Good advice for someone writing their first story?

Community Episode Fan Community
#3

What I would recommend
1)Have good directing. many people just leave stories because the directing is off so be careful

2)Don’t add a lot of gem choices. This is kinda obvious, people are not going to like your story if it’s just like the episode featured ones

3)Regularly update. You don’t need to update a new chapter daily, but don’t take months to release one either. You can also put a release date on your profile bio.

4)Put an eye-catching cover. This is the sad truth, but most people are going to pass on your story just because the cover is bland. You can request from millions of artists in the forums and get beautiful covers for free!

5)Lastly, Try to keep the length at its best. Short episode stories aren’t worth a whole pass, long episodes are just plain boring. Like @juliewrites said, keep it at 10-15 minutes

9 Likes
#4

So this is what stories I look for a lot…

  • Long chapters
  • No art scenes (they tend to take a long )
  • Full CC
  • 1 LI
  • Makes me jump up with excitement and has a good thrilling plot
  • Very Outstanding cover. It mostly matters what the story is about
  • No Gem Choices

I mean not all of these are what most people tend to look for but this is what I look for. And I honestly hope you do great on your first story! :heartpulse:

6 Likes
#5

Thank you :slight_smile:
I definitely will not add lots of gem choices cause they tend to ruin the story for me haha

3 Likes
#6

I would give only one important advice, coding, writing and publishing your first story can be really exciting but what’s important is to be thorough with everything. From your plot to your coding skills. I believe, if you’re well versed with coding, it comes naturally to you and would be less stressful. A smooth directing and a good writen plot is extremely important.

Rest assured good luck :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#7

Dont stress yourself with trying to perfect every detail in your story to T. And coding might seem intimidating and complicated at first but it gets a TON easier after a few days or a week of learning how to code. Everyone learns at different paces, though. A lot of people on the forums are also really friendly and wont hesitate to help you with your story if you ask nicely.

Also i recommend to have at least five chapters of your story already written, so when you publish your first 3, you wont have to rush or feel stressed if you dont meet deadlines or find a hard updating regularly. Obviously, you dont have to though

6 Likes
#8

In addition to what I already said, I just wanted to add that’s it’s okay to be slow or intimidated by coding, like @YourMom mentioned. I took about four months before I became confident in my coding skills. It just takes lots and lots of time.

And wow a week? Great job, I couldn’t do that :joy:

3 Likes
#9

To be fair, i did take a cyber security class in highschool that probably made learning donacode a lot more easier. :skull: I’m no expert tho-- point systems are too complicated for me to comprehend lmfao

1 Like
#10

I can relate, the point system is kinda complicated

1 Like
#11

I agree with all the advices above, but also wanna say: If you get a writers-block don’t stop writing. Just take a break, start writing another story or do something totally different. And come back later when you got back your inspiration.
Make some test stories first, like @YourMom said it right… start with at least five episodes/chapters, publish the first three so you don’t feel stressed. → those test stories can help with directing and watch some YouTube-tutorials from Joseph Evans if you are stuck with directing or writing (His voice irritates me, but he has a lot of good directing advices) or go to Dara Amaries website (she has some templates that can help, too.) :wink:
No, gem choices (they all said it before, but I agree)… I didn’t read an original story for more than half a year, because those stories have mostly gem-choices for the most ridiculous choices: going on a date with your LI (30 gems) or having a shopping-appointment with your annoying twin-sister (0 gems) (To be honest going shopping with my twin-sister should be fun :clown_face: :point_right: 'cause I don’t have one… :wink: ), going out in a beautiful dress (28 gems) or going out in your grandma’s sweater (0 gems), etc. etc. :wink:
Most readers have not much gems… And they will not spent them for crazy choices…
And don’t hesitate to ask for help at this forum, too… There are co-writers who are willing to help and give advice for free. :wink:

3 Likes
#12

I almost written over a whole book trying to understand coding. Still working on it.

2 Likes
#13

I would strongly suggest creating relatable characters and not relatable characters. This helps the character connect the story to their real life, and make the characters seem more real. I would also say not to give too many gem choices because as a reader, I don’t like when there are unaffordable gem choices. If you are going to do choices, you should probably make them cost like 2-5 gems.

