# My first story on FA



## AthleteRaccoon (May 6, 2018)

Hiya all,

Writing's what I do and tonight I put Part 1 of my first story up. My fursona is a raccoon and this is his 'coming of age' story after just turning eighteen. He's a sportsman with a big secret about who he is, and his senior-prom-date to be has just guessed it. So how does he keep her from telling, and get the attention of the one he really desires? Lucky he's got an older brother who might help. Not so lucky that the guy he likes is a little bit edgy and a bigtime troublemaker...

www.furaffinity.net: Todd's Senior Prom (Part 1) by AthleteRaccoon

Contains a swear-word or two. This part is classed as M and there will be A content later on down the line.


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## LoganGreypaw (May 13, 2018)

Can I make a recommendation?

If you're interested in getting more reads of your stories, you might want to consider posting future stories as .txt files, using BBCode for their formatting. This allows them to display directly on the site. They end up looking like this:

www.furaffinity.net: Judy Needs It - Cover by LoganGreypaw

If you _aren't_ too bothered about getting the story to display like that, or you have complicated formatting you want to preserve, consider saving your file as a PDF file, as this will open in the user's browser.

Your current file is Word's docx. Some people don't like downloading stories, and some people are simply unable to open files in that format.

This isn't meant to be a criticism; just rather it'd be a shame if you were writing awesome stories and few people got the chance to see them due to stuff like this.


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## Takkin (May 13, 2018)

LoganGreypaw said:


> Can I make a recommendation?
> 
> If you're interested in getting more reads of your stories, you might want to consider posting future stories as .txt files, using BBCode for their formatting. This allows them to display directly on the site. They end up looking like this:
> 
> ...



This is great information. I did the same thing when I posted my first one (in Word) and then adjusted to using PDF. I was considering the .txt with BBCode on my next one...


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## LoganGreypaw (May 13, 2018)

Takkin said:


> This is great information. I did the same thing when I posted my first one (in Word) and then adjusted to using PDF. I was considering the .txt with BBCode on my next one...


I've found the most useful approach. The only problem I have is that FurAffinity and SoFurry both use BBCode but they differ (SoFurry requires you to copy/paste your story into a box and FA doesn't handle URL tags in the same way) and Patreon uses an entirely different form of text entry. It sounds like a small thing, but if you're uploading maybe 2 stories a week, having to format it all these times can be a bit of a drag - so I see the appeal of just uploading PDFs everywhere.

Personally though I stuck with the .txt approach because, at the end of the day, I want people to read the stuff I'm writing, and I think that means I should make it as easy for them as possible.


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## Connor J. Coyote (May 30, 2018)

Yeah, I can concur with the points above.. as .txt and BBCode are usually the best on FA.


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## AthleteRaccoon (Jun 4, 2018)

LoganGreypaw said:


> Can I make a recommendation?
> 
> If you're interested in getting more reads of your stories, you might want to consider posting future stories as .txt files, using BBCode for their formatting. This allows them to display directly on the site. They end up looking like this:
> 
> ...



Logan,

Thanks for the advice. Sorry I haven't checked to reply to you sooner. The truth is, this story and the sequel I'm now on got a LOT more attention at SoFurry, so I've concentrated on putting my stuff on there so far. If I try getting readers on FA again, I'll give your suggestions a go. 

Formatting does indeed matter - I'm a reasonably experienced self-published author in my 'other' life and I've formatted ebooks using HTML to get them looking as perfect as I can for the reader, but I admit I'm unfamiliar with working in .txt and I've never heard of BBCode (teaching myself basic HTML for ebooks notwithstanding, I'm about the least tech-savvy person going and probably get laughed at by many when it comes to this kind of thing!) I might well go down the PDF route - I've never actually liked downloading other people's stories in Word either, it was just the best I could do when I wanted to get this story out 'hot off the press.'


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