Best way to submit a novel length story.

[Madd_Maxxine]

I did an 86.6k word story as a one-off - it had chapters within it though. It was hard to split it as it had a big lead into the sex as it charted a relationship. I pit it in the N/N section and it did ok, the voted scuppered by some 1's.

looking at your synopsis on another thread, it looks as if can be split. With multiple ones, use Pt1, Pt2, type things and give a run-down at the start if it's not obvious what's going o. If it is a more stand alone chapter, then the fact it says 'Pt3' should be very obvious there are other bits.

I have added a little run down before episodes as the reader may not know what is going on, but try and have a clean start, so they can be read alone.

as your story progresses, you will get a better feel of what is right... but even i'd think twice about 200k words in one go.

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking this. It will take some work to divide the work in sections that make sense, but I've been doing some of that with how my chapters have been written.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Tangential question: if I break a work into multiple parts, can I ask Laurel to portion them out on some schedule if and only if all the parts are accepted? Has anyone successfully done that? How?

 

[ElectricBlue]

That seems like a good amount. That probably represents about 2-4 chapters in my novel. I think the only tough part is that some chapters don't have a very conclusive ending, they just flow into the next one.

Also, do you put a synopsis at the beginning of each part, or do you just do that for the first section?

Why would you put a synopsis anywhere?

My recommendation - having written a novel length work (104k words) - would be to submit the whole thing as chapters of around 10k - 15k words each (3 - 4 Lit pages), and ask Laurel to release them every 24 or 48 hours.

You seem, though, to be expressing some uncertainty as to the calibre of your content. If it's your first piece of writing, 200k words is ambitious. I would usually suggest someone start with a series of shorter, stand-alone stories, to learn the technical chops, get feedback. Cure bad habits if you've inadvertently got some. But it sounds too late for that.

Editing once a story is published is slow - it's low priority for the site, and can easily take 2 - 3 weeks. You basically resubmit your chapter with your corrected text, and get low priority. You should submit the best quality copy you possibly can.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Tangential question: if I break a work into multiple parts, can I ask Laurel to portion them out on some schedule if and only if all the parts are accepted? Has anyone successfully done that? How?

Yes. You submit every chapter at the same time, and ask her to schedule a staggered release. She'll usually set a 24 or 48 hour clock.

Make sure you've got no content breaches - nothing worse than getting a chapter rejected when the rest is good to go.

 

[ElectricBlue]

but even i'd think twice about 200k words in one go.

The biggest single submission I've seen was 300k words - but that was from a seasoned author who already had a big story file, and knew what he was doing. Our OP sounds somewhat less experienced, so I do hope they've got the basics right.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I invite you to check out my stories list here by clicking on the link in my signature. You will see several novels among my submissions, but what you won't see is the changes from when they were first submitted.

Four of the stories in the Novels/Novellas category were originally posted in chapters or parts containing multiple chapters. Feedback from my readers indicated that they preferred the single submission format so I resubmitted a single file and asked the site to remove the multiple files for each story. The scores for each story resubmitted have increased slightly and I have not received any comments against the longer versions.

Now, my experiences speak to the feedback from readers who finished my stories and do not reflect those readers who may have "viewed" my stories, realized how long they were and backed out of reading them. I've developed a loyal group of followers (currently around 1,300) with my novels here and I cater to them more than to others.

 

[Madd_Maxxine]

Why would you put a synopsis anywhere?

My recommendation - having written a novel length work (104k words) - would be to submit the whole thing as chapters of around 10k - 15k words each (3 - 4 Lit pages), and ask Laurel to release them every 24 or 48 hours.

You seem, though, to be expressing some uncertainty as to the calibre of your content. If it's your first piece of writing, 200k words is ambitious. I would usually suggest someone start with a series of shorter, stand-alone stories, to learn the technical chops, get feedback. Cure bad habits if you've inadvertently got some. But it sounds too late for that.

Editing once a story is published is slow - it's low priority for the site, and can easily take 2 - 3 weeks. You basically resubmit your chapter with your corrected text, and get low priority. You should submit the best quality copy you possibly can.. The consensus is that I should release in Chapters, which is what I had thought.

