Eds

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There's been a few of these already, but I've had two successful stories now, and I would like to see the quality of stories overall, improve. If you are thinking about starting a story; I recommend reading this before starting. It'll give it the best chance to be a success. It's a fairly long post, so get your glasses on. ;)



There are two ways of writing a story. Descriptive and non-descriptive. One of these will bring you lost of viewers, with brilliant comments about your fascinating story writing. One will not. One will persuade these viewers to keep coming back. One will not. One will result in the story becoming a success. One will not.

Let me summarise the previous paragraph for you. The only way to write a successful story is with description; and lots of it.

All of the successful stories on this site have desription. I brilliant example of this is Extracts From A Thought. He uses description, alongside a brilliant storyline to entice the reader, and thus, he has followers begging for more updates.



The Opening Paragraph. This needs to be short enough to not give everything away, to the reader, but long enough that you're not just saying "hi i iz joe and i is gna manage da gunnerz!". The Opening Paragraph is so, so important as if they don't like it, they won't come back. Reading stories isn't a chore, people do it because they enjoy it. And if they don't enjoy it, they won't read it. Simple as that.

The Opening Paragraph needs a combination of the perfect font (I'll move onto that later), superb layout, as I said before, a lot of description and tension. A combination of those four things, will keep the reader coming back for more.



The perfect font, yes I said I'd come onto it. The font is the first thing everyone sees when they flick onto "yet another story", and if they don't like the font, they will straight away click away from your story and never return.

The font needs all three components of it to be just right. The actual font, the size and the colour. The actual font must be professional looking and easy to read. The size must be Size 2. Seriously, if I see a story with Size 3 or more font, it looks totally unrealistic and unprofessional and I leave straight away. The colour is least likely to turn people off, but getting a colour that suits the font does help. And having a colour the viewers can't read won't help the amount of people reading it...



Vocabulary. I've heard better vocabulary from my 6-year old Liverpudlian cousin than some of the **** that is spouted out on these stories. Simply write out your story on Word, then spell check it, before you copy and paste it across. It cuts out the little mistakes that just makes your story better, as a whole.

Use a thesaurus and dictionary. Yes, those horrible books you haven't seen since primary school. But do not fear, as I've got you an Online Thesaurus and an Online Dictionary, right here.

You may be asking, why use a Dictionary or Thesaurus? Simply because everyone is dazzled when you use words such as impenetrable rather than hard and chacinnate rather than laugh.



A storyline, plot or twist is essential to a successful story. I speak for everyone when I say that I'm sick of an average Man Utd, Tottenham or Chelsea story. The twist can range from something as small as the Assistant Taking Over, to Returning Legends, to Deaths to integral people at the club.

Nowadays, the plot really is essential and gets your story alot more attention. Good plots have been starting to break out recently, with ideas such as "Red Bull Take Over Irish League" and "90-Year Transfer Embargo Forced On Premier League". If you put a twist in your Opening Paragraph, you can get a page of comments imemdiately.








Pictures and Screenshots. Everyone loves a good bit of proof. You've just beaten Real Madrid 6-0 and have no screenshot up; will people believe you did it, even if you did? I think not. If people believe you are cheating, they will not read your story. All you have to do is the following, to post a Screenshot.
  1. Get on the required page.
  2. Press the "PRTSC" button on the top right of your keyboard.
  3. Open up Paint.
  4. Press CTRL+V and your screenshot should appear, on your Paint window.
  5. Select "Save As" and enter your required name and save it in your desired folder.
  6. Open up your web browser and type in either Imageshack or Photobucket.
  7. Upload the screenshot.
  8. Post the link of the screenshot with
    codes around it. And then you're sorted. This can be done via Imageshack
Pictures add to the variety of the story, and everyone likes a break from the heavy reading by seeing some nice, easy-on-the-eye pictures. Even if it's just a picture of your Goal-Scorer, stick it up there.



Attracting people to your story can sometimes be difficult, but if you write a good story, they will come, and that's why this section will be short. The only thing I can recommend is getting a professional sig from one of the many sig-makers on the site, and stick that in your signature along with a couple of quotes from your story thread saying how great it is.



There are a few things that you need when starting a story. Patience and commitment are two of the main things. People aren't going to comment on your story by the hundreds, straight away. You've got to build youself a repertoire of followers, and that's when you'll start to get real interest.


