Is this the wrong place for my story?

[CoastalFortress]

I started writing my first story a couple of months ago, and I was advised to post it here, as this platform is famous for its interactivity.

As a beginner, I knew I needed feedback—it helps me understand what I’m doing wrong. Without it, I’ll never be able to improve my writing.

But two months later, I still don’t have anything to go on, which has led me to experiment with my chapters (varying chapter length, focusing more on dialogue, creating a glossary). I still can’t tell if these are the right or wrong steps.

In short, what can I do to get more feedback on my story? Or am I in the wrong place?

 

[Panthers426]

Honestly it comes in waves. I go months with little to no reviews and Chapter comments can vary a lot. Just keep at it!

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Post a link to your story brotherman.

 

[CoastalFortress]

Thanks for that. The thing I worry about is that, in the future, I’ll look back at an obvious mistake I made and regret it. I just don’t want to feel like I could have done better if I had known that doing X was wrong or that doing Y was good, but I changed it anyway.

Honestly it comes in waves. I go months with little to no reviews and Chapter comments can vary a lot. Just keep at it!

 

[PancakesWitch]

This site, Royal Road, and Webnovel.com are all similar in that you're posting novels mostly for an audience that comes to consume them. It is more like selling products. Although people may say it's all for free, there isn't a very personal relationship between readers and authors. You could try posting the story on forums and so on, like Spacebattles or someting else? However, there isn't any page that will guarnatee people will read your novel and give you feedback. It is not something you should demand just because you're writing a story, after all, there's no site that will make hundreds of people read what you write, it's all luck and maybe writing the page's prefered genres. Instead of just posting chapters you should spam your novel everywhere to try and get a single reader maybe, and constantly try to sell your story to people. Nobody out there will read it out of the goodness of their hearts anymore, people is busy.

 

[LilRora]

Was Scribble Hub famous for interactivity...? The forums, perhaps, but definitely not the main site. I'd say it's the opposite - Scribble is known for having quite a lot of lurkers.

People rarely provide feedback on their own initiative. If you ask people for it, you'll likely get some, though it may depend on your audience, both the kind of people and its size.

Dunno if you're in the wrong place. That kind of thing is typically only visible in hindsight. I recommend to learn what's the site's preferred content before you make any judgement, you can check this out for the key points: https://forum.scribblehub.com/threa...g-webnovel-site-a-continual-discussion.20669/

 

[CoastalFortress]

Was Scribble Hub famous for interactivity...? The forums, perhaps, but definitely not the main site. I'd say it's the opposite - Scribble is known for having quite a lot of lurkers.

People rarely provide feedback on their own initiative. If you ask people for it, you'll likely get some, though it may depend on your audience, both the kind of people and its size.

Dunno if you're in the wrong place. That kind of thing is typically only visible in hindsight. I recommend to learn what's the site's preferred content before you make any judgement, you can check this out for the key points: https://forum.scribblehub.com/threa...g-webnovel-site-a-continual-discussion.20669/

That's a really helpful post, thanks for the link.

 

[Soulhaven]

Writing Dot Com is a good place to post a few chapters and seek comments. It'll be from other mostly early stage writers, but hopefully you can spot each other's blind spots. On a site like that, you get what you give. Review others' works and they will review back. Although, ideally you don't review just for a swap. What you can do is earn points from writing reviews for others, and then you can offer points for others to review your work. I find it freeing to get away from the mindset of "I reviewed your work, now you owe me a review". Fact is, you might love a story by someone who would find yours an absolute chore, and vice versa. Just get in and spread some story love. it'll come back.

You can earn points, or you can buy them with real money. The best learning, though, comes from critically reading others' work and learning to offer helpful feedback (critical, sure, but also find the positives and encourage them, as you would hope they'll do for you). As you get more dedicated, you may buy a membership to WDC and get other benefits.

I started out there way back in 2009 (actually, I dabbled earlier than that, when it was stories dot com) and it was a major part of my initial return-to-writing journey. I've got kids and a day job and other life commitments now that eat up the time I used to have for reviewing loads of other story openings, poetry, chapters, etc, but I am still grateful for what it gave me.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Post a link to your story brotherman.

The link is in the image on the signature. If you're on mobile then:
Scianeus’s Orphans Saga | Scribble Hub

 

[Panthers426]

Thanks for that. The thing I worry about is that, in the future, I’ll look back at an obvious mistake I made and regret it. I just don’t want to feel like I could have done better if I had known that doing X was wrong or that doing Y was good, but I changed it anyway.

