I've been on and off writing this fic of mine for three entire actual human years and I've finally decided to put it up on fimfiction (although it's not yet complete). My problem is I have no idea how to get myself noticed without spamming myself in comments or joining every group I can.
Anyone got experience with Deviantart: Words addition and is willing to help?
Start a thread and link to FimFic when you're done writing it as a green
>>27907608
That... and it might have helped if I hadn't uploaded it at midnight on a thursday.
>>27907598
>Deviantart: Words addition and is willing to help?
Edition*
>>27907639
aw fuck me sideways. that's what happens when you have slight retardation
>>27907598
>Writing to get noticed.
Just post it, faggot, if it's good, it'll get noticed. If you're doing it just to get horse famous, then you're a self important prick and you should kill yourself as soon as possible.
>>27907663
I didn't write it to get noticed. I simply want others enjoy the effort I put into it, but you can't say that 'if it's good, it will get noticed' because we both damn well know that's not how the internet works. Also, are you asking for me to post a link here on 3chank or post it to FimFic... because it's already on FimFic...
>>27907669
there's a fimfic general thread
If your fic is super autism-y and shit though you'll get mocked.
And when did you upload it? Today?
>>27907669
If it's good, unique, or memorable, we'll talk about it. If not, it will fade into obscurity like 99 percent of everything the fandom comes up with. Now post it or fuck off.
>>27907681
Yesterday.
>>27907598
Create alternate accounts in the forums
>>27907669
If you just wanted people to enjoy it, you wouldn't have posted this thread. Everything about this thread tells me you just want lots of people to pat you on the back for the three years you spent writing about cartoon horses.
In all actuality, you're late to the fanfiction scene. Anything worth reading was produced years ago, and Knighty's push to turn fimfiction into a hugbox ruined user review, you're pissing in a sea of piss here.
>>27907700
Wouldn't you?
Also, this is refreshing to hear; and the more I look at FIMFic the more I can see how right you are. Everything uploaded recently is just sorta eh.
Also, this site's staff seems pretty immaculate
>>27907707
Also, also.
>>27907707
I've been writing cartoon horses since the fandom started, I've written shit, I've written gold. I've played with nearly every genre you could name, I've done greentext and prose, been criticised and praised too. I don't do any of that for the attention, I do it because I want to write some god damn cartoon horses doing shit, and maybe learn something along the way.
Just post your story, put your heart and soul, your blood, sweat and tears and everything you've learned in your life up to now into it. Make people take notice, not with the words you put on the proverbial paper, but the words that aren't there.
Half of what you write is between the lines, not on them. It's not enough to have substance without soul.
Now take the cock out of your mouth and link your bloody story, OP.
>>27907731
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/338253/beneath-the-suns-surface
merry birthday
>that
I can already tell three years was too much. I'll give it a shot anyway though because I've lost control of my life.
>>27907756
I must have picked the worst time to read this since I'm about to head to work, but I'll write up what I can here.
Your grammar needs serious work, you're aware of this at the very least, and that puts you way above many on fimfiction. What grinds my gears specifically is your use of numbers, this is a no-go, that said, there are some professional writers who get away with this shit because publishers don't know any better, don't stoop to their level.
The other thing was the foreign language, it's unnecessary and there are ways around it. Since you were writing from 'Luna's shoulder' as part of an omniscient narrative, you could easily get away with not translating, or showing the dialogue at all outside of descriptive elements, tones, body language, stuff like that. There's a lot more to this element than I have time to get into, right now and that kills me.
Your pacing needs to be a lot slower than it currently is, most of what you have here is dialogue, and that's a bad thing for many reasons, the foremost being that it reads like a movie script. Again, more here than I can get into with the time I have.
This is all technical stuff, when I have more time I'll read through more of it and leave notes about the other stuff, if the thread's still alive. If not, pick up a name and talk to the fimfic thread about it. It's not up right now, but they should have another thread up some time.
One other thing I picked up on was Luna's love of inclement weather, which I thought was an interesting touch that could do with more exposition outside an honorable mention. Just be wary of Chekov's Gun, don't allude to shit you won't use, it adds useless fluff and people hate that.
And never use Google translate, just don't. Easy points right there for playing on Luna's emotional baggage of being left out, just something to keep in mind.
