Elsy suggested a fantastic addition to the site: Polls you create for your own writing submissions. This is an excellent way for you to find out how others feel about your story, submission and/or writing. You can ask readers things like: Who is your favorite character? What is your favorite chapter? What do you think should happen next? For nonfiction, you could ask questions like: What fact did you find most interesting? What new thing did you learn? What else would you like to know about this topic?
I could go on and on, but as the writer, it’s really up to you. You create the poll’s question and the answer choices, then I’ll post the poll at the end of your submission. If it’s an ongoing story, I can post the poll wherever you’d like readers to tell you what they’re thinking.
Then, you can find out how readers are responding by selecting “View Results” at the bottom of your poll whenever and as often as you’d like.
If you’d like to add a poll to your submitted writing, you’ll need to include the following:
- One specific question – this will be the title of the poll and what readers respond to
- A few answers for readers to choose from – three to five choices would probably be ideal; but again, it’s up to you.
Fun, right? And it’s great information for every writer to have!
Not only did Elsy come up with this great suggestion, she also added to the Mystery Group Project, giving the main character a reason for being down in the basement while continuing the eeriness introduced by Mikaela. You should go read that, then add to the story. After that? I’m looking forward to posting some great polls, so you should get busy on those, too!
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Beginnings can be tricky because you have to decide what information to share and what to hold back. You want to tell your readers enough so they’ll understand the type of story you’re going to tell but you also want to hold back some secrets to keep them reading. If you’d like to see a well-written example of what to include in the beginning of your story, read Mikaela’s prologue for God is Now Here. She includes everything a good beginning should include and she does it in less than a page. Well done, Mikaela!
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