Series versus A Single Long Story - advice needed

[bejjinks]

As a reader, I always prefer reading stories that are broken into chapters. The only advantage to one long story is that it's easier to download but even then, I want to break it into chapters. It's not that I have a problem with length. It's more that I can easily lose my place and get lost as to what is going on (especially when I'm reading online with no page breaks). Breaking it up into chapters is like sign posts along the way telling me where I'm at and where I'm going.

I remember staying up all night reading the entire book called Dune. That is a very long story but I was fascinated and kept reading chapter after chapter without stop. But even though I read the entire book in one night, I still appreciated the chapter breaks.

Now chapter length can vary and I think the maximum chapter length you can get away with is 20 pages. If the writing is good, I'll keep reading twenty pages but if I've gone more than twenty pages without a chapter break, I get fatigued. Chapter breaks do more than just break chapters. Each chapter has a different focus. This doesn't mean you can't write about peripherals in each chapter but like chapter one is like life before the move, chapter two is the move, chapter three is moving in, etceteras.

As a writer, I find it easy to write this way. I always have a plot structure in mind before I start writing. Chapter one is when I introduce everything. I call chapter two the chapter two depression. I figure out which chapter will be the climax. Etceteras.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I don't think it's misleading. I'd say it's a bit oversimplistic, because tastes vary so much at Literotica that you can "get away with" all kinds of different things and make things work.

But it's definitely, definitely true that if you begin an "incest" series, in that category, and your published chapter 1 is all exposition with no incestuous activity, there's a high probability that your story won't score as well or get as many views, and that sets your story up poorly for success. You will lose readers right off the bat. When I write a multi-chapter story, I make sure that each chapter contains some of whatever readers are looking for in the category in which the story is published.

This doesn't apply so much to categories like romance, sci-fi, and novels, where readers are more flexible about content expectations. Readers in some categories have very strong ideas of what they are looking for and may downvote you if you don't provide it.

Usually I find that the first chapter in a series is an "introductory" one in which two protagonists meet. (I guess it could be three, I suppose, or the third person could arrive later.) Thus there is unlikely to be sex in that chapter, although it's certainly an option that other writers may use.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I know this has been asked before, but I would like fresh thoughts on this question based on current readership trends my fellow authors and commentators are noticing.

If I asked you to go with me to see a movie that was 12 hours long, chances are you would say no. Not interested in anything that long. But, if I say let's binge a 12-part show with lots of twists and turns, chances are you would be up for it. So, that brings me to my question: Do I publish a long story (I'm guessing around 16 LE pages) or break it into six cliffhanging chapters?

Like everyone else, I want to attract readers and am always worried that page length can be off-putting. My longer stories are part of my PORTMANTEAU SERIES, but those are stand-alone adventures told in a non-traditional style. I have yet to drop a long linear narrative for fear of not grabbing the readership. Yes, I know how to keep readers once they start my stories (new information, delivered at a quick, steady pace is the recipe), but I feel I'm still scaring away people unwilling to go longer than 5 pages.

To that end, I ask anyone who has created a traditional episodic series, with each post being a chapter, not an independent new adventure. How has that worked out for you compared to posting one long story?

I am 75% of the way through something fun, erotic, and with good twists, and the time is now for me to consider how it will presented. Any advice is appreciated.

- Wendy Trilby

I decided to go with one 11,000 story rather than three shorter ones. There will be three chapter breaks with titles. I guess that's still quite a bit shorter than what you have in total.

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) was supposedly a twelve-hour movie, but it was rarely shown that way. Usually it was broken into parts shown on different nights. On TV, it was shown as a mini-series with twelve parts.

It used to be that long movies like Lawrence of Arabia had an intermission built into them. Not a bad idea, actually. Many stage plays have intermissions too.

 

[SimonDoom]

As a reader, I always prefer reading stories that are broken into chapters. The only advantage to one long story is that it's easier to download but even then, I want to break it into chapters. It's not that I have a problem with length. It's more that I can easily lose my place and get lost as to what is going on (especially when I'm reading online with no page breaks). Breaking it up into chapters is like sign posts along the way telling me where I'm at and where I'm going.

I remember staying up all night reading the entire book called Dune. That is a very long story but I was fascinated and kept reading chapter after chapter without stop. But even though I read the entire book in one night, I still appreciated the chapter breaks.

Now chapter length can vary and I think the maximum chapter length you can get away with is 20 pages. If the writing is good, I'll keep reading twenty pages but if I've gone more than twenty pages without a chapter break, I get fatigued. Chapter breaks do more than just break chapters. Each chapter has a different focus. This doesn't mean you can't write about peripherals in each chapter but like chapter one is like life before the move, chapter two is the move, chapter three is moving in, etceteras.

