Do you need help with your first shrine? Members of Amassment have helped put together a plethora of thoughts to get you started!
Advice For Your First Shrine
When you are making your first shrine there are dozens of questions and concerns racing through your brain, but most of all, “Where do I start?” It is easy to never get that project off the ground when worrying about all the small details that do not need to be addressed when first putting your site together. Amassment members suggest:
“1. Your shrine doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all source of information on the web. What can YOU personally bring to the subject that’s different and original, never seen on the Web before?
2. If you want to make a site about something, but someone has already done a great site about it, don’t get intimidated; just take a different tack. Instead of feeling like you have to be a soloist on this subject, allow your site to be the harmony to their melody.
3. When creating content, use headings and white space to break up Walls of Text on your pages. Giant paragraphs are daunting for the casual visitor, and A.D.D. Kids like me will lose their focus without a heading or subheading to grab their attention again.
4. Never be afraid to ask for help developing your layout, and never be afraid to redesign as many times as you need. TRUST ME ON THIS–even after 12 years of webdesign, I still ended up reworking my Elsa shrine layout 3 times before I came up with a design I didn’t hate on sight. xD”
— Robin of withinmyworld.net
“1. start with what you are comfortable with, now don’t drop to much content that you don’t know how to share. start small, and then along the lines add stuff, make it grow, start simple and then slowly tackle the more complicated
2. When deciding the subject and how to write the content, decide from what part you want to tackle the subject, what is you want to show with your shrine. When working on subject think what it makes it special and try to integrate that into the shrine
3. It is your shrine, it will show your side of the story, and even if there is already a shrine for the subject, doesn’t mean it got all the information on it, and you just need to get a personal way of dividing the content.
4. Remember about your readers, some will know the subject some won’t, so you have to write it in a way that will be easy to read for both type of readers.
5. If it helps you before starting working on content write down a list of topics you want to write about. I always have all sections written down and then I start writing, after I subdivided them. For example now I’m working on the Hikaru shrine, and I divided the shrine in 10 major topics (Series, Baiscs, Personality, Appearance, Combat, Mission, relationships, symbolism, trivia), it’s easier to write, and while you write this way, you can get back to the other topics to add things, or just make a note to a topic you haven’t started to just remember when you will be writing it.
6. Most important – do the shrine the way that is most comfortable for you.”
— Saya of silverblood.net
“- Be yourself, not someone else. Being inspired by someone else’s work is great, but keep in mind that your site is all about what YOU have to say!
– Relatedly, don’t feel like you have to write certain pages and sections, or your site won’t be complete. If you find yourself writing something half-heartedly, maybe it’s better not to do it at all. Instead, focus on what you really want to write, even if you think it’s silly or unimportant. Make a section about a character’s crotch, if that’s what you want. Don’t be afraid to break the mold. Your site, your rules!
– Basically, HAVE FUN!”
— DubiousDisc of rigelatin.net
“Don’t feel a need to make a beast of a shrine. Shrines come in all sizes, and it is perfectly okay to start small. Planning too large of a site often intimidates people, and they won’t finish what they start. Concentrate on the basics first, and grow from there.”
— Todd of nightbringer.net
“Do whatever amuses you, whatever you enjoy making, if you’re having fun, you’re doing it right.”
— Mikari of azurelight.net
In addition, here are more general suggestions for how to just start crafting your site:
- Write an Outline
- Keep a notebook or a google docs file where you jot down ideas
- Talk to other people who make shrines
Shrine-Starter Package
Our “Shrine-Starter Package” is a document filled with prompts to help you start writing about your site and crafting your very first shrine. Our document contains prompts for essays, suggestions for certain pages, and a quick example of an outline and some links. This is not a complete step-by-step to creating a shrine, rather, it is just something to get you started. Feel free to visit us at the forums if you need more ideas or help!
Click here to download our Shrine-Starter PDF!
Hopefully this helps you get on your way to making your very first shrine. Please be sure to join Amassment and plug your shrine at our message boards! We would love to feature your first shrine in our directory for all shrine fans to see!
Community Resources
