Full Story vs Chapters

[Angelique Bouchette]

As a newcomer to Literotica's family of authors, I am still dipping my toes in the water, so to speak, but I have noticed one thing, when browsing the top rated submissions lists. Authors who submit their stories in individual chapters, seem to have a distinct advantage over those who submit completed tales, in terms of both 'Rating' and 'Votes'. This may be due to a majority of readers preferring their literature in small chunks, and the 'looking forward to the next exciting episode' factor? As writers, we all know that some chapters of our stories are more interesting, exciting or sexy than others. If submitted individually, these will attract more votes!

Ho, hum! I will still continue to submit only completed stories, since I usually go through at least a couple of re-writes to iron out any obvious bugs. For anyone who wants to read my work (crafty hint), go to:

Rick Summer, Ace Detective
http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=213057
or
The Ramon Vargas Affair
http://english.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=214663

I hope I haven't bored you too much?
Angelique Bouchette

 

[HornyHenry]

So, what's your complaint?

My problem is that when I see a story with 13 Lit pages, I tell myself, "I don't have time to read a book right now, so I'm not even going to start reading it."
It may be the best ever story on Lit, but many people just don't have time to read that much at one time.

Our choice is to bookmark it and come back, bookmark your user page, or go to a story that we can read in the time we have.

If you only want certain types to read your stories, ok.
If you want more people to read them, like some of us good, nice people, then why don't you finish the whole story like you say you want to do, then post it one part at a time? If you send all the parts in on one day though, they might get posted in the wrong order. Try one a week, or one every three days. Then other people can have a better chance of getting their stories posted without having to wait for Lit to read and post the novels!

Would you mind getting 5 red "H's" out of six chapters, or one "H"?
Or, if they don't like one little part, or don't like the length, you might get a 4.49 and miss out entirely.

Good luck and best wishes with your writing, whatever you choose.
HH

 

[mack_the_knife]

No choice

I am not about to submit a 190,000 page work (as my recently completed Solitary Arrow was) in one big honking hunk. That would require a total of 77 of the 'pages' that lit breaks a story down into. My chapters are an average of about 8500 words, and I don't feel that submitting them separately would be any more advantageous than someone else submitting 22 8,500 word stories.

 

[hurricane64]

Here's a related question:

Suppose you have a story that the build-up is going to be fairly long and largely unerotic. If you release that in chapters, do you doom your story to failure early on? Is it better to try and subdivide the story into chapters within the body of one submission?

 

[Angelique Bouchette]

Okay, I Give Up!

Hey, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind! I have a novelette called 'Alicia' complete, re-written, and hopefully good enough for the readers? This story will be submitted in 'Chapters' even though it's not a mammoth project like mack_the_knife's 'Solitary Arrow'.Hopefully, Chapter 1 has enough action & sex to gain the reader's initial interest?

Thanks for your comments, they are much appreciated!

Angelique Bouchette

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Hey, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind! I have a novelette called 'Alicia' complete, re-written, and hopefully good enough for the readers? This story will be submitted in 'Chapters' even though it's not a mammoth project like mack_the_knife's 'Solitary Arrow'.Hopefully, Chapter 1 has enough action & sex to gain the reader's initial interest?

Thanks for your comments, they are much appreciated!

Angelique Bouchette

I think it is a bit like commercial erotic fiction where each chapter is between 20 and 30 pages and contains enough plot/sex to keep the reader turning the page.

From experience now, even though i can polish off a 600 page paperback in a day on the beach, I understand that reading scrolling pages is much harder. Anything more than 5 or 6 Lit pages is a real effort.

The classic is a short story of less than 40 pages (typed) that can be extended in the Novella category or put into chapters with a novel.

 

[alias x]

Hmm. I'm willing to read a full story or a chapter story, but I will comment that I occasionally avoid a chapter story for fear of it never being finished. In those cases where I *do* feel like reading a full story, you'll increase my chances of reading your story if you indicate in the final chapter's summary description that it is the final chapter.

And a comment about categorization:
I've seen several strategies used by various authors for how to categorize their chapters:
1. Categorize each chapter separately. Some chapters may be in different categories from other chapters.
2. Put every chapter in the same category.
3. Put every chapter in the novella category.
4. Put every chapter in the novella category but categorize the first chapter.