As a writer, I find it easy to write this way. I always have a plot structure in mind before I start writing. Chapter one is when I introduce everything. I call chapter two the chapter two depression. I figure out which chapter will be the climax. Etceteras.

We're talking about two different things, I think. Nobody disputes that it's useful to break a novel-length story into chapters. The question is whether it's better to publish chapters separately or to publish the entire story, chapters and all, at one time.

 

[bejjinks]

We're talking about two different things, I think. Nobody disputes that it's useful to break a novel-length story into chapters. The question is whether it's better to publish chapters separately or to publish the entire story, chapters and all, at one time.

I know. I was meaning publishing it as separate chapters.

 

[SimonDoom]

I know. I was meaning publishing it as separate chapters.

But you don't have to do that to create the effect of having chapter breaks. You didn't read Dune in a series of separately published stories. An author can publish a long story at Literotica but have clearly defined separate chapters to deal with the issue you've raised. It's not a reason to publish chapters separately.

 

[bejjinks]

But you don't have to do that to create the effect of having chapter breaks. You didn't read Dune in a series of separately published stories. An author can publish a long story at Literotica but have clearly defined separate chapters to deal with the issue you've raised. It's not a reason to publish chapters separately.

Don't get pedantic. I was talking about why I prefer published as separate chapters. I know people don't have to publish as separate chapters but it is still what I prefer.

 

[SimonDoom]

Don't get pedantic. I was talking about why I prefer published as separate chapters. I know people don't have to publish as separate chapters but it is still what I prefer.

It's not pedantic. Your preferences are your own and they are legitimate, but the example you gave-- a long book published as one but broken into chapters, did not explain your preference. Everything you described in the thread post that I responded to can be accomplished in a single published long story with separate chapters within it. If there's some other reason why you prefer separately published chapters, that's fine, but you didn't make it clear in your response why.

 

[Phantom300]

Thinking about the series I have read, I prefer longer stories chopped up, but in sizeable chunks. Five to six Lit pages [+/- 20K words] is right in the sweet spot IMO. I think there should be some kind of erotic material in each submission, even if it is just building to the next chapter.

 

[bejjinks]

It's not pedantic. Your preferences are your own and they are legitimate, but the example you gave-- a long book published as one but broken into chapters, did not explain your preference. Everything you described in the thread post that I responded to can be accomplished in a single published long story with separate chapters within it. If there's some other reason why you prefer separately published chapters, that's fine, but you didn't make it clear in your response why.

Shut up

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I don't think it's misleading. I'd say it's a bit oversimplistic, because tastes vary so much at Literotica that you can "get away with" all kinds of different things and make things work.

But it's definitely, definitely true that if you begin an "incest" series, in that category, and your published chapter 1 is all exposition with no incestuous activity, there's a high probability that your story won't score as well or get as many views, and that sets your story up poorly for success. You will lose readers right off the bat. When I write a multi-chapter story, I make sure that each chapter contains some of whatever readers are looking for in the category in which the story is published.

This doesn't apply so much to categories like romance, sci-fi, and novels, where readers are more flexible about content expectations. Readers in some categories have very strong ideas of what they are looking for and may downvote you if you don't provide it.

We can agree to disagree.

The statement made was implicit (essentially or very closely connected with inferring "always") and was thus misleading for new writers here who haven't yet discovered the varying tastes and expectations of readers. Had the statement mentioned incest or another category where readers' expectation more closely aligned with the claim, I might have still questioned it due to it "absolute" inference.

"Lots", "many", "most", maybe. "Always" has very little validity here, as in most aspects of life.

 

[lc69hunter]

I know this has been asked before, but I would like fresh thoughts on this question based on current readership trends my fellow authors and commentators are noticing.

If I asked you to go with me to see a movie that was 12 hours long, chances are you would say no. Not interested in anything that long. But, if I say let's binge a 12-part show with lots of twists and turns, chances are you would be up for it. So, that brings me to my question: Do I publish a long story (I'm guessing around 16 LE pages) or break it into six cliffhanging chapters?

Like everyone else, I want to attract readers and am always worried that page length can be off-putting. My longer stories are part of my PORTMANTEAU SERIES, but those are stand-alone adventures told in a non-traditional style. I have yet to drop a long linear narrative for fear of not grabbing the readership. Yes, I know how to keep readers once they start my stories (new information, delivered at a quick, steady pace is the recipe), but I feel I'm still scaring away people unwilling to go longer than 5 pages.

To that end, I ask anyone who has created a traditional episodic series, with each post being a chapter, not an independent new adventure. How has that worked out for you compared to posting one long story?

