Perhaps I will go on hiatus and finish book one

[JayDirex]

I'll cut to the chase, and hopefully help some authors on the way. But I'm dropping my well crafted, perfect grammar, pure structure, well received (by the VERY FEW who like it) novel. Now 50K plus words in.

Like many Authors up here desperately seeking the secret formula (which I now know what it is), I kept thinking that it was, not only a good story, but mostly theme and setting that hooked readers: (LITRPG, ISEKAI, SMUT) along with action. The truth is those tags help (and mine was not Litrpg or smut...just isekai) but where I went wrong.

Pay Attention

When you TRULY look at what not only trends, but has a lot of readers actually reading and commenting are stories where the plots and conflicts are very INTERPERSONAL. Meaning, yes person is sucked into another world and has to figure stuff out, but the sticky stories are the ones where the MAIN PLOT is about that very struggle with other people (via romance, individual revenge,) the point is the conflict REALLY involves person on person conflict on a PERSONAL level.

AS OPPOSED to my story, and many others fantasy style stories like mine, where the plot is more general. Mine is a perfect example: Competent Mercenaries (meaning not too much at a disadvantage when they are isekaid- and that is BAD because that lowered their stakes, as opposed to a virgin game developer sent to another world- he has higher stakes because he is at such a disadvantage) and when they get there the plot becomes about NOBLES, and winning their war, and finding the crystal that can lead to the: .zzzzzzzzzzz Lost the audience by chapter 8.

OF COURSE I HAVE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS IN THE STORY- it's FKN ROMANCE!! - but the romance and all of that is SUB-PLOT...that happens in between them going from place to place and fighting and etc.

And for the past 8 months of writing this pointless story, i was ALWAYS just focused on the PROPER CRAFT OF WRITING. CLARITY. STRUCTURE Character Motivation....and wanted to FLING MY LAPTOP at all of the piss-poor grammar trash up here that has waaaay more actual readers than my story.

Only now my self-righteous ass Finally gets it.

Moral of the story: To heck with your fantasy world and your overarching plot. If you want people to read your story- Focus the plot around the interpersonal. The individual struggle of people between people about people stuff (revenge, sex, lies, history between them, falling in love- Problems between individuals on an individual level and LOTS and LOTS OF SEX.

Follow this advice plus a LITRPG and or ISEKAI. I guarantee you will get readers who actually read your stuff.

Here are my numbers, by the way. Completely unacceptable for the amount of work I'm putting in.

and that 143 is an anomaly because that day I hit trending. So it doesn't count

 

[RavensDagger]

I can't tell if this is trolling or not.

 

[S10]

I can't tell if this is trolling or not.

I cannot either.

Just to note, people forget ratings exist on SH

 

[Hathnuz]

Like many Authors up here desperately seeking the secret formula (which I now know what it is), I kept thinking that it was, not only a good story, but mostly theme and setting that hooked readers: (LITRPG, ISEKAI, SMUT) along with action. The truth is those tags help (and mine was not Litrpg or smut...just isekai) but where I went wrong.

This is false imo

The secret formula is actually (for scribblehub) Girls Love and Gender Bender currently, though those 3 genres are still relevant but not as popular as they used to be.

Also, sorry to hear that.

 

[LostLibrarian]

Just to note, people forget ratings exist on SH

Also most authors don't remind them either. I followed advice and started to "beg for likes, ratings, etc" and my stats when up with that.
It's sad and makes one feel dirty, but there is a reason most youtube videos end with "like and subscribe"...



Also I would generally agree with the thread itself. Story is about change and change comes from conflict that can't be overcome with the Status Quo. So if your mercenary group is competent in doing stuff one way, throw them into a situation where their normal approach won't work. Make them great with guns, but they have a problem with ammunition. Make them great with tactics, but they don't work on the new enemy because of X.

