Closing Thoughts on 10 Years · 7:20am Dec 31st, 2020
This coming July, The Lost Element will turn 10 years old. And before this abominable year can end, I want to take a moment to clarify some things and address some issues with all of you in a bit of a heart to heart. Because by now, some things need to be said.
I do want to make clear right now that regardless of what I say next, I sincerely appreciate the support of everyone who enjoys my work. I write for my readers more than I write for myself. But that said, I must begin.
Over roughly the past five years, readership of my works has plummeted to very inconsistent levels to the point where at least half the time, feedback is lacking and sparse. And nothing is more discouraging for a creator than when they spend weeks on a project and then find after revealing it to the public that hardly anyone seems to notice or care. It makes the creator wonder why to bother continuing in their endeavors.
I did not start writing The Lost Element to try and become famous or popular among the mainstream Brony scene back in 2011. I started on it as a coping mechanism when my girlfriend at the time underwent radio silence when her internet and phone services went out for a week and I wanted to keep myself distracted. I only uploaded the earliest chapters because I had the means to do so and just wanted to see what would happen. And as you all know, it snowballed into what it is today.
And despite this, it would seem that in spite of the growing scope, quality, and depth of The Lost Element’s narrative and even the release of supplemental material, readership and feedback keeps consistently dropping with every passing year and I’ve never been given a concise answer on the cause. Perhaps it is linked to the decline of the source material itself and more and more members of the fandom being alienated by it, but if it is because I am doing something wrong, no one has approached me about it.
There is something that needs to be said about creators from all walks of life. No creator of any sort does so for their own sake in the long run. Audience encouragement and interaction is not only beneficial for a creator’s output. It is absolutely required for the long haul. When a creator’s works are not acknowledged or appreciated, what’s stopping them from giving up and just abandoning their endeavors? I certainly have no desire to give up on The Lost Element and every interconnecting story associated with it, but with how different a person I am now from how I was eight years ago as revealed by one of my most recent blogs, I can’t rule out that I’ll eventually become so jaded from lack of audience feedback that I’ll just abandon all of my works and leave it all to rot while permanently unresolved. I know that there have been up and coming creators from all walks of life that gave up on their passions when their creations failed to draw a noticeable audience. No one will mine for diamonds if no one wants them.
As a creator, as a writer, I implore anyone who is reading this who has ever followed my written output. With this decade about to end, I want to see the next one start on a better note. To that end, please. If you read my works, and especially if you enjoy them, please say so. Tell me what I am excelling at. Tell me what I need to improve on. Tell me what the standouts of a new entry were. Tell me what the weakest link was. Tell me what I’m doing right. Tell me what I’m doing wrong. Share my works with your friends or even loved ones if you believe they might enjoy my creations. Bring more people into the reading circle, if you so wish. I want to continue creating and I want to continue pleasing my readers. I don’t write for myself. I write for all of you.
Please. Every creator requires encouragement from their audience to continue to perform. While an artist’s muse may be the fuel for them to create, encouragement is what maintains the creative machine. Fuel is useless if the machine finally ceases to function from lack of maintenance.
I don’t want to sound selfish, but I truly mean everything I have said. I hope these coming years will only get brighter and more encouraging. That’s what I want to believe.
You've done nothing wrong, as far as I can tell. I can't speak for a good majority of your story, since I fell off back when I started writing... but I do have a theory. People tend to click away from stories (not always, but usually) when chapters are longer than 15k.
While this sounds like bad news, I wouldn't take it that way. I doubt it's because your writing is of poor quality, it's just people value their free time.
Why not try sitting down and starting a new story in the meantime? Something different?
Would you believe that this was one of my first fics over here
I may not be that participative in the comments. But, my friend I am a faithful follower
I'll admit it's been years since I last read a chapter, and there's only like, 2 reasons I haven't gone back, and neither one has any proper criticism.
The first being that the chapters are way, way too long. I started reading on my old kindle where i'll download the book and read it when I didn't have wifi, and when I got a phone, i had no idea where I had left off, and re- reading everything would be a very daunting task(right after discord returned, he couldn't look at, like, any of the mane six without feeling physical agony)
And secondly, and this is pure opinion, i'm personally not a fan of how the MC viewed the human race. I didn't agree when I first read through it, and I still don't agree now. This combined with the first point into it almost feeling like a slog in my head.