#1 is a good way to get more readers in those cases where your stories have a wide appeal and involve varying situations. For all other cases, I think #4 is the best category choice. I find #2 to be annoying to my attempts to browse the category of my choice. #3 means that your story isn't going to show up where some of your potential readers are looking for it.

In truth, I find #2 to be annoying even when browsing the novella section...but there I expect it and consider it sensible.

 

[Goldeniangel]

Here's a related question:

Suppose you have a story that the build-up is going to be fairly long and largely unerotic. If you release that in chapters, do you doom your story to failure early on? Is it better to try and subdivide the story into chapters within the body of one submission?

i just put an author's note at the top of each chapter explaining that there is a lot of buildup, and poss even put the first few chapters into the "Non-Erotic" category. unless it's a romance in which the more build up the better and they love it when it's not quite erotic at the beginning =)
*HUGS*
angel

 

[susurrus]

The big thing with this, is that there are readers out there who *like* reading a long story, that has more than just one quick romp in it, while there are others who are looking for the quick stroke and on to the next.

If I posted in complete stories, I'd never have anything posted. My stories are in chapters because I finished *this* part of these people's story, and I ran out of ideas. Then the next idea came along for them and I used up my ideas for that one.

If I posted my three "Stephanie" chapters all in a single block, there would be somewhere around 15 Lit pages. It isn't finished, I don't know if I'll ever figure out how to get where I want it to go, but I've had readers send me feedback saying that the five page chapters were too long.

This, as I believe has been said, is a matter of author's preference. Sometimes, it's optimal to give everything all at once. Sometimes, it's best to parcel out the story in little bits, to "keep 'em wanting more" as it were.

I know this isn't any answer, but I guess the point is to illustrate that there is no *single* answer to your question. It's primarily up to you, the author, to decide how you want your work to be presented.

 

[Synthia]

Synthia

I'm a pretty new author, but I think the later Chapter stories suffer somewhat when they're posted one at a time in "New Stories".

Readers who just browse occasionally think they're getting in on the middle of a story, and I'm not sure some of them know they can just click on the author's name to bring up the earlier chapters. And even if they do know they may not have time or patience to read Chapters 1 & 2 before reading Chapter 3 in New Stories.

I think the New Stories category is very important, because once these things get back in the "archives" they may never find you.

As someone mentioned, there's probably no single answer.

 

[JamesSD]

Suppose you have a story that the build-up is going to be fairly long and largely unerotic. If you release that in chapters, do you doom your story to failure early on? Is it better to try and subdivide the story into chapters within the body of one submission?

With a long and unerotic build-up you're probably dooming the story already, unless you're a truly great writer (which you very well may be).

 

[windstormy]

For my part, and this is just my personal thought, I enjoy tormenting the reader with cliffhangers from chapter to chapter. I don't write many short stories, per say, but I do have a couple, although not on this site. And I have found from that experiece that the novels I write and post chapter by chapter do get a better rating than the short stroke stories. I also get comments that beg and plead with me for the next chapter, due to the fact that I like to leave them hanging, (that's my thought anyway). I'm not an expert on this or as an author and I'm one to go nuts if I don't get a comment, (absolutely triving on those dern things), but that is my experience alone. Many might agree or disagree, that is their choice. But this is only the opinion of one writer here at Lit.

 

[Boratus]

Here's a related question:

Suppose you have a story that the build-up is going to be fairly long and largely unerotic. If you release that in chapters, do you doom your story to failure early on? Is it better to try and subdivide the story into chapters within the body of one submission?

One thing to keep in mind about posting your stories is that many readers are coming on here for a quick fix. That is, read the story, clean up and then go on with their day. You have to decide if you want to appeal to them as well as the people who read for character and plot as well. The good thing about not worrying about the "quick fixers" is that (typcially) if they get bored then they won't get far enough to vote.

That being said, you CAN find creative ways to throw sex into the story in addition to the plot you've set out (perhaps a memory/flashback or daydream). In several cases where I've done this, I ended up not only making a nice sex scene but actually developing one of more of the characters. This not only pleases the quick fixers but can convert some of them into people who are actually interested in your story as a whole. At the same time your "story readers" get more from the story as well. This also allows you to post the story as separate chapters or as a whole.

