Can I Have Some Volunteers?

Announcements
1

So…

I was looking through the Google Search Console to see if I could find some keywords that could boost the traffic to these forums. I found some stuff people are searching for when they click on my website and I thought I’d drop them here to see if there are any volunteers to help me?

My reasoning behind this comes in many forms:

  1. I think we’re scaring off people who like Episode at the moment. While I love that we can freely and openly discuss what we dislike about Episode, I don’t want this to become a hate fest for Episode. Like @fcukforcookies said in her Positivity Thread, there’s so much ranting, but not a lot of love! Let’s even the playing field a little.

  2. It’s a great community activity. We can all join in and recommend the stories we love!

  3. It’s free advertisement for the forums. If this is what people are searching for, this is what we can give them!

  4. ShanniiWrites is all about giving people resources! That was the reason I started the main website, and I want to continue that ethos into the forums, too!

  5. Support authors who deserve it. If the stories are good, we wanna celebrate them! It doesn’t matter if you have 10 reads or 10,000,000! We love good stories!

So, if there are any of the following threads that appeal to you, please feel free to comment below saying you’d be happy to volunteer!

Please good quality stories, only. That means good directing and writing skills. I know a lot of people love to recommend their friends or their own stories, but I need to make sure the quality stays up so that people trust and respect our recommendations.

Please also do not recommend your own stories. We have a section for self-promotion! But this one is about helping other authors. I can see who edited what, so I wouldn’t bother trying!

Good Episode Stories Without Gem Choices

I was thinking of starting a wiki thread (a post that everyone can edit and add to) full of good stories from every genre that don’t contain gem choices. We have come up in searches for this 132 times in the past month, so I think this would be a great way to start! I’ll be setting up the thread, so don’t worry, but I’d love to know if I have any volunteers to maintain it with me?

Episode Stories Where Choices Matter

I have, like, one or two recommendations for this, but I don’t actually know many. We turned up in 37 searches on this topic, so clearly people are looking for it! Basically, any stories where your choices have an impact on the ending (Maternal Instincts and The Infected spring to mind) are a must for this section.

Episode Stories With Good Diversity

I look for it. I know @PensiveShadow is looking for it. This one turned up 29 times, so it’s another good one to look into! If you know of any stories with good diversity, we’re looking for them!

LGBTQ Episode Stories

I guess this is going to end up being like a shelf! I’m going to specify the rules for this one in the post itself, but the premise is that the story has to have an LGBTQ main character (I don’t care who wrote it). Having a same-sex love interest choice does count, but only if it’s established throughout the story that the same-sex love interest is just as likely to end up with the MC and it isn’t just tacked on at the end of the story.

Stories With Male Protagonists

We don’t see enough of these! I love stories with male protagonists, personally! Off the top of my head, One of the Girls is the first one I think of. I’m sure there are many others out there.

Stories about MCs with Health Problems or Disabilities

This can be mental or physical. We just wanna see our disabled friends represented! Plus, also stories that (respectfully) feature illness in some way or another. These stories aren’t really touched upon as much, so it would be nice for us to find some rare gems here and there.

So what do you think? As well as doing the User of the Month nominations and prizes, this is going to be my priority for the next week, with the help of the @ForumStaff. Please share your thoughts below!

I might do one for Wattpad if this works out well.

I’m focussing on the first 3 mainly, but I’ll only add them once I know people are interested in contributing :grimacing:

19 Likes
3

I’m still reading stories for my contest, so I will drop ones I loved the most soon. Good idea

6 Likes
4

That would be awesome! Thanks! I’m hoping this will make us a little more credible :stuck_out_tongue:

5 Likes
5

This is a brilliant idea!
It’ll be a very good database and resource for people who look for these kinds of things!

3 Likes
6

This is a great idea! I’ll be looking through my favorite’s section for these stories!

