"Do That Again" & "The Gathering": Thanks! · 12:48pm May 25th, 2016
I've been having a rocky restart. Since posting "The Mailmare", my story views have been going downhill, and my live watcher count even more so. "Displacement" brought me 500 views and maybe 1 new watcher, even after being on EQD. I know it sounds spoiled of me to be discontented with that, but I have a good reason: I'm spoiled. I used to get at least 3000 views for a story on EQD, and 1 new watcher per 100 views.
Last week I shamelessly begged you to read "Do That Again", a hasty crackfic, and hundreds of you foolishly did, thrusting it into the featured box. I got 400 or 500 notifications and 25 watchers over the course of 3 days. It felt like old times! Welcome to Queen of Fools, cogwheelbrain, Thatfimficguy, Yossie, Avvy, Jay-The-Brony (yes, that guy who's been in the featured box since March; I guess this means I have to call off the assassins), OmniFox, OF29, Marigold Sparkle Mane, Silent Sir 224, KingMoriarty, LightningFlash18, Paladium Earth, Noble Cause, swiftwriter14, TualaitSparkul, Maz Twinkle14, radlix, H2O_LP_Delirious, Dakingace, Winston, TheCreativeWonderDash, and Lavender_Raindrop. Also, since then, Cynewulf (finally), Dramon Creator, Metal Aura, lunarsplash02, Kevin293, Faranight, Blyndpwn, Sifto Ice Salts--watch out folks; he's probably Canadian--and, a few minutes ago, e520.
"Do That Again" brought me 25 watchers on 1500 views. I can break that down into 2 time periods: before the featured box (400 views, 1 watcher) and after (1100 views, 24 watchers). I infer that when a new story doesn't hit the featured box, it gets read almost only by my watchers.
Last night, Titanium Dragon, GhostOfHeraclitus, & bookplayer all posted recommendations for my latest story. I woke up this morning to a hundred notifications and The Gathering in the featured box. This proves that you don't have to write a crackfic about necrophilia to get featured. You can also get featured by good, old-fashioned plugs from several of your friends who have thousands of watchers. That's the magic of friendship! 
I plan to post another very short story this afternoon, a Celerity fic. I want to blog about how to read before doing that, though, because this is the kind of story that lots of people don't seem to grok. A lot of readers read for the plot. They just want to know what happened. Then they decide whether they like what happened. This is like deciding that you like Andy Warhol paintings because you like tomato soup.
Mmm, tomato soup.
Another thing to think about when reading is, What are the characters thinking? Why did they do what they did? How do they feel about it? I believe, from the reactions to my story "Trust" and Horse Voice's story "Biblical Monsters", that many readers never think about these things.
In unrelated news, knighty fixed Google Docs uploading so it doesn't upload comments into your story. Thanks, knighty!
Eyo. Congrats for the comeback! I've been there -- it's always nice when it happens. Think of story popularity as a cyclic thing: goes up and down, but doesn't really disappear.
Also, eh, a strike of luck (or lack of it) can do wonders. Personally, I liked The Gathering. It was short, I was online when you posted it, and I realized that I never really commented on one of your stories. So I went, what the hell. A well-deserved feature, if you ask me.
Thing is, mainstream literature (and ninety percent of the fanfics) are read for the plot. Once you get into literature as a whole, you start thinking symbols, prose, character, tone, yaddah yaddah.
Also, and this is gonna sound harsh -- most of the time, a plot is mandatory. A concept story, where there's no actual plot and it doesn't matter, where the entire fic is just an exploration on an abstract idea, tends to be kind of... unreadable?
I guess it depends on what you consider plot. The Gathering has a plot. It explores a situation, sure, and it doesn't resolve it per se. But the story deals with SPOILERS HERE Celestia having a very minor breakdown about it, then her interaction with Dotted Line.
That counts as a plot. In Numbers' words, a story is about a moment in the character's life, right? While writing about it, you write about the everydayness, the usual stuff, the predictable stuff in that life's character -- and then you write about the one unique moment in the character's life. You establish a routine and talk about the exception.
To put up an example: here, the exception is the second half of the spoiler I wrote up there.
And that exception is the plot of the story! The rest is just, like, the set up. Or the concept. Or whatever.
Sure, it's not the most important bit of the story, but it's what moves it. I can see people reading stories for it, 'cause it's what really reveals the characters', uh, character. Personality. Whatever.
I mean, then you gotta realize that the plot is a mean to an end, not an end itself -- in this case, a way to present the set up and the way Celestia deals with it -- but that's left to the person, I suppose.
Eh. Really looking forward to that blog, I guess. Wanna see what you have to say!
I managed to get around to plugging The Gathering just now.
Procrastinators Unite! (Tomorrow, or possibly the day after, depending on circumstances...)
Sometimes no one reads and having over 1K followers becomes a mean joke
And you're sad for awhile.
But there is vodka in the world and strongest pipe tobacco and the planet (swiftly tilting) has not fallen yet so you are happier. And then you write another in a week.
And then eventually you look back and smile because your favorites ended up with views over time, but generally they don't. And that's okay. The world has moved on since then.
Yes, fine, you have my attention.
I would prefer if you write philosophical and existential stories, like the ones Burning Man Brony: Fear and Loathing of Equestria and Displacement but those stories didnt got much readers and ratings compared to the other ones.