You didn't write moonbutt with the ye olde idioms, thank god, but tweak her dialogue to be a little more formal.
Potential/10
>>27907814
Three years is because I'd write half a chapter for a month then forget about it. Only recently did I actually take the story back up and write chapter 18-22.
>>27907818
Well, here is my rebuttal. Thank you for the incredibly honest review of the first chapter. The foreign language thing stays; it becomes a major plot device in the future of the story, Luna's speech down the line in the story is more formal (i think), but I may tweak some things on that note. The weather thing doesn't just remain an honorable mention, which I made sure of. I feel the pacing is appropriate; yeah, it's kind of quick, but making it any slower felt to me as if it was just adding shit for no reason; you know, padding.
>>27907598
Do you have cover art? You need eye-catching cover art.
Your description... ehh... are you saying Celestia dies but not right away? That seems to be giving away too much.
As long as they're appropriate groups, add your story to groups.
>>27908049
I do not have a cover photo. I've sifted through countless pieces of artwork, but can't find anything that would fit.
As for the description, it is EXTREMELY vague, and I think I should re-write it. SPOILER Celestia never actually dies anywhere in the story; but everyone is lead to believe she's dead.
>>27907818
OP again; check back tomorrow. I'll spend some time making this proper. After looking further at what you've said, I think I'll take quite a bit of this to heart.
>>27908063
You talk about her being tortured for "her last month of life". As a Celestiafag this makes me both bummed and disinclined to read.
And you MUST have cover art.
>>27908087
Once again... terribly written desc.
As for the cover, I'll do that when I can see straight, I've been up for too long.
>>27908087
>You talk about her being tortured for "her last month of life". As a Celestiafag this makes me both bummed and disinclined to
This. I'm not even a Celestiafag, but that just sounds too horrible of a fate for me to want to read. OP, you should NEVER include events that don't happen in the synopsis of your story, even if you’re just implying them. I’d suggest removing that bit entirely from the synopsis. Let the reader actually think she’s dead. Then when she’s revealed to be alive, it’ll be such a welcome revelation that the ensuing torture (if you’re showing it, I haven’t read the story yet) won’t seem nearly as bad. I also have to second the cover art. Even if you just photoshop two pictures of shocked/sad Twilight and Luna together would be enough.
>>27908136
Well, that's fine and dandy; but the reader KNOWS Celestia isn't dead right off the bat.
you guys really need to actually read the story before making these suggestions, you fucking goobers.
>>27907639
>>27907653
Y'know I was just doing that to be a dick but in hindsight it occurred to me that I technically did just help you with your writing.
>>27909091
Why would they?
Just by putting such a thing in the description you are already killing potential readers, even if the first line of the story is "Celestia was alive and well." you are giving off the impression that she isn't.
The description should give the reader a general idea of what he/she is getting into, what to expect, but if you imply the death of a character (regardless of whether or not that character is actually alive at the beginning) you are alienating them for the sake of vagueness or suspense or whatever you wanna call it, and that is just wrong.
>>27909194
I realized that; which is why I changed my description.
"Upon being told of Celestia's supposed death, Princess Luna and Twilight Sparkle deal with the ensuing grief in vastly different ways. Luna takes her Adjutant's advice of trying to forget about the whole thing and focus on being Equestria's ruler, while Twilight Sparkle spends her spare time snooping around to research the incident she believes wasn't a freak accident. Meanwhile; Princess Celestia is kept in the basement of a small home in an unknown location after being captured by an organization who wishes to use her body to resurrect Nightmare Moon and place Princess Luna into a position of ultimate power over Equestria."
There, does this fit what you are trying to say?
>>27909091
>but the reader KNOWS Celestia isn't dead right off the bat.
No, instead you imply that the reader is in for a few chapters of Saw level torture porn before she finally dies screaming.
>you guys really need to actually read the story before making these suggestions
Tell you what, just for you, if this thread is alive when I get off work, I'll do a chapter by chapter review.
>>27909288
Once more; I know what was implied with the shitty old description; that's why it has been edited.
>>27909268 (this post here)
>>27909310
Not that anon, but just out of curiosity IS there a gratuitous torture scene?
>>27909325
Multiple. I think this goes without saying: if you don't like that kinda stuff, don't bother reading.
