Long stories and chapters

I'm currently writing a really long story, which I'm breaking up into chapters.

I've seen some writers with similar stories post the whole thing as one story, with "Chapter X" inside the story to show the start of a new chapter. I've also seen others who post the chapters separately and have them in some kind of collection on their profile (I'm new, I don't know the correct term for that. Hope it makes sense).

My question is: Which one of those options should I go with? Should I post it as one big story, or post the chapters separately? And how would I go about making sure they end up in the same collection/book on my profile? This will be the first story I will submit to this website, so I'm new to the whole process. Any help/opinions would be appreciated

ThisNameIsntTakenYet said:

I'm currently writing a really long story, which I'm breaking up into chapters.

I've seen some writers with similar stories post the whole thing as one story, with "Chapter X" inside the story to show the start of a new chapter. I've also seen others who post the chapters separately and have them in some kind of collection on their profile (I'm new, I don't know the correct term for that. Hope it makes sense).

My question is: Which one of those options should I go with? Should I post it as one big story, or post the chapters separately? And how would I go about making sure they end up in the same collection/book on my profile? This will be the first story I will submit to this website, so I'm new to the whole process. Any help/opinions would be appreciated

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Ultimately it doesn't matter. Your choice can affect scoring and who reads it, yes. Some people like reading things in chunks and don't mind the delay between chapters appearing (which will happen even if you post them all at once). Some people prefer having it all at once and all together. If you're writing to a particular fetish or niche, your score tends to go up a little if you do separate chapters, because people who dislike the fetish stop reading at chapter one, and the others will go on and vote nicely on the rest of the chapters. But a very long single post can have the same effect.

Do whatever feels most natural. In the final analysis, readers are an unpredictable bunch, and scores mean less than they initially seem to, so you might as well suit yourself and just see what happens.

And welcome. Mind if we call you Taken?

yeah, I wouldn't do it for trying to optimize for your score. I would say that you should post the story when it feels like it stand on its own as a complete story. The tale may continue further in your mind and it may not be "finished" but if you can take a step back and look at what you've written so far and say, "ok, this has some kind of beginning, middle, and end" I'd say post that.

To post multiple chapters, just be sure to reuse the title in the story and add a "Pt. 2" or something else obvious in the title that shows that it's part of another story you posted before. The human mods seem pretty good about picking up on that.

1. It depends what you mean by 'long'. There are some stories posted on Literotica that are more than 100,000 words as a single story.

Each chapter that you want to post separately has to be at least 750 words long, and should have been written as an entity - a beginning that links to the previous chapter, development, and a link or hook to the following chapter. That isn't necessary if the chapter divide is just marked in a longer submission.

2. IF you are posting chapters singly then you should title them exactly the same followed by a chapter number or part number. BUT if you are going to write more than TEN chapters then it is important that they are numbered like this:

My Story Ch.01
My Story Ch.02 etc.

That makes them appear in your list of stories in consecutive order.

If you start Ch.1 and get to Ch.11 and beyond they could show like this:

My Story Ch.1
My Story Ch.11
My Story Ch.12
My Story Ch.2
My Story Ch.3

After the chapter number you can add a word or two if your title is short:

My Story Ch.01 He meets her
My Story Ch.02 They go on a date
My Story Ch.03 They like each other
My Story Ch.04 They argue about...
My Story Ch.05 They make up and...

Thanks for the reactions, it's been very helpful.
I think I'll just focus on finishing it first and worrying about how I'm going to post it later.

Just to be clear: I do intent to post the whole story at once, even if I would go for the separate chapters option.

PS: You can call me whatever you want, Taken is fine by me. I just had a hard time finding a name that wasn't taken yet, so after trying a lot of names I just tried this one for the fun of it, which ironically wasn't taken at the time XD

Posting the chapters separately gives you more exposure, each one spends some time in the "new stories" list, whereas if it's posted in one big lump you only get the one time on the list.

The site admins and/or the site software automatically groups the chapters together as long as the title naming convention is followed.

A lot of folks do the separate chapters out of necessity since they write a chapter, post it immediately, and don't write the next chapter until an idea comes to them.

Personally I never start posting until the whole story is written and finished, and then I post them separately but on a steady schedule, usually weekly or biweekly.

PervOtaku said:

Posting the chapters separately gives you more exposure, each one spends some time in the "new stories" list, whereas if it's posted in one big lump you only get the one time on the list.

The site admins and/or the site software automatically groups the chapters together as long as the title naming convention is followed.

A lot of folks do the separate chapters out of necessity since they write a chapter, post it immediately, and don't write the next chapter until an idea comes to them.

Personally I never start posting until the whole story is written and finished, and then I post them separately but on a steady schedule, usually weekly or biweekly.

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I've seen that a lot, sadly some people never finish their stories so you're left hanging somewhere in the middle without any conclusion to the story. I really hate that, which I why I only read complete stories (all chapters in one story) or check if the story was actually completed before I start to read. Finding out there isn't more after reading several chapters is the worst feeling ever, in my opinion. Especially if the rest of the chapters never get posted.

I think I'll go with a similar strategy: first finish the story and then submit it. I might do all at once or separate chapters, but I won't start submitting until the story is done.