1. What originally made that story hit the top 50?
At this point, I almost wouldn’t say originality was a thing for most on the top 50. So many have started mimicking featured and popular stories. I think reaching the top 50 has more to do with how popular your name has become as a writer and how prevalent you are in the community.
2. Is there a common theme with the top 50 (of any genre) stories? Any common choices? Style? Narration?
For some reason love triangles and mafias are a big thing (I personally don’t care for them but). Obviously a common choice for the love triangles is choosing who you like in the last chapter. Also a lot of just how to respond choices are a commonality.
I think that INK is still the overall most popular style among both readers and writers. LIMELIGHT does not have enough clothing and just has an awkward feel with its animation.
I think a lot of the good stories minimize narration outside of normal dialogue. Meaning that they are showing you everything through what the characters say and do.
3. Should these stories stay up in the top 50 forever and ever? How could one get them to leave the top 50?
Like if they are good, they deserve credit. All authors work hard on their story, popular or not. The only way I guess would be not to read or promote that story while reading and promoting another.
Maybe what would be nice is another shelf that kind of shuffled around stories not based on popularity. This way lesser known stories could get noticed, as most people don’t scroll past the first 100 stories on the shelf therefore keeping the popular ones at the top.
4. Are most of the top trending stories the same author?
I would definitely argue that most trending stories are by the same author. Once an author gets a big following, it is easy to keep trending because of their followers will read their new stories no matter what.
5. Cover wise, is there a trend?
Lots of people do the covers where you just put the character on a background and add a title. I am seeing a bit of a move towards the more artsy computer drawings.
6. Episode length wise, is there a trend?
Chapter wise, they are all either really short or really long. I think most stories end at 3, 10, or 30 chapters with some reaching to 60. In a lot of cases any more than 60 is too long and drawn out. At this point you are just trying to stretch your story making it lose its integrity.
7. Does ‘Art’ or ‘Edits’ help? Is this fair?
I don’t think that art and edits in the story help it 99% of the time. I feel the majority really started popping up after The Enchantress was featured. I personally don’t care for the art scenes because to me they add very little value to the story. I think for the author they are more trouble than they are worth. You are going through all this trouble to pay a lot of times to have someone make you this picture that is only going to be on the screen for like 30 seconds. I personally would rather you keep screen moving then have a stand still photo you are directing over (it reminds me to much of spotlight). I’m not saying never to use it, but I don’t think every or every other chapter needs it. Save art scenes for special moments in the story.
Now the question, is it fair. Basically it is fair in the sense that anyone can go out and ask or pay someone to make art for them.
This was not meant to be an attack on or against anyone who makes or uses art scenes. I know you all work very hard on them and that is appreciated.
You mentioned you like analytics and trends. I currently have a survey going around that I plan to analyze and share the results with other authors once there is a good amount of data collected. What's Your Opinion? - 1st Report (3/23)