AN: Little bits may be taken seriously, but for the rest (I'd say 99.98%), it's all just lolwut.
In no way am I attempting to offend anyone. Okay, maybe a little… (no, I'm not being serious there).
How to Get 1000 Reviews
Amethyst Turtle sprinted down the dark alleyway, panting and ignoring the lactic acid burning her leg muscles. Those pirate brutes would catch up to her any second, and she'd need all the time she could get to whip out her awesome Mary Sue powers and blow them up just in time to meet up with the Strawhats and-
NO! Example one of what you should not do. No one likes reading stuff like that (except for… okay, forget what I said). If you really want to learn how to glean as many reviews and hits as possible to your *pathetic excuses of stories*- ahem, what? No, I didn't say anything offending in the least bit. Why are you being so paranoid?
YOU. Yes, you. You're probably a review whore, aren't you? I mean that in the most complimenting way possible, you slutty review whore you! But it's okay; we all have a little whore inside us. Even I do. Yes, me, THE author of Flying with Albatrosses and Satirical Lulz (advertising and bragging rights will be explained in Step 6). That's right, I like reviews too. After all, we're all just human, right?
Follow me, and we shall see the secrets of how to bring in all those elusive reviewers like fat little piggies to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Then again, we wouldn't have this lack of reviewers if One Piece had a larger fanbase in the West.
Damn 4Kids.
Step 1- What to Write
It's the most important part of this whole plan, you idiots. No, I didn't insult you, I meant that in a loving way. See what I did there? No? Okay, moving along.
In order to find out what to write about, you need to know the general audience of whatever website or forum you're going to show your story to. No, don't write what you want to write about! We're aiming for reviews, remember that! Even if you hate the plot you're working at, as long as the readers love it, it's A-OK!
Don't even TRY to attempt planning out a well-thought out, uniquely written plot. That takes WAY too much time and effort, and we just want reviews! If you want to go the hard way, fine, go ahead and write an epic adventure story. Don't come crying when you run out of ideas after thirty chapters and three dozen people are sending you death threats demanding updates.
Back to the general public's interest. Take Portgas D. Ace, for example. Ever since that fateful chapter, Youtube videos have been flooded with RIP comments, Ace fangirls have torn out their hair in fury and sorrow, and Oda got a thousand angry letters requesting that the guy be brought back to life.
And, of course, the instant boom in Ace stories in the One Piece fanfiction archives. Haven't you noticed? Of course you have, you're probably one of those AcexOC or AcexLuffy writers. Good for you, you already have a headstart!
So now we know that a lot of the readers lurking around the archives are either Ace or yaoi fans. What does this mean, you ask?
Start writing an AcexLuffyxZoroxSanji fic, and stat! (The plot is irrelevant, and will always be).
That's right- Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji. Undisputedly the most popular characters in the entire series, it's pretty obvious that they're… popular. You get what I mean. If they're not in the story, don't even expect any reviews to come in. They are a MUST.
Yeah, okay, the rest of the crew can be in there. Just keep Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Ace in the front! And Trafalgar Law! Trafalgar Law! The whole new sensation that's sweeping the nation!
But what if you don't like yaoi and you'd rather write about Usopp or Robin, you ask? Well, too bad. No one reads stories about them, so you'd better get working on that AcexTrafalgar Law smut right now. Which brings us to our next step…
Step 2- The Rating
It's been proven before that M-rated fics get the most amount of hits (in general, at least). Of course, this doesn't guarantee that it'll get a boatload of reviews, but if it's steamy and sexy enough, anything is possible!
Take one author I've conversed with before, for example. Of the four dozen stories under their wing, two are M-rated. And how many hits has one of those M-rated fics gotten compared to a clean K+ gen fic, you ask?
One thousand to one hundred.
That's a ratio of ten to one. What does this mean?
Well, either the people on this site or perverts or… you know what, never mind.
The strange thing is that that M-rated fic has less than four reviews while that gen fic has nearly a dozen (not even close to the 1000 goal, by the way). Again, what does this mean?
It means that author is a terrible smut writer, that's what. No, I mean that in a nice way. I think.
