moron and tell you not to listen to the helpful and factual critiques in the review.

Those kinds of stories get more reviews because the lowest common denominator is, well, common.

 

If we're talking about it, underrated equals ALL of enembee's fics.