new author question - How do you come up with multi-part stories?

[AlohaStories]

I finally joined and wrote my first submission, which hopefully will get through pending soon. As I'm working on my next story, I started thinking about some of the longer series I have read and was wondering how people come up with the ideas. Do you have the basics of all 10-20 chapters to begin with, and then start writing?

 

[sr71plt]

I have a "hook" in mind for a story, what the story dilemma is, and what a workable resolution is (although not necessarily the ultimate resolution used) before I start writing. How long it is depends a lot on what story I think needs to be included to explore the dilemma and reach the resolution. If I see multiple threads going in the story I know that's going to add length. I think of the story first before giving any thought to whether it's going to be a short story, a novella, or a novel and then I just let it spin out to its natural length. Almost every story idea of mine these days has turned out to be at least twice as long when written than I conceived it would be. That's largely, I think, because, for writing erotica, I've been freed of the wordage restrictions I usually have to work with in the mainstream.

 

[oggbashan]

I usually have an outline in mind when I start a multipart story with the start, the conclusion, and some of the steps on the way.

Most times I don't intend to write a multipart story. They just grow and grow, within the original basic framework, until it becomes a multipart story.

The only one that was different was my 2003 NaNoWriMo attempt now posted as 12 chapters of Flawed Red Silk.

Before the start of the NaNoWriMo month I had planned a story with a beginning, a conclusion, and up to 36 linked stories within that framework. My aim was to write the 50,000 words during the month, edit them, and post every part on Literotica before the end of the month.

I did it, but some chapters grew so long that I gradually ditched some weaker plotlines, ending up with 12 chapters instead of 36.

 

[JKendallDane]

I tend to gravitate towards writing multi-chapter stories. My longest series started out as a simple one-off stroker story and just took on a life of its own.

I've never been one that liked outlines per se, but I do start out with a bare minimum plot and resolution in mind and usually some basic notes about character traits and potential plot twists. What happens over the next thirty or fifty thousand words, well...just happens.

I've found no matter how much planning and prep you put into setting up what you intend to write, between the Muse whispering in your ear while you type and the main characters deciding to run down a path you didn't know was there, a planned four or five chapter story can quickly turn into a ten or twenty chapter series.

Then there are those single chapter stories that turn on the sequel lightbulb just as you finish typing the final sentence. Be prepared because those can be gold too.

.

 

[Bray123]

I suspect that it's normally because writers are searching for a way to end the story...


I can start stories but finding an ending can be a bugger.

/And they all lived happily ever after.

 

[oggbashan]

I suspect that it's normally because writers are searching for a way to end the story...


I can start stories but finding an ending can be a bugger.

/And they all lived happily ever after.

I think of the end before I start writing, but it's how they get there that matters.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I initially wrote a one-shot, then decided to extend it. Once I made that decision, I sketched out the rest of the plot up to a satisfactory ending. It changed a fair bit along the way, and grew longer than I'd planned, but having that plot drafted gave me something to aim for.

 

[dlcalguy]

It's accidental for me. Usually I start out to write a self-contained story but if I like a character or see additional possibilities for him/her then I might continue. I try to make each episode self-contained as well.
The problem with this is that I often don't have a definitive end and the stories fizzle out without complete resolution. (I've not posted any of my multi-parters here yet. They're on xhamster, though.)

 

[Athalia]

It's accidental for me. Usually I start out to write a self-contained story but if I like a character or see additional possibilities for him/her then I might continue. I try to make each episode self-contained as well.

That's the way I am, too. My "Hot Tub" series sprang from a single standalone story called "Summertime Sex Ed" but the character decided to be in another story called "Hot Tub Service Girl," which turned into a series before I knew it. My main regret was not titling them in such a a way as to have them appear in the proper sequence ... Chapter 1, 2, etc. So when you look at the stories now, they're not in chronological order. If I were doing it again, I'd title them in such a way as to side-step that problem.