 

[alias x]

Some people name all the non-sex buildup scenes, "Prologue 0a", "Prologue 0b", etc. or something similar. Some people also go a step further and don't release the prologue scenes first. As long as your chapter summary warns about no sex, you'll probably avoid getting a deluge of negative feedback from angry readers.

 

[CorsetLvr]

Personally, I find long single submission stories as a bit intimidating to take on as a reader. That's why I submit my stories in chapters. Besides it allows me to post chapters on a more regular basis, rather then extended periods of time between submissions.

 

[Boratus]

rating your story against your story

Does anyone else get this and more importantly know how to get around it?

I get readers telling me that a particular chapter was not as good as others. As a result I get rated a 4 instead of a 5, not because it was bad but because I'd done better. Call me a rating whore but I hate that! But I don't want to submit a 10-15 Lit page story.

I actually got a 1 from someone because she said she waited too long for the chapter and it wasn't as long as she hoped! Now that was interesting! I didn't realize I was catering to her specifically!

 

[efevece]

TV series vs Movie

Just a reader´s point of view: if you need 80 Literotica pages to tell your story, to show your caracters properly, for evererything to make sense, do it in ONE piece. I will understand I´m reading a book. If you have created a number of caracters and want to play with them, sometimes two or three are prominent, sometimes others and each story is like a finished work, do it in chapters.

For instance: a can see "CSI" (TV) in chapters, but I think "Chinatown" (movie) broken in chapters would be bad.

And lastlly: excuse my mistakes, English is not my native language.

 

[M-Y-Erotica]

Write to Format

We have to remember there are at least 2 questions here, as others have touched on. One is how do you as an author wish to write? The second is how do you wish to publish? For the sort of stories I write I have to write the whole thing from beginning to end before I can publish at all. That's because I often have to re-write the beginning once I get to the end. For instance, the story that is supposed to be coming out right around now called "10 Minutes" (lesbian sex category) was intended to be some simple playful sex and then on to the next story. However, as I wrote it, I found my characters seriously falling for each other in a totally irrational way. I liked that turn, but then I had to go back and add tons of touches to the beginning to make the ending plausible. Now, that is my sort of story; others can likely work better as chapters.

Now, after the story is done, you have to think about how to publish it, which means you have to decide who you want to read it. If you publish one massive 15 page story, then you must be OK with the fact that your readership will be extremely small - but hopefully devoted - because they love that sort of thing. If that is not acceptable, and you need a bigger audience, then break it up. But when you do that, you have to break it up in a serious way, which means re-writing yet again so that you add all the things which are needed to keep people reading. This could be the blatant cliffhangers, which are a lot of fun, or something more subtle. This isn't just an issue of Literotica publishing. The truth is that print authors are also choosing to write for a smaller audience of book readers. If they need more viewership, they should be writing for TV, which means adjusting all your ideas for that format. I guess the point is to take your choice of publishing seriously and write specifically for success in that format.

I should confess that my stories are rather short so far. I thought they were way long when writing, cause they'd run to about 15 Word pages, but that collapses to a measly 2 on Literotica.

 

[Angelique Bouchette]

Write for yourself

Thanks for all the response to my original thread, guys & gals!

Now that I have posted submissions in both completed and chapter form, I have come to appreciate the perils and pitfalls of both. As for whether I get lots of votes (I wish) or a high rating (I wish), in reality I don't really care all that much. I will continue to write erotic fiction that turns me on, first and formost, and if you are a like-minded reader, then please ENJOY!

I have never had the talent to write good SHORT stories and, anyway, I like to develop the plot and the characters in my stories (much easier when they are long). Also, I never submit a story in chapters until it is completed, since I am constantly editing and adding to it. I could NEVER submit chapters as they are written, since I am constantly finding holes in my story-line or other silly errors. Some of my chapters may seem boring (little or no sex) but hey, they are relevant to the overall tale!

I LOVE feedback, especially complimentary feedback! What woman doesn't?

 

[M-Y-Erotica]

peanut butter jelly time

I love that you have the "peanut butter jelly time" dancing banana icon. Never ever fails to make me smile.