The problem was, it didn't have boyxboy action. That's right; the secret to getting more hits is YAOI. Don't ask me how to pronounce it, figure it out yourself.
So now that you have your plot figured out (let's take the AcexTrafalgar Law as an example), immediately label it as M-rated. One downside is that it will be filtered out from the front page, but the plus side is, everyone is perverts so they'll go hunting for fresh M-rated yaoi!
Step 3- The Title
OMGWTFBBQ!1!
That caught your attention, right? Yes? Good.
Let's break that little thing down and see why you suddenly jumped out of your seat and screamed "holy Lady Gaga on a motherf*cking boat!" when you saw it. It's very simple, really. In order to catch the attention of any reader lazily browsing through the front page of the archives, you've gotta be ASSERTIVE.
See what I did there? I used CAPITALS. That Caps Lock key isn't conveniently placed by your left pinky for no reason. Embrace it. Love it. Abuse it. No, that wasn't supposed to be taken out of context.
You sick bastards.
Use the Caps Lock. If you like, you can even PREss IT at RanDOM inTERvAls lIKe THiS. Who cares if it's hard to read? As long as the people see it and crap their pants from the sheer amazing-ness of Caps Lock abuse, they'll click it.
Punctuation! Yes, punctuation, the thing you learned in… sixth grade. Exclamation points are very important in attracting those browsers' attention. They literally SCREAM at them, "HEY! READ ME!"
Maybe question marks can even draw in some wandering eyes. If you do decide to use one of those squiggly things, make your title some random question that a reader would DIE to find out the answer to.
Be adventurous! Do some combos! In the end, your title may resemble something like this (for the example, it's corresponding with the M-rated AcexLaw fic we are using):
"WhO DoEs ACE LoVe? MyStErY lOvE!1!"
Step 4- The Summary
Cool, the summary. It's the other thing besides the title that the browsers skim over.
First thing first, EMBRACE your flaws. Admit that you can't write a decent summary. So after you type your capslock-abused title into the little box above, get "summary sucks, but story is much better" in.
You may be quite suspicious about this, but the readers will immediately recognize that you are indeed human and not a Mary Sue, and that your story is probably worthy of reviewing.
If that's too difficult for you to comprehend, or if you already have a summary but it's actually longer than your story itself (though that's anatomically impossible), simply mention that your epic summary is inside your story. People will be curious and flock to your fic like fangirls running to embrace Taylor Lautner's thousand abs.
So: "summary sucks, but story is much better!" or "summary is inside! Read to find out!" Got it? Good.
Next, the little notes people put at the end of summaries. You know: AU, OCs, R&R, not-a-Mary-Sue, and whatever pairing the story contains (in this case, AcexLaw). So now that you have it labeled as M-rated, the title is in, and half the summary is completed, just shove in "YAOI", "BOYxBOY", "LEMON", and whatever sexy word you think will attract those perverts- I mean, readers.
After that, put "no flames!" just to get rid of those pesky idiots who go around insulting people for no reason.
Don't cry. Don't cry.
Wait, you say people still aren't reviewing? Hm, this is quite a conundrum.
I have a solution.
Turn your story into a submit-your-OC fic. You know what, scrap the lemon idea. It's too squicky for your delicate squeamish- ah, never mind.
… Just to be safe, keep shounen ai (boyxboy with no smex. Oh, don't complain) annotations in the summary. But! Now that we have an instant solution to getting as many reviews as possible…
"OCS NEEDED SUBMIT A CHARACTER!"
Quickly whip up a self-inse- I mean, original character (see How to Make a Mary Sue, more blatant self-advertising to be elaborated in Step 6), start a pirate crew, and figure out how to make your crew of OCs spur along the Ace and Law romance.
Go plot devices go!
Step 5- The Author's Notes
Okay, let's go over what we have so far. You have your eye-catching title, your eye-catching summary, and a vague plot to work with. Let's get writing!
Um…
I'll leave that part to you.
Anyways, the ANs at the beginning and end of your story are also a vital part in gathering reviews. There are several methods of coaxing or coercing people into reviewing (be sure to turn of that anonymous-blocker, too).
Nah, forget about coaxing, coercing's the most effective method.
