u/Fabulous-Doughnut-22

Obviously this is going to be a personal preference thing, but I’m thinking of starting a new fic and I’m trying to decide if I should start at the beginning or start at a part closer to when the story plot starts.
First of all, it’s a romance, so starting from the beginning would mean more chapters before love interest is even introduced. So I’m curious:

For romance fics, how many chapters/words will you read before the romantic plot begins or meet cute?

I think starting from the beginning allows readers to become more attached to the MC(s) before romantic plot starts.

But… if you start closer to the characters meeting, and then slowly revival the MCs backstory, it’s “more interesting” but readers may miss out on that backstory or event that led the MC to do things in the story and thus might not like them as much and click off before backstory can bring things into context.

Sorry if that doesn’t make sense!

Basically, starting at the beginning: run the risk of readers losing interest before story gets going.

Reveal backstory later: run the risk of readers not liking MC because of actions not made clear in the early story.

Obviously this is a tightrope and either works if executed well. I’ve personally written story’s both ways. But now I’m questioning what would work better in this specific story. I’m curious to hear what you guys have to say about it!

Hello, so I work for a driving school and we are looking to get a bit more business. Hopefully this isn’t too confusing because I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Basically, when I student completes the course, we mail out a certificate. I had the idea of including a “thanks, leave a review/here’s a $10 discount to pass along” insert card.

The thing is, we do everything over email and don’t have an “online store” where people would put in a code. So I can’t think of a way to actually regulate how much one card gets used and passed around and used again, or show proof that someone actually has it and not just saying they have one.

All I can think is to get people to email us a picture of it. Or take their word for it. Or have them give it to the instructor when they start driving. But I’m not sure if that is professional? I guess I could put an expiry date on the cards?

On the other hand, maybe it doesn’t matter. The more the same card gets circulated, the more potential business we would have. The discount would just be indefinite until the cards eventually were used up and thrown out.

I appreciate any advice or ideas! I know nothing about marketing, I just want to help our business out.

Hello, I did search and saw the last post asking this was 5 years ago, so I hope this is okay.

There’s just so many crms

We own a driving school with 12 instructors, so we have around 2000 students a year. We currently use and have been using agile CRM for many years now, but I find it lacklustre for the price (I moved it over from paper cards originally so it was amazing at the time). I would also like to note that we are in Canada.

So I’m looking for a crm that isn’t too expensive but can have unlimited contacts. I don’t really want to delete them, because we have students come back to us asking for a certificate or more lessons years later.

I would like to have it used for 2 users.

I would like to send invoices and payment reminders easily and or automatically.

I would like to document payments better.

I would like to be able to mark students as “complete” when they finish.

Thanks so much for any advice or recommendations!

Oh and as a bonus question, is it possible to integrate one crms contacts into a new one?

By that I mean, are you just imagining the scene as it plays out visually, or do you imagine it as if you’re reading it with dialogue tags and narration?

Central Alberta (boreal/foothills transition zone)

So I recently watched a video of someone starting a native prairie in their front yard. Their method was laying down cardboard, then covering it with a layer of hay. I believe they left it like that for the summer, then spread seeds over it in January. Then the seeds germinated in the spring. My question is, how do seeds germinate in the absence of soil? Does the hay decompose enough over the winter to act as soil? Okay, let me rephrase. I get that seeds can germinate without soil, but how do they sustain themselves? It takes a while for their roots to break through the cardboard, doesn’t it? Or is the cardboard so decomposed at that point that roots have no issues poking through?

I’ve done something similar with cardboard a couple years ago, but I spread a layer of bagged soil on top then spread grass seeds over that in the spring and they germinated in a few weeks (wildflower seeds too, but I haven’t seen a single one). That was my plan to do again this year, but I’m wondering if the mulch method is better?

Birds are a big thing for me. I have tons on my acreage so I don’t want seeds to sit for too long and get eaten. Then for weeds I mainly have dandelions and great plantain.