Making mistakes is all part of the learning process. I made many, but I look back on it and think about how I could've done better

 

[Puji-Maki]

It's alright, ScribbleHub has a lot of lurkers that the best comments I can get are "Thanks for the chapter" and "tftc". You can check your stats to see if your novel have traffic. Also try posting on other sites.

 

[Paul__Michaels]

I started writing my first story a couple of months ago, and I was advised to post it here, as this platform is famous for its interactivity.

As a beginner, I knew I needed feedback—it helps me understand what I’m doing wrong. Without it, I’ll never be able to improve my writing.

But two months later, I still don’t have anything to go on, which has led me to experiment with my chapters (varying chapter length, focusing more on dialogue, creating a glossary). I still can’t tell if these are the right or wrong steps.

In short, what can I do to get more feedback on my story? Or am I in the wrong place?

Well, the basic thing that probably hurting this book is the cover. Putting characters on the cover especially women will get people to click on it. The name is fine I guess, but it's not simple enough to be catchy or ridiculous enough to make randos click on it.
I skimmed a couple of chapters. They look good grammar-wise, but the plot and characters weren't grabbing me. But that could just be me.

Also when starting off. It's best practice to get one chapter out a day, with 1k to 2k word count per chapter.

Frankly, if you make a better cover, then I would give your book another ten chapters or so to grab an audience. But if you don't then this book is only for you.

Best of luck.

 

[DeirdreH]

In short, what can I do to get more feedback on my story? Or am I in the wrong place?

I can give you some of the reasons why I as as reader am not interested in reading it after clicking on the link. Perhaps this will be helpful or perhaps it will not:

• Low chapter count combined with an unpredictable upload rate
  • If I start reading this and enjoy it then it's going to be disappointed when I get through what few chapters are available and it may take two weeks or more for the next batch of chapters to drop, at which point I might have mostly forgotten what the story was about.
• The synopsis isn't particularly compelling. Nothing in particular stands out as bad, but it doesn't have any hook that grabs my attention and makes me interested in reading it.
• As a matter of personal preference, I am automatically suspicious about stories with the "Multiple POV" tag since from prior experience stories which have multiple POVs are more likely to be stories I'll end up dropping.

I'm just one person and may not be representative of other readers on the site, but perhaps it's a useful data point that when I saw it on the front page I found your thread title more compelling than your novel title and when I had the choice of how to direct my time and attention I spent a few minutes reading and responding to this thread instead of checking out the story.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

First of all, SH is notorious for having a lot of lurkers, silent readers. Platform famous for interactivity is RR, Royal Road, though they can be very harsh there.

As for what went wrong. You mass upload. You might get more interactions in the future, but chances are slim to say the least. Honestly, I think your novel is dead on SH, and you won't be able to revive it. If your novel has under 1000 views after a few months of posting it is probably dead.

Another reason as to what went wrong, you probably write something that SH readers won't like. Just looking at the tags, genre, synopsis, cover, it's not something SH readers will like.

 

[Alfir]

Lots of lurkers in here, bruv... It really depends on your luck, story, or synopsis. I had written like several and I like get only steady responses in the comment section and review section in about one or two novels. And the hype would die real fast if you didn't have consistent updates. If you manage to rise to the trending just once, trust me you'll see the responses you are looking for... but it takes lot of hard work and word count. First time I reached the rankings was on my fanfic and I was 400k words in when it finally got the responses it deserved.

I never realized since then how really tough it is to write and it is easy to fall into the loser mentality. My advice is just to stay strong and be consistent. Also don't be a jerk to readers and when they say something negative about your work, use it as fuel to write more and write better. No need to bitch about it or force a rewrite. The only way is forward. Trust me, rewrites are freaking traps... and I've fallen to them several times already.

Responses and reviews really boosted my dopamine levels, and that was pretty much my motivation. If it really clicks... and if it just enters the trending just once, big chances are you'd get that awesome catharsis of not being alone. And god how fun it was to write when you were not alone and you had real readers having fun alongside you. Worked for me, though I've fallen a tad far a bit recently with my motivation levels going down... but I think it would work for you too. The 'catharsis' had been worth it and I honestly have longed for it again.

This comes from the heart, sincerely, Alfir.​

 

[wresch]

I have put several books on SH and gotten different reactions. Comments? A few. But I can see how many people are taking a look at each book. The numbers tell me a lot. I know that one direction I was taking with a series is going nowhere. So I stopped it. Another book is far more popular, so I use that to direct other stories. My suggestion? Keep writing. Try more things. Watch your stats. Readers are telling you things, even if it is just a number.