Multi Part Stories

[Angel497]

Maybe there was a thread on this before but I am just too lazy to search.

When writing stories that have multiple parts or chapters, how many is too many?

Do readers enjoy multi-part stories or would readers like to have stories quickly end in one long story that stretches many pages.

Just trying to get a feel for things.

 

[Darkniciad]

There are a couple of points to consider here, from a reader's standpoint.

1) It seems that the overwhelming majority of readers are done with a story as soon as they see more than three pages at the bottom.

2) You will undoubtedly gain more regular readers by posting consistent chapters of long works. Your name appears more often in the new list, and the chapters are manageable chunks that the reader can take in with one sitting. If a chapter comes out on a bad day, the next one could come out on a better day and send people back to the neglected chapter. If a single long work comes out on a bad day, it's relegated to obscurity forever.

So long as you keep up a schedule and have a trend of completing your stories, you'll develop a nice fanbase. That fanbase tends to attract more readers through comments, higher scores, toplist rankings, etc.

Don't fall off the wagon and have long waits between chapters ( guilty ) or regularly fail to end chaptered stories, and you'll do well with breaking up your longer works and releasing them a chapter at a time, as compared to dropping them wholesale on the site.

How many is too many? When the story loses its focus, and only then. So long as the chapters are exciting, and moving toward a goal, you're golden.

People even have success with never-ending seriels that go on forever, with no end ever planned or hinted at.

 

[JamesSD]

In some ways this is a question of "deep vs. wide".

One shot stories tend to get a lot of readers (wide).
Anything getting above 4-5 chapters is likely going to see a huge drop-off in number of views after chapter 1 or 2. The plus side is those readers who like it and stick with it will often give good scores and be generous with comments (deep).

My feeling is that short stories give broad exposure, but longer stories can create fanbases. Of course, that can bring the problem of readers feeling entitled to chapters at a certain pace, or getting upset when you take the characters in the "wrong" direction.

 

[bronzeage]

It pays the same, no matter how many chapters you post.

I have a 20 chapter story and I get one or two emails a month, asking if I will ever post another chapter. I have been working on the final chapter for about a year.

A story is a story. It will run as long as the plot and characters can be sustained.

 

[john-the-author]

It pays the same, no matter how many chapters you post.

I have a 20 chapter story and I get one or two emails a month, asking if I will ever post another chapter. I have been working on the final chapter for about a year.

A story is a story. It will run as long as the plot and characters can be sustained.

I think Bronzeage's comments here have really summed it up: the pay's the same here and the story is as long as it is.

 

[slyc_willie]

Yup. Write the story as you wish. If you compromise yourself to only write what's popular, then you're doing a disservice to yourself.

 

[JackLuis]

In my experience a long story, (10-50 chapters) gets spotty reading. My "Spreading Seeds" is now 35 Chapters and I've had complaints about the chapters being too short ( one Lit page) and comments that long chapters, (more than four Lit pages) tend to dampen the excitement.

My story has chapters with over 7,000 reads and some with only 2,500 reads, go figure?

I am going to try to release my next story once I complete the first part of what I think will be a trilogy, ~10 chapters so my "fans" don't have to wait to read the whole thing.

I got into a difficult place in Seeds and it has been six months since the last chapter went up, but I'm making progress and hope to get a chapter up in the next week or so.

Write what you want and as long as it has a consistent plot, I think folks will follow your tale, as long as the period between chapters isn't too long.

 

[JackLuis]

Double post. Damn this mouse.

 

[PAUL C]

two reasons

there are two reasons to write as I see it.

To please yourself or to please others.

To write to order. To a certain chapter size and length is to please others. To let your story take you to where it wants to go, sometimes with you only as a passenger, is to write for yourself.

I have been guilty of both.

The ones I have written to order, perhaps to meet a deadline in a competition, I have found less satisfying. But they have had the better response.

Readers, as with writers are individuals. Moods change. What they liked yesterday they may not today.

What is too long?

Nothing, for some readers.

 

[poppy_cock]

When writing stories that have multiple parts or chapters, how many is too many?

Too many is when you've finished the story proper and you're only carrying on because you can't bear to part with your characters. Don't be tempted to elongate a story beyond its natural span.

Do readers enjoy multi-part stories or would readers like to have stories quickly end in one long story that stretches many pages.

In my experience, people like 'em, but hate it if you keep them waiting too long between chapters (something I'm very guilty of ). But I wouldn't release the story in one hit. Personally, there's nothing that makes me back click faster than getting to the end of the page and seeing that there's 14 more pages to go (unless the first page is so staggeringly good I can't help but read more - and that's pretty rare). Besides, as someone else has already said, if you release the story in chapters, each one say two Lit pages long (that's around 7000 words), people get used to seeing your name and you can build up a readership.

 

[Darkniciad]

:: shaking head :: Don't get all the "write what you like" responses.

The story is the same. It's a matter of whether to post it in one piece or in several. That's what the OP asked for. I don't know whether y'all are trying to read between the lines, looking for more, or what *laugh*

If you go by the favorites list, which is about the closest to an accurate polling of reader opinion as we have, the answer is pretty simple. Those at the top of the list primarily write short stories, or chaptered out long stories. If you have a long story, breaking it up will put the story into the hands of more readers.

 

[poppy_cock]

:: shaking head :: Don't get all the "write what you like" responses.

The story is the same. It's a matter of whether to post it in one piece or in several. That's what the OP asked for. I don't know whether y'all are trying to read between the lines, looking for more, or what *laugh*

Me, I'm just trying to bump my posts up enough for an AV...

Sorry, Dark - I pretty much said what you did, didn't I?