I had that point in another thread with another author, but: WE, the authors, are the ones creating the entire world and story. So if you want to have competent characters, just make the world that much more unforgiving. If "X" doesn't work, we can throw "Y" at them. The readers won't even know it anyway.


But all that aside and not knowing the actual time spent, but the series seemed to be your most successful after a short look on your profile?
Any specific reason (time?) that you ax this one?
Anyway, good luck with the next one. Will be interesting to see whether your next idea hits the sweet spot.
I was also thinking about my current slow story and the "cool formular idea" that I had. The temptation is always there...

 

[hauntedwritings]

I'm not going to assume that you're trolling, and that you're serious. Sad to see an author drop a novel, but if that's how you feel then I suspect you've learnt something. However, I'm going to apologize in advance, because I'm going to be harsh and say that you missed the most important lesson.

Namely, if you write for the attention of others, your work will depend on it. Which is of course what we authors want our work to get. But that attention should be considered an added bonus, not your main goal.

I suspect that you possibly got bored with your story yourself, and seeing the lack of readers merely strengthened that emotion. Which goes against one of the basic rules of writing, that you can find by spending a few seconds on google. If you're bored - even just a little - then your readers certainly will be.

 

[TunTun]

This makes sense, thank you

 

[ForestDweller]

I'll cut to the chase, and hopefully help some authors on the way. But I'm dropping my well crafted, perfect grammar, pure structure, well received (by the VERY FEW who like it) novel. Now 50K plus words in.

Like many Authors up here desperately seeking the secret formula (which I now know what it is), I kept thinking that it was, not only a good story, but mostly theme and setting that hooked readers: (LITRPG, ISEKAI, SMUT) along with action. The truth is those tags help (and mine was not Litrpg or smut...just isekai) but where I went wrong.

Pay Attention

When you TRULY look at what not only trends, but has a lot of readers actually reading and commenting are stories where the plots and conflicts are very INTERPERSONAL. Meaning, yes person is sucked into another world and has to figure stuff out, but the sticky stories are the ones where the MAIN PLOT is about that very struggle with other people (via romance, individual revenge,) the point is the conflict REALLY involves person on person conflict on a PERSONAL level.

AS OPPOSED to my story, and many others fantasy style stories like mine, where the plot is more general. Mine is a perfect example: Competent Mercenaries (meaning not too much at a disadvantage when they are isekaid- and that is BAD because that lowered their stakes, as opposed to a virgin game developer sent to another world- he has higher stakes because he is at such a disadvantage) and when they get there the plot becomes about NOBLES, and winning their war, and finding the crystal that can lead to the: .zzzzzzzzzzz Lost the audience by chapter 8.

OF COURSE I HAVE INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS IN THE STORY- it's FKN ROMANCE!! - but the romance and all of that is SUB-PLOT...that happens in between them going from place to place and fighting and etc.

And for the past 8 months of writing this pointless story, i was ALWAYS just focused on the PROPER CRAFT OF WRITING. CLARITY. STRUCTURE Character Motivation....and wanted to FLING MY LAPTOP at all of the piss-poor grammar trash up here that has waaaay more actual readers than my story.

Only now my self-righteous ass Finally gets it.

Moral of the story: To heck with your fantasy world and your overarching plot. If you want people to read your story- Focus the plot around the interpersonal. The individual struggle of people between people about people stuff (revenge, sex, lies, history between them, falling in love- Problems between individuals on an individual level and LOTS and LOTS OF SEX.

Follow this advice plus a LITRPG and or ISEKAI. I guarantee you will get readers who actually read your stuff.

Here are my numbers, by the way. Completely unacceptable for the amount of work I'm putting in.

View attachment 7359

View attachment 7360
and that 143 is an anomaly because that day I hit trending. So it doesn't count

How many words have your written?

