Chapter Two 8 months later.

[Dearelliot]

How best to recap, with the salient facts without sounding like a recap.
Just thinking about readers of Chapter Two of my story, who haven't read Chapter One, and are probably unaware of a few details, necessary to fully understand my story.

 

[Becky_Sapphire]

I tend to recap subtly, where I drop details in to remind returning readers of things (often descriptors of characters) but if its a new reader, I would encourage them to start from the beginning if they want to fully enjoy the plot between chapters.

Recapping too excessively will just spoil the flow between your chapters if someone was reading them back to back. If a reader jumping in doesn't know what's going on but cares enough, they will just go back and read the earlier chapter.

 

[jehoram]

I used to "recap" a bit in my earlier stories, but not so much any more. Now I write stories in such a way that I have at least one later chapter in the oven when the earlier one is published, so there isn't as much of a wait time between chapter publications.

The fact that there's a Chapter Two should be enough to alert people that they're coming in at the middle, so to speak, and most of them are savvy enough to click on the author's name at the top of the story and get the full list of chapters.

 

[ronde]

I usually start the second chapter with a statement such as, "If you're read my other stories about (fill in the story name) you'll understand but if you haven't, I'll fill in some of the details?" Then I write a one or two paragraph introduction of the main characters and how they got to this point.

 

[12oclocktales]

Multi-part TV shows often start each episode with a recap ("Previously on so-an-so..."), and I usually can't wait until the Skip Recap icon pops up so I can immediately click on it. But you indicate it's been 8 months between the first and second chapter, so a short recap (no more than a few sentences) might be a good idea. Indicating to readers that by clicking on your username, which takes them to your profile and a list of stories/chapters already published, is a good way to find what your recapping in full. I've just started doing this myself, so can't tell yet if it's made any difference or not.