To write an epic saga as one piece or chapters?

[32aa]

Just curious. Do you think that readers prefer a long, multi-page story like 20+ Lit pages, or broken down into chapters with 5-6 Lit pages?

Personally, I prefer to read a long story that is broken down into chapters, assuming the chapters are published rather quickly and not months apart.

Getting into novel-length single stories is difficult to remain focused, for me anyway. And then, what if halfway through and you decide that, ‘this isn’t my cup of tea’ or ‘this bores me’? With multi-chapter stories, you can decide if you want to continue. All of my stories the first chapter had high readers and then dropped off dramatically.

So, again, just wondering.

 

[NotWise]

I think the readers and your fellow authors are going to have a range of opinions, and you should do it the way you want.

 

[jehoram]

I personally prefer stories that are three pages long, give or take. If they're longer, I break them up into chapters.

But longer stories seem to do better in the ratings. So if you're after that red "H," that would be the way to go.

The only reason a person wouldn't drop out of a twenty-page story that they discovered wasn't their "cup of tea" is that they're compulsive. That's their problem, not yours.

 

[KeithD]

There are no unified "readers" in their preferences on Literotica. Do it as you like.

 

[alohadave]

Personally, I prefer to read a long story that is broken down into chapters, assuming the chapters are published rather quickly and not months apart.

Do that then.

There is no right or wrong answer to this. I've read 20+ pages stories, and I've noped out of 2 pages stories. The story is the important part, not how you break it up.

 

[Zenith77]

I would advocate for breaking it up.

Multiple reasons:

1. A reader might not have time for 20+ pages, but gets interested enough to favourite you and come back for more after chapter 1
2. Easy to lose your place in 20+ pages; easier to remember you're up to chapter 3
3. Plays to those that prefer 3-page stories and doesn't disadvantage those that prefer longer stories
4. More votes, more feedback, more reaction from what readers like/don't like over multiple chapters
5. More stories on your profile, which looks better
6. More red Hs, which looks better
7. More publishing - gets your name to the top of the 'new' column more times, which increases profile a lot more

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I'm team Chapters. Definitely garnishes more attention... but that isn't to say I haven't seen novellas do well on the site. I guess it's really just up to your preference, but if you're looking to build a following, I would go with frequent publications of Chapters over publishing a single, very long completed piece. Ultimately it's up to you. There's really no right or wrong way.

 

[StrappingMan]

Put me in for Team Chapters. One reason you may think about is if there's a radical change in viewpoint or tone in the story. Also, leaving your readers on an occasional cliffhanger can be a crowd pleaser if done judiciously.

 

[Jmanchu]

I'm doing an "epic saga" novel-length too as well. I decided to go down the "chapters route" myself.

 

[RejectReality]

Getting into novel-length single stories is difficult to remain focused, for me anyway. And then, what if halfway through and you decide that, ‘this isn’t my cup of tea’ or ‘this bores me’? With multi-chapter stories, you can decide if you want to continue. All of my stories the first chapter had high readers and then dropped off dramatically.

So, again, just wondering.

The same thing happens with long, single submission stories. There's just no metric to see it happening. When it's broken down into chapters, you can see the steady decline in views/votes/comments and the steady rise in score until you're down to the core story followers. The same people leave partway through a long single submission, but there's no way to track them.

I'd suggest watching the Hub for the category where you plan to post and see if there's a difference between how chapters vs. single shot stories are embraced, because there is a difference across categories. You'll see a big difference between how readers embrace chapters in Sci-Fi&Fantasy vs. Incest, for example. It's a way to potentially get a decent start out of the gate, but then your story has to run the race.

If you do choose to go the chapter route, it's always best to complete the entire story before posting the first chapter, and state that in a note at the beginning of chapter 1. There's a big problem with unfinished stories, and telling people from the get-go that yours is finished can help with reader acquisition. Then post as consistently as the queue and life will allow for the entire length of the run to help with reader retention. Bare minimum of once weekly, IMO.

