Jun
20th
2019
First Impressions · 12:56am Jun 20th, 2019
This is not a whining and/or crying post. I'm just wondering, how do you make a good first impression?
David Silver ·
188k words
· 247
18 ·
4.5k views
Here we are, new story, already 5 downvotes. Not the first, or even the worst, story to meet with some frowns before we even really get moving. How does one avoid this? I don't think I've even given much material to hate yet? Enlighten me, so I may improve!
I've seen stories get downvotes without seconds of going up it feels like. We got the downvoting Debbies and Downvoting Dougs just waiting to downvote what they can. Sometimes you just can't avoid it. I haven't felt that reading mood quite yet to settle into a story and give it that in depth analysis that you might look for.
I like the concept its the haters don’t mind them if
i thought it was a good start
Some people downvote purely because of the concept. They see something they don't like the idea of, downvote. They see a single element they disapprove of, downvote.
The start is solid, to my taste anyway.
You'd have to be absolutely amazing, just as a start. Otherwise it'll be a concept that doesn't grab someone and an execution that doesn't grab them either, and they'll get bored and downvote.
It's a good ratio though. Trying to go even farther would probably require things that got into the area of audience manipulation instead of writing better stories.
(and then I'd downvote you for that)
I think it is the down vote brigade on the rampage again. They just think that any story that doesn't have X amount of down votes needs to have some added.
5076948
You say that but I see stories cruising along with none/little downvotes.
A, they don’t like you as a person or author for whatever reason and decided to show this by downvoting your stories.
B, they judged the story based on the summary and instead of reading it and giving it a chance just downvoted it.
C, perhaps they dislike your writing style or the story type
D, they read it, formed a bases of what they believed the entire story was and didn’t like what their imagination came up with and downvoted it because of that
5076983
Recommendation?
5076985
Some of them really can’t be helped because they don’t even give the story a chance, but I’ve seen some story where people read the beginning and downvoted, but continued to read and eventually choose to upvote the story.
You also have to consider that you have a lot of followers(over a thousand!) who will all likely be notified of this and a lot will quickly read it, and will only have the first chapter and the summary to draw conclusions from, which isn’t much and unfortunately people like to jump to conclusions. The only stories I’ve seen that don’t really have these kinds of dislikes at the beginning is either stories that have odd summaries so only curious and interested people are likely to read where as others would simply ignore it, which i worse if only five people read my story and liked it compared to a couple hundred or thousand people reading it and a lot of people liking it and a few people disliking. From when I check you had like 200 something views in the first chapter, which means a lot of people have read it(I know it’s not exactly that number due to how the view system on this site seems to work, but it is still a high number) and 28 people have instantly loved it and favorited it, many people have likely decided to wait and see where it goes, and five people for some reason disliked it, so all in all I’d say you did great and perhaps hope that while they may have downvoted your story off the get go they will continue to read it in the hopes that whatever they disliked about it gets drowned out in the good and upvote instead.
As for first impressions, I don’t know. Beginnings are always the hardest for me in a story. As far as I found the best first chapter would probably be something that summarizes the base tone and gives the plot a good first step. Some of the more effective ones I’ve flash forward that depicts some tremendous event and leaves the reader wondering how exactly it reached that point(a movie example would be like Megamind’s beginning), or one that starts off as a normal day until something big suddenly happens and kicks the plot off.(I was just about to read this story when this blog came up, but I’m guessing this one has this sort of type of opening.) The biggest problem is the normal small amount of words one has to work with in the beginning, and the only ways I’ve seen people avoid that is either by having a longer intro or by releasing the first like three-to-five chapters at first is instead of only one.
It's Garble's fault, blame him.
5077017
A safe default.
I have no idea what's going on or where they even are. This chapter feels like it either should have been padded more, or even have been the 2nd chapter.
5077140
Huh, alright. Thank you for the feedback, truly! I appreciate it.
I haven't started it yet (I usually read stuff in my favorites oldest-first, which is why it can take me days to get to new stuff). But this story has the human tag, no ponies tagged, and in particular it has Garble on the cover, who a lot of people really find annoying.
Personally I look forward to a gang of adventuring dragons, and I think you write a really good Spike, but when you see lots of rapid drive-by downvotes, it usually seems to be coming from people who don't like the story tags and characters.
5077317
It's kind of sad. Not helpful. Downvote a story that fails to be what it says it is, not because you dislike the idea, since that doesn't help someone who does like the idea know if it's a well-written story or not.
5077344 I think you're an author who has written 80 different stories, and you always seem to enjoy trying out new ideas, themes, and genres, so just playing the odds you will offend people who are eagerly looking to get offended by something.