Stories we're sick and tired of seeing in the trending and featured section

I have to admit that while pregnancy, bad boy, and falling for your [insert “off limits” guy here] stories aren’t my cup of tea, it’s clear that they are pretty popular and generate a lot of reads. However, like any story, popularity doesn’t automatically give them any immunity to criticism.

In my opinion, the problem isn’t that they are based off an unoriginal idea - it’s extremely hard to find a story of which the basic premise has never been done before in all of literature.
The problem is that between the basic idea, the characters, the dialogue, the plot, the plot “twists,” and the endings, these stories are usually completely lacking originality through and through.

I’m not against cliches or tropes if they are executed well. I AM against stories that are a useless cycle of cliches that ultimately culminate in an equally predictable ending.

For example, The Hunger Games (let it be clear that I’m definitely not choosing this because it’s the pinnacle of literature, it’s literally just the first thing that came to mind): It would be foolish to say that Suzanne Collins invented the idea of a dystopian society, or events where individuals fight to the death, or splitting up society into different sectors/districts, or class division between the rich and the poor, or love triangles, etc. She obviously appropriated these themes/motifs/cliches/tropes from plenty of authors that came before her. However, the direction she went with the story, which includes the depth of the characters, the plot twists, and more, are what made her books unique.

My point is, a story doesn’t have to be 100% original. If you choose to write a story involving pregnancy, that’s fine. I personally won’t read it but does my one read really matter? Just don’t create a carbon copy of every other pregnancy story on the app. Make it yours.

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@luciaricci I agree that some stories can have cliches in them. Personally, I’ve been trying to leave out cliches, but it can be difficult. Even if I include a cliche or trope, I try to make the story original whether it’s through the characters, plot twists, or even the main premise. Part of being an author is being creative. You aren’t being creative, if you are copying someone else’s story.

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Personally, I think Episode should apply a sort of lock to the stories which mention (in great detail) or attempt to show sex scenes for people under a certain age.
It’s truly disturbing to see users with bad grammar (probably younger users) commenting things like “mor sex scens pls luv yur story” because that means they recognize the scenes and are being exposed to that kind of stuff too much for their age.
I would know. I was exposed to garbage topics too early and it has kind of turned out okay for me (I can’t even swear in public), but others might see the sex scenes as normal or right. That could lead to negative relationships, harmful relationships or even downright illegal relationships.

Just my opinion. Some younger readers can be surprisingly mature about these kind of topics.

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@dasha_author True. All story genres should be featured and taken into consideration. At least during Halloween, they feature horror/thriller stories, but that’s pretty much the only time I see that. At the same time though, Romance/Drama is definitely a more popular genre in general (not just on Episode). Even if it is popular though, I would love to have some variety of stories on the Featured Home Page.

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@SpringD There should be different love stories, not just the ones where two very attractive supermodels fall in love. I don’t even like using the term nerd because I don’t think anyone is a nerd. I’ve seen many movies and stories where they describe a nerd as being a person with glasses who is a bookworm or loves video games. How come people like that are considered nerds? I think more stories should feature a handsome guy (or girl) falling for a “nerd”. This would normalize and show younger readers that you should be happy to be you.

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I agree with most of those overused tropes, except for the reality show one. There are quite a few good stories about reality shows like Treasure Hunt, Hollywood Icon, and Young, Beautiful, and Broke that are pretty unpredictable.

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Agree 100%

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I agree that most of these topics are overused in this community and the trending section is usually filled up with these kind of stories. Honestly it’s not about what people prefer. If only those readers took time to check out a story that is a bit different than the others and doesn’t have words like “Pregnancy” or “Bad Boy” then maybe they would like and prefer those stories too. There are some beautiful stories in the trending sections of the respective genre. If only readers made an effort to get out of reading the same base story line over and over again.

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Now guys see I just wrote what I think. What you all said didn’t change my mind at all. I am not being rude but you all just continue with your thinking and let me continue with me. I am not gonna write anything here again since I think this is wrong. Please don’t mind.:smiley::smiley:

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The pain reading those horrible scene only we can understand and the same old drama always continues in episode

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Ah overused plot lines my term for cliches because cliche is such a nice word, might as well be a bit meaner and say it how it is

The OP (original poster) made me laugh, with the ‘how do these covers get approved’ and ‘god forbid anyone finds a girl with glasses etc’

I think you hit the big ones except WEREWOLVES like I know tech my generation is suppose to be all into that Twilight Crap but like that was over 10 years ago, AND the generation above me. (Brah, low key we are the harry potter and hunger games gen now I should be seeing more of those!) God I can’t even look at a werewolf story because I it’s just so overused!

I don’t necessarily want them gone because people do like the overused plot lines. I wish it was more like 6 / 7 Unique Stoires, and 1 / 7 cliche because when I scroll, I gotta scroll through a whole latta stuff that is overused plots.