 

[Kantarii]

Since I'm technically the first person to read the stories I write, I always ask myself the question, "What's next for my main character to face in the life I have created for them with the world I have placed them in?" That alone always leads me to writing another chapter in their lives so others may read it as well. So, in essence, as I'm writing my stories, I'm taking a readers perspective and want to know more, read more, and understand the world the characters are in. Maybe this makes sense; maybe it doesn't, but it has helped me to write multiple chapter stories. Nothing greater than 10 chapters so far, though

 

[ElectricBlue]

My long multi-part story in EH started out as a single short story, then grew. By the end of Part 3 I had the very last sentence in mind, but no idea how I would get there. 12 or so chapters in, a major plot twist turned up that I didn't see coming, which meant I then had to integrate it all. In the end it took 23 parts and wandered over about a hundred years before it spiralled back to its own beginning. Even so, there's plenty of ravelled threads that still could be unravelled.

So no, not much plot line mapping, generally. Hell, I'll often start a paragraph with no clue what is going to happen two sentences later. It can be the smallest thing, sometimes, that can spin a tale on itself and take a story to a whole new place. That's part of the magic of writing, when you read something and say, "wow, did I just write that? Where did that come from?"

 

[EverLux]

I tend to gravitate towards writing multi-chapter stories. My longest series started out as a simple one-off stroker story and just took on a life of its own.

.

This is exactly how my EC series started. When I reached the end of it, though, a cliffhanger came out instead of a conclusion. It just went from there.

I've never been an organized person, but I'm learning to be better at outlining. I start with points A, M, and Z, but somewhere around point T, lightning strikes, and I've got a whole new Z and, consequently, a new point A for the next chapter. Of course, I then have to go back to add and delete some things, but it's worth it.

 

[Anomic]

I wrote my first story in full and then broke it into pieces to submit as a multi-part story. I had originally conceived it to be a 10-15 pages story, just to see if I could even accomplish writing something people would want to read, but the beast grew to more than 90,000 words in no time. I really only had the first maybe 30 pages of material mapped out in my head when I started writing, not realizing it was that many pages when I got started.

I didn't think anyone would actually sit through the whole thing in one go, so I went ahead and broke it apart. The bad part about my method is that you have to find logical stopping points and wind up with strange things happening in terms of balance. For example, part 3 of my story is heavy on the sex, while part 4 has perhaps the least amount of sex. The final part of the story is also twice as long as the rest, but I really didn't want to break that chunk of story up at all. If I had been planning ahead a little better, I may have spaced things out a bit more evenly. But live and learn, I suppose.

Speaking only for myself, I don't want to be submit a part of a story until I have the whole thing at least mostly completed because I don't want to add to the huge pile of unfinished stories out there if I hit writer's block somewhere along the way.

 

[oggbashan]

Anomic - post #13 - shows problems with some multi-part stories.

If you deliberately plan to write multi-part, you should have significant break points with a hook to the next part. It is not a good idea to break up a complete story just because you think it is too long. The breaks should be at obvious points, and each part should stand on its own as an sub-entity within the whole.

People will read longer unbroken stories on Literotica.

But there are several types of multi-part stories posted here. This is my incomplete list:

1. A longer story that is broken into chapters.
2. A story and several sequels involving the same group of characters. The parts can be as numerous as the author's imagination.
3. Sex scenes that are repeated versions of the same story and are designed to be obviously erotic scenes, not story telling.
4. A group of stories in the same location, or around the same wider group of people.

If a story is incomplete, then it would be 1 that is annoying. For 2,3 and 4 the individual parts can be read alone.

I have three that are incomplete and category 1 - Scarf Collectors, Fiona and Christmas Fairy Parts 1 and 2. I have plotted the ending of Fiona. I just need to find time to finish it. Scarf Collectors? I'm not sure I want to continue. But Christmas Fairy is different. I've written myself into a corner with the plot. I'm not sure how I am going to get the characters out of the situation I've put them in.

For some of my other longer story sets I have taken years to finally end them. It is difficult to go back to being the writer I was several years ago and finish a story but apart from the three in the paragraph above I eventually got there. Miranda the Witch needs a sequel but that sequel will have to be a massive story. It's getting there. Only about 50,000 words to go!

I thought I had a solution to incomplete stories. With Family History Part 1 I brought together a few stories with a historical theme by writing a framework for them - researcher finds old family papers and records what he finds. That meant that I could say that the paperwork is incomplete but the story so far is - before moving on to the next item in the papers. Does it work? Perhaps not.