 

[MrPixel]

I've explained my position elsewhere - chapters. But I will reiterate... I click out of a story when I get to the bottom of the first page and see that it's greater than 4 or 5 LitE pages. Sometimes it's 3 if the development is coming off as tedious or the style is such that you're not able to engage with the characters.

Aside from the time it would take to read a long epic in a single chunk, I find reading from the screen fatiguing. I gotta take a break, and prefer it to be at a logical breaking point, such as where the writer has concluded a scene or connected set of scenes. I write that way.

If the LitE reader mode had provision for the author to influence where pages could break without disrupting the flow, one could bookmark the next page as a logical spot to return to at a later time. But until then... chapters.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I've done both and scores, comments, and views have been similar either way. (4.82 average rating for chapters and 4.71 average rating for single)

The reasons that I have stopped posting novel-length stories as chapters are:

1. My readers voiced their preference that I post them as a single submission by a large percentage. Even when the chapters would post day-after-day, the readers were impatient.
2. Not every chapter is going to have a steamy sex scene, conflict, or other elements. I would prefer for all feedback to be based upon the story as a whole.
3. There is no question on categories. The story gets submitted based upon the sum of the whole and not what category one chapter belongs in versus another.
4. It's much easier for me. I don't have to create descriptions and tags for each chapter while submitting them. I can do it one time for the entire story.

If you do decide to submit in chapters, take advantage of the "Series Manager" tool to mark it complete and even add a cover image if you want.

 

[MelissaBaby]

The same thing happens with long, single submission stories. There's just no metric to see it happening. When it's broken down into chapters, you can see the steady decline in views/votes/comments and the steady rise in score until you're down to the core story followers. The same people leave partway through a long single submission, but there's no way to track them.

I'd suggest watching the Hub for the category where you plan to post and see if there's a difference between how chapters vs. single shot stories are embraced, because there is a difference across categories. You'll see a big difference between how readers embrace chapters in Sci-Fi&Fantasy vs. Incest, for example. It's a way to potentially get a decent start out of the gate, but then your story has to run the race.

If you do choose to go the chapter route, it's always best to complete the entire story before posting the first chapter, and state that in a note at the beginning of chapter 1. There's a big problem with unfinished stories, and telling people from the get-go that yours is finished can help with reader acquisition. Then post as consistently as the queue and life will allow for the entire length of the run to help with reader retention. Bare minimum of once weekly, IMO.

My story, Isabel, is 20 pages, about 70K words. With a little over 8,000 views it has a 4.91 score, but only 101 votes, after ten months. My other stories with similar view counts have roughly twice as many votes.

The obvious conclusion is that a large proportion of those views were not complete reads. Since they did not finish, they did not vote. There is no way to know how many finished, or how it correlates to the drop-off in readership in chaptered installments, but I suspect it's pretty similar.

 

[alohadave]

If the LitE reader mode had provision for the author to influence where pages could break without disrupting the flow, one could bookmark the next page as a logical spot to return to at a later time. But until then... chapters.

You could open the story in a separate tab and come back to it when you want.

 

[MrPixel]

...drop-off in readership in chaptered installments...

Hmm. I don't seem to experience that. My experience is a correlation between the story description and (at least the first page) readership counts. My best count on a large multi-chapter serial is 12 chapters deep. It had a sexy and fun description for a relatable scene - FMCs getting drunk on margaritas - which apparently drew people in.

You could open the story in a separate tab and come back to it when you want.

There's that, of course, but I tend to quit my browser(s) frequently. Apparently the LitE author control panel has some buggy code behind it which corrupts the browser if I leave it up too long. And there's the garbage collection aspect of closing the browser if you surf a lot. Bunches of sites leave trash everywhere.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Hmm. I don't seem to experience that. My experience is a correlation between the story description and (at least the first page) readership counts. My best count on a large multi-chapter serial is 12 chapters deep. It had a sexy and fun description for a relatable scene - FMCs getting drunk on margaritas - which apparently drew people in.

That's great. Are you talking about a single narrative divided into chapters, or connected stand alone stories? I think the drop off is pretty common for the former.

Your twelfth chapter got more views than the first?

