LJ Idol Presents:

More generally, I think that you can replace fanfic or serials with anything that isn't sort of 'Idol Standard'. I think every season has a trend toward a type of entry that folks like to write / the audience likes to read. (It shifts from season to season, and it shifts with the audience.)

And while an entry should stand on its own feet, I think deviating from that norm does mean you're playing with fire ... no matter how well written your serialized slash autobiographical fanfic poetry may be. You have a lot of competition for attention out there, after all. (Well, okay, not so much at this point in the competition.)

Personally, I had the most fun with the meta-entries that were not, by anyone's metric, proper stories. And for the most part, the audience disagreed with me on that. :-) It's a risk one takes, though. (Besides, who wants to write the same thing over and over again?)