How to Get Your Story Read 101 · 2:42am Jul 13th, 2013
I've been getting a string of emails from people lately, asking about how to get more eyes on their stories here on FIMfiction. So, I thought I'd put together a few bullet points for people to see and help 'em out! Here's some of the things that I think will help draw a few more clicks to your works:
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1. Movie-Pitch Description: In Hollywood you are literally given three sentences to describe your movie before a company decides if they're interested or not. For the most part, people have an attention span of 3-5 sentences before you lose them. Your writing can be elegant and fluffy and descriptive as you like (mine is WAY too dramatic, but that's my own flaw).... BUT, if you want to reel someone in, the answer is simple. Give yourself three strong sentences to make it look appealing. If you can't do it in five or less, rethink your description. For example:
Long-Winded: Rainbow Dash never knew that her life could get so boring, so quickly. Nor that she could owe Applejack such a heavy debt. But things start to go down when Rainbow not only crashes into Big Macintosh and hurts him, but destroys the barn at the same time! Now she has to rebuild it, pay for it, or work it off herself. AJ is not letting her leave the farm until one of those three things happen! Marked for semi-slavery, harsh language, and working Rainbow to the bone under an angry AJ!
Concise and Interesting: When Rainbow Dash injures Big Mac and destroys the barn at Sweet Apple Acres, Apple Jack ropes her in for some hard labor. The cyan pegasus can't leave the farm until her debt is repaid!
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2. Be Frugal With Tags: Nothing says "I don't know what I'm doing" more than a story with like six tags on it. It confuses people, and makes them distrust your judgement. Your action adventure comedy better not have a romance dark tag with human and slice of life next to it. It's not done that way. Imagine, if you will, that your story were turned into a novel. What section of a bookstore would you have it placed in? Yes, some categories cross and it's perfectly healthy to have two tags, but three or more is pushing it. Yes, your adventure story might have romance IN IT, but that doesn't mean that's the main focus. People go to the romance section for romance novels, not the sci-fi section. Be short and concise. What is the over-arching THEME of your story? What's the primary focus? Fluttershy and Rarity as a pairing (Romance)? Or is it an adventure story deep in the Everfree Forest, with a little Flutter/Rare to spice it up (adventure)? Just because you have a joke here and there does not make it a comedy. Not unless humor is your main focus for the story. ((The only exception to this is the "Human" tag, which serves as a staple for our particular fandom.))
Sloppy: Dark/Adventure/Slice of Life/Romance/Human/Comedy
Professional: Romance/Comedy
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3. Avoid the Cliches This goes without saying, but our fandom already has its own cliches and such to avoid. You are way less likely to get readers if you write your own version of a story that's been told a thousand times before. I know, I know, you have your own take on it. I've had this feeling many times before myself. I have ACHED to write a "Rainbow Dash breaks her wings" story, but I don't. No one would want to read it, because they've read it before! Many times! So, try to avoid the cliches as best you can. Before you put your fingers on the keyboard, think to yourself "have I heard of this story before?" (The only exception to this I would name is romance-pairings. People have their favorite pairings and NEVER get tired of them, no matter how much Flutter/Mac or Twi/Dash they read...) Here are the top five cliches you should avoid writing about. Avoid them, and you're already giving yourself a leg-up:
1. Rainbow Dash Breaks Her Wings
2. The Return of Discord (season 3 canon aside)
3. Luna's First Few Days After Returning from the Moon (a.k.a. "Anachronistic Luna")
4. The Solar Empire/New Lunar Republic
5. Popular Story Spin-Offs (Xenophilia, My Little Dashie, Cupcakes, etc.)
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4. Avoid Stories With An All-OC Cast Without a vast reputation (like Ponydora Prancypants or ShortSkirtsandExplosions) its very, very hard to get people to want to read a story of nothing but OC's. Fan Fiction in its own essence is putting familiar characters in situations you want to see them in, and seeing how things work out. That's what draws the interest, especially since the show is jailed in its G rating and 22-minute time slot. If you have a story with an OC or two in it that is perfectly fine, people like meeting new ponies. (OC's are a topic for another 101, trust me) But if we don't see any of the mane six, or the Royal Sisters, or any background ponies we know... well... it can be a tough sell to get people to click on it and see what's what. If you'd like a few more eyes to view your works, stick to what people know, and they'll happily follow you everywhere. OC's are fine, but the fewer the better, most times.
