What makes you stick with a story from start to finish?

[Sylver]

Take a look at the most popular works on the home page, many are probably around only 1000-1500 word chapters...

It seems to be the only way to 'game' the system, dropping two chapters for the price of one, though they are not all that way...

Edit

Just checked, most are in that range, but a couple are 3k-5k.

take that as you will

By Act 2 of my story, several chapters reach the 3k threshold. But they have a lot going on so it's not like it's filler x)
I'm going with the idea to keep the duration as long as they need to be, just not too long. Even I get shy when reading over 3k length chapters XD

Most stories on these platforms do not finish lol.

I see apologies haha

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

Start reading: when I am looking for something new to read, I usually search by genre; fantasy, adventure, supernatural, genderbender. Sometimes scifi or by a specific tag. I filter the results by descending wordcount. Getting to the synopsis, there is not a whole lot that will refuse my interest. However, if I think the MC might not respect consent I will not read. Additionally, if the cover page has at least one lady (and no dudes) but the MC is male, I will not read. I do not care how much I might like your story, but I will not accept being disrespected by clickbait like that.

Keep reading: There needs to be good filler. Whether it is humor, exploration, flirting, or even that classic low-bar of campfire cooking, I need something to break up the flow a little. If the story is just plot plot plot without rest, I start feeling like I am reading a corporate cash-flow statement instead of something that should be fun.

Stop reading: Several things can make me drop a story. Most commonly, the MC drops across the moral event horizon. As someone who prefers a classically heroic MC, I can't like someone who kills an opponent they could easily incapacitate non-lethally just because "its annoying to tie them up and drag them back to town," and I do not enjoy reading more about them. This just keeps happening with a lot of stories, and somehow I always feel betrayed when the MC is revealed to have always been willing to resort to murder and enslavement.
Next, if the MC is just living through constant tragedy without any rest or comfort, it becomes too depressing to read. Comic relief is important you know! Yes, there's this "rule of shoujo manga" that a FMC is only allowed to be happy for two chapters at a time unless the third is the epilogue. I certainly know it really is the author's job to throw conflict at the protag. But the MC still needs to have their little happy moments in between those unlucky plotlines. I would point to "Karin" aka "Chibi Vampire" (manga version) as a masterful balancing act, with the titular Karin facing really tragic events interspersed with sweet moments with her love interest, and security with her very powerful and aggressively protective vampire family. The constant tension there really made the conclusion emotionally impactful, and I was sobbing for her wedding. But there was also enough sugar and nice for that whole pile of spice.

Stopped reading "Monster Girls Book 1: A Tale of Tails!": So I read this one up to about ch10 or 15 back in 2023 when it was still named something like "KuliKuli the Nekomata," and I figure this is the one you are especially interested in hearing about. In this story, I had trouble understanding the setting. It felt like there was background information the reader was assumed to know about how this world functions, that could have been found in a different work. Maybe "Monster Girl Encyclopedia"? A prequel you wrote somewhere else? So the MC, male (only partly? not for long? falling in love and/or having a romp with Kulikuli seemed to be transforming him somehow, but this was still unclear to me. It felt like I was expected to have already known what consequences a Monstergirl lover would have on the MC's life). Anyway, he had walked over some random dust pile that was actually poison/monster girl repellent? Why are there piles of poisonpowder just sitting in the middle of the road? If it was only supposed to effect Monstergirls, why did it almost kill the MC? I know infodumps are a bad idea, but so are info-embargoes. None of these plot points were properly explained, so I lost interest in a setting I could not understand. Frankly, I do enjoy the slice of life aspects, and the furry soft tails. I was more or less waiting for a round of editing to clear up some of the obscured setting in the early chapters before trying to binge that wonderful pile of more experienced writing I anticipate is hiding behind it.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Quite often stubbornness: if I paid for it, I'm going to try to get through it (so far only failed me on E. R. Eddings The Worm Ouroboros).
For free ones, I have to like either the characters or the writing enough to overlook (and usually comment on) technical issues.

 

[Holder-of-the-metal-bat]

Would the story length and word count influence your decision to drop the story or continue it?

