Cover Arts From All Of My Stories Have Been Removed · 1:15am Mar 27th, 2020
Today was a miserable day for me. Last night, I submitted my latest fanfic and it got negative dislikes, again. But that wasn’t the issue, morion87 told me that the cover arts is making the stories worse.
No offense, but that has to be the rubbish criticism I have ever heard. It took me time to understand that descriptions attract people to read a fanfic but now cover arts?
Look if you saw what of my cover arts I created for my fanfics, yes I know there terrible but I wanted some kind of attraction. The characters I placed on each cover would play a part in the story while the background represents the setting.
The idea that it’s causing my stories to get worse doesn’t teach me, it just makes me frustrated. This is not DeviantArt. You guys need to understand that judging a story by it’s cover with the most insignificant things can definitely make it hard for me to write. I’ve spend days making the covers just for my fanfics and it’s only the minor things before I begin writing them.
Look, sorry for being rude but I always wanted to make cover arts, I didn’t care if they were poor, it wasn’t the point. Making stories one hundred percent perfect is always stressful. The story’s writing quality and the description, I totally agree but cover arts really breaks me.
And with that, I have removed all of my cover arts from my stories. I know showing a simple image of one character or more is enough but it wasn’t for me. For any further story idea I come up with, I’ll just have the imagination from others to do the rest. I only have one more story and I’m still trying to write more. Stupid Writers Block...
P.S. Can you please tell me why A Princess Day In Canterlot High is getting more dislikes, other then the cover art problems?
I'm sorry to hear about this.
Maybe I said it wrong earlier. Compared to the absolute eye sores some stories use as their cover art, yours were good. Because they at least showed effort was put into them.
I think, for me at least, it was the sheer amount of images you had in one picture. Trying to get the idea of the story out, I understand. But it just wasn't working for me.
And with how Friendship is Magic and Equestria Girls mix together in your stories, when they barely ever did so with Hasbro's stuff, makes it harder to get the idea across.
5229498
Guess I was too desperate to make the cover more obvious.
5229510
Probably. Use of character tags would've helped to fill in what the cover art couldn't, and the description would also help.
Doesn’t the saying go, “don’t judge a book by its cover” or in this case “don’t judge a fanfic by its cover art”
Don’t take it too seriously my dude, at least you put in the effort to make cover art in the first place! :)
I’m sorry you’re struggling through this.
I'm not a reviewer, and I'm certainly not an expert, but here's what I think is drawing people away from your stories, and what you can do to fix it.
I do think that cover art plays a role in how well a story does. Personally, I am drawn away if cover art is badly drawn or edited. You've certainly made a good attempt, but I would recommend either commissioning original cover art, or finding a screenshot of some of the major characters and just using that one image. Be careful that the artist is okay with it being used, of course. Unless it's an episode screenshot, that can be used without direct permission from Hasbro. :)
As for the writing, you seem to have trouble with the aspect of "show don't tell", which is a very common, and easy to overcome problem. You need to show the reader what the character is feeling, instead of just stating it. It would help your stories to become more immersive, as well as more desciptive, let me show you an example.
Telling
Showing
In the second part, you could tell how Sunset was feeling by her actions. This is a key part to good storytelling.
It would also help if you assume your readers know the source material. Why else would they be there? If something was directly stated in an MLP or MLPEG episode/movie, it doesn't necessarily need to be reaffirmed in the text. In other circumstances, it may need to be done, but I don't see a reason for it to be done in this story. Just make sure you say what movie/episode the reader will have to watch if they want to understand the story in the description.
I'm sorry if I said anything that hurt your feelings in any way. I think that you're a good writer who will improve with time, and I hope you will take my advice to hopefully improve your ratings in the near future. Please don't stop writing, and don't let the haters bring you down. Be the light that shines in the darkness. I believe in you.
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Thanks for the information. The show don’t tell thing is something I’m trying to improve but it’s difficult to make it work. Mainly the fact I don’t have the best knowledge of so many words.
With regards to cover art, I tend to underplay the image and let the reader fill in some of the blanks.
that's just terrible. I'm sorry friend
At least put cover art back. It doesn't matter of how much hatred you get for it. IT'S JUST COVER ART.
5235733
That's what I'm saying!
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Besides, I use cover art for all of my stories!
And after all though..... where would the MLP Fanbase be without the amazing fan art?
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Art, but my cover arts are just photoshop.
5235743
Ah. :P
Anyways, wanna know why I use cover art for my stories? :)
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Sure.
5235747
With the exception of Story No. 17 from me (which has different cover art btw :P), Stories No. 1 to 16 and then Stories No. 18 to the present (as well as some I request to other users. ^^) are meant for one thing: To show which female character yours truly gets transformed into on a weekly basis. ^^
5235749
Okay, that's something I wanted to do for my stories.
5235750
Okie =)
And besides.... I show cover art for those that rarely use in stories for a underused character. Like say EG Zecora for example: I used that one to show the underused of that design for her which I prefer the most for of my 10th Favorite Character's human counterpart. :)
5235752
Granted it's still debatable for a story's standards but I'll might think about returning cover arts.
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And besides.... I love your cover arts of course. X3