Maybe you've seen a story with over a hundred reviews and thought to yourself, "Huh! I wrote a much better story, but I didn't get that many reviews! Why is that so?"
Well, did you check the ANs? BLACKMAIL. That's the way to do it. Blackmail those pesky read-and-runners! Make them beg for updates and kiss your feet! Okay, maybe not the feet-kissing part. So you don't know how to blackmail, you say? It's simple, watch:
"NO UPDATES UNTIL I GET TEN REVIEWS!" (numbers may vary depending on how much of a review whore you are)
That's right, it's that simple. Should've thought of that before, huh?
Now that we have a submit-your-OC/AcexLaw fic to work off of, be sure to mention that you will not accept OCs by PM (private messaging will be elaborated on the next step). Force your readers to send in characters by review! It's the only way! And that way, you get even more reviews!
Step 6- Messaging and Advertisement
Still not getting as much feedback as you'd expected and hoped for? Time to get down to the gritty stuff: asking people to review.
No, don't take shame in it. It's perfectly natural, like menstruation or shedding your outer skin to reveal the butterfly within. There are two ways to do this- request by reviewing another person's story (i.e. "Nice story, please read and review mine now!") or simply PMing them directly (i.e. "Hi! Please read and review my story!").
See how easy it is?
Then there's advertising. Hey! You guys! Go read and review my story 30 Flavors of Mellorine after you finish reviewing this one! Then go review the rest of my stories!
I mean that in all seriousness, of course.
Maybe in an AN or something, you can subtly mention that brand new story you just got out that no one's reviewed yet…
That's the amazing, wonderful power of self-promotion.
If THAT doesn't work, play the nice friendly guy. Go review every single story on the front page and use subliminal hinting. Or somewhat subliminal. I mentioned that before, didn't I?
Step 7- Bumping
Not everything is a guaranteed YES. Even if you work your ass off slaving over your latest ZoSan AU that's rated T and includes Ace somewhere in the background, people still might not review for whatever bizarre reason.
There are several lessons to be learned from forums (no, not the FF forums- real forums). One, don't act like an idiot. Two, don't mess with the mods. Three, bumping threads is kind of pathetic.
Bumping. Yes, bumping. It may be looked down upon in threads, but in Fanfiction, no one will notice. Hopefully.
Stories are constantly being poured into the archives, shoving yours into the next pages. No one goes farther than the first page (except for WEIRDOS), so you might as well give up hope if your one-shot is being pushed to the deep crevasses of the older archives.
But there is hope!
Simply "update" your story and see it reappear on the front page for all to see! So magical and dandy!
And wait for the reviews to come rushing in!
Step 8- Just Give Up
Okay, maybe none of this worked out for you. Maybe you DON'T want to write about Ace or Trafalgar Law or a plotless yaoi lemon. Maybe you DON'T want to read through dozens of OC submission forms without dozing off in the middle of those ridiculously fat backstory paragraphs. Maybe you just WANT reviews without having to work hard for it.
Don't panic. Don't cry. Don't throw your kitten out the window.
If you really want a ton of reviews and don't care about flames, just wing it and write a story akin to My Immortal.
Hey, it worked for Tara Gilesbie, didn't it?
Amethyst Turtle unleashed her fury upon the world, drowning thousands of individuals in a fierce storm that crashed down upon the earth, eradicating any glimmer of hope shining down through the dark storm clouds.
The power of the author was indescribably… stupid.
Suddenly, in a brilliant flash of light, a winged presence flew down in a chorus of angels' voices. With a single flick of a heavenly finger, the winged figure destroyed the author in an explosion of dust and crap. The power of Canon compelled the bitch, and so ended the tale of the self-insertion and the author's reign of terror and idiocy.
Everyone cheered and resumed writing their stories.
AN: That last bit was irrelevant, I guess.
Oh, and the mentioned stats in Step 2 are actually true. No kidding.
Flames are welcome, but I should tell you the scrapped title of this was How to Alienate your Readers and Make a Complete Fool out of Yourself. I figured that was a mouthful, so hey.
Reviews… ah, do I really need to say it? YES, I obviously timed that wrong.