I feel like there is a minimum word count so that you dont just skim through the chapter in 2 minutes. But otherwise I've read stories with very long chapters (moonlight sculptor, wandering inn) and it never was a problem. Overall I wouldn't worry about word count as long as the chapter's content is engaging.

1. Narrative betrayal - the core conflict contradicts the story premise in the synopsis. For example, the synopsis promises a wholesome and heartwarming family fantasy story but the story instead leads to a cliche romance that makes the family a gimmick or just a background story (trust me! shoujo with gimmicky titles like daughter, mother, son, father, or family name embellishments are mostly bullshit - most of them are just cliche romance wrapped in a supportive family).
2. Repetition of conflict tropes with different names. For example, a young master with a new name is higher level but the core conflict is still an arrogant young master;
3. Too much fan service that distracts from the main story focus. For example, Mira-chan (an isekai genben with a loli summoner FMC, I forgot the title). The author intentionally sexually abuses the protagonist for fan service, such as suddenly falling and revealing her underwear. Does the author think readers are pedophiles who enjoy watching little girls being abused? This is a serious crime.
4. Too much filler. For example, how much filler is there in a naruto shippiden episode compared to the main story?
5. The author doesn't respect his/her own characters (read: lazy to make character development);
6. The author is afraid of the logical consequences of the narrative. For example, AoT conflict of hatred between generations gives rise to global genocide;
7. Inconsistency of the protagonist's personality. For example, if the brave MC personality suddenly becomes cowardly for no clear reason;
8. Being too fond of the antagonist to the point of giving excessive plot armor. For example, the antagonist is almost killed but saved repeatedly just because the author is lazy to make another antagonist;
9. Cartoon villain antagonist whose motivations are very shallow and disgusting (gold, power and sex).
10. Too many plot holes;
11. Too much plot armor for MC.
12. A world that submits to the MC, not the MC that adapts to the world.

Those are points I concur with. Breaking the settings of the story or characters makes it hard to stay interested in the story.

 

[Sylver]

Start reading: when I am looking for something new to read, I usually search by genre; fantasy, adventure, supernatural, genderbender. Sometimes scifi or by a specific tag. I filter the results by descending wordcount. Getting to the synopsis, there is not a whole lot that will refuse my interest. However, if I think the MC might not respect consent I will not read. Additionally, if the cover page has at least one lady (and no dudes) but the MC is male, I will not read. I do not care how much I might like your story, but I will not accept being disrespected by clickbait like that.

Keep reading: There needs to be good filler. Whether it is humor, exploration, flirting, or even that classic low-bar of campfire cooking, I need something to break up the flow a little. If the story is just plot plot plot without rest, I start feeling like I am reading a corporate cash-flow statement instead of something that should be fun.

Stop reading: Several things can make me drop a story. Most commonly, the MC drops across the moral event horizon. As someone who prefers a classically heroic MC, I can't like someone who kills an opponent they could easily incapacitate non-lethally just because "its annoying to tie them up and drag them back to town," and I do not enjoy reading more about them. This just keeps happening with a lot of stories, and somehow I always feel betrayed when the MC is revealed to have always been willing to resort to murder and enslavement.
Next, if the MC is just living through constant tragedy without any rest or comfort, it becomes too depressing to read. Comic relief is important you know! Yes, there's this "rule of shoujo manga" that a FMC is only allowed to be happy for two chapters at a time unless the third is the epilogue. I certainly know it really is the author's job to throw conflict at the protag. But the MC still needs to have their little happy moments in between those unlucky plotlines. I would point to "Karin" aka "Chibi Vampire" (manga version) as a masterful balancing act, with the titular Karin facing really tragic events interspersed with sweet moments with her love interest, and security with her very powerful and aggressively protective vampire family. The constant tension there really made the conclusion emotionally impactful, and I was sobbing for her wedding. But there was also enough sugar and nice for that whole pile of spice.

