Georg Modestly Speaks About His Past And Popularity (of which he only knows about the first) · 1:10am Sep 27th, 2019
Vren55: Yo, Georg. In your experience, did you need a big referral from a big author to get a lot of readers on this site? Doing some semi serious research for my next blog post in response to some comments I got.
The answer is too long for just an email. It starts with: Yes. No. It depends.
Let Grandpa Georg tell you a story. (Noo! Run, kids!!) I started writing in 2012 and published my Two Unicorns in July. Thankfully, I’ve improved since then. I was getting double-digit reads, and for somebody who never had shown any of my writing to anybody else, that was pretty amazing. About the same for a number of other short stories I wrote after that.
In Celestia We Trust, All Others Pay Cash was published Aug 2012. Bad Horse both helped edit and included it in his Sisters collection that went to Equestria Daily. It hit the feature box. I had over 2k reads. People started following me for real. I started to read my own press releases, so I had a fairly bad case of New Author Ego. I don’t think there were any other authors really plugging me much at that time except maybe Bad Horse. I owe him far more than a kidney, my firstborn, and any nuclear materials I happen to find under the couch.
Then… things got quiet. I wrote Genealogy in one fast burst. Lines of screaming fans failed to materialize. Same for another few stories. I started writing The Traveling Tutor and the Librarian because I was getting tired of so many Instant Shipfics - Just Add Twilight And Stir. I was publishing as I wrote, because that’s all I knew how to do. I got a few hundred happy comments, enough to feed my hungry ego. A few more followers. Gosh, ain’t I great?
Then I wrote the first chapter of Monster in the Twilight and published it.
Hindsight: Don’t do that.
It was cold outside, so I could spend lots of time on the computer, which is why Traveling Tutor was getting the every couple of days update routine. Monster came out as spring began to beckon, and all of the sudden I had a vastly popular story needing weekly updates competing with the wife wanting me to paint. Look, I love you guys, but… wife.
So there I was in spring, with a popular complex story I was being driven to get put out as fast as I could. It pretty much took over my life that year, and didn’t get done until late summer. One thing I noticed about five chapters in is when Aegis Shield plugged Monster in one of his blog postings, which doubled my read count almost instantly. It was already pretty darned popular so it wasn't being pulled up from dozens to hundreds, but more from hundreds to more hundreds, but that's one heck of a kick in the pants. It raised my story counts right where I was having the hardest time writing, so heck yes it helped.
So the tl;dr of it all is: Yes, you can succeed on your own, and yes having others plug your stuff helps a lot, and yes having both happen is that sweet spot on the bat that makes home runs. None of it happens without good stories, a sense of humor, a certain inner peace that lets you actually *finish* a story and edit it before posting (for maximum impact), the willingness to accept the help of your peers no matter how much you may think you don’t deserve it, and the willingness to extend help to other authors in need. Heck, there may be fifty other stories on the site who have seen my ham-handed comments and suggestions, and at least one or two authors who like what I’ve suggested. And I’ve gotten much better about finishing stories before posting. But still not perfect.
You just need to have patience, support your fellow authors, don’t lose your nut when you get criticized, feel free to write beyond your normal horizons, be polite (this ain’t Twitter, kids), give advice, TAKE advice (particularly when given by Themaskedferret, who I owe lots), listen to Bad Horse, and pet some ponies.
And the Horse will be with you. Always.
I did not expect such a detailed answer and a trip down story lane.
But that was a very complete, very in depth answer and it also makes a lot of sense. Thanks Georg!
In other words...
Write your story before publishing.
Got it.
Well, I'm screwed, lol.
Love your work, Georg.
Heh. I suppose my better-received fics were my complete ones.
Not that that will stop me from releasing each piece of my longer projects as they're (glacially) completed.
Thanks, by the way, for the help you've given out on my fics and those of friends.
Man I remember I had no clue who Aegis Shield was when he became pony famous. Like, completely took me by surprise :P It's funny, I think I knew first about you if I'm honest.
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Off topic question, but why doesn’t your user page have a comments section?
