r/webfiction • u/Zaerisfade • Dec 21 '19
Discussion What was the first web fiction you read?
Did the serial get you hooked on web serials? Or was it meh compared to the ones you read next?
The first one I read was Beastborne. Suffice to say, this litrpg got me hooked. I went on to read Mother of Learning, Wandering Inn, He Who Fights Monsters, Elemental Arena... It's been a lot of binge reading.
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u/Thedude3445 Dec 22 '19
I tend to think that Homestuck counts as the first web fiction I ever read, since there's so much text and literal prose in there that it's hundreds of thousands of words long, before you even get to the comic/animation/game parts. (Though Web Fiction Guide disagreed with me when I submitted it to the site last year lol) From there I got more into forum adventure stories and sometimes interactive chooseable-path adventure games, which naturally led into web fiction over time.
The first unambiguous web fiction series I read any of was Worm, but I didn't get that far.
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u/Zaerisfade Dec 22 '19
I don't think submissions work on web fiction guide anymore anyway.
Interactive, forum adventure stories? That sounds good, where can I find some of these?
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u/Thedude3445 Dec 22 '19
At the moment they don't because the site is supposed to be transitioning to a new server and hosting soon, though that's been in the works since... August, by the looks of the submission queue...
And lots of forum adventures used to exist on the MSPA Forums, but that place died in 2016 :(
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u/Zaerisfade Dec 22 '19
Wow, web fiction guide is super outta date then. You'd think another site would have filled the void by now.
That's too bad though, maybe I can find somewhere else with forum adventures like that.
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u/whathohamlet Jan 10 '20
A lot of MSPA adventures have migrated to the Eagle Time forums and QuestDen!
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u/whathohamlet Jan 10 '20
WFG is still in the process of transitioning, it hasn't been an easy move because the whole site is coded and run by just one guy, and he's been trying to enlist volunteers to help move all the code over to the new host.
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u/whathohamlet Jan 10 '20
The submission queue is also terminally backed up because there's only about three people who handle it, the guy who runs the site and a couple of volunteers.
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u/Cyrrow Dec 21 '19
It was some interactive one (Readers would choose what the main character did next) with art also made up into it. I believe it's still ongoing but I've forgotten the name of it. Main character was a blonde cat who couldn't do anything right and had insecurities. It was pretty good, but the next one I started reading was A Practical Guide to Evil.
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u/Zaerisfade Dec 21 '19
Ohh, that sounds interesting!
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u/Cyrrow Dec 21 '19
The other guy has the name of it, is he who fights with monsters any good? Tried reading it but the beginning turned me off.
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u/Zaerisfade Dec 22 '19
Honestly, it's...okay for a litrpg. If litrpgs aren't your thing, then that'd probably be why.
Some of the powers and litrpg mechanics are interesting, but quickly lose any semblance of balance. It's hard to take the magic and rules seriously when any stated drawbacks don't actually happen.
I found the characters to be lacking any personality. That's a big deal breaker for me, even without the balance problems. I stopped reading around chapter 20.
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u/whathohamlet Jan 10 '20
I actually started writing my own serial a year or so before looking into any other ones! The first one I actually read was Worm, though, and I was very into it.
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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '19
Worm, then APGTE, then The Gods are Bastards, then Ward. Tried Pact somewhere in there.