So, you've got yourself a story and you want to do some A/B testing to figure out some details. Here's a crash course on how to do that!

Titles and Tags
First off, you need to title your thread. If you have the title for your story, you can use that. If not, you should give a very short idea of what the story is about in the title. Don't worry about making it super attention-grabbing, just make it enough to distinguish it from other threads. Remember we're here to help you sell the story, not necessarily to be sold on the story. "AU war story", "Fluffy Twishy romance", "Season Nine Fix Fic", something like that. Give us a very rough idea of what to expect going into the thread, just keep it short (this is only a title, after all).

That was probably obvious though; more importantly, we have tags we'd like you to use to help us tell at a glance what you need. Include the tag(s) that are relevant in the title of your thread. Use [title] if you need help naming your story, [description] if you need help figuring out the short and/or long description, and [cover art] or [cover] if you want advice on cover art (Note that cover art is for advice; we are not making you your cover, just giving you feedback on cover ideas). Also important, if you're asking for help on a sexually explicit story, use [NSFW]. If your story is rated M for other reasons, use [mature]. Some people don't want to see that stuff, and forum threads aren't filtered by the mature filter, so give people the courtesy of letting them know what they're getting into.

So all in all, five tags. [title], [description], [cover], [NSFW], and [mature]. If you're using multiple, please combine them to avoid clutter. Example: "Adoption story [cover, title]" for a story about an adoption that is not NSFW or mature, but which I need help with the cover and the title.

Body
So you got a snazzy title for your thread, now what the heck do you put in the body of it? "Plz help" isn't likely to get you much feedback, after all. So here's where you explain your story, and this is important, do not worry about spoiling it. It's honestly going to hurt you to be like "Well I don't want to say too much because spoilers". Remember that this group is not your core readership. Tell us what we need to know to help!

Themes, character arcs, intended tone, little subtleties might make a big deal in how you promote your story (this is especially true in titles and covers, which often foreshadow this stuff). Now, this isn't where you infodump your whole story's deep lore. You shouldn't need to tell us the entire fic, just the parts you want referenced in the thing you're workshopping. The more relevant info we have to draw on the better a judgement we can make.

In traditional A/B testing, you have multiple of each thing and you're asking which is best. We're not that strict, but absolutely if you already have multiple, then great! For example, you might give a short summary and then be like: What's the stronger title? "The Sleeping Monster", "Ink and Tears", or "The Final Snowfall"? You can also, if you want, ask people to vote with emotes (Example: Vote for for "The Sleeping Monster", for "Ink and Tears", or for "The Final Snowfall").

As one final note, do not ask people to read your story in order to provide feedback. If people ask to read your story, that's all cool, but it's your job to boil it down to the relevant info for us.

Example

Title:
Nightmare Moon romance AU [title, description]

Body:

source
I was inspired by this image to write a Fluttermoon fic (the image will be the cover). I want to set it in an AU where Nightmare Moon defeated Celestia 1000 years ago, and is now the sole ruler of Equestria. The story is about Nightmare Moon courting Fluttershy, who works as an animal caretaker for her exotic zoo. Nightmare Moon feels connected to the animals because they don't see her as a ruler, so they don't know to fear her. Fluttershy is one of the only ponies allowed to see this softer side of her queen, and the two slowly form a relationship.

A notable part of the story is that it'll cover some dark places. Not M-rated, but Nightmare is not a good pony and sometimes she acts like it. She emotionally bullies Fluttershy, who has to learn to stand up to her as no one else can and demand to be treated better as her lover, which Nightmare has to learn how to do. This is a story about a dysfunctional relationship where both partners learn how to make it work.

Title ideas: Vote for "Lunar Butterflies", for "The Queen and Her Empress", and for "Dark Love". I'm also open to other suggestions.

Description idea: When Fluttershy took a job in Nightmare Moon's castle, the last thing she wanted to do was meet the infamous queen herself. Now, the last thing she wants to do is say goodbye.

This is the only description idea I came up with, but I'd like some feedback on it if anyone has any!

(also this is a real story I may write someday, no stealing lmao, though I'm also not actively workshopping it here; this was just an example and no reply is needed. The titles and description I made those up on the spot please steal them if you want haha)