How-to: Make Your Story Page Interesting · 10:09pm May 16th, 2014

Overview:
• Part 1: Story Title
• Part 2: Cover Art
• Part 3: Tags
• Part 4: Description
• Part 5: Chapters
• Summary (tl;dr)

You know what was cool? The season finale from last Saturday. I went to my private lab after watching it and asked the scientists working there what the monitors were saying. Apparently, the season finale managed to outcool Pluto in the whole coolness factor. Quite a feat!

So, after that I decided to read fan fics about it. Mostly because there was a certain thing that happened with a certain tree that wouldn’t leave my mind. I wanted to see if some other guy had thought the same. Seeing how there already are a ton of fics that talk about it, I’m guessing we’re more or less a hive mind, because holy hell, guys.

Why does this all matter to the blog title? Well, while I was checking through the lists of all these fics, I realized that there were two general reactions on my behalf:

Either a fic looked so awesome I immediately wanted to read it, or it made me feel like running away and hiding behind my mama.

Now, I might be no nuclear scientist (yet), but apparently I’m good at making a story page look appealing. Some of the people I work with (and I’m talking about, you know, real people, this time I’m not only talking about the drugged dwarfs in my basement) have actually asked me for help in dealing with that aspect multiple times to give it more exposure. I know of one case where a complete redesign of the story’s presentation of a friend helped it go up from 20 to 500 likes.

So I thought, “I should use that superpower I apparently own to fight crime!” And so I did.

I got back from the hospital like twenty minutes ago. Apparently, I’m allergic to bullets. Also criminals don’t like it when you point out that their trousers look stupid.

So yeah, I guess I’m giving general tips instead of trying to be a hero. Not the worst plan for a weekend, I guess. It’s either this or going past the average Brony’s favorite past time (Derpibooru).

Things I will talk about include how to properly format a story title and some do’s and don’ts for its selection, rules of appeal for cover images, things to keep in mind when selecting the tags, a whole guide on how to write a good description, and finally some bits about word count and chapters.

~~I will release one part every day, finished by a summary of everything on the last; the first blog will be posted tomorrow. That’s one whole week of blogs, so bare with me!~~ Update: All blogs posted.

Just one thing I would like to point out before I start:

These are all personal, subjective tips and might even be utter crap. I’m just sharing personal opinions and rules here that may or may not work for everyone.

Otherwise, enjoy! Hope you learn a thing or two. (Two are better than one.)

Part 1: Story Title »

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