Perhaps I will go on hiatus and finish book one

[K5Rakitan]

*shrugs* It's up to you.

 

[Motsu]

You should just go to sleep.

 

[JayDirex]

heh, heh shush

You should just go to sleep.

 

[Kitsura]

at what point and where did I put down any others on the site? Excuse you. Don't put
words in my mouth.

My whole post is about where I realized I needed to write different and better as an author. But there's always one like you comes up here and reads what you want to read and accuse me of putting down others. which I never did.


stfu.

“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.”

idk seems like you seem to think that the people who have more readers than you are writing trash that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

look I understand the frustration. It’s not a good feeling to see something you worked hard on not succeed. But suggesting the work that others do is “piss-poor” is a poor way of garnering sympathy
You’re also not posting nearly enough. The problem with webnovel serials is that most readers are voracious. Perhaps your chapters are long for you to have 50k words but unless you post daily people will forget you even post at all. Scribblehub will even have new updates on their front page posting only once per week means that you are making use of that fact 1/7 days a week.

I don’t know if you read web novels but if someone doesn’t update literally everyday. I will forget about the webnovel and just wait until more chapters are out before binging. Your reach is not enough. I would recommend actually researching advertising techniques and learn how exposure is the most important way to reach new viewers.

due to the nature of what we write we can’t appeal to every reader but if readers don’t know what you are writing in the first place they won’t follow you. The problem you are having is assuming that people are reading your stuff at all.

 

[JayDirex]

unless you post daily

although not an absolute, it's still a ton of truth. Nobody wants to kill their darlings. So I'm thinking go on hiatus, backlog twenty chapters and edit them until they're crisp.

come back in the summer like wut post daily for 20 days.

 

[HappyVainGlory]

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.

I'll say this first since you seem to be having a misconception. Readers don't really care for perfect grammar, structure, or craft when it comes to stories. What they care more for are ideas, characters, and, most importantly, emotions.

If your story is falling flat, then odds are that you've taken the cart before the horse. Mechanics are important, yes, but they are always secondary to the story itself, which is a retelling of events that occur to or around a person.

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.

If you're looking for the secret formula to trending, then stop. I can say already that your current approach is 100% flawed and that you won't be able to succeed as you are now.

If you're looking for the secret formula to a good story, I can tell you.

1. Have a character that readers either really like or really hate
2. Have that character try to do things
3. Throw things in the character's way
4. Have the character succeed or fail, and then try something else
5. Repeat ad infinitum

Now a great story is more detailed than that, but that's where you fill in things from your own style. What separates the good from the great is when you've managed to add in what cannot be replicated completely by others... at least not without tremendous effort.

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.

You've got it twisted.

First off, the readers metric on Scribblehub isn't an accurate measure of the true readers of your story. You have to remember that the people who add your story to your reading list aren't necessarily doing it because it's what they read, and that the people who read your story aren't necessarily adding it to their list.

Second, the number of comments on your story reflects YOU and not the story itself. Comments are a medium for readers to communicate to the author their thoughts. And if you want them to continue to do so, you have to remember that communication isn't a one-way street.

If I have to hazard a guess about why your story doesn't get many comments, I'd say you got off on the wrong foot. On the very first chapter, you have five comments, but all of them went unanswered. To a reader, it gives off the impression of an uncaring author, or one that sees it more as a one-sided exchange than an interaction.

And if it's a one-sided exchange, then obviously you won't be getting any comments.

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.

You've fallen victim to my namesake. And you've also fallen victim to envy.

First off, your grammar is definitely better than a majority of the stories on this site, but your 'storytelling' is worse. You've been so focused on the mechanics that your writing is too sterile. The characters are there, things are happening, but we have no stakes. Who do we root for? Who do we care about? Who is our 'anchor'?

You introduce an entire cast all at once, but the effect is immediate diffusion of interest. It's possible for stories like this to work, but it requires someone like Tolkien, a level you have definitely not yet reached.

And also, another reminder: 'Readers' and 'Views' that you can see don't reflect actual metrics of a story's real readers. What does that... or at least a closer metric, is the 'valid reads' that only the writer has access to. It's very possible that a lot of the stories with high views are only from clickthroughs and not proper reading.

Stop assuming.

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.

You're right about what to do if you want people to read your story. After all, a good story focuses on a character's life and actions. It gets the reader either into that character's shoes, charms the reader into being that character's friend, or pisses off the reader enough to want to see harm come to that character. These are the types of stories that have persisted for time immemorial.

And I guess you're right on sex drawing people to your story as well, but I'm not too sure those are the types of readers you want to stick around... Unless you plan to pull a bait and switch like the old eroges used to do. But then you'd better be damned sure that your story is up to snuff, because you'll lose both potential audiences then if it isn't.

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

Well, you will. But you'll also be boxing yourself in. And the last thing you need to be doing as a writer is to constrain yourself. You might be able to get readers to read your story by playing to popular trends and genres, but those also fade. Relying on those will become a crutch that causes you to fail the next race when the tides shift due to atrophy in your other skills.

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

And your output is completely unacceptable for the numbers you want. In a place like this, you're only updating on a weekly basis at best with only 2k word chapters? And you want to have high metrics like that?

Buddy. I hate to break it to you, but unless you're the best in the world, that's never going to happen. Being good isn't enough. Not even being great. For that, you'd have to be the BEST. So outstanding that everything else pales in comparison.

You are not that. And if you think you are, prove me wrong.

I'll wait.

-HappyVainGlory

 

[JayDirex]

You introduce an entire cast all at once, but the effect is immediate diffusion of interest. I'm not new here, jack. But I was thinking about this too. diffusion of characters is not interpersonal enough, you know. I mean unless you read up to chapter 3 where they were very personal in the dungeon but I digress.

I hear you chief, you ain't got to write an essay. I already know all that blah blah you wrote. I was just blowing off steam.

 

[HappyVainGlory]

I hear you chief, you ain't got to write an essay. I already know all that blah blah you wrote. I was just blowing off steam.

No worries soldier! It's for the general uninformed public and my own writing practice. If it's of no use to you, think of it as just hot air blowing over your head.

 

[TroubleFait]

...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.”

idk seems like you seem to think that the people who have more readers than you are writing trash that appeals to the lowest common denominator.

There are actually some very successful stories out there that have "piss-poor grammar trash".
I personally read some of those stories, and I don't feel like it's unfair to say this, when you look at the actual text.

Doesn't mean the story is all trash, far from it, but it can be composed of up to 30% trash I'd say and still be massively popular. Must be because the remaining 70% are worth it.

 

[Aoibh]

Don't dictate that it's a good enough number for the the rest of us.

I didn't dictate what is a good enough number I simply said it was a lot of people.

 

[JayDirex]

I didn't dictate what is a good enough number I simply said it was a lot of people.

Especially if you know them by username, since they always show up in the "who read your last chapter" statistics.

I appreciate all those guys. want more, tho.