Extend a series or start new story?

[RussBeLucky]

I’ve just got started on Literotica with four stories in a series. Pretty good scores so far. (Never realised just how absurdly thrilled I would be by the Hot badge!) It’s a gentle femdom story, with a strong female boss steadily stepping up the level of submission.

I’ve finished a fifth chapter and I’ve got a few more ideas along similar lines. But after that the ideas would be quite different - more coercive, more uncomfortable tasks, greater public humiliations etc.

I’m wondering how to know when to stop this series and start a new story. There’s a laziness element obviously, to not spending time fleshing out new characters, but mostly I’m thinking about what point readers lose interest or think you’ve stretched it to far from what worked for them.

Plus, do people join a series part way through because of new tags? Or not?

Interested in thoughts from a story quality perspective and practical experiences of the way readers react to a long series.

Thanks.

[This is the story BTW https://literotica.com/s/my-female-boss-takes-control ]

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The only important question is whether you want to continue the series or not.
If you would like to try something new, then start writing a new story. You can always come back at some point and continue this one.
Also, there is more than one way to continue the series. For example, you can just go on with chapter 5, 6, 7... or you can end the series with chapter 5 and then start a new series as a continuation of the previous one. That approach gives you the opportunity to elegantly introduce new kinks and even put in some time gap, like half a year or year or something like that to justify the increasing harshness of the relationship.
Either way works, it's just the question of what you want to do.

 

[alohadave]

All stories have a natural ending point. If you find yourself coming up with more and more outlandish or escalating plot elements, that can be a sign to close out the story.

But it's all up to you, sounds like you already know what you want to do.

 

[THBGato]

Speaking as a (voracious) reader, long series put me off. I question whether I really want to dedicate a huge amount of time to reading something that long before I get to the pay off. (This is of course deceptive as a 7 chapter series might still be shorter than a single Cagivagurl story!) I have to really trust a writer (e.g. Broken Spokes, JCMcNeilly, HLD) before I start on something with more than 4 chapters.

As a writer then longest I've written is 5 chapters (84k words).

 

[Rob_Royale]

Viewership wanes over the course of a series. Even a short one. This is the views after five months, for each of these three stories. All three are in the I/T category and have excellent reviews. In fact the ratings rose on each consecutive story.

Aunt Tina Pt 1 - 45321 views
Aunt Tina Pt 2 - 13270 views
Aunt Tina Pt 3 - 10913 views

In my opinion, you are doing yourself a favor by writing a new story. It will bring new readers in to discover your older work and views will shoot up on those too.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Interested in thoughts from a story quality perspective and practical experiences of the way readers react to a long series.

A lot of my work is in a long series. The problem is taking the story to a suitable conclusion. I am currently working on a series where I have published 36 long (10-12k) chapters. It is like a soap opera. I have a conclusion in mind, but I need to get there.
The real problem with a long series is, while you build up a reader base who want to see what comes next, fewer new readers start the series.

 

[Bamagan]

I’ve just got started on Literotica with four stories in a series. Pretty good scores so far. (Never realised just how absurdly thrilled I would be by the Hot badge!) It’s a gentle femdom story, with a strong female boss steadily stepping up the level of submission.

I’ve finished a fifth chapter and I’ve got a few more ideas along similar lines. But after that the ideas would be quite different - more coercive, more uncomfortable tasks, greater public humiliations etc.

I’m wondering how to know when to stop this series and start a new story. There’s a laziness element obviously, to not spending time fleshing out new characters, but mostly I’m thinking about what point readers lose interest or think you’ve stretched it to far from what worked for them.

Plus, do people join a series part way through because of new tags? Or not?

Interested in thoughts from a story quality perspective and practical experiences of the way readers react to a long series.

Thanks.

[This is the story BTW https://literotica.com/s/my-female-boss-takes-control ]

If it were me, I'd probably wrap up the current story and then start a new series (with more or less the same cast), because it sounds like it's veering toward the NC/R category when you use words like 'more coercive' to describe it. I'm sure there's some overlap of readers between the two categories, but I'm equally sure there are BDSM readers who have no interest in reading stuff they would likely consider 'too extreme' for the category (not that there's any consensus on where the line is, since it's kind of a moving target). I'm not suggesting you need to pander to complainers, certainly, but placing a story where its target audience is most likely to find it is generally a good policy.
And yes, there's evidence to suggest that some readers will join a long-running series in the middle, although whether that's because of tags or just liking the blurb or some other reason is hard to say. There's a strong tendency for readership to drop off, as mentioned above, but when you're looking a story with many more than three or four chapters, you sometimes see inexplicable spikes in readership for some of the later ones. I'm a bit doubtful that tag searches cause spikes, since that seems like something individuals do rather than groups, but since tagging seems to be one of the factors considered in 'similar stories' recommendations, they might play a role.

 

[Gamblnluck]

If it were me, I'd probably wrap up the current story and then start a new series (with more or less the same cast), because it sounds like it's veering toward the NC/R category when you use words like 'more coercive' to describe it.