I am 75% of the way through something fun, erotic, and with good twists, and the time is now for me to consider how it will presented. Any advice is appreciated.

- Wendy Trilby

As an avid reader on here, but usually with short windows of time, I much prefer a series of shorter episodes rather than a long story I will not have the time to finish. Besides, if you hook me in early, I look forward to the next chapter.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I know a single lit page is 3700 words... whatever that means. Block of text? I'm gonna say Lits auto page generation is misleading to how long a story or chapter is. I have a story on my other account; two of the chapters are 12 msword pages, two of them are 14. One of each of those two sets is 2 lit pages, the other ones are 3. There's a comment on one of them saying the chapters too short, when it's just as long as the other, even if it's a page less.

I just finished a nine chapter story and had been thinking about this same thing. Each chapters about 12 or so pages long, it's 39.8k words. After going back through it, I'm going to release it as two books. See how that turns out for the crowd. Knowing about how much a lit page holds, I rarely will read any one submission over maybe 7-10 lit pages long, I rarely will read anything that's submitted in about more than four parts. I can't be too alone in that, in a general sense. If this site worked more like others, we wouldn't have this problem. And it shouldn't be one.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

I rarely will read anything that's submitted in about more than four parts. I can't be too alone in that

Hmmm. I have a series (my first and only series) that's going to be 13 parts with each part averaging 7-9K words. Although it's a series, each story can be read by itself. I purposely did that. There is an overriding story arc, but if you read the 7th part, you would not be lost. I don't reintroduce the characters, but I try to keep it pretty easy to follow. And my stories are not labeled with numbers. They have titles and descriptions. They are in a specific order, but they are not given chapter titles.

Is there any way to express that they are related, but easily red as stand-alone stories to potential readers? A foreword, sure, but they have to click to read to get to the foreword.

Thoughts?

 

[AchtungNight]

Hmmm. I have a series (my first and only series) that's going to be 13 parts with each part averaging 7-9K words. Although it's a series, each story can be read by itself. I purposely did that. There is an overriding story arc, but if you read the 7th part, you would not be lost. I don't reintroduce the characters, but I try to keep it pretty easy to follow. And my stories are not labeled with numbers. They have titles and descriptions. They are in a specific order, but they are not given chapter titles.

Is there any way to express that they are related, but easily red as stand-alone stories to potential readers? A foreword, sure, but they have to click to read to get to the foreword.

Thoughts?

I personally connected many of my stories with recurring characters and had faith that readers would enjoy them, but it hasn’t entirely worked out. Oh well.

 

[8letters]

I know a single lit page is 3700 words... whatever that means.

Actually, it's not. I think Lit paginates when a story reaches the end of a paragraph after so many lines. Stories that are a series of big paragraphs will have far more than 3700 words per page. For example, Wife's Vacation Double Penetration Pt. 02 is a one-page story with 4303 words. On the other hand, Surefoot 84: Duel averages around 3200 words per complete page.

3700 or 3750 words per page is just a ballpark estimate. You should adjust it to match your personal style.

 

[SimonDoom]

I know a single lit page is 3700 words... whatever that means. Block of text? I'm gonna say Lits auto page generation is misleading to how long a story or chapter is. I have a story on my other account; two of the chapters are 12 msword pages, two of them are 14. One of each of those two sets is 2 lit pages, the other ones are 3. There's a comment on one of them saying the chapters too short, when it's just as long as the other, even if it's a page less.

I just finished a nine chapter story and had been thinking about this same thing. Each chapters about 12 or so pages long, it's 39.8k words. After going back through it, I'm going to release it as two books. See how that turns out for the crowd. Knowing about how much a lit page holds, I rarely will read any one submission over maybe 7-10 lit pages long, I rarely will read anything that's submitted in about more than four parts. I can't be too alone in that, in a general sense. If this site worked more like others, we wouldn't have this problem. And it shouldn't be one.

Your tastes sound similar to mine. I rarely read stories much longer than 7 Literotica pages. I've gotten more impatient in my older age and I usually want a story I can finish in one manageable sitting.

I don't think there's anything wrong with authors tailoring the way they structure their stories to their own preferences as readers. I think it makes some sense, and you might write a better story that way than if you constantly try to guess, "What are the readers going to like?"

But if you are completely flexible and don't know what you want to do, then I think it makes sense to pay attention to the evidence, and the evidence indicates that, my preferences to the contrary, Literotica readers seem to be very patient with longer stories--surprisingly so, in my opinion. So that's something to keep in mind.