Also, if you've just started stories and finished them in August of the year you started, people will think that you're just going to do the same. So, have commitment with your stories, and make sure you have the time to do them, or you could damage your future story-writing reputation.



My penultimate section is about general variety. There are many different things you can add to your story to enhance the viewer's pleasure. Newspaper Clippings, News Reports, Videos, Player of the Month, Fan's Views, Manager's Thoughts. The list goes on.

Variety allows the viewer of your follower to really get into the story and adds to the realism. Realism adds to the enjoyablity of the story, and at the end of the day, the reader comes back if they enjoy the story. Be it through entertainment, comedy value or tension.

There are many different things you can put in to add variety. Fake news reports are a good way of adding another perspective to the story and adding to the enjoyment. Another way is to get kits made, this adds to the realism and makes the story looks far more professional and also shows commitment. Making videos of your matches, showing highlights or just the goals is another way to enhance the realism and maybe make a little Match of the Day theme if you record your own highlights.


More details of all of the above can be found in this thread, made by Kylo: http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=29284



And last but not least is simply Professionalism. Little things can turn a good story into a great story. The order in which your story is set out, double-checking your updates, taking into account what your viewers say, and either Liking their posts, or replying with a little thank you when they comment will always help them to come back.


Bit long, but hopefully it can up the standard of story-writing and I felt like adding my thoughts. :) If I've missed anything, just comment and I'll add it in.



In summary, use good punctuation & vocabulary, variety, professionalism, realism, pictures & screenshots, a twist, a good opening paragraph and most importantly LOTS OF DESCRIPTION.
 
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Very well written Eds and will no doubt be helpful for those new members that bother to read the stickies.

I've edited your post and put a link for imageshack for people who want to use use [Img/]
 
if people did half the stuff you put in there the story section wouldnt be such a fail. excellent stuff
 
Here is hoping people take what you said on board because i like to read a good story not some half written stuff some people try to pass off as a story
 
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A very good guide imo -- well done.

I would say, when it comes to the font size (though I do prefer size 2 myself) that you should also listen to what the people reading your story want. Mine is written in 3 because I noticed some people didn't like the smaller sizes in 'heavy text' stories, which mine is. Arial, Garamond and Times New Roman are always good fonts to use if you want your story to look like a book.

And, if writing dialogue, try not to put full stops at the end of dialogue that isn't the end of a sentence...

"Hello." the man said. "My name is Fred."

Should be...

"Hello," the man said, "My name is Fred." (notice the comma after Hello and said.)

Again, good guide :)
 
As has already been said, great guide...the problem being that I doubt the "I iz liverpool lolz!!!11" brigade will bother to read it and implement anything.

Mind you, if just one story improves after the user reads this, it's a success, right? :)
 
As has already been said, great guide...the problem being that I doubt the "I iz liverpool lolz!!!11" brigade will bother to read it and implement anything.

Mind you, if just one story improves after the user reads this, it's a success, right? :)

Added a very brief summary just in case the "hammerz roool!!" crew catch it and don't want to read the whole thing. :)
 
Excellent stuff Eds. Hopefully members will take notice of this thread before posting a crappy story.
 
Eds...great descripiton...

i think you defiently know how to have a succesful story...
 
Great guide ;), telling people how to write. ill post a link to my writing section in my guide ;)
 
Also, some of the people don't do this, new speaker = new line!
 
Great work mate must took you a fair while to write all that but hopefully it will improve the stories section :D
 
Some great advice Eds,should help lots of people
 
Brilliant guide mate, hopefully people will read through this and bear it in mind when they start a story. In general MODS: Good Update(s) to Story Section.
 
Added a small new section, in brown. :)
 
Great guide mate, I'll be sure to try and use some of this in my story, hats off to you.
 
Thanks for the advice Eds, i wanted to create a story soon and thos should help :)
 
Eds you are too good at your story writing, i will try to get a story up sometime ...
 
Eds, another suggestion to add to the OP:

What I find helpful is to use templates, for example for my pre-season updates I follow the same pattern. To create a template, just look at the first pre-season, end of season or other key update that you've posted, simply replace the text with a description (eg Paragraph on Formation) and save it. Then, when the time comes for a similar update, you can set it out in the same way and it helps to make your story look professional and smart.

:)
 
Nice.

I'm about to make a story. And you definatly gave me some ideas! Thanks! :)
 
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