Secret to My Duress · 6:23pm Oct 3rd, 2012
Scene: A College Dorm Room, CRITICAL sits at his laptop, head lying against the keyboard. DUFFMAN, he Pre-Reader, enters SL
DUFFMAN: Crit? You okay?
CRITICAL: No... I'm depressed.
DUFFMAN: What is it? Schoolwork? Family?
CRITICAL: FIMFiction...
DUFFMAN: Your story? Do people not like it?
CRITICAL: No, they love it! (Raises Head) It's even gotten featured!
DUFFMAN: (Beat) I fail to see the problem.
CRITICAL: Now I've got TWO stories that have been favorited. Not only that, but they're both ongoing! I've got people who are going to be upset if I don't work on Want Me, Need Me, Love Me, and those who are going to be upset if I don't work on The Sordid Truth!
DUFFMAN is silent, impassive
CRITICAL: (Cont.) I mean, look at this: nearly 400 likes, more than 600 favorites, and nearly 2,000 views! At this rate, it may match Want Me, Need Me, Love Me in popularity! Also adding in After the Sun, I've got THREE popular stories people want me to update. How am I possibly going to keep my hundreds of followers happy? How can I possible bear the wight of my incredible pop-Duffman?
DUFFMAN walks out the door
CRITICAL: Duff? Where are you going? Don't be a jerk! Can't you see how much suffering I'm in?
DUFFMAN: (OS) Shut up.
- - - -
So this conversation inspired by real texts between me and my pre-reader Duffman (Seriously, check him out here) is one big roundabout way of saying THANK YOU for making The Sordid Truth a featured story on FIMFiction. Really, I'm more surprised than any of you that it's gotten so popular. If you haven't read my last blog post, this story is something I dredged out of the back of my hard drive. I started working on it before After the Sun, but abandoned it as being silly and insane. I considered it mad then, and I consider it mad now. However, it's mad popularity has caused me to rethink the upcoming chapters.
To those of you who complain about the plot: There's little I can do to change that, it's something I came up with early on while developing my strategy of "Let's do X genre, but different"
To those of you who complain about spelling errors: As soon as I come back from class today, this story is getting a good scrubbing. When your smart phone screen is filled by a comment about your spelling errors, you're doing something wrong.
To those of you who arrived here because I mentioned Want Me, Need Me, Love Me: Chapter 3 will be up this Friday. Is it already written? Nope. But you can bet your plot I WILL finish this chapter and the next in two weeks time, wrapping up the first story arc.
Again, thank you to everyone, and keep those comments coming!
-Critical Mess
At first I was like
But then I
'd.
I'm sorry we put so much pressure on you
but it's your own fault for writing that good
I know how you can keep all your fans happy: convince all of us to read all of your stories, then no matter what you do, people will be happy.
Well, it was less of spelling errors and more of ponies having hands throughout the chapter. Ponies don't have hands, do they?
Update anything and I'll be happy, I'm following them All!
I want to say #FirstWorldProblems, but is this really? It's kind of more like #HighSchoolPopularKidProblems, but that's just a mouth full.
BUT YEAH, I suppose I should check out your new story while waiting for those Changeling updates.
399743
Early Work: Early writing. I was still getting used to writing ponies back then. I'll fix that before the day's out.
And I definitely made a horrendous spelling error. I misspelled Rainbow Dash's name. Unforgivable!
While I've only got a fraction of your viewer count, I've found myself in a similar situation of juggling two multi-chapters stories at once. Especially as a slow writer, I can find it frustrating to keep the plates spinning. I update one fic only to realize that the other hasn't been updated in several weeks! Ack!
The most important key to remember is that, while readers will understandably get antsy for an update to their favorite story, they'll be willing to wait for a good story, and they don't want quality to be sacrificed for the sake of expediency. If they see a new chapter pop up in their Favorites list after a long period of radio silence, they'll still get hyped.