Stopped reading "Monster Girls Book 1: A Tale of Tails!": So I read this one up to about ch10 or 15 back in 2023 when it was still named something like "KuliKuli the Nekomata," and I figure this is the one you are especially interested in hearing about. In this story, I had trouble understanding the setting. It felt like there was background information the reader was assumed to know about how this world functions, that could have been found in a different work. Maybe "Monster Girl Encyclopedia"? A prequel you wrote somewhere else? So the MC, male (only partly? not for long? falling in love and/or having a romp with Kulikuli seemed to be transforming him somehow, but this was still unclear to me. It felt like I was expected to have already known what consequences a Monstergirl lover would have on the MC's life). Anyway, he had walked over some random dust pile that was actually poison/monster girl repellent? Why are there piles of poisonpowder just sitting in the middle of the road? If it was only supposed to effect Monstergirls, why did it almost kill the MC? I know infodumps are a bad idea, but so are info-embargoes. None of these plot points were properly explained, so I lost interest in a setting I could not understand. Frankly, I do enjoy the slice of life aspects, and the furry soft tails. I was more or less waiting for a round of editing to clear up some of the obscured setting in the early chapters before trying to binge that wonderful pile of more experienced writing I anticipate is hiding behind it.

Right there's no prequel, just me making mistakes while writing here. I'm planning to edit and cut some content on Act 1 to make the pacing, direction, and story easier to follow. It's kind of aimless at times, admittedly. That one bit with the poison for example will be getting removed. And the transformation part, I'll need to do a better job explaining that in Act 1.
Act 2 is currently on its climax. Once that one concludes, I will be fixing up Act 1. And also I changed the title to draw wider appeal x) Nekomata isn't too widely known, and Tale of Tails rolls off the tongue and is more fitting of a subtitle.
I appreciate both your response and input about my story. Just know I'm looking into fixing those mistakes ^^ and this post is meant to help me with that. Thank you.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

I worry about making grammatical errors and losing readers because of it.

Poor grammar will definitely put off some readers. The occasional slip won't make too much of a problem, but if the story is of consistently poor quality, it makes it more difficult to read and thus less enjoyable to read.

So if you don't, proofread. Though I suspect you already do that.

 

[Rezcore]

The second I see Ai, I drop it like a rock. Hide the juicy stuff behind a overpriced paywall, I drop. Glorify 3 specific political ideologies, I drop. Right something that makes me want the fbi to seize your SSD, I drop.

 

[HouseOfUkiro]

Hi everyone! Amateur writer here x) I'm working on increasing the statistics on my novel. I know it's natural for views to fall off with each new chapter, but I wanted to gather some information from you guys to help with a few things.

Main question is: What makes you (the reader) decide to follow a story from beginning to end, or beginning toward the most recent chapter (assume the story is ongoing with a scheduled publish date)?

Bonus question: What influences you to stop following a story?

Any input would help a lot, thank you so much!

An author who’s put some thought into the MCs actions.

1. Appropriate genre and sub-genre preferences;
2. An original and engaging story premise;
3. Character and world development;
4. Consistent fulfillment of narrative promises according to the story premise;
5. An antagonist who is iconic, human and challenges the way we think about dealing with real-world problems. We understand why she/he is evil and/ or opposing the MC but we also don't want to justify it. For example, Pain who was born from a cycle of suffering from intergenerational war where Pain has an ideological goal of creating peace through pain/deterrent effect.