5129167 100% undiluted truth? Because people tend to post there moderating questions that should be handled via PM and such.
5129172
Is there some option to disable it in settings or did you have to talk to knighty?
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just disable the box for it in the edit page.
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Cool
Just reading this far, that sounds like my idea of hell. How could you stand it long enough to finish it? Especially if the requirement was to update every two days or thereabouts, I think I'd crack about a quarter of the way through.
Sigh, I wish I had that. Starting a story is far easier than seeing it through to the end, bitter or happy or otherwise.
That in mind, I'm also half-tempted to go back and remove all my unfinished stories from public viewing, but then I half-wonder if I should leave them as a reminder/warning to myself not to do it again. I mean, I've made peace with the fact I'm not going to be as popular as many people on the site, but a nice consolation prize would be feeling more competent at the actual craft.
Blog post bookmarked for future reference. I've got one or two ideas out of it...
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I haven't written fan fiction in a while but I used to either write short stories or give myself a schedule and stick to it. I've heard that J. K. Rowling had the epilogue written to Harry Potter early on. For NaNoWriMo, I've been known to write what interests me first in the story and then write the in-between bits that link those sections. Knowing the beginning and end of the story I've found to be the important parts. If you know how it starts and how it ends, then the middle kind of writes itself. You may not know exactly how it gets there (or you may!) so filling in the middle bit can be an adventure.
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Interesting: I've never tried writing the ending first, since I usually aim to tackle all scenes in order. But in theory, it makes sense. Both because the ending is one of the most important scenes, and because it provides a natural bracket for the whole story, which all other scenes can then fit into.
That approach could make it feel more comfortably enclosed and purposeful. I'll have to think about this tactic, and maybe try it out on a couple of experimental fics.
5128715 5128720 The thing is that applies to one-shots also, or low single-digit chapter stories. For example, The Dance of the Sun (3 chapters), or Trixie and Her Amazing Pet Changeling (7 chapters). Dance was written in one chunk and divided on the logical lines so it's an exception, but Trixie was written over several months and pounded fine before release. Do I hear a "Why?" out there? Easy. Because the Feature Box only lets a story park there for a week. If you post one chapter, and some people read it enough to Box it, 80% of them won't notice a month later when you post the second chapter. BUT if you post one chapter a day, and TELL people how long it is and that it's done, you can get an amazing flat line between First Chapter Readers and Final Chapter Readers. (checks) In this case, only a drop off from 5,500 to 4,000 instead of the half or more you can get dropping off when you trickle the story out there. Same if you post a one-shot that hasn't been edited up well. People will read it and NOT fave it, thus cutting into Box time. Doesn't matter if you edit it up smooth as silk a month later, because almost nobody will go back and re-read your work.
5129946 5130045 Take that bit of JK Rowling lore with a healthy dose of salt. She's been known to excuse serendipity as planning to make herself look better. Remember, while she was still writing the series, she mused about how she missed her opportunity to kill off Ron and leave Harry and Hermonie as a pair. (Although she wound up taking it out on poor Fred) She may have roughed out the 'train station' scene but I doubt it was set in stone.
I generally don't start a story unless I know how I want it to end. I knew for certain on Monster, was absolutely sure with all of the Tutor stories, and both seapony stories, had a fairly good idea on Twilight Sparkle Makes a Coltfriend, because I really, really wanted to use the butterfly ending. The first chapter is the easiest, the last chapter the hardest to get all the knots tied. I've seriously thought about posting a story that consists of nothing but my first chapter setups that I've never finished.
I'm going to presume that when JK started, she knew at the end that Harry and Hermonie would survive, was somewhat fuzzy on Ron, was pretty sure she was going to off Dumbledore, Snape, and Voldemort, that Harry would be triumphant at the end, and that the series would come to a halt at the end of seven years. The other side-stories she waxed poetic on were stashed in her notebook as she went to provide backstory, even if it was only for a line or two (I've been guilty of that), and that quite possibly she had not thought about horcruxes until she was asked to write the second story. (thus making it a secret so secret that even the author did not know about it until needed)