I actually started writing one of these things a few days ago, but the views are over 1000 total with chapter views in the lower hundreds, so it can't be THAT bad of a sign, right? I've even gotten a few people to favorite it, but so far no one has said anything in either comments, or submitted a chapter for review. Now, mind you, I figured the latter would take a while, but with the former I sort of expected at least ONE comment by now. https://chyoa.com/story/The-Legend-of-Zelda:-Hormonal-Teenagers.9646 Okay, I'll be honest, part of the reason I'm on the forums in the first place is to try to get some feedback if possible, but if that's not okay or something... I guess I'll delete the thread?
Feedback is a rare thing on the Chyoa story site. If you get a really popular story going, especially with multiple contributors (say, At The Cabin or The Virgin Heroine or A Fantasy Dynasty), you'll likely see more feedback. If you want comments, you may have to beat the drum relentlessly, making sure that every chapter encourages the reader to leave comments. For a new story, create a thread in "Story Ideas", enthuse about your idea, talk about what you want to do with it, and engage with anyone who comments. When you launch your story, ask Friedman (via Report Thread) to move it to "Story Feedback", and continue to talk up your story, your characters, and encourage comments and ideas from your readers. There are a few stories done in "participatory RPG" style where the comments are used for voting on which alternative to follow (fight, talk, or flee? the blonde or the redhead? riches or glory?); for those, comments are built in; however, you will have to cultivate your audience, maybe more intensely than for a regular story. The forums are a fine place to get feedback and comments, in general, but you'll So, for visibility: * Have a discussion thread in the Forums. Update it about as often as your story or a little less so. Respond individually to any comments from others. * Update your story often, adding chapters at least weekly, maybe more often. * Choose a broadly appealing subject. (Hormonal Teenagers seems promising, especially since you could say At The Cabin has that as its premise). Personal thought: I also think it's useful to add direct follow-ups to contributed chapters that you accept. Some contributors may want to do a long string on their own, but I think it's often appreciated. If the editor or another author follows my chapter with one of theirs, I consider it a way of giving me a compliment on my chapter. I enjoy alternating chapters with another contributor sometimes. Anyone else want to chime in? This seems to be a frequent pattern for new authors: "Where are the comments? How do I get feedback?" Short answer: Chyoa has a modest number of writers. Many readers. Few voters. Fewer commenters and contributors. I used to tag my chapters with, "If you vote, please comment!" because I appreciate knowing what it was people enjoyed about them. I do this less because it didn't seem to help a lot (though I gave up back in the Chyoo days, pre-Chyoa), but it might work for you.
I'm guessing that, on the odds, you're about 20%-25% of the way to your first comment. And now I'm chuckling at my browser context menu while looking at the characters in your story. "Open Link in New Tab", which is more or less exactly what I'm doing. So, a couple other things: Tetra's path establishes her as taking a sexually dominant role. You might want to mention that if you start out a forum thread for story feedback, since it could be a point of special interest to some readers. You can also tag chapters which have specific content, or tag the introductory chapter. The tags show up as part of the story summary display, and can be searched for. So I could imagine these tags for the intro: Legend of Zelda Zelda Hyrule Link Tetra shipboard voyage and these for somewhere on Tetra's path femdom female dominant soft femdom I wish that tags were a little more prominent and easy to navigate, like Literotica. Maybe someday.
Ah! Thank you, the Tags were actually confusing me a bit, since there isn't exactly an easy way to see what tags are used and not used too often. And yeah, I could find some way to put... something to tell people that I'd love feedback in the comments too.