>>27909328
Kay. Just... Grimdark is kinda old hat, Anon. Was this, like, a fetish thing or..?
>>27909348
This entire concept is an old hat; if you haven't noticed. Additionally; no, it's not a fetish thing.
>>27909356
I guess a better question would be why, then? Don't get me wrong, to each his own and all that I'm just kinda curious since it's not a fetish thing and doesn't really appear to be a hamfisted grab for horsefame. Just a fan of body horror?
>>27909383
Yes, but additionally the plot of my story would have been fairly boring without the whole torture thing. Keeping Celestia hidden away in a basement for a month without doing SOMETHING would have been exceedingly boring to write. That, and the 'torture' has some plot significance, it's not just there to be 'le edgie xdd'.
>>27909399
Aight den. Thanks for indulging my curiosity and good luck with your writefaggin'.
>>27909288
A bump for the bump gods.
>>27909399
>Keeping Celestia hidden away in a basement for a month without doing SOMETHING would have been exceedingly boring to write
Only if you write about Celestia sitting in the basement being bored. Drop a scene of her planning an escape attempt or something every other chapter so people don't forget about her, but otherwise keep the focus on Luna/Twilight/whoever running around trying to find her.
OK, I read the first chapter. I realize it's probably too late to change most of this stuff, but here are my thoughts.
- The handling of foreign language dialogue is annoying and I don't see what benefit it serves (despite what you said in >>27907900). You can just write "'blah blah blah,' she said in Russian", instead of this business with actual russian text plus a separate translation. And for languages your characters don't speak, just say that so-and-so said something in Swedish which Luna/Celestia couldn't understand.
- Celestia, Luna, and OC military dude clowning around is fine. Them clowning around in front of a foreign dignitary is not fine.
- Directly importing human culture is lazy, and distracts from the story. When I see "Stalliongrad" I think of stallionly-stallion horses living in the frozen north, wrestling bears and shit. When I see "Mikhail" and "the Kremlin" I think of actual humans, which is not what you want. At a minimum, I'd rather see "the Kremlin" replaced with some sort of horse pun. Similar thing for "Mikhail" - canon ponies don't name their kids "Michael", so Russian ponies shouldn't name theirs "Mikhail". Make up a pony-style name, translate to Russian, and use that (Latin alphabet, not Cyrillic, that way the reader can recognize it easier and knows how it's pronounced). And don't forget to work in a translation for one of these names at some point, so the reader can tell what you're doing.
- For god's sake don't blindly import human technology. I know canon does it but it's shitty there too. It makes no sense for horses to build teacups with handles meant for fingers, and it makes equally little sense for them to build human-style helicopters. Some kind of armored version of the princesses' pegasus-powered sky chariot would be much more fitting given the setting.
>>27911485
rebuttal time:
-I'm ignoring the language thing. I've explained myself.
-I shall take directly from my story on this point.
"Oh, that explains a lot, I actually know who is here to see me."
(Andrei, my friend! What brings you here on a cold day like this?)
Celestia has known Andrei for a long time and is both formally and informally acquainted with him. No one else except for Royal Guards are around to see them clowning, so that's also fine. Furthermore; he is not a 'dignitary', he is a messenger and assistant to Mikhail; if he had a rank in the military he'd be a private.
-you're right, but I chose to keep it named Kremlin because the word simply means 'citadel' in Russian, and when the word Kremlin is used, non-bitchy readers would picture exactly what I want them to: an enormous, red brick structure with high towers and winding walls.
-Looks like we got a real good case of 'didn't read past chapter 1'. Chapter 2 explains the development of the aircraft in a fashion that I felt followed canon closely enough to be fine. Additionally, I have an insane passion for aircraft of all types and of all countries (also will be going into WOFT soon), so I wanted to write about them and have them be in the story. Yeah; it's weird, but it's a lot more fun to write than sky chariots.
>>27911277
>hey guys, let's suggest stuff without reading the story!
>>27911721
Looks like we got a real good case of "shut up I didn't waste 3 years"
If your readers are struggling to make it passed chapter one you've probably fucked up.
>>27911849
Readers? HA, I wish! This guy is the only one having trouble figuring things out.
Breaking off from the discussion; how has this thread not died? Is /mlp/ really this dead nowadays?
