Even the popular authors. So many of them lack the ability to take valid criticism. Then you have the people making the same old rehashed bull-- about bad boys this and emotional abuse that. So many writers suck at dialogue and making people actually sound like people in their stories. There are so many who literally don’t even know how to use the right facial expression for the right emotion. The scary thing is that it’s not like the featured stories are much better. In fact, most of them are much worse.
It’s not even that bad to have a crappy story as your first or second story. The baffling and stupid thing is that so many of them don’t progress. They don’t improve. They’re still writing like it’s their 13 year old fever dream in their 20s. I used to be so nice and optimistic about this community, but with a mix of the leadership and the sheer crappiness of most stories, I feel so jaded.
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Finding a good story in this cursed community is like finding gold. There used to be so many good stories. You’d think people would get better as they learnt how to use the app more and had more and more great examples.
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I do agree, the plots are very predictable and it ends up getting very boring.
Writing something very good takes a lot of time and is very exhausting but some wonderful people go through all that just for us to enjoy. Hats off to all the amazing people out there that take a lot of time to improve their story
And even if your first story isn’t absolutely perfect, it isn’t the end of the world. It’s only when you keep writing the same way with no improvements that your story starts getting unpopular
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Agreed, when I read some stories the characters are saying something totally normal but they have a hard gasp animation like 
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Seriously there’s nothing wrong with being a bad writer. My first story sucked and I never even got past the first three episodes. The problem is when you have all of the information on how to improve right in front of you and you just get worse.
Do yourselves a favour. Get the hell out of this Episode echo chamber. I know you love reading Episode stories, but If you love writing, take some time to read good quality for a change. Read a real book or something.
Learning how to draw from anime is never going to make you good at drawing anime. You gotta learn to draw from real life and then adapt your knowledge of real anatomy into your own anime style. Otherwise you just end up with worse versions of the styles of your favourite artists.
The same is true from writing. Don’t learn how to write bad boys from semi-good bad boy stories. All you’re going to do is write worse versions of their bad boy stories until all you’re doing is making emotional abuse look sexy.
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Also PLEASE read a book on the psychology of trauma if you’re going to write a story where a character is heavily traumatised. Don’t rely on other Episode stories. So many of them actively harm the victims of abuse. Be a good writer. So many of you can, but reading other sh–y stories holds you back.
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As much as I agree with your opinion, I don’t think discussing it would make any change. When there is a free online platform available for writing your stories and you have time to do it, it just can’t be helped.
For me it was the same but on w/ttpad, back then when I was big fan of 1D and dreamed about meeting them irl. I would write fanfics which were quite popular, after some time I deleted them and stopped writing, but to this day I still wonder what could have happened if I continued writing. And I even use some plots that were saved in my drafts, they are actually pretty good, just written from viewpoint of a 13 years old teen.
So I won’t stop them from writing their stories, they have their own readers, that will sooner or later realise that it’s just a story.
However, I wasn’t writing about mafias or bad boys either, with that, yeah, I agree that media should stop romanticizing unhealthy relationships.
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I think this mentality is the problem. Stories are way more than just stories. There’s a reason why people study that all the way up to PhD level, after all. They reflect our culture and they feed into what we consider normal, creating a feedback loop. We need to take control of the feedback loop.
There’s no way for people to improve if we don’t speak about it. Learning that your writing is bad is the first step to improvement. Hey I’ve read some great 1D fanfictions in my time reviewing stories for Wattpad. I was never part of the fandom, but I don’t think a fandom dictates the quality of the output. Anyone can write a good story about anything
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This so true, there are many authors (big, medium and small) who can’t handle criticism or opinions and will send their readers/fans to attack you or the person who gave them criticism or their opinion.
This is NOT World 1 or 2 and your readers/fans are NOT your army! There are people who like/love reading your stories and support you through your episode journey or whatever you would like to call it.
If you can’t handle any type of criticism or people’s opinions, then the answer is simple, don’t write stories on Episode.
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I literally hate when this happens.
Like, yes. I just wanted to share feedback about how the story was, and include my opinions about it. Except, some authors are too stubborn to accept the criticism, and just send their fans to attack the person because they took it as a form of hate, or they just don’t accept it at all. Like, how are you supposed to learn from the opinion given, and make room for improvement?
Some authors might use writing as sort of a way to rant/vent their feelings incase they might not have the courage to share it out loud so they just write it down. Infact, I do it a lot and it helps me a lot because it can also let me brainstorm about how realistic I can make characters, and it sort of just feels nice to write everything down after bottling it up for so long.
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Yeah, and you probably their fans/readers saying to you “Your just jealous blah blah blah”, like shut the f*ck up beacuse nobody wants to hear you and your stupid “your just jealous” comments 
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I think that no author is bad, they just have their own style, I also think that most stories are quite similar with the plots, lots of stories have the mean girl trying to get the Mc’s LI and the mean girl seduces the LI when the MC walks in and all that crap.
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I know right.
Like, no I’m only giving you feedback because that’s what you asked for, right?
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I agree but it depends on how people deliver the criticism because sometimes it can come off really hateful. Like I have seen many people offer to help authors improve their trade but other just want to spout out the mouth. So while some people are going through this thread agreeing with this, I bet there are many that don’t bother helping them. I got a review for my story and it hurt reading some of it initially (probably because I overthink too much) I understood their point and tried my best to show them that I can improve. I wasn’t rude at any point to them. But you can’t force authors to take in criticism. All we can do is give constructive criticism and hope they take it in. But complaining about it will not benefit us.
I have given criticism that I feel was constructive before but I believe it was ignored and I got what I felt was a rude response back. I understand defending their story. A lot of them do need to realise the toxic tropes and improve so I understand peoples point there. But some people want to get rid of cliches altogether, which is stupid and basically impossible. Cliches are hard avoid. There is nothing wrong with certain tropes but avoid toxic ones or expect some hate for it. The problem is not creating a nice space for criticism to be given. We should all be trying to help but some authors won’t change and that is the cold hard truth.
In summary since my thoughts are honestly getting lost here - Yes you need thick skin to be able to write especially on a public platform though that doesn’t mean some readers can just say what they want since an author is a real person with real feelings.
(If this makes zero sense then it is because I am so conflicted here.)
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yeah, I agree, there is to much ppl that think that their stories are perfect and should b free of critism. its very upsetting bc they are missing out on making their stories good
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“your just jealous!!!” Is the weakest comeback ever, like kindergarten level weakest comeback.
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Eh there are some bad author’s.
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yeah i used to be obsessed with episode. everyday i’d be so excited to get time to read it. but now i don’t rarely get that feeling. there’s only a handful of stories that i’m still interested in reading. all of the stories are all so similar with no originality or unique plots. the featured stories are also so disappointing!! the writing is so boring and the plots are rushed. like they literally cut a 30 chapter story down to 8 chapters??? i just miss the days when episode was more than mafia leaders and bad boys 
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Totally agree, it what 7-9 year olds would use and yes it totally kindergarten level.
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