Re-post and Combining Parts of an old story line

Hi - Need advice. In 2012, I posted the start of a story in three parts but never finished it, and over the years they've gotten about 100K and they rate between 3.55 and 3.91. After re-reading them and getting some comments, I've combined them with major changes by developing the characters and the story. The new story is about 8000 words and takes the story past chapter 3 and would have been a 10 part story if not combined.

Does anyone think I should re-post the individual 3 chapters with the new text, risking having the people who favorited them missing key changes, or should I just put the new full story up there and keep or delete the three chapters already there?

Would love to hear some suggestions.

Thanks

You can do both.

You can submit the first three as edited versions - that keeps the views, votes and comments although some of the comments might not fit the new versions. You could add a new part 4.

You can submit the complete story as newly posted entity "[My story] Complete" You can do that as well as posting parts 1 to 4.

I've done this...I changed the title and rewrote the almost the whole story, so it's actually a brand new story. That's how I posted it also. As a new story.

Something similar happened to me with my "Heather and Michael" series. Chapters 1 & 2 are really one story and the writing is really bad. I started a sequel, which I intended to be Chapters 3, 4, 5 & 6. I published Chapter 3, didn't like the response and never published another chapter.

Since then, I've re-written Chapters 1 & 2 and plan to publish them as one story, "The Twins Go Camping". I have a note at the beginning of the new version, saying it's a re-write. I've done a little work on the sequel, which will be named, "The Twins Go Camping: Maddie Joins In". When the sequel is done, I plan to submit TTGC and the sequel, then have the H&M chapters deleted.

I'd suggest doing something similar.

likesgaystuff said:

Hi - Need advice. In 2012, I posted the start of a story in three parts but never finished it, and over the years they've gotten about 100K and they rate between 3.55 and 3.91. After re-reading them and getting some comments, I've combined them with major changes by developing the characters and the story. The new story is about 8000 words and takes the story past chapter 3 and would have been a 10 part story if not combined.

Does anyone think I should re-post the individual 3 chapters with the new text, risking having the people who favorited them missing key changes, or should I just put the new full story up there and keep or delete the three chapters already there?

Would love to hear some suggestions.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Deleting the old ones kills their comments, and I treasure comments. What I did in a somewhat similar situation was write and post the new version with an Author's Note explaining the development and pointing to the original, and an Author's Comment on the original pointing to my new version.

Hypoxia said:

Deleting the old ones kills their comments, and I treasure comments. What I did in a somewhat similar situation was write and post the new version with an Author's Note explaining the development and pointing to the original, and an Author's Comment on the original pointing to my new version.

Click to expand...

When I posted one of my stories it was a mess. I was trying to finish it in a hurry with family matters intruding on my writing time.

Later, after several helpful comments pointing out some of the flaws, I was able to edit it into reasonable shape. I deleted all the comments about the errors but left a comment of my own to explain what I had done and why. Valid criticism can be very useful.

PS - but I had a comment this year from an anonymous grammar nazi complaining that I changed tenses in subsequent paragraphs. If it had been true the comment would be useful. Unfortunately that anon didn't recognise the difference between present continuous and present simple e.g. Jane is tall and slim. She was tall and slim when the story started. She's still tall and slim when the story ends three months later. Anon thought I should have written 'Jane WAS tall and slim' when telling the story about Jane...