Most of the crits you've received so far are accurate. Here are some other things to consider.
It looks like you uploaded a novel in one day. It might have been better to have released a chapter every week or two. You keep the chapters under 10K words, which is nice. It would still take a while to read 100K words, though.
For future reference, do not ever say how long it took you to do something. That can't be overstated. So, you have been working on this for X amount of hours over the course of three entire years and it is still not done? As much as I am sure you have come to love the idea, you might consider abandoning the story for a different project because this one just might have become a weight that is holding you back. Unless this fic really takes off for you in a month or two, it might be time for you to move on. You might think that because you have spent this much time on something you have to finish it, but you really don't.
This isn't a story about a human soldier from Vietnam crawling into bed with Applejack almost immediately, so it has got that going for it. You should keep writing, but perhaps not this story.
You want to know what you really need to get it to stand out? To get anything to stand out? A lot of luck. The quality of the writing doesn't have as much to do with standing out as luck does and I think you might need to bet on a different number.
>>27911721
>-I'm ignoring the language thing. I've explained myself.
Note that I'm not complaining about Stalliongrad ponies having their own language distinct from Equestrian. I'm only complaining about the formatting, where you write the same line of dialogue once in Russian and once in English. I can't read Russian (and probably neither can the vast majority of your readers), which means the Russian version doesn't add anything aside from showing that they're speaking in a non-Equestrian language, which you can do just as easily some other way.
>when the word Kremlin is used, non-bitchy readers would picture exactly what I want them to: an enormous, red brick structure with high towers and winding walls.
I have no idea what the Kremlin looks like, or what the word means in Russian. The only thing I know about the Kremlin is that it's full of (human) Russian spies.
>Chapter 2 explains the development of the aircraft in a fashion that I felt followed canon closely enough to be fine.
Okay, I'll go read that, but I must say I'm pretty skeptical.
>>27911849
Not sure why you think I'm "struggling". I read the chapter, and then I pointed out some things I thought could be improved.
>>27907608
Greentext fics are expressly against the rules of fimfiction.
>>27907756
You want cover-art. Preferably good cover-art, but with few exceptions, anything is better than nothing.
You also want to upload your story to a bunch of relevant groups at the same time. Most fimfic users belong to any group that interests them, so if you post it to a bunch of groups, those people who would like your specific story will have it flooding their feeds, which means they'll be more likely to notice it out of the tens or hundreds they see a day.
Finally, you want a catchy and well-written description, long and short. Catchy is more important for short; well-written is more important for long. The reason is your short description is what shows up in group folders along with the dozens of other fics that share those folders.
As most anons already told you, a lot of it is luck, but there are ways to tip the scales in your favor.
>>27912115
>It might have been better to have released a chapter every week or two.
This is definitely the way to go if you want to promote it. If you dump the whole thing at once, then people read it the first week, talk about it the second week, and forget about it by the third week. But if you post a chapter a week, then every week your readers get a reminder that the story exists, and it's more likely to spread through word of mouth.
>The quality of the writing doesn't have as much to do with standing out as luck does
Luck is certainly the main factor, but I think there's also a sort of baseline level of writing quality, and below that you start losing potential readers. IMO this fic is close, but falls a bit short of the cutoff. I would tolerate the current level of writing only for a genre and premise that I particularly enjoy. But if the writing is good, I'll stick with a story even if there's only one minor point in the premise that seems interesting to me.
>>27911721
>>27913367
>>Chapter 2 explains the development of the aircraft
>Okay, I'll go read that, but I must say I'm pretty skeptical.
I read it but I'm still not sold. Tying the development of helicopters to canon via Pinkie's pedal-copter is fine. The part I have a problem with is the idea that ponies would invent near-exact replicas of real-world (human) aircraft, even down to using the same types of engine. If you want to give your ponies helicopters, fine, it's not a great idea IMO but you can do it. But you should at least think a bit about how ponies would do helicopters differently than humans did, similar to the animator who, when the script for the Foal Free Press episode called for typewriters, thought for a bit and came up with a typewriter that has two giant keys and a spacebar. One easy difference is, they'd probably use some sort of spells or enchanted crystals or something to provide energy, rather than internal combustion.
>>27913379
Morw
