>>6281583
>>6281587
Handler's right on the money here. The key to QMing is consistency. Some folks update multiple times daily, others update once a week (not exactly recommended, but doable.)

The only bit of advice I'd add is to COMMUNICATE. Got a trip coming up? Tell your players. Midterm Exams? Tell your players. Need a little break to figure out the next thread? Tell your players. You'll most likely start to see consistent voters/participants once you get the proverbial 'ball' rolling on your quest, but you're also more likely to retain them if you're clear about when you plan to update and why that might change!

>>6281522
I recommend almost any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series--the writing flows, the descriptions are crisp, and the characters are memorable.

I'd also personally recommend Raymond Chandler's works if you're into detective fiction. I dunno if any of them would really inspire you questwise, but they're good stories and the dialogue and character descriptions and movements are pretty darn good to boot.

Lastly, you're probably gonna scoff, but I would get some archive recommendations from some of the QMs/Players here of finished quests they liked. If you're looking to write a quest then sometimes the best bet is... you guessed it! Another quest!

Already recommended 'em, but I'll mention them again:
>Blood Quest is a good one to binge! By no means the most complex quest ever made, but it feels like an actual story... and it FINISHED! Wow!
>Retaliation Quest finished too. ObserverQM has an amazing way with descriptive language... like, I'm honestly pretty jealous. Definitely worth a read!
>Ogre Civ Quest might look goofy at first, but it's a good model for bringing character into a quest that you might not expect a lot of character from. Even as a Civ Quest it manages to make everyone feel important... and it's pretty entertaining too, so there's that.