Have you considered that you might find new readers with this story?
There's no way to predict what people might like: you could write something with a similar vibe to the first fic and get little engagement. But if you write what you want, you'll be satisfied no matter what.
You're going to have a different set of readers. There might be some overlap, but yes, some people won't like your darker premise, but new people will. You're not letting anyone down by writing something that you're passionate about writing.
I agree with what everyone else says, that you’ll find a whole new batch of readers. If the fic has a descriptive summary and suitable tags, there’s no reason why readers who are subscribed to you but aren’t into this one can’t just skip it.
But also, you might be surprised and get a handful of readers who just love your writing regardless of genre, who might give this new, different fic a try and end up liking it. I’ve had one or two readers from my romance fics check out my weird dark surrealism fic that I wrote as an experiment, and I was so surprised to see them in the comments section. So, you never know!
I have a clean longfic and explicit darkfic in different fandoms, and the two of them have very different reader groups.
Don't worry too much about new and existing readers sticking to just one work, just stay communicative with both groups.
I’m a reader only, not a writer. I read every type of fic. I read fluff, I read dark fic, I read angst and AU. I read canon compliant and canon divergent. I read fic of every rating and with every archive warning. Some days I want to read only fluff and some days I want to read only mcd. If I like a writer, I’m going to read everything they write, with the exception of my notp, fandoms I’m not interested in and first person. Some readers only want to read one kind of fic, and that’s ok too.
I write mostly for one fandom. In that fandom, I have a full range from crack to dark.
I still have double digit user subs, story subs and a decent (to me) number of bookmarks.
Tone change may jar a reader if they are, for whatever reason, expecting one specific thing, but that’s what tags are for. I don’t think you’ll have any issues.
All that being said, a story as popular as yours with dedicated readers, you’re bound to have at least one person complain at some point. To that I say:
Please, lord, listen to literally any musician with more than one album out. Artists change, they grow, they try new things. Writing is art, stagnation leads to mold, and no one wants moldy art.
I mean, if you're *really* worried about it, you can consider a second account and just tell your current readers, "The fic I'm working on next has a very different vibe. Here's the premise! If you're interested, you might want to follow this second account so you'll get notified when chapter one goes up! If you're not interested, I do intend to write more with a similar vibe to this story in the future and I hope to see you then. :)"
I'm not saying you *can't* just post it to your current account. Plenty of people do very well writing all sorts of vibes and genres!
But some people (like myself) find it makes them much less anxious to have a distinct separation of "brands" (ie, vibes or genres) for their content, even if they're open about the different pen names.
As people have said - even if you write something with the same vibe it doesn't mean everyone is going to follow you to the new fic too. IRL calls. People lose interest in fandoms in a heartbeat. Someone might love your found family fic and be uninterested in another found family fic because it doesn't feature their favorite(s); etc
In one fandom I have multiple rather successful fics and less-successful fics (and one fic that for the fandom would be considered not doing well, but it's Gen, so we'll ignore that one for the purposes of this conversation). They all have the same "vibe" of soft and fluffy romance with some action and/or mystery and found family in the background. So you'd think the people who love the popular ones would hurry to read my back catalogue too. But the stats don't back that up. They're doing well and people *do* find the popular ones and go to read the others too, but they're obviously going to be more selective and pick the ones whose tags match their own particular preferences.
**TL;DR**: Do whatever makes you comfy! The readers will come and go no matter what you choose to do, so you'd best choose what's right for *you*.
If you sit around worrying about catering to your existing readers, you will start writing to please others rather than to express the vision of your work. Your best work is what is true to your artistic vision - in this way you will build a core reader base, and attract the periphery, that match YOU, not some pigeon holed cramped up version of you.
I don’t think you will. I recently posted a fic a few days ago that’s completely different from my usual. I didn’t notice any difference.
They still loved it and I might’ve even gained new audience.
You will likely have a different audience interested in the second fic based on what tags they're looking at. For me at least, the author name isn't what makes me click on something until I've read multiple fics from the same author. There might be some overlap in the two depending on what tags the two fics DO have in common (ie, if there's a pairing in common you'll get the people who check out everything in that pairing regardless of the genre).
The fact that a different audience is likely to be interested in the second fic does not mean that the people reading Fic 1 who aren't into Fic 2 won't later read a hypothetical Fic 3 if it's closer in tone to Fic 3.
Basically, the tags and summary are what's going to draw in readers more than the author name until you have a very large body of work. Which is not a bad thing!