It depends where and how you break the story off. To just end one to start another does not work well. Readers will have to go back to pick up the story line. Inter- crossing characters is another matter. I ended one long series to my opinion in a satisfactory manner. Many of those same characters appear in another series continuing their lives an intermingling in a new story line.
I know one author who wrote a 'book one through book three' like it was 3 series. You still had to go back to the very beginning to understand his character's development.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’m wondering how to know when to stop this series and start a new story. There’s a laziness element obviously, to not spending time fleshing out new characters, but mostly I’m thinking about what point readers lose interest or think you’ve stretched it to far from what worked for them.

When you come to the Authors' Hangout and ask the question.

You already know the answer and want confirmation. Start on the new story, then you'll have two, rather than one long one you don't know how to end.

 

[oneagainst]

Femdom's tricky. You shed readers in the first 4 or 5 ch and then generally lock into a staunch cohort who will see you to the end. Alena's Game ran to 18 ch without issue. Write as long as you need to, to get the story to the climax... but it's best to know that end scene and be working towards it - it's the answer to your question, that when you get there, you're done.

Other times, such as Tell Me What You Want/Total Female Control or The Monogamists/The Devil and the Sea, I broke both longer stories of up 20-odd chapters into a pair of books because you get that new-reader bounce in ch 1 of "part 2" and you're giving readers a second onramp into the story - but it's more important that each part can stand alone on its own merits rather than you just picking an arbitrary dividing line. Where does the action come to a head? Are there multiple times you get to a climactic potential end-point? ...and then go from there with your structuring.

 

[SimonDoom]

If you're asking the question, it means you probably should start a new story. Let the old one go and move on.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Series versus single long story???
I've tried both. It's a trade off. In a series, unless written by the best here in Literotica. The views go down but the scores go up.
The ones who stay to see it through are enjoying the story and they vote...
Somebody previously said. Every story has a natural end point.
I think that is true.
If you think you are at that point, then finish it...

What I will say is. Don't leave the story hanging, write a good ending for it...
IMO, Readers hate being left high and dry.

Cagivagurl

 

[Flybynite1892]

Series-writing stuff is so weird. I had one series I tried to keep going because I liked it, but no one else really seemed to be excited about any of the later chapters. I had another series that I was kind of done with, but the readers weren't - people really seemed to want more of it, so I added another chapter and people seemed stoked.

What I would say is feel free to take a break on a series. I don't think I've wrapped up any of my serialized stories yet. I've just been doing standalone stuff and new readers are still showing up. I think your logic on a series can only get clearer if you let it breathe a bit.

 

[FifthEstate]

One thing I have not seen mentioned in any thread (not saying it hasn’t been discussed but I haven’t seen it) is whether we should list multi-chapter stories as “completed” in the Story Series Beta when we’ve reached our planned ending? I had one such story, Warden’s Wife Pays His Debt (9 chapters) which I published over 4 years that based on reader feedback and engagement was a significant driver in growing my number of followers. But when I finished chapter 9 and listed it as “completed”, for the next several months I lost 40-60 followers a month (which I had not seen before or since).

My new strategy is to never list a story series as “completed” in the series beta, but instead keep it as “in progress” whether the content implies it or not. Instead I plan to end future stories with some still untied thread that might suggest there could be more in the future. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Djmac1031]

My experience with series is that there are pros and cons. They can help build you an audience, absolutely. But you can also lose readers over time with each chapter.

You take the good with the bad, though. A series should end when you've run the course of the story you're trying to tell.

Or when you just run out of ideas lol

 

[Bamagan]

One thing I have not seen mentioned in any thread (not saying it hasn’t been discussed but I haven’t seen it) is whether we should list multi-chapter stories as “completed” in the Story Series Beta when we’ve reached our planned ending? I had one such story, Warden’s Wife Pays His Debt (9 chapters) which I published over 4 years that based on reader feedback and engagement was a significant driver in growing my number of followers. But when I finished chapter 9 and listed it as “completed”, for the next several months I lost 40-60 followers a month (which I had not seen before or since).

My new strategy is to never list a story series as “completed” in the series beta, but instead keep it as “in progress” whether the content implies it or not. Instead I plan to end future stories with some still untied thread that might suggest there could be more in the future. Has anyone else experienced this?

I've mostly published my stuff as series, or otherwise broken into parts, and have listed them as completed when appropriate, in part because I know some readers are reluctant to start a series that might never see its conclusion published. (I am one of those readers!) I don't know how much effect it has, and my target audience is fairly narrow anyway, so it might not actually matter in any significant way. But I also like the 'feeling' of completing something and almost literally checking the box to mark it as done.

My follower count goes up and down, although nothing like what you describe, even accounting for proportionality. A few of my lost followers deleted their accounts. I have noticed a tentative possible correlation between drops in followers and major sweeps conducted just before contest winners are announced, which makes me think that some of the sweeping may involve deleting bot accounts or alts. Even if that's so, I doubt it would account for your experience, although it might be a small part of it.