About two years ago, I joined up and started a story of my own about women who are transported butt naked into parallel worlds: https://chyoa.com/story/Naked-Girls-In-Other-Worlds.29524 Unfortunately, due to IRL and my admittingly short attention span, I didn't get that far into it. Now, I'm hoping to get back into it. However, I do have a few questions, namely do I try to go forward with what I got, or do I just scrap it and start it over? On one hand, I don't think it should be too difficult to just roll with what I (and one other guy) wrote. On the other, I have a few ideas on what to do if I start over. Firstly, after the intro chapter, I wanted to start with the choice of who our main lady is and then the choice of what kind of world she's sent into. However, I didn't really have any end goals for any of them. After reading some of the other stories, I think the way I started mine is too open-ended. If I started over, then I try to focus on what kind of route our chosen lead would take. Secondly, I don't really know how to attract readers other than just writing more. I had the story set to moderated, so that I can look at the chapters others write before I approved them. Again, after looking at other stories, I can't help but feel that might not have been the right move, seeing as there's barely anyone who check out my story. Part of the reason I wanted to write stories on this site above others is so that I can interact with other writers and bounce off their ideas while watching them bounce off of mine. Admittingly , I feel like I could have done more to encourage other writers. I do want to see the different ways my story idea can go, but I would love some advice as to how go about this, and please something beyond just "write more."
If you just want to have some fun, starting new stories (or new branches, if your story isn't linear) is way more enjoyable than continuing or finishing existing ones, in my experience. If you're (also) looking to become a better writer, though, I'm a big proponent of finishing stories. Starting stories is easy: you have lots of ideas, you have complete freedom to do whatever you like, because you don't have to take into account any existing plot, and everything feels fresh and new. It's just a ton of fun to explore your imagination. As the story progresses, though, more and more avenues get closed down to you. For example, in the first chapter of your story, if aliens appear in the sky and abduct all your main characters, that's fine: your story centers on an alien abduction plot and that's fun and interesting and possibly sexy. But if you've spent 10000 words setting up a Barbary pirate slavery story, you obviously can't do the same. It'll just be jarring and weird and drive readers away. The hard part is this: every word you put down narrows down your options as an author, but you still have to keep at least one route to a satisfying ending open! (More than one is better, because it's better if readers can't anticipate your every move.) You can only gain that ability if you finish your stories. ...I wrote all of that before checking your story and I hadn't quite realized how little of the story you'd already written. When it's this early on, and almost 2 years have passed since you last worked on it, I think it's totally OK to start over.
Almost missed the second question! My approach to attracting readers is: 1) Have a good title, description, and cover picture! The description should tell people what to expect without spoiling the plot entirely, and I make sure I choose a picture that's hot and fits the story. These are the only three things that can catch people's eye when they look through the story list, so make yours stand out! 2) Have a few chapters to begin with. When I'm looking for something new to read and scan new stories, I ignore everything of depth 5 or less. Very short stories tend to be low quality, but even when you do find a gem, the vast majority of them are written in one go and then instantly abandoned, and I don't like setting myself up for disappointment. You only get one shot at being in the 'new stories' section of the front page, so make it count. 3) Frequent updates. I promise one chapter every other day myself. It's just long enough between chapters for your regular readers to get a notification for every 1-2 chapters, but not that long that they lose interest. It also puts you on or near the front page with regularity, pulling in new readers. 4) Consistent updates. Whatever your update schedule is, stick with it. If you promise a chapter once a week, post once a week. Take a serious and realistic look at what kind of schedule you can reasonably maintain. How many hours a day do you think you can write? What kind of output can you manage? Cut both numbers in half (yes, really!) for a good starting point. 5) Underpromise, overdeliver. I promise one chapter every other day, but I've had also regular stretches of posting 1-2 chapter a day. Your readers will love extra updates, but they'll hate seeing your story lapse.
Seems starting over is the right choice here. I think you will regret it otherwise. Attracting readers is of course the eternal struggle here. A few pointers: stick to your story, that can be hard when you don't get many views/likes, so it's best if you disentangle yourself from the like loop feedback. I personally like to write a huge amount of chapters in advance, so that these types of motivation issues don't even come up tags, tags are extremely important, so make very liberal use of them. The picture on your story is kinda eh...I mean it is fitting, but it also doesn't exactly grab one's attention. Black and white is artsy and all that but people are here to jerk off to porn The concept of the story is kind off a tough sell. You don't want it to be ENF, but it doesn't look you are going the Free use route either. In addition your protagonist is 43. We are talking major MILF territory here. My impression so far is that this is intended to be a slow burn with the main appeal that everyone is naked. Sex will eventually come into play, but its not the main focus. I'm not sure how much of these things you are ultimately planning to change for your rewrite, and I usually encourage people just writing what they personally enjoy, but you have to accept that you are catering to a niche audience with this, meaning views will be on the lower end.
Just a note on the moderated/public point. I never really contribute to moderated these days. I had a previous experiences of spending time & effort writing, only for the moderator to vanish off the site and my stuff sits in limbo forever without being published. As a result, I'm happy to toss chapters into public stories only.
There is always the possibility of asking for a moderator review when the story owner is absent for too long. Additionally, it is possible to request adoption when the story owner is absent for too long. A problem with most public stories is a "don't care" attitude that can show in bad quality and locked chapters.