1. Narrative betrayal - the core conflict contradicts the story premise in the synopsis. For example, the synopsis promises a wholesome and heartwarming family fantasy story but the story instead leads to a cliche romance that makes the family a gimmick or just a background story (trust me! shoujo with gimmicky titles like daughter, mother, son, father, or family name embellishments are mostly bullshit - most of them are just cliche romance wrapped in a supportive family).
2. Repetition of conflict tropes with different names. For example, a young master with a new name is higher level but the core conflict is still an arrogant young master;
3. Too much fan service that distracts from the main story focus. For example, Mira-chan (an isekai genben with a loli summoner FMC, I forgot the title). The author intentionally sexually abuses the protagonist for fan service, such as suddenly falling and revealing her underwear. Does the author think readers are pedophiles who enjoy watching little girls being abused? This is a serious crime.
4. Too much filler. For example, how much filler is there in Naruto Shippiden episode compared to the main story?
5. The author doesn't respect his/her own characters (read: lazy to make character development);
6. The author is afraid of the logical consequences of the narrative. For example, AoT conflict of hatred between generations gives rise to global genocide;
7. Inconsistency of the protagonist's personality. For example, if the brave MC personality suddenly becomes cowardly for no clear reason;
8. Being too fond of the antagonist to the point of giving excessive plot armor. For example, the antagonist is almost killed but saved repeatedly just because the author is lazy to make another antagonist;
9. Cartoon villain antagonist whose motivations are very shallow and disgusting (gold, power and sex).
10. Too many plot holes;
11. Too much plot armor for MC.
12. A world that submits to the MC, not the MC that adapts to the world.

I dropped Naruto and Bleach because of too much filler. Idgaf!?️

 

[LIKAAM]

Reasons to start reading:
- the story is a genre i like
- bonus if there is an original twist or take on the genre
- it has a few dozen chapters at least
- it doesn't look too complicated ( in the summary, do not give me the names of imaginary people or places I don't care about yet - who cares about the name of a magical academy or the name of the continent it's on, or all the names of all the characters I'll have to learn later, instead of telling me what makes the novel special ?)

Reasons to keep reading :
- there are new chapters to read
- I'm not sure if writing style matters that much - sometimes I read awkward writing but I still enjoy it because I want to know where the story will go
- clifhangers kinda work if the story is actually interesting
- story is interesting if there is a little bit of foreshadowing (I like to know where the story is headed long term to create expectations about how it will happen)
- better if the tweak or specificity of the story is explored (how does it affect the MC, the other people, the world, the relationships). I.e. good worldbuilding makes me want to learn more about the world in the story. But dont info dump. Explore, each arc usually explores a different aspect.
- most of the time I prefer when there is only one point of view, because if your other characters are not interesting, I'll skip the content and lose attention. (But POVs are still a powerful tool of well done)

Note that I didn't check your profile before writing my answer so the above bullet points may or may not be of interesting to your situation

Well said. The real trick is trying to do all that, and still be original enough to entertain! Easier said than done.

 

[MFontana]

Honestly, there's a lot of things that I consider, but most importantly, is whether I'm able to get invested in the story, and the characters.
If that's not working out, then I'm going to drop it real quick.
There's a number of ways, but primarily, I look for anti-tropes, or more realistic, believable, characters or human stakes.
Another thing, is writing style. If your style isn't one that I enjoy reading, I'm not going to stick around as a reader. It's not so much a matter of skill, but whether I can easily read and follow the story, and the character's motivations.
Detail helps pull me in, but in some cases; less is more. In others, more is more.

Next, if you're delivering on the genre in a new, unique, or original way. This will definitely keep my interest.

So basically, if I like the story, setting, and characters, I'm going to stick around. Writing style definitely helps.

Otherwise, I'm not likely to keep reading.

If I'm not a fan of the genre, it is unlikely that I'll even start reading unless I'm doing so to offer a critique or review.

 

[CinnaSloth]

No, word count or even grammar errors are never my excuse.

I wish I could be as nice....
A few grammatical errors, or continuity errors here and there are fine, but.. ugh.. if there are just way too many.. I just can't finish it. I have to be able to get immersed to just let my brain flow. Needing to reread line after line gets me aggravated enough to drop curiosity all together even if the characters, scene, or story are absolutely lovely. I'll save the book, but won't read, waiting for an edited version. sad face

 

[Avarice_Of_The_Seven]

For me, things like writing and grammar don't matter even slightly.
What I want from a story is a plot that is both deep and interesting. It could be one or more specific aspects of a story that I like but usually, I am more focused on the plot compared to the characters themselves.
This doesn't mean I don't care about characters, their significance is just less compared to the plot.
But if the plot is the generic kind, like 'I transmigrated as the third prince in a villain empire' or 'I fell into a game world' then the characters will matter more since the plot itself isn't unique.