Otherwise, the story is/was good. A couple factors just turned me off from trying to re- read/continue it.
Just so you know, I LOVE YOUR WORK!!!
Especially the latest chap, it was so beautiful, hot, and awesome I can't help but reread the scene between James and Novo. So don't give up dude, you have amazing talent and I really hope you end this story when you want where James is happy and has all the girls he loves so much in his relationship/family. Plus I love the idea of him eventually introducing Equestria to the human world, I even in the process of doing a couple stories related to the subject.
I can't speak for other people, but as for myself I've passed over your story more then once not because it's bad (or at least from what I've heard it isn't) but simply because It's too long. It's not the first nor will it be the last time I have this issue, but I'll get to it someday. Its not at all your fault. I'd like to read Diaries of a Madman and finish reading SAPR someday as well :P
This is without a shadow of a doubt the primary reason readership is dropping. Glancing at the front page, the new featured stories range between 24 and 299 likes. I don't have numbers, but that's far lower than it was five years ago. Furthermore, there are a lot of notable people who I've noticed have either left the fandom or become largely inactive, and I can confirm that I personally spend a lot less time and energy here than I used to.
Beyond that story length is also an issue (and part of why I ground to a halt), but there is one legitimate issue I may as well point out here. Specifically, the semi-journal style you're using causes a few issues, especially with the sex scenes since he's basically writing porn about himself, and making them so long and in-depth feels very wrong for journal entries (if you want to see journal entries done right, read Bram Stoker's Dracula). At this point there's no reasonable way to fix this stylistic choice, but I figured it would be worth mentioning.
I have too say your story is incredible for what it is I mean the 🌍whole 🌏world you built 🌎was close to the Canon and different enough to keep me coming back too read and listen to the story so yes it's great and interesting a little repedetive at times 😁however it really feels like they're real and I'm looking and living through them so I hope you get all the praise and recognition you deserve⛰ and more we all need escape from the shit life throws at us🌋😅. I share with you my mato's :"Keep moving forward or Die", "Life Is To GLOUREAOUS For The DAMED"🐺, " APE TOGETHER STRONG!!!"🦍. Thanks for all of your stories Good luck My Bruda🦔!
I can easily say I enjoyed your work but I have tendency to stop reading for long periods of time. Because of that I prefer to start over when I get back to it and since it's so long, I never made much progress. At some point I just stopped reading altogether for a while. I can't remember why though.
Part of it definitely is just that the whole fandom in general is steadily declining. While that's something that affects all stories here, the cross section of people here who really enjoy the long haul is also declining, especially as fans grow up and settle into busier lives. I'm committed to seeing this through to the end, but I don't know how many like me are left.
Just softballing here, but maybe something that might help is to create some kind of "viewing guide", or really a reading guide. You know, like the kind of thing people use to just get the important parts of something they don't have the time to go completely through sequentially. If that was prominently featured, it might give people with less time the ability to enjoy your work, which I believe they would if they gave it a shot. Not everyone will of course, some people just dislike HiE, or (exact definition aside) think James is too much of a Gary Stu, or are turned off by his opinions on Earth, but I'm sure you know by now you can't please everybody, and there's no use fretting over parts of it that can't be changed.
Another idea for what can, maybe each arc could be split off into its own story, like what you already do for the physical version. A single multimillion word behemoth is far more intimidating I think than an ongoing series with more digestible pieces. Kind of like how TV shows are way longer than movies, but people still justify the time because they're split into digestible episodes and seasons. Add a bit of recap in the beginning of each one after the first arc to catch people up who want to skip around to really serve as some connective tissue too. That would also allow your later work to stand on its own without being dragged down from, as TVTropes would put it, "early-season weirdness".
Amen to that. Seen quite a few people favorite and follow my most recent addition, Primevals and Conduits. Yet... out of the 43 'active' followers and '108' who put it into a 'bookshelf', I have yet to get an actual bit of feedback on the story beyond two or three half-hearted words.
I've gotten precisely zilch in terms of feedback that could inspire further arcs.
