I dunno if you've noticed...

electricblue66 said:

You forget that Ogg is quite a bit older than you, so ten years is, relatively speaking, like yesterday. Puffin care does that to a man. If you translate such a time differential to your circumstances, it would be like waiting twenty or thirty years for your next chapter; and, Mr Clearwater, that will not do, it will not do at all.

Click to expand...

Unless he's Methuselah, that maths seems off to me, but who am I to question?

Your obedient servant,

J.C.

electricblue66 said:

Don't get caught in the trap (as so many do) of drip-feeding chapters of a long multi-part things out as you write each part. You will inevitably fall behind your own schedule, life will interrupt, you may run out of ideas, and you'll end up with one of the biggest reader dislikes of all - the great unfinished series.

Click to expand...

electricblue66 said:

Once you've built the foundations, then tackle the novel length work. And finish it, before you publish chapter one.

Click to expand...

Oh, I don`t intend to drip-feed chapters. In fact, I`ve written quite a bit already, I`m just figuring out how things work here. I don`t see the value of posting a single chapter and then trying to rush things to be able to get the next chapter out before people have read the first one.

Although it was intended as a pet project to get back into writing and to get some experience in writing a story in English, I got too attached to the characters and plot to abandon it. So after tweaking and rewriting I decided to post it so others can (hopefully) enjoy it as well. It`s not done yet, but well ... there`s also already so much of it. Perhaps I just have a need to see if an actual audience has a positive feeling about it.

So far I have two 'parts' done, which translates into 16 chapters (~70 pages in Word). But I (subconsciously?) managed to end both parts so that they can be an ending without it feeling unfinished. So it won`t be a shipwreck if I never manage to get another word out at least and only a few people (like me) instead of the majority will feel unsatisfactory.

electricblue66 said:

If you're just starting out, it's perhaps wiser to start with smaller, self-contained pieces. Learn your chops as a writer - you'll either be worse than you think you are, or better - but I doubt you'll be who you think you are. Find your style - if you've never written fiction before, you won't find your natural style until you've got 30k - 40k words under your belt (or more). That's 7 - 11 Lit pages (use 3750 words = 1 Lit page).

Click to expand...

Oh, I`m not worried about that. I`m not a new writer, I`ve just never attempted to publish anything so far, not even online. I`ve written my first book (138 pages, Times new roman, size 10) when I was still in highschool, wrote a handful of short stories (10-20 pages) as birthday presents for friends (who still bug me for more, so I`m at least not horrible) and my style has definitely improved. I also know that I`m glad I never tried to publish that story I wrote in highschool It suffered from characters without depth and a bad build-up, but the plot and pacing worked well.
But that also means the only stories I`ve written are read by people I already knew. You never really know where you stand there. Now I`m mostly to see if I pitch my story to a larger audience. I can crash, burn or get somewhat popular. Or worse, get unnoticed.

electricblue66 said:

Also, don't assume just because it's long, that it automatically goes into novels. There's a 80 Lit page work out there in the Sci-Fi/ Fantasy category - which is the best category for it. The novels category is a bit of a back-water.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I kind of figured that last part, which was the main reason I didn`t check that as category in the first place. It`s just that the story doesn`t seem to fit anywhere except for the default EC, since it`s more a story with sex than a story which revolves around sex. Most of the longer stories I`ve read here are pretty similar. But perhaps that`s just the kind of stories that attract me.

electricblue66 said:

One last thing - it's it's not it ' s. Please lose the spacing around your apostrophes (or you won't get past Go - which is correct punctuation).

Click to expand...

Heh. Yes. It`s just that I somehow adopted the character ` as an apostrophe and it`s hard to unlearn. I hope you won`t feel too offended by it.

Gentleman_G said:

Heh. Yes. It`s just that I somehow adopted the character ` as an apostrophe and it`s hard to unlearn. I hope you won`t feel too offended by it.

Click to expand...

I never thought this kind of thing would ever worry me, but when I read your posts, I translate it into a stutter - it actually 'gets in the way' of the flow as I read. I pay a lot of attention in my own writing to its beat and flow, its cadence and cascade, so any punctuation effect becomes important. I suspect that's why it's jumped out enough for me to comment on.

oggbashan said:

They've had to wait a decade for some of mine.

Click to expand...

JasonClearwater said:

[SEE EB!]

Are you still working on them, or are they dormant? Most of my series are actively in progress, but I won't post the next piece because I'm not happy with the quality of the writing. The piece after it might be great, but I wouldn't post things out of order. Much as I'd like to.

Click to expand...

electricblue66 said:

You forget that Ogg is quite a bit older than you, so ten years is, relatively speaking, like yesterday. Puffin care does that to a man. If you translate such a time differential to your circumstances, it would be like waiting twenty or thirty years for your next chapter; and, Mr Clearwater, that will not do, it will not do at all.

Click to expand...

JasonClearwater said:

Unless he's Methuselah, that maths seems off to me, but who am I to question?

Your obedient servant,

J.C.

Click to expand...

Methuselah? He was a short-lived human.

I'm far more ancient. I rode on the roof of Noah's Ark. But I was killed by the Israelites so I'm a ghost writer.

Back to reality. Over the last couple of years I have made a deliberate effort to finish part-posted stories. There is only one outstanding - Fiona chapters 1 and 2 needs a third and final chapter. I know where it is going but there are a couple of holes in the plot that need some serious thinking and perhaps an edit of the earlier chapters.

Sequels? That's different. Whether I will write sequels? I don't know. I find it difficult to go back to the writer I was when I wrote the original story.