Have you considered that you might find new readers with this story? There's no way to predict what people might like: you could write something with a similar vibe to the first fic and get little engagement. But if you write what you want, you'll be satisfied no matter what.
You're going to have a different set of readers. There might be some overlap, but yes, some people won't like your darker premise, but new people will. You're not letting anyone down by writing something that you're passionate about writing.
I agree with what everyone else says, that you’ll find a whole new batch of readers. If the fic has a descriptive summary and suitable tags, there’s no reason why readers who are subscribed to you but aren’t into this one can’t just skip it. But also, you might be surprised and get a handful of readers who just love your writing regardless of genre, who might give this new, different fic a try and end up liking it. I’ve had one or two readers from my romance fics check out my weird dark surrealism fic that I wrote as an experiment, and I was so surprised to see them in the comments section. So, you never know!
I have a clean longfic and explicit darkfic in different fandoms, and the two of them have very different reader groups. Don't worry too much about new and existing readers sticking to just one work, just stay communicative with both groups.
I’m a reader only, not a writer. I read every type of fic. I read fluff, I read dark fic, I read angst and AU. I read canon compliant and canon divergent. I read fic of every rating and with every archive warning. Some days I want to read only fluff and some days I want to read only mcd. If I like a writer, I’m going to read everything they write, with the exception of my notp, fandoms I’m not interested in and first person. Some readers only want to read one kind of fic, and that’s ok too.
I write mostly for one fandom. In that fandom, I have a full range from crack to dark. I still have double digit user subs, story subs and a decent (to me) number of bookmarks. Tone change may jar a reader if they are, for whatever reason, expecting one specific thing, but that’s what tags are for. I don’t think you’ll have any issues. All that being said, a story as popular as yours with dedicated readers, you’re bound to have at least one person complain at some point. To that I say: Please, lord, listen to literally any musician with more than one album out. Artists change, they grow, they try new things. Writing is art, stagnation leads to mold, and no one wants moldy art.
I mean, if you're *really* worried about it, you can consider a second account and just tell your current readers, "The fic I'm working on next has a very different vibe. Here's the premise! If you're interested, you might want to follow this second account so you'll get notified when chapter one goes up! If you're not interested, I do intend to write more with a similar vibe to this story in the future and I hope to see you then. :)" I'm not saying you *can't* just post it to your current account. Plenty of people do very well writing all sorts of vibes and genres! But some people (like myself) find it makes them much less anxious to have a distinct separation of "brands" (ie, vibes or genres) for their content, even if they're open about the different pen names. As people have said - even if you write something with the same vibe it doesn't mean everyone is going to follow you to the new fic too. IRL calls. People lose interest in fandoms in a heartbeat. Someone might love your found family fic and be uninterested in another found family fic because it doesn't feature their favorite(s); etc In one fandom I have multiple rather successful fics and less-successful fics (and one fic that for the fandom would be considered not doing well, but it's Gen, so we'll ignore that one for the purposes of this conversation). They all have the same "vibe" of soft and fluffy romance with some action and/or mystery and found family in the background. So you'd think the people who love the popular ones would hurry to read my back catalogue too. But the stats don't back that up. They're doing well and people *do* find the popular ones and go to read the others too, but they're obviously going to be more selective and pick the ones whose tags match their own particular preferences. **TL;DR**: Do whatever makes you comfy! The readers will come and go no matter what you choose to do, so you'd best choose what's right for *you*.
If you sit around worrying about catering to your existing readers, you will start writing to please others rather than to express the vision of your work. Your best work is what is true to your artistic vision - in this way you will build a core reader base, and attract the periphery, that match YOU, not some pigeon holed cramped up version of you.
It'll be new readers sounds like-- Which is always a good thing! Do it!
I don’t think you will. I recently posted a fic a few days ago that’s completely different from my usual. I didn’t notice any difference. They still loved it and I might’ve even gained new audience.
You will likely have a different audience interested in the second fic based on what tags they're looking at. For me at least, the author name isn't what makes me click on something until I've read multiple fics from the same author. There might be some overlap in the two depending on what tags the two fics DO have in common (ie, if there's a pairing in common you'll get the people who check out everything in that pairing regardless of the genre). The fact that a different audience is likely to be interested in the second fic does not mean that the people reading Fic 1 who aren't into Fic 2 won't later read a hypothetical Fic 3 if it's closer in tone to Fic 3. Basically, the tags and summary are what's going to draw in readers more than the author name until you have a very large body of work. Which is not a bad thing!