 

[tounokenja]

I Have to agree here with @hauntedwritings on the point of writing for the attention of others. I initially wrote a novel that did surprisingly well for being my first one, hitting trending multiple times. My story was basically a romance between an insecure boy and his first love. It did astoundingly well, but when I caved to the pressure of what my readers wanted part-way in, despite it's success with them, sadly it did not follow my vision, and my desire to continue it faltered heavily. So, I rewrote it and the rewrite while different and IMO vastly more interpersonal and having much more drama and conflict, is barely at 1/6th the popularity and views, though my regular readers are there for every chapter, and to me that's my true success, even if it's just a comment every now and them with only a blob eating a cookie.

And by the way, that number of readers you have is significant, even if you don't think so. The only number that matters though, is total views (chapters). Because that's how many people read your stuff from chapter one and on, anonymously or registered.

In the end you do have to ask yourself just who you are writing it for?

If it's yourself, then even if it's only one person reading it, you wrote a story they like, and that makes you a successful author to them.

If it's for your audience, then do you properly gauge what they want to see? Use polls during chapters, asking them who they prefer, where they want the story to go at crossroads, what ships they like for character romance and attempt to give them it or at least tease unlikely pairings?

Webnovels are the true interactive fiction.

I'm reminded of an author who serialized once every Sunday in a british paper long ago. Charles Dickens. The story in question was Great Expectations. It was a highly read and discussed work of fiction at the time, and in fact when he ended it, it was not received well. So much so, many readers who were invested wrote in to the paper DEMANDING he retract the ending, and satisfy them with a better one.

I doubt my reply helps you at all, I just hope it helps you make the decision you think is best for yourself and your future endeavors, even if it is to stick it out and continue.

 

[CrusadeAgainstFurries]

I'm not going to assume that you're trolling, and that you're serious. Sad to see an author drop a novel, but if that's how you feel then I suspect you've learnt something. However, I'm going to apologize in advance, because I'm going to be harsh and say that you missed the most important lesson.

Namely, if you write for the attention of others, your work will depend on it. Which is of course what we authors want our work to get. But that attention should be considered an added bonus, not your main goal.

I suspect that you possibly got bored with your story yourself, and seeing the lack of readers merely strengthened that emotion. Which goes against one of the basic rules of writing, that you can find by spending a few seconds on google. If you're bored - even just a little - then your readers certainly will be.

I agree. Having fun writing is the most important thing - everything else should come secondary.

 

[Ai-chan]

Eh, just write whatever you want to write. LitRPG and Isekai being the more popular genres is only because that's the current trend. Who knows what is going to happen 2-3 years later. Just 5 years ago, Japanese Isekai was the bomb and Ai-chan took advantage of that and made quite a killing with Felicia's Second Life. Two years later, Ren showed that you could make money from shianshia. So a lot of people translated shianshia in order to make money, and shianshia became the shit. Then people became tired of shianshia's massive and ruthless killing and double standards, so Korean became trending.

Now people thinks Korean novels aren't really that fun and are mostly just a reimagining of Japanese shit. So they went back to Japanese stuff. In a few years it will change again.

So don't write for trending. You're not a traditionally published author with a promotional team. You (and Ai-chan) doesn't matter. So just write what you want to write when you want to write and hopefully people will like it and follow you. And if one day your story become trending, that's great, you get new fans on top of your loyal fans.

 

[Valmond]

I agree. Having fun writing is the most important thing - everything else should come secondary.

Yep, the secondary is specifically where your work is. Different sites equates to a different base. An example is, on SH my work gains more traction than on Wattpad. On Royal Road, it gains more than on SH. On Inkitt, it does better than on Wattpad, but worse than the rest. A number of factors comes into play, as well as timing of updates, which affects the zone that sees it.

Anyway, I am not here to get technical. Simply write, do your best, and have fun with it. The important part is to finish the work. Drop too many, and readers will find the author unreliable, which will have an effect later down the line. Much of my interaction comes from Private messages amongst various sites. My base just tends not to be comfortable speaking in the open, which is fine. It at least shows they are invested in it.

