Yes I'm aware I'm tooting my own horn.
No. I don't care.
Anatomy of a popular one-shot
I've written many one-shots. Not exceeding a hundred yet mind you, but I've had my fair share of them - thirty plus if you count the stories from my inactive account, and ten to fifteen on my current.
For those of you who don't know what a one-shot is: It's basically a short story, the shortest short story ever. It can really only count as a one-shot if it's a single chapter so word count is relative.
Some people find it easy. Others not so much.
I write one-shots as experiments and mainly to scratch the writing bug that pops up. I don't have the best track record with long running stories, so one-shots and collections of one-shots are my safest bet which would explain the number of them that I have.
I'm no expert at it, but I've come to recognize a few things once the story has been posted. An example being the two one-shots that spurned the creation of this post.
Before I give away any misleading secrets, it's important to note a few things:
A story's popularity depends on a number of factors, these include, but are not limited to:
- The fandom you're writing for
- The pairing or main characters involved
- The genre you categorize it under
- The rating of the story
As you may have noticed, the actual writing isn't mentioned because those are internal factors and what makes a story attractive to potential readers is the bare minimum they see which in fanfiction is limited to a 455character summary, a title, and the above already mentioned.
Note: Readers will notice any spelling and grammatical errors in your summary and it could be held against you. A good first impression is important.
Now, as I said, I recently posted two one-shots three days apart (they're practically twins), here they are, their first picture outside of my brain -
Despite the fact that the stories were three days apart they had nothing else in common: Not their fandom, not their rating, not their word count, nothing.
But what's interesting is that I felt exactly the same when I wrote both. I was suffering from writer's block about another story and I wrote those two to make them better. They were written practically the same day but released seperately because I felt like it (no joke, I didn't think either of them were particularly good so I was reluctant to release them onto the internet).
As you can see from the reviews though, the stories garnered different responses.
The first, my shot in the dark - first Fairy Tail one-shot was me writing away my obsession with a pairing that isn't particularly popular. I thought it was the better of the two so that's why I posted it first. I didn't expect a miracle, if anything I'm surprised I got any reviews at all.
The second was posted under the excitement that my Fairy Tail one-shot survived without a flame or troll in sight, and I hoped I'd get the same response.
If you're on the Facebook Group Fanfiction Writers Unite you'd know how it was received: I got eight reviews within two hours of posting, and the numbers kept going...
I still think it's a joke, and I honestly laugh about it because it's so unbelievable.
Looking back, the stories are pretty different.
Fandom and pairing:
Fairy Tail, though popular as a fandom, didn't have a big community of Laxana shippers.
Pride and Prejudice on the other hand, is quite active, and its DarcyxLizzy/Dizzy ship definitely takes up the entire harbor.
The up would go to the Pride and Prejudice story.
Plot wise:
The Fairy Tail one-shot was my version of a Laxana trope: the pairing being drinking buddies.
The Pride and Prejudice one-shot was a complete out of the box: the pairing in the same economic situation (a trope that is rarely ever explored though I've yet to figure out why).
It would be a toss up, but since the trope was more uncommon in one then the other, the up would go to the Pride and Prejudice story
The Fairy Tail one-shot was rated T for safety (Cana's a big drinker, plus the trope was drinking buddies so there was that).
The Pride and Prejudice one-shot was rated K because it was still regency, no one swore and no one did anything mildly inappropriate (for our time period besides a kiss)
Both ratings show up without having to fiddle with the filters, but the more G rated it could be the better chances the story has of being read (safety first). The up would go to Pride and Prejudice story.
Word count:
The Fairy Tail one-shot was 3k
The Pride and Prejudice one-shot was 1k
One-shots are usually read because they're always complete and because generally, they're short so the up went to the Pride and Prejudice story.
Genre:
Both were categorized under romance, with Fairy Tail having the added Friendship thrown in because the actual romance was more implied.
In that, there are no differences. In fact, having another genre can attract more readers, so the up might have gone to Fairy Tail if I wasn't so unsure of how obvious my preference for Laxana as more than a friendship pair.
Summary:
I've changed the summary twice for the Pride and Prejudice story while the Fairy Tail one has remained the same. For the most part, both stories seem relatively simple in the trope they present -
The Fairy Tail one-shot was clearly going to be about drinking (Cana and alcohol always go hand in hand) and I had it easier putting into words what exactly it was about while the Pride and Prejudice one-shot was a little more vague, but implies the pair are in the same situation, though it was difficult to word it in a way I was happy with (I'm still not by the way, but what can you do).
Content:
I liked the story more in Fairy Tail because it had a clear beginning, middle and end. I got to play around a bit with headcanons. It also read more like a one-shot despite it being 3k in length. I struggled with the tenses though, and people did notice, but overall, the response was the best I could've hoped for.
The story for Pride and Prejudice was a bit more muddled, the only thing really clear about it was the fact that it was happening in the moment - the beginning and end weren't particularly clear, but that seemed to have an appeal to people as they reviewed to say they wish there was more to read.
The thing I was most worried about was how completely out-of-character I thought everyone was, but the readers disagreed.
Also when I reread it a few hours after I posted just to make sure the readers and I were reading the same thing, I found a multitude of errors and missing words, none of which was present in the Fairy Tail story. No one seemed to mind.
So here's what I got from the responses of the two one-shots:
Write what the plotbunnies tell you to. You don't have to put it in a box and organise it. Get what you want to say out and then rework it to make sure it meshes. You'll miss the story if you're too worried about how it'll look.
Content is king. Don't worry too much about the spelling and grammar as you write (though don't post it if you haven't corrected the mistakes), the plotbunnies don't have time for proper English. Let them do what they do and then clean up the mess.
Be bold. Like this font. People want to read something new, just because it's been tried and tested doesn't mean it'll be popular.
Also, just because a fandom or it's pairing isn't in demand, doesn't mean you shouldn't write that story your plotbunnies have been nagging you about. You could be the start of that ship's popularity. I know, because I've been one too ;-)
