Advice for a Complete Noob

Hello, everyone.

Yes, I’m that guy… the noob.

…kind of. Let me explain. (Sorry in advance, as this’ll be long.)

About a year ago, I actually started a story on here. I had got three episodes in, as you need to post it (if I’m not mistaken) and I’d become fairly familiar with the script writer/editor. However, fow some reason that I truly don’t remember, I was ended up taking it down and deleting it. I had spent quite a bit of time making it (as I’m sure anyone who created stories on here would know). I had researched how to do different effects with the camera and characters, and all that stuff. At heart, I am a perfectionist, with an extreme eye for detail in my work. I recall when I made my old story, I spent a lot of time, after I had written the episode out, going back and doing various little things to make the characters seem more alive. This probably meant putting in animations when they weren’t necessarily needed, which only made more work for me. I wasn’t satisfied unless I did so.

For some reason, I took the story down, and deleted it, and honestly didn’t intend on coming back here to make stories. But recently, I had a desire to do so. So… I’m here, to restart as a noob. But I want to get it right this time, so hard work isn’t put forward by me with no reward, per se. So, this is why I’m here, to talk to others and see how I can do this right this time.

I want to write another story, and at the moment, I have several ideas floating around in my head that I considered doing on a RPing site I’m on. But I decided against this due to the uncertainty of them actually going anywhere, and me wanting to try a different medium to test storytelling. But before I do, I want to speak to others in the community to see what advice I can get.

I’ve kind of read through some forum posts here and there about certain things with getting a story recognized. But before I go forward, I do want to stress that I’m not in this to get the most reads. I’m fine if mine stayed at something low, but consistent. I just want to make sure I don’t put hard work into making it and having zero reads. With that said, let me move on.

So I understand the basics when it comes to a good story and characters you can relate with and/or like. I’m not so much concerned on that side of the bigger picture in this post. I am confident in myself to create a good story, plot, etc. What I’m wondering how to do is get people to read your stories. I’ve never actually seen anywhere on the app that shows new stories just published, so I’m not sure where it would even pop up unless someone knew the name of it and read it.

So I suppose my first, and only question (for now), is how do I get people to read it. Sure, I get that titles, descriptions, and cover pictures are important. But even if you get that right, how do you know people will still be able to read it, give feedback, stuff like that? Again, let me stress that I’m not in this for popularity, to get the most reads, what have you. I don’t care if I had a small group of readers. All I want to know is how I can get some people to read my stories so that all the hard work making them doesn’t go to waste. I have stories I’d like to write for
others to experience. I just don’t know how I get people to even see it to read it and give it a chance.

While we’re at it, if you have any other advice you would like to give, go ahead and share it! I really want to be open here to any advice so I know how to get it right. Any advice helps! :slight_smile:

Thank you, everyone! :slight_smile:

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There are many different ways to get your story noticed.

  1. Promote on the forum once it has been published. There is a special section of the forum for story promotion.
  2. Promote your story on social media. It is kind of hard if you are new to the community, but it is a starting point.
  3. Take part in Read for Reads. Especially on the forum, there are people that will read your story in exchange for you reading theirs. That was my starting point, personally. Not only do you get other people to read your story, and possibly them sharing your story with their friends, but you can meet some amazing people and discover some wonderful hidden gem stories yourself.
  4. Get a shout out on Instagram. Episode.Advocates on Instagram does story shout outs. You submit a request, they read the first episode, and then shout it out to their followers.
  5. Get a story review. There are people on the forum that do reviews, but there are several groups on Instagram that do story reviews. These reviews are typically based on the first three Episodes. Depending on the group/reviewer, they will look at directing, grammar, plot line, character development, choices, and more. When the reviewer posts your review, their followers read the review and depending on their opinion, or the interest of the follower, you get even more readers. One note. As a reviewer myself, don’t take any criticism personally. Reviewers are there to help you improve your story. They will point out what is great about the story, but they will also point out any problems so that you can improve. I have found several hidden gem stories that have actually went on to being on an Episode shelf through reviews.

Promote - Read for Read - Reviews

Good luck!!!

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Oh my! That’s a lot of different options there I had no idea about! Thank you! :slight_smile: when I get time to finally decide on the story I want to do, and then get the first three out, I’ll look into these. Thank you for the quick response. I’ll admit that they do sound somewhat terrifying, but I’m sure they’re not that bad.

Thank you again!

2 Likes

Another way to get noticed is entering contests. People usually read many contest entries, even from unknown authors. I’m sure there will be a new announcement soon because the current one will end on Monday. Of course there is a small chance your story will fit just perfectly the new theme but since you will start writing now and you said you had several ideas floating around, who knows?
Also, if your main focus is not romance or drama, don’t put the story into these genres. All other genres are less popular, which means less reads, but better chance to rank up in the chosen section. Once when my story was ranked 40 something in Comedy I was curious and checked where it would be in Drama. It was something like #384. But make sure to choose the right genre: readers usually dislike when there is a romance story in Horror, Comedy, Action etc. Jeez, romance stories are everywhere.
.

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Moved to Episode Fan Community as this is an Episode-specific post :v:t2:

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Hmm, well from what I’ve seen, the majority of highly read stories seem to optimize the available features. The enabled use of custom overlays may be something you’d wanna look in to! By adding your own overlays in, you can successfully imitate the act of throwing something, or using a computer perhaps.

2 Likes

Thank you!

I think I recall these. I may have used them when I did my first go at creating a story. I definitely will use them, as well as I’m planning on doing character customization, and a whole bunch of other things. I think I pretty much settled on what story I want to create, so I’m going to use all tools at my disposal to make the stories. It’ll be a bit of a learning curve, but I’ll get it soon enough. I’ll definitely look into using custom overlays. Thank you for the suggestion!

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