Also, most importantly. What is popular changes, what may be great yesterday can be obsolete today. It is simply the way the market works.

 

[JayDirex]

I AM NOT TROLLING!!! Those numbers to me, are COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE for 50K words of effort so far. I have been posting this story since October on a steady schedule and in 5 fkn days only 40 people read the last chapter? Bruh, have you people SEEN THE NUMBERS on popular stories. Forgive me if I am not interested in mediocrity, and I am well past writing "to make myself feel better." Fk all that, at this point my goal is sales level proficiency. And obviously, with the numbers of this story that IS NOT THE CASE. SO i had to discern for myself what was wrong with the story and it for sure isnt' grammar, structure, or pacing (nor characters) because they are all individual voiced characters with their own attitudes and motivations. But it's still WRONG!!

So I need to try again.

I had that point in another thread with another author, but: WE, the authors, are the ones creating the entire world and story. So if you want to have competent characters, just make the world that much more unforgiving. If "X" doesn't work, we can throw "Y" at them. The readers won't even know it anyway.

They ain't had it easy, they have been damn near killed a few times now. What I'm saying is folks are way more interested in interpersonal conflict, as opposed to so much external conflict: Nobels, civil war, abstract enemies, we have to find the Mcguffin in order to continue- AS OPPOSED TO - this girl has feelings for me in this new body, but I like the other girl that HATES her more. But I need them both on my side. (Readers are WAAY more interested in that story.)

 

[tridetect]

boohoo get over it. There are well crafted stories out there that don't even get read on this site. Such is the environment of a writing site, especially this one where everyone is trying to get attention and fame for 5 seconds

 

[Yairy]

I don't know...those stats aren't too bad to me. Look at the number of readers you have for the number of views. 19k with 300+ readers. I didn't reach that many until well over that. However, my story is much different and It's not fantasy or anything of the sort.

Sorry to hear you're frustrated but I'm sure the people who are loyal to your story will be upset to hear you go.

 

[Valmond]

I AM NOT TROLLING!!! Those numbers to me, are COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE for 50K words of effort so far. I have been posting this story since October on a steady schedule and in 5 fkn days only 40 people read the last chapter? Bruh, have you people SEEN THE NUMBERS on popular stories. Forgive me if I am not interested in mediocrity, and I am well past writing "to make myself feel better." Fk all that, at this point my goal is sales level proficiency. And obviously, with the numbers of this story that IS NOT THE CASE. SO i had to discern for myself what was wrong with the story and it for sure isnt' grammar, structure, or pacing (nor characters) because they are all individual voiced characters with their own attitudes and motivations. But it's still WRONG!!

So I need to try again.


They ain't had it easy, they have been damn near killed a few times now. What I'm saying is folks are way more interested in interpersonal conflict, as opposed to so much external conflict: Nobels, civil war, abstract enemies, we have to find the Mcguffin in order to continue- AS OPPOSED TO - this girl has feelings for me in this new body, but I like the other girl that HATES her more. But I need them both on my side. (Readers are WAAY more interested in that story.)

You wanna know the total length of my trilogy?

About 520k words.

By the end of the first book. It is about 107. Starting is 677. This is taking the stat from my Wattpad account. Significant drop off is expected between the first five chapters. However, after the first book, those that remain are the ones to move onto the rest. It is simply preference, time, place, what is popular currently, etc. A number of factors goes into this.

Stories becomes popular based on where they are better associated with. As well as needing a bit of an alignment to gain that motion. I have seen books blow up from nothing to over 600k over night. I have also seen stories go nowhere, even though it technically meets a certain level. The market isn’t an entirely predictable thing, even the best cannot see this through accurately.

At one moment, it can hit popularity, the next it can fall off. That is the market at work, by the time you finish writing something that is popular, the trend may have changed again. After about half way into a book, this is the time where you’ll get a good grasp of who your base is.

 

[BubbleC]

Firstly, I am sympathetic to your plight. It’s not great knowing your hard work only gets minuscule returns with practically no pay off.

