Hi. If you have written a story for the contest before, what advise would you give to others who are entering the contest for the first time?
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- Don’t procrastinate.
- Get your stuff uploaded early.
- If you’re adding major branching, be sure to be able to code fast.
- Don’t push yourself past your breaking point.
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Plan wisely!
You’ve got a set time to do things, make sure you have at least the required amount of episodes planned out, and preferably your ending as well. All too often there are contest entries written purely for the contest with no endings in mind, which will end poorly for the story. If you have a rough outline of the entire story, your story has a better chance of shelving and doing well overall. -
Stay on task!
Try to keep your contest entry in your mind at all times while working. Working on other stories is distracting and isn’t great for your story in the long run. If you get a writer’s block, doing so may help—but otherwise try not to, as working on other stories eats away at your time in the long run and leaves you in a rush to finish as the deadline approaches (it may seem like a long time, but time really passes quickly these days). -
Get a proofreader and/or beta readers!
Get others’ opinions other than your own! Reading your same work over and over can get BORING, don’t feel ashamed! Many people here on the forums and in the Instagram community as well are very willing to help authors out when it comes to beta reading and proofreading! Stories with great grammar, directing, and plotlines are the ones that are shelved. -
Don’t be afraid to promote!
Entering a contest and reaching the deadline is an accomplishment on its own. Many smaller authors in particular have the greatest struggle of getting the required amount of reads (~100) to even be considered by Episode (aka, reviewed + graded). Readers don’t magically appear, you need to promote! Promote on the forums, promote on Instagram, hell, promote to your family! Those retention reads determine your story’s outcome in the long run. One thing I’ve found to be the most beneficial is creating a contest reading list + participating in read for reads with other authors entering, which ensures you some reads and supports the both of you! -
Have fun!
The most important thing when it comes to entering contests is the fun with it! If you often find yourself stressed while writing your entry, you may want to reconsider your choice to enter this particular contest. If you’re not having fun, chances are you’ll struggle with later episodes—which could lead to abandoning of the story. -
Do your research!
Stories with diversity, great grammar, and directing are all things readers look for. Search for ways to incorporate diversity into your story, ensuring you’re also doing so accurately and in a non-stereotypical way (because nobody likes to see those). Along with this, there are many guides out there that offer directing help. Check those out! Try your hand at new skills! You may jut discover the next big thing in Episode simply by testing things out. Go past your comfort zone, you’ll find yourself surprised by the things possible on the portal!
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That helps a lot! Thank you so much for taking time to write this for me!
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Thank you so much for the help!
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Best of luck to you!
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- Start planning your story early.
This includes:
A. Characters.
B. Storyline
C. Chocies (Will your story have choices? Will choices matter? Do you want to have choices/ not have choices in your story?)
D. Will your story contain point system? (Will points matter base on the choice?, etc.)
E. Will your story contain branching? (such as choosing M/F MC / M/F LI, dressing games, min-games, etc.)
F. Will you story contain triggering events? (If so, always include a trigger warnings, if you have a problem with anything, ask the community for help.)
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Upload your backgrounds and overlays early. (this is also important when your writing/planning scenes and need to have the background ready so it can be approved early.)
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Make sure to have an eye-catching cover, and a good description.
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Always write for fun and not really for competition.
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Always re-check your directing/scenes, etc. and if you need help for proofreading, get a proofreader, and if you want someone/anyone to check your story, get a beta-reader.
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Make sure your directing is advanced.
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Be creative with your story.
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If you are planning to include diversity in your story, always do your research, and you can also ask the community for help if you are stuck on anything.
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Make sure to take a break often from writing because it can be stressful sometimes.
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Promote your story, promote! promote! promote! It’s hard for underated authors to be noticed, and to gain 100 reads, so keep on promoting your story on Forums, Instagram, etc. Also, try to do some R4R, I know it’s hard to get 100s but keep going and keep pushing.
No matter what happens, you did your best, you have fun, you have other’s support. Win/Lose, you did it! That’s all that matters. Don’t be discourage if you did not get on a shelf, always be proud of what you did/accomplish!
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Ahh thank you soooo much!!! 
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write first edit later, try to get written down the text of the chapters you need first. now its usally 3, but contest demand 8. when you have written the entire story down, you can see how much time you have to edit it to be better. and do some more advance stuff. so just write, dont think so much if it makes sense,
its also often more easy to work with editing when you arent working on and empty canvan, and again it can ruin your writhing if you have to stop to edit it all the time.
Contest can be really stressful, I’ve joined 2 so far. I must say that the first time I entered, I underestimated how hard it was. At first I thought I could publish a month in advance, but in the end I released how high the level of coding was and worked on my story to improve it.
My tips would be the following:
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Don’t join to win the contest, join it because you love writing and coding. I’m just saying this because the weeks of planning, writing and coding take a lot of time. If you aren’t liking that, it will be a major bummer.
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Start planning early on. Writing a chapter, then do the coding, think about what comes next and writing that part out etc. No, that’ll make you loose a lot of time and it might cost you extra long hours of coding when you’re not happy with how it’s going.
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Upload your overlays and backgrounds in time. I have seen amazing stories passing by in group chats for contests, but weren’t able to join just because of being too late with their approvals. Also, it’ll reduce your stress!
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Make sure to announce bits of information on different platforms, make people interested in your story from the early start. Make a trailer before you relaese your story, it’ll give you free reads later on.
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During the writing process it’s possible to feel lost, but don’t give up! Just take a break and start whenever you feel like it again. It’s something that should be fun, not a burden on your mind.
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Lastly, I’d say read some entries of others from the past and see what the expectations are from a finished story. It’s difficult to say “I’m done, it’s good enough.” I’m not saying to compair your story, just look how choices are implemented, mini games are presented, background characters are placed and zooms are used. It’ll just give you some more ideas to polish your story.
Good luck with your entry
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Can you send me a link to your stories? I’ll love to read them. They might guide me a little.
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Sure, here are my links 
Definitely check out The Lake from the last contest, the directing and mini games are on point!
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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.
I think a learnt most of these points the hard way so I’ll just put it out for others so that you don’t go through the same things I did 
- Plan the order of creating a story: Whixh means whether you’re gonna do the writing first then the coding or both together etc
- Have an outline for the whole story
- DO NOT PROCASTINATE
- Upload your bgs, overlays early
- Engage with your fanbase on Instagram or forums
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take ur time, don’t let the deadline freak u out.
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don’t write a story u don’t think u’ll continue if u don’t win.
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make sure ur super proud of it before u finish, never ever publish in a rush.
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don’t let the contest b the main aim/goal of the story, in the end, most contest stories never get completed & it rlly sucks, so try focus on the actual story & not just the contest.
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