 

[SimonDoom]

Actually, it's not. I think Lit paginates when a story reaches the end of a paragraph after so many lines. Stories that are a series of big paragraphs will have far more than 3700 words per page. For example, Wife's Vacation Double Penetration Pt. 02 is a one-page story with 4303 words. On the other hand, Surefoot 84: Duel averages around 3200 words per complete page.

3700 or 3750 words per page is just a ballpark estimate. You should adjust it to match your personal style.

Interesting. I didn't realize there could be that much of a disparity. That's probably because my stories almost always get very close to the 3750 words per Lit page average; I mix narrative and dialogue and use paragraph lengths in a way that apparently is very close to what's typical at Literotica. That first example you gave is extremely dense with long paragraphs and has no dialogue. The second example has even shorter paragraphs and more dialogue lines than my stories usually do.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Is there any way to express that they are related, but easily red as stand-alone stories to potential readers? A foreword, sure, but they have to click to read to get to the foreword.

Thoughts?

I think your approach of using the Series function to cluster inter-related stories together, but without them being sequentially numbered chapters, works.

Sometimes, I get the impression authors don't quite trust readers to be clever, able to figure it out for themselves. Admittedly, some readers might not be the brightest hammer in the toolbox, but are you really writing with them in mind? Probably not.

You can't cater for every type of reader, and there's no "universal correct way," so doing what makes sense for you, for your content, is the smartest thing you can do.

Also, once you've got a body of work up, over several years, you're going to have titles all over the place. That's when the Series function gets to be useful, with high level story arc clustering. But if you look at my story list, for example, there's no way I can show how a lot of those stories interconnect (and a lot of them do), unless I was to write a gloss entitled "AAA - How to Navigate Through EB's Floating Universe" and stick it at the top of the page.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Hmmm. I have a series (my first and only series) that's going to be 13 parts with each part averaging 7-9K words. Although it's a series, each story can be read by itself. I purposely did that. There is an overriding story arc, but if you read the 7th part, you would not be lost. I don't reintroduce the characters, but I try to keep it pretty easy to follow. And my stories are not labeled with numbers. They have titles and descriptions. They are in a specific order, but they are not given chapter titles.

Is there any way to express that they are related, but easily red as stand-alone stories to potential readers? A foreword, sure, but they have to click to read to get to the foreword.

Thoughts?

I've thought about that, too. If the arc is noticable enough, people will figure out they're related, I would hope. I don't think there's a less in-your-face way of doing it, other than having some characters cross over in some way. For what is probably no reason other than using the Collections feature on AO3 for some Peanuts stories that has shit to do with each other, and I put a foreward on each one.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Actually, it's not. I think Lit paginates when a story reaches the end of a paragraph after so many lines. Stories that are a series of big paragraphs will have far more than 3700 words per page. For example, Wife's Vacation Double Penetration Pt. 02 is a one-page story with 4303 words. On the other hand, Surefoot 84: Duel averages around 3200 words per complete page.

3700 or 3750 words per page is just a ballpark estimate. You should adjust it to match your personal style.

That's why I use that page count example. 3700 words aren't much and I have no clue where it comes from. Like a single AO3 and I believe FFN page holds 60k words, and they say that.

 

[bejjinks]

I just had an idea that I'm going to try. After I've published all the chapters of my story "I Own Myself", I'm going to gather all the chapters together and publish it as "I Own Myself (long form)" if the site owners will let me. Then readers can have a choice of reading each chapter or reading it all together.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I just had an idea that I'm going to try. After I've published all the chapters of my story "I Own Myself", I'm going to gather all the chapters together and publish it as "I Own Myself (long form)" if the site owners will let me. Then readers can have a choice of reading each chapter or reading it all together.

I don't think Laurel let's us publish doubles.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I just had an idea that I'm going to try. After I've published all the chapters of my story "I Own Myself", I'm going to gather all the chapters together and publish it as "I Own Myself (long form)" if the site owners will let me. Then readers can have a choice of reading each chapter or reading it all together.

As M_K_Babalon notes, the site doesn't allow duplicate stories. You've got to decide one or other.

Once the whole thing is published though, it doesn't matter - the whole story is linked together, and it's one click to go from one chapter to the next. I think most readers can manage that.

 

[Elayne_Hawke]

I just published the first part of my story, but I did the first five chapters at once in a bundle, but I was wondering if I had made a mistake and I was told something that was very interesting and helpful. Not everyone will be Interested in reading something that long, and as a newbie author, the last thing I want to do is discourage people from wanting to read my story. So from now on I'm doing it by chapters, and the first five chapters I already did I'll be submitting as individuals. I want anyone that might want to read it to not be put off because of its length, (the story itself is already long,) and I end up losing that reader, especially if they become a fan of the story.