So, apparently the worse I write the more popular my stories are. · 12:01pm Aug 23rd, 2015
Checking some statistics I found that one of my recent stories, You Can't Break me Discord, is doing really well. In fact it has over 600 views in it's first 20 days.
For me that is phenomenal. I mean, I only have two single chapter fics that have done better, out of 9, and it's really close in views to most of my other stories that have had the best reception. The only ones that have really done better have been around for at least a year and have multiple chapters or have been featured in big groups like the Seattle's Angel's review group and they didn't recieve nearly so many views so fast.
But arguably it's one of the worst pieces that I have done in a long time that wasn't done as a joke. I mean, yeah sure Why is there a spoon? - and - ETERNAL PURPLE HUNGER wasn't the best but it was by far one of my more unique stories.
You Can't Break me Discord was very basic, and the cover art was even just ripped from the movie. It had some back story, but the plot was basic. It was also simple and has one of the high rates of thumbs down, though it has a slightly higher than average thumbs up rating. I can't even find a blog about it by anyone other than me so I am really confused where people were finding it. I mean, I post it around to places to promote it, but I do that for all my stories.
Yet, unless Dear Diary: Sunset Shimmers Best Friend gets on EQD (which I have to rewrite the beginning for the last chapter again) it looks like You Can't Break Me Discord is going to be my most viewed story for the year. And I have had a productive year at 5 stories already, with two being a decent length.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that so many people liked it and saw it, but it's weird how one of the stories I was least happy/interested in writing has done so well. Maybe I just need to do more of the basic stuff like that. I do tend to experiment with a bunch of different stories an awful lot so maybe I need to spend some time with more basic stuff.
People, y'know.
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Apparently not as well at I ought to.
3341147 And that makes me laugh for some reason.
Welcome to Magnum Opus Dissonance. Audiences have a supremely annoying habit of not liking good things.
Honestly? I think a lot of people want fluffy easy reads with a clear-cut good vs. evil, where good is down for a while but then comes out on top, rather than intellectually challenging and complex stories that reflect real-world moral ambiguity and relativity. On that front, You Can't Break me Discord delivers. I think it's the same reason Disney movies are popular. With a few notable exceptions, they all sort of follow that same mold to be a retelling of "You Can't Break me <insert name of Big Bad>".
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Thanks. It wasn't meant as a huge negative, just a weird slightly annoying observation. Still, I think I'll try some of those easier stories for a bit and add just a little bit of a spin.