Editing advice - anyone?!

[TheAlphabetGirl]

Hello

So I’ve made a mistake in the way I have published my first story. It is a series and should have been just one story really.

Has anyone ever folded a series back into a single story?!

Thanks for any tips! I think most of you lovely Forum pro’s will say forget the past and write something new!

But still curious if it has ever been done…

 

[CalBishForNow]

This is in reference to Tall, Young, & Well Hung, right? Personally, I wouldn't bother making any changes. Your scores and readership look fine. If you want more attention on a work you're proud of, then you could do sequels, but there might just be nothing you can do. It's just one of many, many stories on this site.

To answer the question if you really want to turn a series into a single work anyways, I think you have two options.

1. Delete it (instructions here, but I think these days it takes longer than indicated there, like all edits/changes to existing works) and then resubmit it as one new story (with the usual process and potential problems).
2. Leave the old series alone and submit a new story that's a merging of them. But it would have to be an at least partial rewrite in addition to merging them; Lit doesn't want multiple copies of the same story floating around ad infinitum. You'd probably want to publish it with a note to admin to address Laurel's/Manu's concerns, and add an author's note/foreword/afterword to the new story so that readers aren't confused or annoyed by it.

 

[TheAlphabetGirl]

Yes it is that story. Sorry I should have mentioned!

And the reason for my thought is silly really - Aesthetic. I wanted to the stories to line up alphabetically (hence my name). But originally the girls were going through the alphabet and now I wanted the lists to do the same! An each story to close

So minor really! Thanks for your advice on deleting - it something I think about often (have resisted though on kind advice of other authors). so good I have now this post if ever I have a moment!!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Hello

So I’ve made a mistake in the way I have published my first story. It is a series and should have been just one story really.

Has anyone ever folded a series back into a single story?!

Thanks for any tips! I think most of you lovely Forum pro’s will say forget the past and write something new!

But still curious if it has ever been done…

Yes, you can do that, but you lose all votes and comments and the combined story has to start all over again, to gather readers.

To be honest, your three part series looks just fine, it's the ones where you have B, C, D at the beginning of the titles, that don't really make sense.

Maybe to you as AlphabetGirl, but to a reader? The alpha sequence adds no real meaning that the Date Published won't give.

What happens when you get a dozen parts published, then decide you want to go back and expand an earlier part? Or when you get to the 27th part, and you've run out of alphabet? Or you have a completely unrelated story, new characters, new story line? Where do they fit?

I'm not sure your organisational plan is really necessary. You might be making a rod for your own back, in two or three years time. There are plenty of ways to organise your story file, but this scheme is a bit odd. This from someone who has 130 or so stories, chapters, parts - that's five alphabets worth!

 

[TheAlphabetGirl]

Interesting POV and totally right about the sort order. I view a writer collection on date sort order rather than title and makes very little sense as a single piece of information in the title but as a group or any of my followers would be excited to see the alphabet progressing and also know when we are nearing the end.

As a collection A-Z. That will be the alphabet girls complete body of work. Then I was planning to start again.

So new name and originally I thought a different genre or D/s dynamic (ie A. Girl is currently a FemSub body of work and maybe the next collection will be FemDom?!!

Reasoning being - most viewers are male so will either be attracted to a story with a D male lead
And then another group enjoying the male as the Sub and me as a female writer and coming with the main character POV. Never the Twain shall meet?!

 

[TheAlphabetGirl]

Yes, you can do that, but you lose all votes and comments and the combined story has to start all over again, to gather readers.

YIKES!!!! Right def not doing this then!! Thanks for the info