How arrogant were you when you first came here

[Agentt]

Well, on August 2019, I saw a dream, and that was such an amazing one, I wanted to write it. So, I wrote about it on word and when it was completed, I posted it here chapter by chapter.
I was so arrogant that I didn't even write a synopsis. I just wrote that it is written by me and that it's not for kids. And, well. I was really expecting people to get intimidated by my confidence like they show in movies. The dream of making millions was almost within my reach, till I decided one day to read my work and got cringed so hard I deleted the hell out of it. I still want to write it but romance is more difficult than I thought.
And, well, please tell me I am not alone...

 

[Draconite]

Well uhh not much really, after reading countless novels you'll realize that you're not special, not at all.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Well, on August 2019, I saw a dream, and that was such an amazing one, I wanted to write it. So, I wrote about it on word and when it was completed, I posted it here chapter by chapter.
I was so arrogant that I didn't even write a synopsis. I just write that it is written by me and that it's not for kids. And, well. I was really expecting people to get intimidated by my confidence like they show in movies. The dream of making millions was almost within my reach, till I decided one day to read my work and got cringed so hard I deleted the hell out of it. I still want to write it but romance is more difficult than I thought.
And, well, please tell me I am not alone...

Its not arrogance when im right

 

[Agentt]

Well uhh not much really, after reading countless novels you'll realize that you're not special, not at all.

Yeah, it was my first time on such this site, I have always been on NU, and I highly underestimated the skill of these people.

 

[DubstheDuke]

I mean I was definitely pretty arrogant when I first came on, still am. But, I've learned that my work isn't as good as I thought it was at the time, however I still think my work is very good even if I know it has flaws.

 

[Agentt]

Its not arrogance when im right

Keep that up.

 

[KyoruS]

Wait you guys were highly arrogant when you come here?!

 

[LostLibrarian]

One of the benefits of reading a lot is to have a better grasp of your own writing.
I knew from day one that my writing sucked. So I never was delusional enough to be arrogant... :D

 

[Deleted member 49654]

Well, on August 2019, I saw a dream, and that was such an amazing one, I wanted to write it. So, I wrote about it on word and when it was completed, I posted it here chapter by chapter.
I was so arrogant that I didn't even write a synopsis. I just wrote that it is written by me and that it's not for kids. And, well. I was really expecting people to get intimidated by my confidence like they show in movies. The dream of making millions was almost within my reach, till I decided one day to read my work and got cringed so hard I deleted the hell out of it. I still want to write it but romance is more difficult than I thought.
And, well, please tell me I am not alone...

So, you had a wet dream and decided to publish it, but people were not getting as excited as you expected?

PS: I am writing as a hobby, and I am lazy...There is not really any arrogance I can talk about.

 

[YeetusFeetus]

Well, on August 2019, I saw a dream, and that was such an amazing one, I wanted to write it. So, I wrote about it on word and when it was completed, I posted it here chapter by chapter.
I was so arrogant that I didn't even write a synopsis. I just wrote that it is written by me and that it's not for kids. And, well. I was really expecting people to get intimidated by my confidence like they show in movies. The dream of making millions was almost within my reach, till I decided one day to read my work and got cringed so hard I deleted the hell out of it. I still want to write it but romance is more difficult than I thought.
And, well, please tell me I am not alone...

I cringe at my work too, at the time I was writing it was because I felt like I needed to do something with my free time so I decided to give writing a try.

I never thought myself to be better than anyone else or anything, I wanted to at least hope that I was average, since I know that there are people who are far better than me in writing and plotting.

 

[Agentt]

So, you had a wet dream and decided to publish it, but people were not getting as excited as you expected?

PS: I am writing as a hobby, and I am lazy...There is not really any arrogance I can talk about.

Yes. An oversimplification of events, but yes.