We're getting out of 2020, so maybe there'll be some pickup. Keep in mind, depression can lead people away from things they liked before, or cause them to seek new ways to combat it with new material.
COVID's been a huge problem for most people, thanks to the idiocy of a few elite who are using and extending this plague for personal income, and others just because they're too stupid to do what it takes to end it early. I've seen most everyone I know just sort of fall apart or go quiet-unless-prodded for many months on end.
Once things start getting better, we might see a return of some level. Even I've been generally kinda gone from FIMFIC for months, and I'm part of the old guard of this community.
Also, personally, I prefer the 'long' chapters, anyway.
It also doesn't help when the chapters are anywhere from
6000 words (prelude to madness)
to
69000 words (struggle between the pages)
As for why I don't read this story, like I used to is mostly due to time constraints involving my 14 hour daily work shift. If this pandemic ends i can go back to my cozy 8 hour shift and finally have time to actually read my backlog on this site.
I get it. Other creators are slipping into this also. Theres more fiction being wrote to compete with yours as well, people change over time, perhaps people leaving the site, perhaps real life catching up with them so they can only handle short stories. Theres alot of explanations, obviously it might be one none some or all of these. Maybe its time for a new story. Usually people have a book, they read the book, then it eventually gets a sequel. Maybe they follow a story they like for a couple years. People have new things constantly competing for their attention all the time, like with phones, politics when people get a little older perhaps for the younger audience, or a job, or a date, etc. Another option could be to reach into other fandoms. Try and get a following on social media for this. Idk. Sorry if this comment is generic. Also I'm not good at empathizing xD
I'm sorry your stories are struggling with views and interaction, once I have some spare time again I will try to catch back up and provide some solid thoughts. Hope you have better traffic with this new year.
I really hope you dont stop writing this story for one of two reasons.
1. I absolutely love this story and where it has progressed.
2. This story...saved me from doing some regrettable things to myself.
This is by far one of the most beautiful, action packed, calming, and adventurous stories i have ever read. I love everything about this story and i cant wait to see how it progresses on in the future. Dont stop writing!!!
I was thinking about reading The Lost Element but the chapter sizes are definitely intimidating, moreso than the absolute length. You have at least a dozen individual chapters each the size of a novel, which is a big lump of reading to get through in one go. If the chapters aren't contiguous and don't have to be read in one sitting, then they should be split into smaller ones.
Looking at your story stats the views-per-month seems roughly flat if not slightly increasing over the entire decade. However the later chapters have relatively few views compared to the early ones. That suggests you are getting a steady stream of new readers, but most of them aren't making it past the first quarter of the story. AFAIK this is common for huge stories and likely the only way to avoid it is to split the content into several smaller stories, affording more on-ramps for readers.
I have this issue myself with Expedition to the Cloudbreak Islands - I'm aware the pacing is relatively slow (although Estee seems to have a lot of success with that style 😀 ), but I'm constrained by the format (an edit of an RP log). Maybe when it's complete I'll ruthlessly edit it down to produce a condensed version about 1/4 of the size. Perhaps that approach would work for your story? Although obviously it would be a major undertaking.
As for the first issue, for 'Expedition' I've set a hard limit of 10K words for a chapter - but I'm told that's still very high. Advice for professional authors seem to go with 3K chapters - though go much smaller than that and you're basically spamming the 'updated' box.
5533259 I suppose most people don't seem to know the site allows for the use of a bookmark function for the sake of pacing oneself.
I get that the length can be a turn off, though you would think the ability to set a bookmark would mitigate any issues with that. I do not plan the lengths of these chapters and the detail reflects how someone writing a journal as opposed to a novel would actually work. There are no guidelines to follow and no restrictions to adhere to. I get this journalistic style of writing is certainly not for everyone and I can respect that. I just wish people would use the resources they have at hand to pace themselves better instead of trying to down the longer chapters in one go instead of saving where they stopped and picking up where they left off later. Especially when my story isn't even the longest on the site nor the heaviest in terms of content.
Even I use a sort of bookmark trick when writing. Where when I finish a scene where a transition would take place, I stop for the day and pick up where I left off tomorrow.
Your story is beautiful and has held my attention despise the size of the chapter......i often find me inner eye putting my character in the scene I am reading...your story is thrilling, I hope that my words help