Why would you put a synopsis anywhere?

My recommendation - having written a novel length work (104k words) - would be to submit the whole thing as chapters of around 10k - 15k words each (3 - 4 Lit pages), and ask Laurel to release them every 24 or 48 hours.

You seem, though, to be expressing some uncertainty as to the calibre of your content. If it's your first piece of writing, 200k words is ambitious. I would usually suggest someone start with a series of shorter, stand-alone stories, to learn the technical chops, get feedback. Cure bad habits if you've inadvertently got some. But it sounds too late for that.

Editing once a story is published is slow - it's low priority for the site, and can easily take 2 - 3 weeks. You basically resubmit your chapter with your corrected text, and get low priority. You should submit the best quality copy you possibly can.

I never intended this work to get this large. I had an idea for a beginning, middle, and end, and the damn thing was just writing itself. I think it's pretty good, and I have a friend who I trust who says he has been "thoroughly enjoying it." I plan to eventually release it in chapters since that makes the most sense to me and based on feedback I have gotten. If people hate it, oh well. At least I had a good time writing it. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I never intended this work to get this large. I had an idea for a beginning, middle, and end, and the damn thing was just writing itself. I think it's pretty good, and I have a friend who I trust who says he has been "thoroughly enjoying it." I plan to eventually release it in chapters since that makes the most sense to me and based on feedback I have gotten. If people hate it, oh well. At least I had a good time writing it. Thanks for your thoughts.

How long has it taken you to write, may I ask? And is it your first "big thing"?

My main hope, for your sake, is that you've not inadvertently given yourself 200k's worth of poor writing habits, coz that's a lot to unlearn. Cross fingers, huh!?

Don't get too hung up on your release strategy, though, because once the whole thing is published, none of that matters. In three years, five years, ten years, readers are going to see the whole thing on your story page, and start from the beginning and read it through. That's why it makes no sense to put a synopsis at the beginnings of each chapter - readers will have just read the previous chapter.

 

[Madd_Maxxine]

How long has it taken you to write, may I ask? And is it your first "big thing"?

My main hope, for your sake, is that you've not inadvertently given yourself 200k's worth of poor writing habits, coz that's a lot to unlearn. Cross fingers, huh!?

Don't get too hung up on your release strategy, though, because once the whole thing is published, none of that matters. In three years, five years, ten years, readers are going to see the whole thing on your story page, and start from the beginning and read it through. That's why it makes no sense to put a synopsis at the beginnings of each chapter - readers will have just read the previous chapter.

I've been writing it for about 5 or 6 months now. But ideas have been floating around for decades. I continue to revise earlier sections as I get my writing sea legs under me. I think the biggest strength of what I have been doing is the characters and the humor.
In any case, at this point it's mainly a personal project for me; so if it sucks, I still enjoyed doing it.

 

[Tomh1966]

Please give definite break points on anything over 15K.
Just a -----~~~----- or ******* between a part or subchapter is fine.

 

[Bodington]

I write almost exclusively in the Novels and Novellas category. In your situation you have several options. You can submit your 200K words immediately as a full complete stand alone novel. Once you finish the balance of your projected extra 200K words you can submit that as a sequel novel with a different title. So in any case, you will end up with two novels with separate titles, or you can label the first novel with the suffix Part I and the second with the suffix of Part II. You can opt to publish your finally finished product of 400K plus words as one complete novel. In that case you have two options: you can wait until you've actually completed the full body of work and submit it all at once. This would mean each chapter will be published daily so that the reader will be able to read the whole work in a relatively short but consecutive time. Needless to say, future readers will be able to read your novel at their own pace. OR you have the option of submitting your novel piecemeal. No matter what you must break up your novel into chapters, each chapter being a single separate submission to literotica. If you were to submit all 400K words as a single submission which would constitute about 114 lit pages it would be too tedious for a reader to contemplate. I suggest each chapter to contain at least say 5K words but no more than 15K words.