 

[LordJoyde]

When I came here? Not at all. However, I started my writing career on Fanfiction.net, whereas I was so arrogant that I used to unironically compliment myself randomly (OMFG I'm so original and cool), much like this in the middle of my own chapters.
Keep in mind though, I was 12 at the time.
As for ScribbleHub, when I came here, I was legitimately devastated as a person, since my 'Yellow Book', a collection of smut that I'd written over severals years which included paid commissions and the like, was suddenly and without warning, taken down and deleted by an angry admin on Royalroadl, despite me having a screenshot to prove that my story was approved years prior by another admin.
This meant that my source of teenage income was destroyed in a single day and I was pretty much unwilling to build myself up as a porn writer again.
This in turn resulted in me writing something out of the height of my depression, that being my 'Lord Of Horrors', a cringe fest that was thankfully never finished, which you can find here on ScribbleHub as I ran away to this site after that exile from Royalroadl.

..but seriously, don't read it. Apart from like, the psycho twincest smut chapter, the story isn't worth anyone's time.

 

[Reisinling]

When I came here? Not at all. However, I started my writing career on Fanfiction.net, whereas I was so arrogant that I used to unironically compliment myself randomly (OMFG I'm so original and cool), much like this in the middle of my own chapters.
Keep in mind though, I was 12 at the time.
As for ScribbleHub, when I came here, I was legitimately devastated as a person, since my 'Yellow Book', a collection of smut that I'd written over severals years which included paid commissions and the like, was suddenly and without warning, taken down and deleted by an angry admin on Royalroadl, despite me having a screenshot to prove that my story was approved years prior by another admin.
This meant that my source of teenage income was destroyed in a single day and I was pretty much unwilling to build myself up as a porn writer again.
This in turn resulted in me writing something out of the height of my depression, that being my 'Lord Of Horrors', a cringe fest that was thankfully never finished, which you can find here on ScribbleHub as I ran away to this site after that exile from Royalroadl.

..but seriously, don't read it. Apart from like, the psycho twincest smut chapter, the story isn't worth anyone's time.

Bwahaha. Sorry, but that chapter title made me laugh :D
But I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. But man, you had a source of income writing as a teenager? We live in good times.

To answer the question- nope. I was stoked to get even 30 readers, which motivated me to continue. I came here thinking I can write better isekai than the bottom of the barrel that I was reading at the moment. And, even with all the problems I see in m story, making me want to rewrite it... it's still better than some of the trash I read. Seriously.

Though it did humble me as to how much work is involved in writing even okay fiction. Like the writing process itself, I thought it's like 80% idea brainstorming, 20% execution, instead its 5% brainstorming, 95% making sure what you wrote is at least slightly legible.

 

[AktenDreams]

Well not long ago I happened to feel the same. I went to write but after writing a lot I noticed so few people came to read, unlike what I imagined people would do. But I still kept going and from time to time I go back and fix the grammar mistakes. There is the link to to see my work if interested.

Just a Dream ( First Draft; Complete)

Volume 1: Mir escaped the Void and returned to Reality. There he has the chance to follow his Dreams in whichever form they appear, but first, he has to settle things at home. Volume 2: Done with settling things at home, Mir journeys around the World to explore and enjoy it, all...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[KiraMinoru]

Arrogant? Who’s got time to be arrogant? I don’t even know why people read my shit half the time.

 

[LordAstrea]

Not at all. I felt I would never get it to the point where it did the catgirls justice. I dont know if they are pleased, find it acceptable or hate it. One day...one day...

 

[Deleted member 45782]

Not really. When I transitioned from Mirakee to Wattpad, I thought I could try write stories. I do want to see if I can publish and pursue writing as more than just a hobby one day and people can read and love my books but that just an unrealistic dream. If one is lazy like me or unfocused, it'll be hard for that dream to come true anyways. Plus, I'm an amateur writer. It also takes awhile for you to get Wattpad readers, though and it wasn't like I was very strong advertising the few stories I posted. However it was eh when I transitioned to Wattpad since I had to study and some other stuff.

By time I got on to ScribbleHub, I was researching what writing platform alternative to Wattpad (due to data breach last yr). While ScrubbleHub has very good markdown compared to other sites and less fishy stuff, I also know the stories I want to write and would post on a writing platform are not something I would deeply care about and are in popular genres here. And similarly, there's other stuff going on too...so I'm not 100% focused on trying to nab the top writing spot on here, nor do I expect to become famous and well liked story on here. Especially since I'm not very concentrated in my writing either, I tend drift off and on from being active. Or the opposite of what I say - if inactive, I'll probably post something right after or if active but still taking long time to update anything.

