This means something · 8:15am Feb 6th, 2013
So I just picked up Scribblenauts Remix for my iPad. It was only 99 cents, and I've heard a lot of good things about the Scribblenauts franchise. If you've been living under a rock for the last decade or so, the point of the game is to summon arbitrary objects so your character can solve puzzles. Literally arbitrary — the game's got an insane object dictionary, and you can create anything from chainsaws to magnets to firefighters to Cthulhu to friendly winged holy robot zombie narwhals. It's been as amusing as I'd hoped, but one moment in particular stands out that I simply have to share.
There's a level early on where you have to give animals to a farmer. So of course the first thing I typed was "little pony". Poof! One appeared. Then I realized: I'm not thinking big enough.
I made a winged unicorn and a dark blue winged unicorn. Hooray! Celestia and Luna! Then a sun and moon for the sky, just because I had to. Then the Mane Six: A purple unicorn, a cyan pegasus ...
... and then I made a pink pony and dropped her on the ground.
Every living being on the screen immediately made a beeline for Pinkie Pie and made little happies.
As if that wasn't crazy enough ... trying to get her away from the crowd, I dragged her on top of the farmer, and he picked her up.
Suddenly, every other pony on the screen FLIPPED OUT and instantly killed him to death.
Do not mess with the Pinkie Pie. o___o;
Current story status: Writing the next chapter of Princess Luna Picks Up Hitchhikers, and editing an adult-but-not-clop fic titled Social Lubricant. After that, back to Haylander, which I will begin posting sometime before the sun burns out.
It's also been a fascinating — and nerve-wracking — experience these past few days, watching the reaction to One Knight Stand change over time. I first submitted it as the EqAD feature went live, and so right from the beginning it was getting traffic both from the EqAD porn connoisseurs and the ambivalently porn-loving[1] FIMFic front page.
Not long after its posting, I knew despair. FIMFic had the story at +9/-5, I'd gotten only one positive comment on the story, and EqAD's rating system had it at about 2 stars out of 5 (which I think was one 5-star review and two 1-stars). I was expecting the downvote barrage (see Exhibit A in footnote 1 below), but the EqAD rating stung — it was going over most poorly with the readers I'd hoped would give it a fair shake.
A little later, after it had fallen off the FIMFic front page, it stood at +18/-8, and having broken the 2–1 up/down ratio I cautiously declared it not a complete failure. The next day, it grew by fits and starts toward 3–1, and over the weekend hit +42/-13. EqAD's rating climbed toward three stars, I got a late flood of appreciative comments, and it fell off the EqAD front page (meaning it was no longer being actively advertised anywhere).
Today, it hit +64/-16 (4–1!), EqAD shows it at a notch over three stars, and I'm completely mystified. The only thing I can conclude from the numbers is that it was targeted at the narrow literary-porn niche market and didn't have broad appeal beyond that base, but there's been some sort of buzz growing that is now getting it in the hands of the right readers. I don't know how -- there's no outside links showing up in the stats page aside from EqAD, it doesn't appear to have been added to any groups, and I'm not aware of any mentions on fimfic blogs (please speak up if you've seen it name-dropped).
On the other hand, the ratio of total views to upvotes has remained remarkably consistent throughout this process, at ~20:1 — it's just that over time, new downvotes have fallen off far harder than new upvotes have.
In conclusion, an interesting experiment that I have absolutely no idea what to make of.
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[1] Exhibit A: Simply by existing and having a "sex" tag, a new clop story can expect to get 5-15 downvotes before it falls off the front page. Exhibit B: The typical clop story seems to have a views:upvotes ratio about half that of a non-clop story (my rule of thumb for something reasonably well written is 10:1 normal, 20:1 clop, although I bet statistics crunchers like Bad Horse will have much more to say on the matter). Exhibit C: Despite this, if you turn on View Mature, the featurebox is generally about half clop.
I love it when my favorite authors crunch numbers.
For the record, I'm not a fan of clop, so I felt it unfair to pass judgement on a work I wouldn't enjoy. It was heartening to see the fic recover from the initial onslaught, though.
800630
Sweet, tasty statistics porn! Wait no. That came out wrong.
Thanks for the good thoughts, and the maturity to merely skip stuff you dislike. There's more non-clop content coming, I promise.
Hmm, I feel like I've found you at a weird time in your career. I just read OKS the other day and watched you because of it. This is the first blog I've gotten from you on that watch, and here it is a strange reaction to a story. I can't say much though, I'm sure if I ever write down any of my fanfic ideas then I will be watching the statistics like a Louisiana Voodoo Priest.
Before even reading it got totally unfair unrelated-to-your-writing down points for being Human in Equestria (not my favorite,) up points for ponifying that human though, up points for being the rarer female POV (though you may be losing points from unimaginative male readers for this,) up points for literary humor in the description, and up points for involving Shining Armor because he is a total cutie.
After reading, I gave it an up-vote for being uniquely first-person POV with the reader and for being such a charming and intimate story. I have more to say about it, but I still intend to write a comment about it on the story's page itself.
As for the continuing attention past its fall from the top of various pages: I can't speak for everyone, but in my case it was from the 'Read it Later' button. I'm never caught-up on fiction, in fact my backlog keeps growing. I think I saw this one at about the same time on the front of FiMF and EQaD, and put it on my RiL. Soon it was, well, Later. And I Read It. That was when I voted, followed, etc. I would not be surprised if most stories over 1000 words have a bit of a tail due to the RiL button.
I hope this information helps. Thank you for writing, and for sharing what you write.
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I try not to obsess over story statistics; the only reason I went into such detail is because this one's numbers were so unexpected. For public opinion of my story to transform over time was a thing for which I was not prepared.
I very much appreciate the detail behind your decision! (And the watch, too! I shall endeavour to justify it.
) I'd love to hear anything more you've got to say, but already you've put more effort into your response than >99% of readers, and that's a thing I very much respect.
> up points for literary humor in the description
Also, I just have to share this with someone, because nobody's mentioned it yet: the first sentence of my description is simultaneously a metaphorical description of my approach to the genre, and a literal description of the story plot. I am far too proud of that.
> in my case it was from the 'Read it Later' button
... wow, people actually use those? I've so given up on RIL at this point (stars and fishes, I've got 75 stories on it) that if I get a chapter or two into a longer work I hope to return to, I just prematurely fave it. I wish there was some sort of sorting algorithm for RIL, like a 1-to-5-star scale (1: "this has an interesting premise, maybe someday", 5: "THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE BUT I SWEAR THE INSTANT THE FLAMES DIE DOWN").
You need to publish Social Lubricant. I wanted to show it to someone, and found it wasn't out yet! Hurry up with the editing, please.
838974
Thank you for the encouragement! It's flattering to know there's demand.
I'm currently psyching myself up to rip it apart and tighten up the pacing problems, under Benman's kind guidance, but I'll make a point of getting started early this week (currently settling back in from a con and don't have a lot of bandwidth for writing tonight). He wants it out there, too, and really honestly, I'm at a place right now where having that external pressure helps. My internal pressure to finish it is already making me feel guilty enough, so a "get it done!" here and there doesn't add guilt, but it does remind me that there's benefits to buckling down and finishing.