What do you hate seeing in Episode stories? And why?

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21

I’m currently in the process of starting my first Episode story.
I’d say I’m pretty passionate about writing but I fear my writing may be too dragged on or boring.
Any tips?

1 Like
22

That isn’t long.

@Whatever1:
You actually already know what I like and don’t like. :wink: But I will make a list from what I like to see and not like to see in an Episode story.

I have the following things that I don’t like to see in a story:

  • The LI is mostly an over the top handsome mafia leader (with tattoos and scars), while in real life mafia leaders aren’t handsome at all. The most of them are in reality old ugly men;
  • The MC’s ex has cheated on MC and is jealous when she meets LI.;
  • There has to be always a mean girl, that wants to make MC’s life a living hell, because the MC and the mean girl both want to be with the LI;
  • The MC and LI love each other instantly, without learning to know each other;
  • For the MC it’s always easy to get pregnant from LI (except if the MC is a guy of course, but mostly MC’s are female) and the pregnancy doesn’t have complications.;
  • Those pregnancies are ‘unexpected’, mostly discovered when the LI runs away from MC, or is on a business trip or for an unknown reason away for a few months (or even years);
  • The mean girl needs to fake pregnancy to convince LI not to be with MC but with her (get a real life, sis. Faking pregnancy is so outdated.);
  • Parents die by cancer, a (car) accident or murder, or are alcoholics or drug addicts (really, let the parents live a happy life.) (Sorry had to say this, but if there are no parents around, they always are dead because of those circumstances.);
  • MC is mostly innocent and ‘not as the other girls’;
  • LI needs to be an handsome young bad boy who is still attending high school or college;
  • The same plot as everyone → So, no mean girls and creeps attacking MC in alleys or drugging MC during a party;
  • MC and LI love each other too quick → Try to make the love slow burn… Not that they need to stalk each other, but love in real life doesn’t come in one day.
  • A whole day description about the MC → No, MC waking up and describing the whole day, every episode;
  • Drama everywhere → Some authors put 4 or 5 drama-events in every episode. Please, don’t. There is no need to put 5 drama-events in every episode. Give the MC also a break to breathe;
  • Your character → you may use your own character in the story, but not in every episode. Some readers find it quite annoying if you put your character out there in the story every episode. And for me I find it quite annoying if I am reading a story and the authors character is taking half of the time to say something outside the story, while you can put that at the end during a QuestionandAnswers-session. It’s distracting and annoying;
  • Whole episode for CC (limited or full) of MC, LI and their whole family. Don’t full-CC grandpa when he’s in the whole storyline for 5 seconds and dies afterwards. :zipper_mouth_face: :mask: :clown_face:;
  • Many black screens for narration (gets me on my nerves.) Use other backgrounds and characters doing something on the background;
  • Mistakes in layering (I won’t stop reading but it’s irritating me) and basic directing (don’t use entering/exiting from left/right, but use spot directing). Spot directing takes time, but it shows that you took your time to write your story.;
  • Toxic relationships, violence against the LGBTQ+ community and/or racism.

What I should like to see in a story:

  • The story needs to be one of a kind. (Almost) no clichés and unsuspecting storylines.;
  • For me it doesn’t matter if you have no CC, no art scenes and no choices, as long as I see (as reader) that you the author took the time for his/her story and as long as the storyline and plot are captivating I will read your story;
  • I’d like to see more stories about after high school and college (I am older so I’d like to see also stories about characters that are 20+ year old);
  • Stories with character developing especially between the main characters. If it’s a love story, lovers don’t fall in love immediately (in real life), I’d like to see the story spread over several episodes/chapters (they start their feelings for each other in episode 15, for example, and not in episode 1).;
  • No toxicity in stories, especially not between MC and LI. Or it has to be a background-story with something unexpected happening (in my latest story I have a male best friend of the MC that is victim of domestic abuse);
  • Stories with parents that are still alive (I read lots of stories where parents were murdered, died during a car-accident or died because of cancer). I like to see something different, for example parents that neglecting their child and are there at the background or die from age (at being 90 years old) or because of another decease than cancer.;
  • A story with a MC and/or LI that develops an suffer with an addiction (for alcohol, drugs or something else);
  • If you write a fantasy story → more diverse supernaturals. There are more supernaturals than only vampires and werewolves. Write your story about were-cats, elves or hellhounds (yep, one of my latest stories has this diversity of supernaturals and a were-cat as a MC);
  • Stop making exes cheat. There are other reasons why people can break up.;
  • No mean girls, alley creeps, cheating exes or bad boys. That’s a little cliché;
  • Stop making LI’s criminals. → Give me some sweet LI’s that aren’t murderers or beaters. That some other character deserves to beaten up or killed doesn’t justify the crime. Criminals aren’t funny or interesting.;
  • Stop making the MC overly innocent. → No one has a happy life (I wish we all had), real life can be really hard. So, you can show the world the hard struggle of real life.;
  • Give some unexpected details, like MC falling over a banana-peel while she walks or MC bumping into a lamp (because she’s tall) or MC falling over a threshold (if you need fillers for an episode, use this.);
  • Give me some older MC’s and/or LI’s, like I said before I am almost 40, so I like to see stories around my age, too.;
  • Stop only using the car or motorbike for transportation, MC and/or LI can use public transport, the bike or walk.;
  • Let the MC and LI meet in an unexpected way → I read to many stories where MC and LI met at a party, at school or in the office. Why not let them bump into each other on the street or they meet each other by a mutual friend or family-member (should be nice to see that the MC met the LI, because LI helped MC’s grandma cross the street.);
  • Avoid taboos → please no relationships between a 40 year old and a minor (that’s gross) or a relationships between family members.

A-W

5 Likes
23

That’s such a funny thought, but totally right. :sob:

1 Like
24

Came back again :rofl::rofl:

  • Toxic LI’s, especially when they treat the MC such garbage. And then gets jealous when the MC falls in love with another LI. Like bro, what did you expect?

  • When authors over use the breathe animation. Why am I seeing it like 5 times in one sentence?

  • Gem Choices :unamused::unamused:

  • Narration before they have s*x. Like I wish some authors would include a button to skip the narration before the MC and LI are about to have sex. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable. I’d rather have them kissing and then fading out transition. But they do give warnings so I guess that’s my fault :rofl::rofl: it sucks cuz the plot is really good :sob:

  • ADSSSSS!!! Out of all my complaints, this is the top of my list :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
25

You should check out under the moon rise it’s really long episodes and has a lot of episodes

1 Like