Please turn in your homework. Thank you. Alright, I'm going to start off today's lesson with a helpful tip for those of you who want to get as many views as possible. There are three rules:
1: Make an eye-catching summary. Use key words and names to attract the eyes of interested parties, especially those who are on the lookout for specific pairings or story types.
B: Write short chapters/installments. There are a few people who fish for longer, better written stories, but for the most part people will just check into something that looks promising and the shorter it is, the more likely they are to move to the next chapter.
i: Don't ask for reviews. You certainly shouldn't beg for them. It comes off as weak and pathetic.
Now, on with the lesson. The topic will be: clarity. What do I mean by this? Allow me to clarify. These days everyone has to find some way to set their story apart. One way that is often tried is to create a complex situation. This may be done with politics, love triangles, or writing a story that doesn't follow events chronologically. For a perfect example of the latter, try watching LOST. Stories that rely on such methods are often unable to stand as a good story in their own right.
Don't get me wrong, stories really do need to be different and have their own life. They need to draw a reader in. You don't have to throw the manual out the window; you just have to make it yours. There is a place for stories with impossible logic bombs blowing the audience's minds out of their skulls, but there is a limit to the number which can be written before it's overdone.
For romance, finding out whether the main couple shares true love is often the entire plot of the story. While this has been overdone, it is also practically the only plot that works. The only other that comes to mind is finding a way to be together when kept apart, like in Romeo and Juliet.
For action, it's really quite simple. The main character has to grow and become better than they were at the beginning. A protagonist who is the most powerful person in the world from the very beginning wouldn't make for a very interesting story. Unless it's an epic. It is much more difficult to create a successful action story in written form than with visual media. You can't distract with big explosions and powerful actors. The success is entirely dependent upon the quality of the writing.
For comedy, a story can be nutty and make no sense or try to be entirely witty and dry. The third option is to be as dirty or violent as possible and make most of its laughs through sheer discomfort. A very well-written story should have a combination of wit, absurdity, and relatable experience. It also needs to be delivered at a jaunty pace, neither too slow nor too fast.
This subject is far too vast to sum up in one little lesson, which is why I'll try to make the most basic advice from all this one sentence long.
"Don't make the bloody thing too complicated for the intended audience to understand!"
If you're writing for children, keep it simple and to the point. Have lots of fun and light. For more advanced readers, be clever and make schemes with twists and surprises. For sluts and shut-ins, lots of sex. Got it? Good, now go away.