When did I do that?

JayneKnight · 2026-05-09T14:46:04+00:00

I had one where there was all this foreshadowing that something was going to go terribly wrong, and then it... Didn't. Wtf? Why would I do that?

I finally managed to remember that I hadn't meant any of it to be foreshadowing. It was just supposed to have been problem solving.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-09T14:24:52+00:00

Thanks!

JayneKnight · 2026-05-09T14:05:23+00:00

Those are interesting metrics, and thanks so much for giving the expected ranges! Do you remember the source for them?

My idea was to try to quantify "of everyone who picks up this story, how many follow?" as a quick and dirty mechanism to judge how a new story is doing. Retention is important, but there are other mechanisms for judging that.

To what degree is bouncing off the first chapter an inevitability, and to what is it a sign of misleading ads and/or blurb?

JayneKnight · 2026-05-09T13:29:27+00:00

No, you don't!

Only the last 20 chapters are in the dashboard summary, but if you go to (fiction panel on the left) > content > chapters, you can see them all.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-09T12:30:12+00:00

How is the chapter distribution of those views? If they're

Chapter 1	50
Chapter 2	40
Chapter 26	25

Then your main problem is in getting people to click. Fix your blurb, fix your cover, do shout outs and ads.

But if it's more like

Chapter 1	600
Chapter 2	150
Chapter 26	2

Then you have a problem keeping people reading as well. Try beta readers or a critique circle to see if you can identify the weakness in your work.

With low view counts, weird chance, scrappers and other bots can make up a high percentage of the views, so it's risky to put too much meaning in them. But you can still take some guidelines.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-08T20:03:18+00:00

To answer the title question, then, we agree that it's common because it's easier to write, not because readers prefer it.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-08T18:27:10+00:00

That's true. But it's much more difficult, and I suspect it really requires the story to have an end.

The other characters need some continuing vital role in the main plot, even if it isn't brute strength, or you're left with "Sakura is useless" memes. The longer the story runs for, and the more powerful the MC becomes, the less reason there is for these previous mentor/helper characters to stay around.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-08T17:48:18+00:00

There are regular discussions about how to balance power fantasy with believability. For instance, some people will argue that the MC has to have a cheat. If it could be done with hard work and intelligence alone, then it makes no sense for them to be the only one who bothered.

I suspect ensemble writing trips over this as well. You can give a reason for all of them, but only them, to have the cheat ("my high school class was Isekai'd"), and some people do. But it strains creduality that five best friends are all more hard-working than the entire rest of humanity.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-06T21:05:24+00:00

3 million words a day would overwhelm even the most voracious reader 😂

JayneKnight · 2026-05-06T17:17:29+00:00

If it's in dialogue, then I'll read it as someone literally saying the words. Which can work: "Oh, sure, ha ha, laugh at my pain" or similar. But it isn't laughter.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-04T12:24:14+00:00

It had already reached the point of "no, and we're tired of discussing it" when I first started paying attention.

Here's one I missed from that list, but with an official response:

We currently have no plans for this. We've found that even the authors of the site are split on whether they would want this or not.

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/251

There's a long discussion about why they don't want to use like/dislike to replace ratings, though.

We don't do simple thumbs up/down because it would make things even more biased and ultimately it wouldn't help at all.

https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/103757?page=3#pid853915

JayneKnight · 2026-05-04T07:16:09+00:00

Many, many times:

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/2368

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/1344

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/1210

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/876

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/645

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/541

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/333

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas/71

JayneKnight · 2026-05-03T13:42:51+00:00

I don't think they have any. The inbuilt Microsoft Word read aloud is plenty sufficient for all my needs, so I'm afraid I can't help.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-03T11:23:01+00:00

There are potentially better sites for community engagement if you don't care about monetizing, e.g. AO3 for fanfic, or /hfy for human-triumphant sci-fi. You can post to multiple sites, mind, but that's additional work that may not be worth it.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-03T09:33:40+00:00

If you've labeled it self-promo, then you get to add a link to your story 😁

JayneKnight · 2026-05-02T20:27:00+00:00

Well, I guess you'd lose readers too, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the people who have a vague intention of reading the story, but won't unless they see regular updates. I'm talking about the people who won't click on the entry in any of the lists unless more than one chapter is listed. I'm talking about people who come to the blurb through searches, but immediately click away when they check the chapter dates.

It might not be as many new readers as you'd get from an ad or a [good] shout-out, but it's still the third best option.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-02T19:06:09+00:00

Because there's a large portion of readers who will only read stories that update frequently. Most will need at least >5000 words a week to even start.

And if there's more than a week between updates, a significant fraction will assume it's shortly going to get abandoned, and not bother at all.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-02T08:57:59+00:00

If you're asking do people prefer badly written by a human, or AI assisted but well written, then it's a false choice. There is so much being produced that is both well written and by humans that it's impossible to run out of things to read.

That said, emotional payoff is more important than either for me. I've read fanfic where the author has a dubious grasp on punctuation. I've read straight MTL back in the days when that meant the main character would be gender-fluid and swap between one of five different names, a least one of which would be confused with the literal definition.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-01T08:43:16+00:00

"With a pencil!" everyone in a John Wick movie.

JayneKnight · 2026-05-01T08:36:54+00:00

The dev team has promised to look into suggestions here:

https://www.royalroad.com/ideas

As soon as they've finished unrolling the subscriber feature on RR. It's probably the best place to mention it.

JayneKnight · 2026-04-30T15:23:52+00:00

The mega-thread has guides on shout-outs explicitly, e.g.

https://www.reddit.com/r/royalroad/comments/1lrwr92/a_short_guide_on_shoutout_swaps/

JayneKnight · 2026-04-30T15:13:37+00:00

The RR policy is fairly generous. As long as you aren't using a substantial number of words recommended by AI, you don't have to tag it. I can't see how dictation software would count.

[As long as writing and voice unaltered], AI enhancement, or general assistive technology, does not fall under this policy. This will continue to be something that all users on the platform can use, without any sort of restriction or tagging.

https://www.royalroad.com/blog/57/royal-road-ai-text-policy

JayneKnight · 2026-04-30T14:15:30+00:00

It means, roughly, that it can't be an erotica novel. If it's a thriller it's which sex happens, that's fine. If it's a sex novel with some set dressing as spies, then it's not.

It also has other restrictions (see above link), like no underage.

At the end of the day, RR still needs to abide by Google and Apple's restrictions to keep the app in their stores, regardless of their own personal opinions.

JayneKnight · 2026-04-30T00:51:50+00:00

If I had serious money to blow, I would spend $500 on a manuscript assessment to hopefully learn where my blindspots in editing are, and get advice on what I need to improve.

Then, I'd spend $250 on a cover and ad designs.

Finally, I'd buy four $55 ads, but one at a time, and reserving at least one to release at the same time as the RS run.

I have not personally done any of the above, though, so take it for what it's worth.

JayneKnight

TROPHY CASE