On the flipside, there's a few things that I try, in order to help mitigate frustration. Obviously, rotate the fics and try not to let any of them stagnate for too long. If it IS going to be a while between updates, that's what the On Hiatus fic status is for. I also started keeping a text box on my user page that has my current queue. Queue last updated on DATE, currently working on STORY which is PERCENTAGE complete, next on my queue is STORY. Stuff like that. That way, my
stalkersfans can verify that I'm alive, see what I'm working on, and get a sense of how long til the next update of the story they care about. Plus, I find the added accountability of making that data public helps keep me motivated and on-task.Sooooo looking forward to see how they go! Your stories are REALLY compelling honestly, and they aren't drowned by constant information like a lot stories end up having.
So I am most certainly a fan of Want me, Need Me, Love me.....and I am happy to hear new chapters to read on.....I have also become enthralled with Sordid Truth......this story is funny....I haven't read your other work (yet).
My advice to you is to prioritize the fics that are most important to you (not us readers....you). You have already gained the respect and admiration we all seek when we submit our stories. You will not be able to please all of us all the time. Never let the fans goad you into what they want you to do, yet do not ignore us either (which you clearly are not). It would seem to me that Want Me, Need Me is a far more important story for you to do....so do it.
I for one shall not fault you for that. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!........
399905
This is also a good plan of action if you are capable of juggling multiple fics.....I myself am ADHD so multitasking is a virtual impossibility for me (I hope this isn't a problem for our dear criticalmess).
My stories may not be nearly as popular as yours, but on fanfiction i do have 3 stories ongoing and do feel the same sometimes.
but i do have ways of updating the most liked which is my pony fic Arctic Chill you should check it out if you like DBZ characters in Equestria.
I'm not advertising my story heheheh
400048 I second what the little wolfy said. :P
You know....
...it might not be a bad idea to revamp "The Sordid Truth"'s introduction slightly...
...and then make each subsequent chapter a snippet of Twilight's "Week of (HotSexy) Awkwardness".
400274
I dunno.........while I am not opposed to clop..... I think this may be better if it remained....clean...not sex free mind you as this is an important element to the plot (no pun intended). But maybe not be focused on, or made pornographic......mature? Most definitely....but I think going cloppy would ruin it.
400408
Intended in good humor, dear sir.
My point was that it'd be possible to run small snippets (say, 500-800 words?) on a bi-daily basis (or something) without severely impacting LMNMWM.
I think. Maybe?
Anyway, that was the idea. *shrug*
400812
OIC.... but I wasn't disagreeing with you...and I do think sexy humor would be implied here.....still.....you do have a good point.
Ok, so I got my first look at your work under an hour ago. I read Sordid first, and immediately went and opened each of your others in a new tab.
Then I went back because I realized I'd forgotten to favorite Sordid before I tabbed away.
Congrats on 1k+ there.
I'll be moving you over on to the Priority Tier author list now...
What, if anything, can I do to help increase your words/day output?
There's no stopping the popularity of Sordid now. It'll be all over every pony forum and image board out there. And then it won't be long before it surpasses the popularity of Cupcakes and MLD combined. Lastly it will gain sentience, slowly gaining control of humanity and enslaving it.
And after it's all over, you will look upon your work and say "Celestia, what have I done?"
401383
Sordid was a silly idea for a story that I ran with when I was a less experienced writer. I abandoned it because I couldn't see it ending well. I threw it up to satiate my followers after I missed an update deadline. When I looked at the story's page, waiting hours for it to be uploaded, I told myself, "This can't possibly be popular."
I'm already asking myself that question, Likeness
401939
I still say finish up with Want me, Need Me, Love Me. Then give us more of this........yes it may be silly...but thats what makes it so fun, and now that you have a bit more xp in your writing....I'm sure Sordid Truth will be that much better when you are able to get back to it. (Which I hope is soon)
Again....gratz on the success of this wonderful fic!
Why not do one chapter for one story for the first week, then the next you would a chapter for another story and so on?