The fact that it has some views is pretty good enough. I'm happy. I do hope to write more different genres than popular ones here, and maybe help push some more variety in genres than popular ones here, but I do not expect to become famous or on top trending list.

Expect less. Not too low, but not too high either. Be realistic with your goals and ambitions. Dreams stay dreams unless there's a huge effort to push it to become real, besides some luck too.

Mostly effort though what you put in and how it churns out.

 

[EternalSunset0]

Didn't expect much to be honest. I guess it also helped that I already worked with someone on a long story way back, so I knew how difficult getting consistent readership is tough unless you are really good (spoilers: I'm not), have enough luck, or know the market very well. But I still wrote my series because I have such a fan time imagining myself watching it as an anime.

Plus, I don't think much of my series anyway. Right from the beginning, my ideal for it is as one of those seasonal 2-cours that will probably land somewhere in the high 6s to low 7s in MAL and have a small (but very active in making art, fighting over best girl, or posting lewds of the girls) fanbase, probably get some Megami pinups for its run and could get a second or third season to completely adapt the story since I paced it in a way that a cour takes up around 2 volumes.

But I enjoyed writing it. I enjoyed imagining the scenes. I enjoyed trying to learn how to draw because of it. I got a couple of new friends through it, and that's all that matters for me.

So, I guess, I'm not too arrogant in terms of finding success as a writer. I do have some ridiculous imagination, not regarding the story itself, but with real life stuff like those anime adaptation things I spent two paragraphs on just now.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I'd just gotten banned from Wattpad after winning a bunch of awards, so I was and still am pretty arrogant.

 

[Jemini]

Yeah, it was my first time on such this site, I have always been on NU, and I highly underestimated the skill of these people.

I actually experienced that too. It was a little shocking seeing how much more skilled the average level of the English original stories were compared to the average level of the Japanese translated ones. I would like to emphisize, I did say AVERAGE. As in, not the top level writers but the standard of the people near the middle. (The top of the top JP writers are still better than the top of the top Eng, but I suspect that has more to do with time and bulk of content than ability of the culture. The JP webnovel community has been around for around 20 years, the English counterpart for less than 5 overall. 2012 was also something of a freak year where a lot of amazing JP writers all hit their stride at the same time, so that nice outlier year helps boost their numbers as well.)

Anyway, that actually did make me a little arrogant at first, combined with the fact that I had written a few quick mini fan-fictions for the LCD for Death Mage (The reason I originally came over here was to post my Vandaleu meets Ainz Oal Gown crossover fan-fic in an easier to find and more accessible place than in pieces spread out through a discussion thread.) The community from the LCD gave me a lot of high praise for it, so that inflated my ego a bit when I decided to go ahead and write my own original work.

That said, I was NOWHERE NEAR as bad as you laid out in the OP. I still did my research on what works and what doesn't by reading over a few of the English original fics here and looking at the statistics algorithms. I had figured out a little bit about how to game the system before posting my chapter, and I showed the first few chapters to some of my family before ever posting. I went through all the proper steps, but my expectations were still disproportionate to reality. Really, the only reason I was even able to compete in those early days was because I got in on the first few months after SH went up and there were literally only 500 series on the site, which allowed me to trend way higher than I otherwise would have. Plus, a lot of the better series were carry-overs from Royal Road and a lot of the readers just looked at the Royal Road version instead of the SH version since a lot of them weren't as diligent about keeping their SH versions up to date.

Once some actually competent writers started coming over to SH, that's when I really started getting smacked down and humbled. I've improved a lot since then and my reboots are far better than my original attempts, but now I have been humbled enough to know I am probably on the low end among the writers who have actual skill, and a year or so ago I do not thing the "actual skill" part of that assessment applied at all despite my thoughts to the contrary at the time. I am still trying to improve through all of that and do what I can now that I have had my wake-up call.