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5. Picture, Dressings, and Formatting Get a good picture, something memorable. If you know an artist, ask for something, even a title card will set you apart from other stories! Try to find something funny or memorable using google. Our fandom has so many artists there's bound to be something to your liking, no matter what your story is about. Also, remember to double-check your formatting, paragraph spacing, and general over-all look. It needs to be clean, well-structured, and it needs your love and attention to look good. If you're copy-pasting a block of text and hitting publish, people WILL notice. They'll trust you less, and will be less driven to read your stuff. They shouldn't be looking at how your paragraphs look, they should be deep in your story and not even worrying about anything like that. People zoom in on the unusual, just remember that. If it all looks clean and well put-together, then that's one less strike against you in your reader's opinion.
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Well I hope my tips helped, and I hope this helped the people that have been sending me questions and such. :)
Thanks for Reading!
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This is relavant to my interests. Too bad it's just an example!
With the first point that is one advantage of FFN, you have to use a short summary to describe your story initially. I don't get why we have paragraphs to use to describe our story. Point two is something the mods here want people to think about, mostly to avoid conflicting tags. Point three for sure... though I haven't seen many Luna First Days After Return. OCs it depends, and number five? Oh boy you hit one of the biggest points, formatting is one thing that would break a story no matter how good it is, and cover art? Nothing turns me off more than seeing a Pony Creator pic as a cover, or cover art that has nothing to do with the fic.
Very nice tips there, friend! I couldn't agree more with them. I look forward to the OC 101 session.
Some solid advice there, Aegis.
It is rather unfortunate that the appearance of your story on the front page (pic, title, story tags, character tags, synopses) has a such a strong influence on whether people click on your fic, but that's the way it goes. You just gotta learn how to play the game though, and you should do fine.
Its funny, I know an artist from high-school and I have already commissioned covers for three separate stories from her, but it takes so long for me to write that the pics are just sitting in my image folder without an actual story.
Please make this happen.
While I agree with your point regarding tags, having caught myself feeling wary about 4+ tagged stories in the past, it is worth considering their utility as search keywords.
Suppose a reader wants some good romance. The search tool might overlook a satisfactory story because it has more adventure than it has romance and is tagged accordingly.
Your stories Seeing the Pattern and its sequel contain one of my favorite romances, yet you omitted the [Romance] tag and prevented it from being found during a [Romance] search.
(spoiler-hidden because you may have done this deliberately)
1207677 That story's main focus wasn't romance, though. It was a layer of it, but not the meat and potatoes.
Excellent points... I shall work at incorporating this
Huh.
I've basically done all of those things other than the description part.
I should use that for my next story…
1207678
Oh.
It seemed rather important to me; it even drove the plot at times.
But I do see how it is not the focus of the story.
i don't write, so i'm all good :) (but really don't use so many damn tags)
>Nightmare Moon's First Few Days After Returning from the Moon
The Return of Princess Nightmare Moon is one of my favorites.
1207677
Interesting, I didn't know that Links are visible through a spoiler tag.
1207711
I know, right? When I previewed my comment, I briefly wondered if it were defeating the purpose of having a spoiler tag in the first place.
Whelp...
I am already screwed on all accounts, plus many more that go unnamed.
Doesn't pay well to be a crappy author who writes Self Insert crap and shipping.
Pfft...
Why do I even bother when you juggernauts are out here in the field?
I am out of my league here.
Bugger.
Cause the story I'm working on atm has an OC cast (I mean, since it takes place in Canterlot, specifically the guards section of Canterlot castle there will be the occasional canon character popping up/referenced, Shining Armour comes to mind). But, the main characters are OCs.