 

[MrPixel]

That's great. Are you talking about a single narrative divided into chapters, or connected stand alone stories? I think the drop off is pretty common for the former.

Your twelfth chapter got more views than the first?

Yep. 2K more. Single epic divided into chapters. https://literotica.com/s/off-campus-04-pt-12 if you're interested. The girls were a hoot.

 

[32aa]

Thanks for all the input. Like i originally said, 'I was just curious what other thought' as I hadn't seen the topic discussed here before.

I personally like chapters and kind of shy away from stories that are longer than 10 pages. My longest was 27 chapters with each chapter ranging from 5 to 7 Lit pages. With the first chapter receiving over 16K views and then settled down to about half of that for the remaining. The scores ranged from 4.6 to 4.88, so i was pleased

 

[tenyari]

I highly suspect readers prefer short stories that can be read one-handed in the time span it takes for the other hand to do it's assigned tasks.

I prefer to write long multi-chapter tales that can rarely be read one-handed. This kind of tale will get fewer readers, but they're be more engaged with your story and not just the quick fix it gives them.

Even in the realm of longer stories though, you have novels, epic mult-parters, and so on. And at this point it starts to just be a matter of what kind of story you want to tell.

 

[ElectricBlue]

There are pros and cons for both approaches, but I've gathered no evidence that chaptered stories do any "better" than an equivalent length standalone, in terms of readers or reactions.

The advantage of chaptered over a single long submission is getting some idea as to how many people read the whole thing. Nearly all of my longer chaptered stories show a big drop in Views from chapter one to two, and again from two to three, then steady state (ish) through to the end. Whereas with a standalone story, I have no idea what the exit rate is. I assume it's much the same, but there's nothing in the numbers to tell me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yep. 2K more. Single epic divided into chapters. https://literotica.com/s/off-campus-04-pt-12 if you're interested. The girls were a hoot.

I'd put that down to a bunch of readers reading that chapter twice, especially if there's something in the chapter that strikes a chord.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

The obvious conclusion is that a large proportion of those views were not complete reads. Since they did not finish, they did not vote. There is no way to know how many finished, or how it correlates to the drop-off in readership in chaptered installments, but I suspect it's pretty similar.

His Daddy's Car: 28 pages in a single submission / monthly winner / currently at 138,332 views / 2800 votes / 70 comments
Heavy Traffic: 59 pages in 30 chapters / first chapter has 62K views / second chapter has 40K views / subsequent chapters have between 35 and 39K views / comments average 13 per chapter with the final chapter currently at 49 / average of 1584 votes per chapter

 

[FifthEstate]

I would advocate for breaking it up.

Multiple reasons:

1. A reader might not have time for 20+ pages, but gets interested enough to favourite you and come back for more after chapter 1
2. Easy to lose your place in 20+ pages; easier to remember you're up to chapter 3
3. Plays to those that prefer 3-page stories and doesn't disadvantage those that prefer longer stories
4. More votes, more feedback, more reaction from what readers like/don't like over multiple chapters
5. More stories on your profile, which looks better
6. More red Hs, which looks better
7. More publishing - gets your name to the top of the 'new' column more times, which increases profile a lot more

This is good advice, however there is not a right way and a wrong way. For me, breaking all of my stories into multi-chaptered ones has proved successful for all the reasons outlined above.

 

[Seadog777]

Just curious. Do you think that readers prefer a long, multi-page story like 20+ Lit pages, or broken down into chapters with 5-6 Lit pages?

Personally, I prefer to read a long story that is broken down into chapters, assuming the chapters are published rather quickly and not months apart.

Getting into novel-length single stories is difficult to remain focused, for me anyway. And then, what if halfway through and you decide that, ‘this isn’t my cup of tea’ or ‘this bores me’? With multi-chapter stories, you can decide if you want to continue. All of my stories the first chapter had high readers and then dropped off dramatically.

So, again, just wondering.

I PERSONALLY like to read a story on here, broken down into multiple parts.

IF it's more than 3 pages long, unless you hooked me on page 1; I don't even both going onto the next page.

That's just me though.