1 Like
#14

Okay so-

  1. Don’t immediately start a story that you want to publish for your first story, practice first with small stories and get some knowledge.
  2. Find a reasonable length of chapters, I would suggest 15-20 minutes at most but NEVER make it too short.
  3. Get peoples opinions and don’t take it harshly.
  4. Join a group of writers to help you out before you make your first story that you want to publish, get along with the community and make connections.
  5. Plan out your story before you make it. You could write it on a notebook or yeah.
  6. I would suggest taking a look at this link for some help of writing How to Write a Good Story (Ideas and Tips to Get You Going) | Grammarly
  7. Be kind to you community, have an open mindset and be open to new ideas, don’t remake the same old stories like mafia stories that are so predictable.

I hope this helps, if you need anything else, contact me on the forums by dm or message me on Instagram @brii_writes_epi
I would love to help you out at anytime :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#15

@JulijaK
What-?!
Do you like writing it? If not, you’re stressing yourself out; it’s not healthy to force yourself to do those kind of unnecessary things.

#16

I did several reviews for new authors and I have seen the most common mitakes which can be simplified to 2 worst things youcan do:

  1. the writing/storytelling is not what reader wants - stpry pacing is too rush or too slow, confuzing with strange acting or flat characters

  2. the directing is not smoth and literaly screams “I dont know what I am doing”

  3. extremly bad grammar or wrong syntax - I am myself foriner so I dont see big mistakes if I am able to understand the whole thing - but I have met like 2-3 stories where I was simply not understanding half of the sentences how off the english was

So what to do to awoid this

  1. obviously write good story with 3D characters ang great pacing - to be honest this is the most important of all - and the hardest - because especialy if you are new to writing is practicly impossible for you to guess if reader gets the same feeling as you wanted…therefore go for reviews get many feedback and dont take personaly if somebody will tel you that he got confuzed or didnt understand motivation of the character for his behavior atc…try to find out how to improve your storyteling to make it clear and interesting for reader

  2. While peopple try to have very advanced directing they often still have afuull mistakes - so beter have more simpla but flawles directing where you exactly know what you are doing thant lot of adwanced stuf which at the end glitches and doesnt look in app as you intended

  3. if you are not good in engish take proofreader

And less but still important - good cover and good story description decides if reader will even give your story a chance - so do not underestimate it.

Also remember 1 chapter is the most importent one of reader will not fall in love with your story there he will not read more - do not think in way “it will get beteer in time” - because reader will not be interested in this - he wants to see how good it will be in 1 chapter - that decides if he wants to spend passes on your story or not.

2 Likes
#17

It helps a lot if I can’t remember something. It’s the way (for me) to make things easier. But now I know a lot of codes without it so it’s just if I forget anything- I don’t need to search everywhere in guides to find it.

#18

Moved to Episode Fan Community since this doesn’t fit into any Creator’s Corner category. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about creating topics, and feel free to PM me if you’ve got questions. :smiley:

1 Like
#19

That’s smart! I can be impatient sometimes, so that method doesn’t really work for me, but it looks like it helps you. (:

#20

His voice can be quite annoying but he seems to be really helpful

1 Like
#21

My thread may have some tips for you if needed!

but also if you are curious about questions such as lengths, what readers prefer etc maybe making polls can help get the community opinion!

I’ll start some up for you and people can just respond for you to gather info!

How many lines minimum?
  • Ten thousand + lines of code
  • Three to five thousand + lines of code
  • One thousand + lines of code
  • 400 + lines of code

0 voters

^ the numbers are just typical code markers for how long some stories are, the shortest ive seen have been 400 lines but Ive seen up to 10,000 line code stories e.g. galileo.

Full CC?
  • Yes, always!
  • I’d prefer some even if small amounts.
  • No way, I prefer the authors characters!
  • Other.

0 voters

Short or long stories?
  • Short
  • Long

0 voters

Favourite genre?
  • Romance
  • thriller/horror
  • sci-fi
  • fantasy
  • action
  • adventure
  • historical
  • grimm
  • other

0 voters

Cliche or Original? e.g. bad boy dating the good girl vs the bad boy whose being led on the path to redemption by the school good girl.
  • Cliche all the way
  • Original
  • Mix of both *you saucy minx :stuck_out_tongue: *

0 voters

How often do you usually wait for a chapter update/release?
  • 1 week
  • 2 weeks
  • 3 weeks
  • 1 month
  • More+
  • I don’t wait I just scroll through my favourites and if I see a story has new chapters i’ll read them! (its okay friends I do it to)

0 voters

Advanced or simple code?
  • Advanced
  • Simple
  • Both

0 voters

Minigames?
  • Yes!
  • No!
  • Sometimes!

0 voters

5 Likes
#22

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