' but refused to give me any ideas with canon characters. 
So, OCs it was.
I'm used to writing original fiction, rather than fan fiction, so I'm more comfortable writing characters I've created and know, rather than canon characters. I'm, weird that way.
Plus my fickle muse went 'write this story!
I did write a fic with canon characters, but I've no idea how good it is because people barely read it(and those that do don't leave a comment).
Very good advice from someone thinking about starting out.
I'd like to point out that a regular and consistent update schedule might deserve a place on this list. If you can get more story out once every two weeks or less, you will probably keep more of the readers that do like the story. A month or more between updates means that even if they liked it, most people won't be checking to see if it's updated and when and if it should pop up on their feed (Ugh. I still hate the whole feed thing) it will either get buried or ignored.
1207830
I don't see self-insert as a significant issue, unless it's leads to mary sue-esque situations where the character is too perfect, never inconvienced, etc. That and really quick, no background (or poorly established), pair-ups with any one of the mane six or another main characters just doesn't work well.
Well... At least my current story isn't a self-insert; even if no one really reads it.
YAY I haven't done wrong that much in my first try.
Though i may need to rewrite the description
Hmm, I think I avoided most of this... did have tagging issues when I first started
But think I have that settled now. I hope anyways. 
Helpful advice, especially for new writers like me, thanks.
I think the only one I really take exception to would be number three there. Cliches are cliches because they work. Nothing's new, except in terms of arrangement and nuance.
"Original", as far as I can tell, usually means "I haven't seen a lot of this". Sometimes it even means "people don't do this very much lately", where lately is measured in decades or even centuries -- but stories are stories. They've all been told before.
Trying to do less common stories isn't a bad thing, but there's such a thing as perfecting form. Novelty of premise is virtually impossible.
1208584
Thank you Commander NitPick.
Now pack to your convienience store next to the gummy bears and yoohoo's!
1208608
It's just that I've seen a lot of people say things like "I don't want to do X, it's cliched", and what they're really saying is "I saw this a week ago, so I can't write mine". I hate seeing that, because I wanted to see their take on it.
Like, the Dash-injury thing: I'm willing to bet a lot of people would be curious about your take on such a thing. Every writer writes things differently.
You know what? This helped me quite a bit. I mean, I've never really done any of these things, but still that was only because I've never thought to do them. Save the summary thing, I tend to make those a bit long.
The one thing I would like to point out is the all OC thing. The Legend of Echo the Diamond Dog, and its sequel have done very, VERY well. The only pony in it that isn't OC is Daring Do, at least in the first one. The second one has perspective swap to the Castle sometimes, and of course we see some familiar faces. Now I realize that this isn't always the case, as some stories like that do crash and burn. Hard. But there is always the occasional exception to these rules.
In my opinion you should have mentioned that Anthro and Crossover are following the same rule as Human. Just to have the 101 covering up even more basics, but well, I guess people should be able to make that up by themselves. Then again, this goes for the most of those points...
E: How would you handle the "advanced" tags Slice of Life and Random? They don't seem to say anything at all, or, even worse, tell me as a reader that the writer hasn't a clue himself, as nobody would want to read a story that is telling a perfectly average day of Twilight's studying, or a story that isn't planned out to be something neat. Should they be avoided in general or are there certain moments when they are legitimated?
Time to rewrite a story description or two...
This is great! Thank you so much!
Your advice probably just saved my story.
I was going to put a description similar to that long example you showed, copy and paste my whole fiction, and put some boring old photo I found that was relevant.
I believe the whole-OC-cast appeal is really based on how the author writes the character. People are obviously going to hate Mary Sue/Gary Stu's, angsty personalities, and sob-story characters. If you try to write them realistically, as the MLP writers do for the show characters, I believe you can get a positive reception and quite a few views, too.
1208008
Aegis isn't saying you shouldn't write it. He's just warning you if you do it will be harder to get readers. And it will, but if you're writing it because it's what you want to write go ahead and write it anyway. Muses need love too.