One Shot Frustration. · 4:55am Jan 7th, 2014
I just can't do it. Neither of my one shots are terribly well received. It isn't because they're bad, it's just that they're nothing special. I only wrote them in an attempt to get some things off my mind, and to try to write an actual SHORT story.
I see one shots getting featured all the time. It's just hard with multichapter stories to keep the readers attention past that first 2000 words. Granted, two of my multichapter stories got featured, it was because I had good hooks. But then the reader follow through just keeps dropping every chapter. Sure the 1st chapter of CAPS LOCK got nearly 1300 views, but only about 300 people have read it all the way through.
I can't sum a story up in much less than 20k words. And even that killed me. I wanted to write so much more--COULD have written so much more, but a weening audience spurred me to finish quickly.
I won't do that with Chasing Dreams. It's gonna be 20 chapters and they will be full chapters. I want to stir thoughts and emotions a one shot is typically incapable of. Sure, not many will read it to the end, but those that made the journey will be left with an actual attachment to the story and characters within.
That's what I as a writer care about.
One-shots that are featured are very lucky, this is true. The main reason is because of followers. Pretty much the only people that can get a one-shot in the feature box are the ones with quite a few followers. It is a rather vicious cycle.
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Akumokagetsu is the perfect example of this, seeing as he puts out a one shot a day that typically gets 20 favorites before it's even read.
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* exception: Just a Dream, had less than 20 followers.
1691339 either way, I concur, there is so much more effort taken into making a longer story keep the readers than shorter ones. I prefer to write dark because I try to write things real, but I get fucked over for faves no matter how I do.
So, in short,
FUCK THE POLICE!
Welcome to the club dude. I actually just tried to write a one shot cliche thing that started at 3k words and now on chapter 4 unpublished I realize that like you I can't standing writing under 20-30k for a story. Oh well, back to writing
It's not necessarily true that only people with a ton of follwers can get a one-shot into the feature box, though. When I submitted Light The Sky On Fire, it was only my second story, and I had maybe a dozen followers at most when I posted it... and the darn thing just exploded; it shot into the feature box within a couple of hours and sat there for about three or four days, I think, racking up some jaw-dropping number of likes and faves in the process, (jaw-dropping to me, anyway; I sure never expected it!).
But the hundred-odd followers I got out of it didn't help my next one-shot, Twilight Sparkle and the Pits of Despair at all. (Not that I really expected it to, though, since it was basically just a goofy bit of randomness as part of the whole "Twilight eats peaches" meme Obsolescence inadvertently started.) I think whether a one-shot hits the feature box has as much to do with whether or not it's a compelling idea that grabs people's attention, as with how many followers someone has.