 

[scenester]

Anomic - post #13 - shows problems with some multi-part stories.

If you deliberately plan to write multi-part, you should have significant break points with a hook to the next part. It is not a good idea to break up a complete story just because you think it is too long. The breaks should be at obvious points, and each part should stand on its own as an sub-entity within the whole.

People will read longer unbroken stories on Literotica.

QFT. My first story submission (Mix and Match) was about a house party-turned-orgy that really should've been submitted as a single 8-pager, but which I set up as 3 chapters of 3 or 2 pages. I broke it up as different acts within the story and I hate re-reading it and realizing how the structure just doesn't work at all. I wrote it that way because I was used to reading a lot of 2-3 page pieces on Literotica and thought that was just what everyone expected. I've since had more confidence with posting longer works and it's paid off.

A lot of the stories that I've written about are a variation on a one-night stand, or at least a sexual experience that has some obvious boundaries, and then they usually lead to additional chapters because the participants find some way around those boundaries. I don't do a lot of outlining and the progress from chapter to chapter is very organic (I haven't written a 10+ chapter story, but the current story that I'm writing has a few ideas in its pipeline) and in many ways its a combination of characters that I like playing with and seeing how different choices can open up different plot ideas.

 

[Anomic]

Anomic - post #13 - shows problems with some multi-part stories.

If you deliberately plan to write multi-part, you should have significant break points with a hook to the next part. It is not a good idea to break up a complete story just because you think it is too long. The breaks should be at obvious points, and each part should stand on its own as an sub-entity within the whole.

I most certainly agree. I chalk it up to a learning experience for future writings. Luckily, I haven't had anyone riot yet over the individual parts not being self contained.

 

[AlohaStories]

Thanks everyone for the tips, I appreciate them. I have a few ideas that I need to work out and am going to enjoy tying in a lot of the local Hawaiian atmosphere as well.

 

[XingYu]

I read a lot of story on this site before I ever wrote one; I found my most favorite stories were almost always multi-part.

They developed a plot in a manner similar to a TV series; each installment was enjoyable as a stand-alone, but if you were following the whole thing from the start you got a lot more depth for the characters, the nuances of the history of events leading up to the current story.

The best ones, IMO, had strong dependence on previous installments; a very specific developing story line that mattered, and was followed, and built upon, in each installment.

As for ending... Many possibilities.

One of my favorites can be expressed in the simple progress of a Japanese porno I watched. This guy targets a woman in the cinema, and in the Japanese fashion, dominates her (I think some blackmail was also involved), and through a series of meetings pushes her further and further down the road of wanton behavior. In the final scene, she has come to the cinema alone, sits beside a stranger, and gets things started with him. When two guys in the row behind notice, and reach forward to see if they can play, she welcomes their attention.

The camera pans back, and you see the original stranger watching her from a short distance away; a knowing smile on his face.

So the story develops. You see the gradual descent of a "normal" woman into this sex-hungry predator, and movie ends when her final transformation is complete.

Yet, there is a hook here too. If you wanted to, you could start a new series that carries on from here. In this case, but I think it works in a lot ways, the story can end with a realization, an epiphany, or a transformation like this porno, where the subject learns something about themselves, and perhaps accepts/embraces it.

This is a natural conclusion point, but like I said, can also be the launch point for one or more other story lines.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Multi-part stories, are just regular stories where the characters went wild.

My very first story here was a 110,000 word epic that took me a year to write. It was very popular. I have since taken it down to publish as an eBook.

My next story was a short entry for the Earth Day contest.

Then I wrote another epic.

Do I plan the length of my multi-part stores? Not really. Sometimes they start out as a short (3,000 to 12,000) word stories and become epics greater than 50,000 words and multiple chapters. All because characters just can't do what they should do.

 

[loquere]

I finally joined and wrote my first submission, which hopefully will get through pending soon. As I'm working on my next story, I started thinking about some of the longer series I have read and was wondering how people come up with the ideas. Do you have the basics of all 10-20 chapters to begin with, and then start writing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udNHsk57f24