Spirit Animal is the only one I will be working on.

I feel like that the spirit animal is one of the best stories I could and will write. So expect chapters from that story.

Comments

[EverfreePony]

Hi there! Stumbled here by chance and noticed that you're looking for constructive criticism. So, I took a peek at your story--namely just its descriptions. The premise is interesting, but know that the descriptions alone might be a source of many of the dislikes on the story, which is a shame. The thing is, there's a lot of typos and other errors in them, and they don't really serve the purpose a good description should. Know that if you want your stories to be read, the descriptions need to be perfect. If you have an editor working on the story--if you don't, I strongly suggest getting one--make sure that they also work their editing magic on the descriptions.

Now, a bit more lengthly explanation on what descriptions should do and why it matters. Both the short and long description should—obviously—serve to inform the readers what the story’s about while not spoiling much and ideally piquing the audience’s interest. Let’s be honest, doing that is not easy, for some it may be actually a lot harder than writing a whole story. I’ve found that getting some outside perspective helps—pre-readers are a really useful asset here, since they know what the story’s about, but are also far less biased than the author himself/herself. If you are lucky and more experienced, you may not need anyone to help you come up with the descriptions, but it’s still good to have them looked over (along with story and chapter titles) to make sure there are no errors that could turn away potential readers.

You should also keep in mind that the short and long descriptions serve a slightly different purpose. The short one should brief the readers on the story’s premise. It can be argued that this is the more important one, since it’s the description people see on the front page (unless your story is featured) and in story embeds. It thus shouldn’t be surprising that wording really matters. What I oftentimes find is that people tend to throw in something about they OCs, such as “Sweet Cakes has a bad day.” Such description makes me immediately wonder who is Sweet Cakes and why should I care about his bad day. (After all, everyone has a bad day from time to time and almost nobody gives a flying feather.) Furthermore, the description doesn’t tell me a thing about what should I expect from the story itself, and thus I’ll be quite likely to pass this one. However, if you can tweak the description so that it gives the audience a better idea of what to expect, maybe even so that it ties to canon characters (If they are present in the story, of course. Don’t make up stuff for the sake of a grand description.), the results will be much better. “Celestia’s personal confectioner has a bad day.” already offers a clearer image of the plot that lies ahead, plus it provides some interest.

The long description should ideally expand on what the short description said, for example, it ought to give the readers a better idea of why Sweet Cakes, the royal confectioner, has a bad day. However, don’t let yourself be fooled by the long description being long. An ideal average length is about twice that of the short description—it definitely isn’t a place for info dumps, history lessons, character bios and such. If you want to share some extra info about the story or the characters, do so in your blogs. On a side note, if you feel you have nothing else to add to the short description, you can use it both as a short and long description.

Besides the blurb itself, the long description usually contains a section giving credits to cover artists, editors, et cetera, ideally with hyperlinks leading to their profiles. Also, if the story is a crossover, it’s great to state what the other source material is and if knowledge of it is required to understand the story. The latter also applies to sequels. Additional warnings, such as ‘contains advanced calculus, read at your own discretion’ may also be included.

On the other hand, try to refrain from including stuff like “This is my first story, so please be gentle/post only good comments/don’t downvote.” and “I apologise for the quality, I was depressed when I wrote this.” The part about the first story is usually tolerated (the latter not so much), but it may already raise some red flags about the story’s quality. It’s also quite redundant, since people can see what your first story is, plus a lack of experience is not limited to your first story—hay, it is possible that you’ll start to improve by your tenth story or such. As for the lack of quality due to your mental state, it’s unfortunate, but if you are dealing with something in real life, better push fics to the sidelines and fix what needs to be fixed first. And if you are using writing as a coping mechanism, that’s fine, but consider if you really want to publish it before looking it over once you are in a better state of mind. Readers here are pretty patient and will appreaciate quality over quantity.

Also, a group that's meant to help with descriptions and such is also a thing.

[Ghost56]

Thank you I was waiting for someone to say something but really I am doing these stories more as hobby. But at least some ones tells me what I am doing wrong.

[EverfreePony]

5621414
Don't forget to hit the '⟫' button if you want people to be notified of your response.

Well, most folks here are doing this as a mere hobby, but that doesn't mean the stories have to be of dubious quality. Also, you never know, maybe you'll one day find yourself publishing your Spirit Animal story.

[Ghost56]

5621468
Yeah maybe but like everything I my life I don't thing I am good enough for it

[EverfreePony]

5621559
Understood. Still, I think you should try to trust yourself a bit more.

[Ghost56]

5621561
I will try

[Nightfurypredator]

Hey there I just want to say that spirit animal is the story you ever wrote, I mean the main character your writing about is inspiring!