I think i would tell an author, look, stay away from these topics. If you do want to venture into the overused plot lines, your story better be in it’s own box far away from everything else. Making the character older, or in college, or falling for the three people, doesn’t make it any less of a cliche

I think the plots that frustrate me the most are the werewolf ones, because I am a fantasy lover. It feels like when I read the summary, it is the same summary over and over again.

Uh, I would recommend stay away from the overused plot lines, but if you want to write a overused plot line story, do it. I’m not going to read your story, but heck, on this app you are bound to get alot of reads.

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@Daisy_Writer15 Thank you so much for sharing! I’ll check it out :slight_smile: I’m sure it’s worth the read~

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I have million dollar answer to the million dollar question.
Million dollar question: WHY?!?
Million dollar answer: Most episode users are freakin’ kids. Between 10-13 roughly. How do I know? Look at the fan mail for any popular story. You can tell by the language and lack of syntactical/grammatical skill that these are literally kids reading these stories. Kids love this crap. They eat it up. They are the majority. So who is Episode going to keep appealing to? The money maker. The majority.
I babysit this 10 year old girl and she saw the Episode app on my phone the other day and pointed it out. She said her mom made her delete it (because of the inappropriate content I assumed.) She loved the app. (She claimed she really misses the Mean Girls story.) I laughed and told her that was right of her mom to do. I wouldn’t want any 10 year old reading about some of the crap Episode comes up with that endorses pregnancy, cheating, sleeping with various guys, etc. I later talked to her mom about it and she told me she simply would not let her daughter play it after seeing a “choice” that involved getting caught in bed with some other guy (one of those retarded ads I presume.) I applaud the mom. Episode needs to change its target demographic from 12+ to 14+ or something.

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I agree with @mysoxlike2party 100%. The issue is, who’s going to stop them? It’s really up to sensitive parents to guard their children’s minds at such a young age, until they can afford to fend for themselves after developing concrete values. I think that it really sucks that kids are getting exposed to all of the dirt that can be found in Episode, but this is the same for literally anything else. In a way, it’s like a parent keeping their child from going to a public school because they don’t want them to be around other cursing children. I feel that some things are inevitable. But I agree with you there. That mom is doing what she can to structure her child the right way so that she can make good decisions on her own.

As far as this whole debate about cliches and recycled plots, I think they’re trending for a reason. That’s what people like, that’s what they read, and that equals trending. And like @mysoxlike2party said, Episode is going to market to the majority. They’re a corporation, which may mean that they’re not at all concerned with some type of mental crisis prevention. They offer a product, and we pretty much decide if we’d like to buy and/or participate in what they have to offer. They simply cannot be blamed.

However, I feel that even changing the target demographic won’t do much. It’s still available to every human being with a mobile device. I don’t think that cliches are all that bad myself, but I definitely do support the censoring of the borderline or straight-up immoral things that people publish. Like I said earlier though, it’s a product, and whether or not we participate or expose ourselves to it is our choice. So I find banging on the people that write “lazily” or use recycled plots isn’t very expedient or effective if a person wants change. People are people, and they like what they like. You conform to the market or you don’t, but you can’t come crying when nobody wants to buy your product. This isn’t to say at all that if something new and moral is introduced, that it can’t become the new trend, but when have we known the world to have ever been an exceptionally moral place?

If you’re sick, tired, and desperate for change, I don’t think that movement ever came from some people simply stating that all of the crap people write sucks.

To conclude my book, I think that it would be really, really, really, really, really, really gosh darn nice if there were new and original plots around every corner. I think it would be fantastic if Episode was a kid-friendly place, and that it wouldn’t need to be censored in the way that everyone believes that it should… but it is. People are people, they like what they like, and they’ll read whatever they want to. It’s trending for a reason, it’s overused for a reason, and people might as well be reading it for a reason. Be the different one then! Write those original plots and try to turn the market around! Make it gripping and exciting! Run your own race, and care for your own children so that they can grow positively.

If I have grammatical errors, I give my deepest apologies for disturbing your eyes.

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Those ads do need some help lol.

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I’m tired of seeing stories when the author can’t spell or use proper grammar. It’s not that hard to know the difference between your and you’re!

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This is true as well, but a lot of these authors didn’t learn English as their first language! They still can improve, and it’s necessary to write a publicly acceptable story, but I think that a smidge of mercy should be in our hands when we make public considerations like this. It’s okay to have your own opinion, but I think it’s important to make a logical, informed approach when considering other people and what they spend their time doing.

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Literally everyone who sees those ads and doesn’t play Episode HATES those ads.

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@mysoxlike2party Another problem is that a lot of stories break Episode’s Guidelines. Now, obviously, I’m sure they can’t read and review every story, but I feel like even some of the ones on the trending page break their rules. I remember when I wrote my story. Before I published it, I went through and made sure my story didn’t break any of those rules. If the stories stuck with the rules, they would be okay for kids at least 10 - 13 years old. I started reading Episode when I was 13, and the stories weren’t inappropriate at all. That was back when the old classic style was the only kind.

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Yup! Totally true!

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