4 Likes
7

I know you mentioned doing a wattpad version if this turns out well, and of course I may be overstepping here, it’s your forum, so you should run it how you want. But perhaps seek to look beyond episode and even beyond wattpad too, to reach a broader audience.
I know many people joined your forum from episode, but this is a website, and it should be the type of place that isn’t just such a tight group, that people who have never heard of episode, feel like they can’t join in.
As for the negativity issue that was brought up, I don’t see it a lot at all, however I think the trend is episode. I have nothing against the app as an app, I think however that the negativity and immaturity that can tend to be present on the episode forums is something that can be working it’s way over here as it grows, it can be a pattern many people won’t be easily broken out of. So spreading more good ideas etc and drawing in a wider range of people and interests would be the best way to increase positivity.

I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with the forums, but there could be so much more built in here.
Rather than just focusing on episode, focus on a main subject.
So for example stories as a whole. Books, interactive stories, other apps, poems, play scripts, movie scripts etc. Gradually incorporating more from the world outside of episode too, can not only gain more material to enjoy and learn from for people already here, but people who are your website and want to join.

10 Likes
8

That’s a really good point! It was always the intention to branch out further than Episode, but I guess we kinda got sidetracked with the volume of members who came to here from the Episode forums. Personally, I’d love to incorporate new kinds of stories to the forums. Episode isn’t actually my strong point, so it would be really interesting to branch out and include more prose stuff, like novels etc.

I’m hoping this is something we can build on, too. It is going to be difficult searching from wider database, but hopefully we can get there! Thanks for the advice! Fingers crossed we can implement it :smiley:

7 Likes
9

Anything I can do to help, that is in my power lol, I will. So let me know.
I have a few suggestions that we could always add, so I’m open to bouncing around some ideas or brainstorming when you’re ready to try :grinning:

5 Likes
10

I’d love to help!

My off the top of my head recommendation for choices that matter and LGBT representation (and its complete and pretty short) is Theta 135 by Toriah. Very fun time-travel, spy adventure with just a dash of (lesbian) romance. Her other stories are amazing too, especially Silver Sonder (great for LGBT shelf) and The Revival (more for choices matter). Love her stories.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk about Episode myself but I do have recommendations to share, so I’d love to help out!

Also, I agree with @Cheyara_M that we could have other app recommendations. I got here through Choices and reading ppl on Reddit discussing Episodes and checked it out from there. Since then, I’ve also played Love Island’s app and love it. And i always go to Cheyara before reading a Chapters story. So happy to help with other apps storytelling extended universe :blush:

7 Likes
11

Ahh really? You started from Chapters? That’s kinda awesome. I found it after episode, personally! I’d love the help! Thank you :heart:

3 Likes
12

I know this isn’t about stories but maybe we can do study groups for those still in school. Like have middle school, high school and college level groups that can get advice from others for help.

4 Likes
13

Honestly I think that would be a great idea, but not everyone is studying at the same level and may not know content that others do.

3 Likes
14

True, but those that might have an understanding of what is going on can still help. Like for instance, the people under 21 make up most of the forums. So then, the older groups could still help out those who need it. We all have some kind of understanding of each generations schooling. It just take’s work from both sides.

4 Likes
15

I do agree there is so much hate. Mostly posts about what people are doing wrong instead of what people are doing right. I like the promotion idea.

8 Likes
16

Choices but same difference. And I wanted to talk about the stories and so then I found the subreddit and then ppl were complaining about Episode’s weird ads and then someone recommended some stories like Dirty Little Secrets and I downloaded it and liked Episode a little, while reading official and trending stories, then I loved it when I found better stories haha.

But yeah, happy to help out with anything you need!

4 Likes
17

We should also bring some more light to the request service section. Like have different proof reading threads for different types of writing material. Art threads can be promoted for more than just episkde stories as well.

6 Likes
18

I’m always available! I’m a qualified EFL a teacher and I tutor English language, literature, history, politics, media studied and theatre studies for high school students. I can lurk and answer questions if we start a thread

5 Likes
19

Sounds good to me! I think it would work out well!

3 Likes
20

I think it’s a great idea but sadly, I don’t read on Episode anymore so I won’t know about any latest stories of the kind. I’ll find a way to contribute though! :grin:

Also, I believe that if we have too many Episode related threads, it might not be the best website for a wattpader or a person who plays only Choices or Chapters. Like Cheyara said, It may be time we started focusing more on stories as a whole rather than Episode stories (though I do get that the reason behind that is that so many people here are from Episode!)

4 Likes