You monster.
Anyway, grats on the feature! There's nothing like being plugged by people, though really, the story was short and interesting, so it is always a little hard to be able to tell if our plugging actually did anything, or if it would have been featured anyway.
Regardless, though, I'm glad it was; I think a lot of folks would be interested in it.
Not spoiled. Natural. Besides if you think that's bad you ought to get a peek at my ambitious desires.
Hm, I see no fools, only friends.
*popular writer complaining ironically about the tasteless, ignorant masses who just don't know how to read a story right*
Boy, Warhol's work sure is hit or miss... A lot of these don't even resemble soup cans!
It's really hard to predict what will do well, and I don't know anymore where people are getting their story recommendations besides just looking on their own and seeing what catches their eye. An EqD feature used to guarantee 1500 views, often 2500 or more. But now, it's usually only good for 500-700 for an average story, and I can usually tell you at a glance which ones will fail to get even that. I'm not surprised "Displaced" barely got any attention (relatively), just from the subject matter and tags. In fact, it did better than I thought it would. I've even seen a few EqD features in the last 6 months struggle to get 200 views. But that's the case for recommendations across the board. A TRG feature rarely gets me more than 50 views. RCL gets even less. I couldn't say what SA gets, since they've never featured one of my stories, even though several meet their criteria. Even getting in the feature box doesn't always do much. I've had stories hang in there a few days and still never clear 1000 views. Of my last 10 stories, most of them haven't reached that threshold. But one that I published on a whim and didn't even bother to submit to EqD got over 2000 views and about 15 followers, just because (as near as I can tell) it was a story about Maud that I published by chance a couple days after this season's Maud episode aired.
So more than ever it appears to be about luck, with some contribution from being topical to a recent episode or having really good cover art.
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I just now realized something. Your comments are thoughtful commentary on someone's work (often literary in nature), and your blog posts tend to be barely-coherent streams of crude (often insulting) language. Which are fun to read mind you.
....I think you are doing the internet backward, Aragon.
#illumineighty controlling the site! Stop the fimfiction elite!!!
I think it's hard for a lot of people to try to think from another's point of view, be it real life or fiction. Maybe they outright refuse to, or maybe there's something that's keeping them from doing that like views that conflict too much with their own? I dunno... a stupid example I could think of is asking a used car salesman to think from the POV of the customers. I mean, would they want to? That might be a massive guilt trip to happen.that could hamper the performance of their job if they start caring. Or maybe they just don't give a damn and see money walking into their lot. Or even if you ask them to do it it never occurs to them how.
Asking a person to step out of their shoes and into someone else's is apparently asking a lot of some people. Maybe a lot of people. Asking for people to empathize is a hard thing for people to do.
I'm thinking that you're asking if it's worthwhile to pose these kind exercises in empathy to readers in your stories, Bad Horse. A lot of people ain't getting it, eh? I'd say it is. You should be happy if even a few people can get it. Like, with ideas, you can't make everyone happy. It's best to have a profound effect on some than a profound effect on none.
Heh... a more cynical line of reasoning I was going to give was that most people are truly, utterly selfish and it's impossible for them to think outside their own damn box. Fuck those guys why are they bitching so much all the time? Why can't they see things logically. I've already explained it to them and they don't friggin understand the words outta my mouth. Fuck, they're trapped in their own little world. Idiots. Like, it's utterly incomprehensible for them to understand why someone thinks the way they do. Like, their own reasoning is the end all for whatever reason But perhaps to my own misfortune, I'm too hopeful to truly believe in something that extreme, that all people are like that...
Also, haven't I briefly mentioned to you how you could use empathy as a weapon?
Like, outplay the hell outta someone? If you can figure out the basis on how someone thinks... Or if you can figure out what things mean the most to them... who says what's outside the game is out of bounds?
What? I'm good. I'm evil. I'm both light and dark. Apparently I'm chaotic :3
Also I have not read your latest two stories(? Or maybe it's just one. I haven't checked. Haven't read the Starlight Glimmer one. Oh wait. It is two. I have best attention span) and have not helped contribute to those sweet greenthumbs and viewcounts at all :B Also those super late-to-the-party comments of stupid-funny or profoundness that come like months or a couple of years after I read your story can't happen if I haven't read your story.
Tell me Bad Horse, does this make you feel like you have the deepest, emptiest pit in your gut? Does it sadden you?
Oh. Umm. There's a necrophellia pun in the description. I haven't seen the episode yet. I kinda want to read that Starlight story now. Dammit! Curse you Bad Horse and your knowledge of my fascination with death! You set me up!!! :V
Also, is it bad to joke that I watch the show now at the same frequency that Burning Man Brony does? Cuz that might be a thing? As RedSquirrel says constantly on his Let's Play horror videos, "It's better to be laughing than to be crying :) "
Edit: It's three stories. I've missed out on three :B
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Is that what was causing that? I took some Rolaids and a Zoloft and it went away. Nice try, though.
3994481 Why he chose it as his subject is different than what he did with it and what makes it interesting (if it is interesting). If liking soup were all there were to it, you'd have better art just by taking the doors off your shelves so you could see real cans of tomato real soup.