However, I think this is to be expected on writing sites like this. There is such an overwhelming volume of work that novels such as yours get lost. Plus, readers have a very short attention span on the Internet. Most people that read on this site are looking for something entertaining and easy to digest. Ironically, my theory is that highly verbose, complex works get less views precisely because they can be perceived as being too time consuming to read or they’re simply too difficult to read. And, on sites like these, readers may have little faith that any investment will pay off (hiatuses or wacky story telling trauma lol). That’s at least why I think basic isekai stories win over original works: they’re predictable and entertaining. They’re junk food. So, moral of the story is that it’s important that you write what you love, not for the fame or attention.

As for interpersonal conflicts, obviously people want them! The reason why people care for stories is because they’re about characters, because they are about people. And people have relationships, feelings, wants, hopes, fears, etc. External conflicts are only engaging if they have interpersonal weight. They’re only important to the reader if they’re important to your characters. That’s why, separating the two and saying “To fucking hell with it! I’m just gonna write smutty romance from now on!” is stupid! Political intrigue can be just as engaging as smut if written right. (Romance just shortcuts this by making the interpersonal extremely clear from the get go).

I’m not sure why your readers aren’t interested in your overarching story, but please don’t give up on telling what you love and building your worlds.

 

[JayDirex]

boohoo get over it. There are well crafted stories out there that don't even get read on this site. Such is the environment of a writing site, especially this one where everyone is trying to get attention and fame for 5 seconds

do I sound like IM FKNG CRYING to you? Or blaming anyone? Where do you see that? You don't!

so shove your BOO HOO. Because crying wasn't what I posted. What I posted was a realization that others could also use. What I posted was an analysis of how I'll do better next time around.

Firstly, I am sympathetic to your plight. It’s not great knowing your hard work only gets minuscule returns with practically no pay off.

However, I think this is to be expected on writing sites like this. There is such an overwhelming volume of work that novels such as yours get lost. Plus, readers have a very short attention span on the Internet, most people that read on this site are lookin for something entertaining and easy to digest. Ironically, my theory is that highly verbose, complex works get less views precisely because they can be perceived as being too time consuming to read or they’re simply too difficult to read. And, on sites like these, readers may have little faith that any investment will pay off (hiatuses or wacky story telling trauma lol). That’s at least my theory as to why basic isekai stories win over original works: they’re predictable and entertaining. They’re junk food. So, moral of the story is that it’s important that you write what you love, not for the fame or attention.

As for interpersonal conflicts, obviously people want them! The reason why people care for stories is because they’re about characters, because they are about people. And characters have relationships, feelings, wants, hopes, fears, etc. External conflicts are only engaging if they have interpersonal weight. They’re only important to the reader if they’re important to your characters. That’s why, separating the two and saying “To fucking hell with it! I’m just gonna write smutty romance from now on!” is stupid! Political intrigue can be just as engaging as smut if written right.

I’m not sure why your readers aren’t interested in your overarching story, but please don’t give up on telling what you love and building your worlds.

you get me, bubble and I'll never write anything I'm not interested in. It just took me a minute to realize the truth that you actually know.

keep it less complex- more interpersonal- easy to digest and laugh.

 

[tridetect]

do I sound like IM FKNG CRYING to you? Or blaming anyone? Where do you see that? You don't!

so shove your BOO HOO. Because crying wasn't what I posted. What I posted was a realization that others could also use. What I posted was an analysis of how I'll do better next time around.

your entire post reads like a cope

 

[Gastic]

This is false imo

The secret formula is actually (for scribblehub) is Girls Love and Gender Bender currently, though those 3 genres are still relevant but not as popular as it used to be.

Also, sorry to hear that.

Honestly bro I tried to post something that wasn't isekai and instead was horror, and it was actually pretty good but no one read it... like at all. It wasn't that people might not have liked it, but nobody even saw or knew it existed.