Question on Multi-Chapter Stories

[RachelPost]

My first story is currently in the hands of the editor. The story falls a little short on the word length, at about 3900 words. However, the story was complete, so I stopped. I intentionally set up the opportunity for a second chapter. The final line in the story is : " I can’t wait until next time."

Even if the two parts are published close in time to each other, do I start with a synopsis of story one, or point the reader to that story instead. While the second story starts where the first ended, each one could stand on their own.

Suggestions are more than welcome. They are appreciated.

 

[NotWise]

My first story is currently in the hands of the editor. The story falls a little short on the word length, at about 3900 words. However, the story was complete, so I stopped. I intentionally set up the opportunity for a second chapter. The final line in the story is : " I can’t wait until next time."

Even if the two parts are published close in time to each other, do I start with a synopsis of story one, or point the reader to that story instead. While the second story starts where the first ended, each one could stand on their own.

Suggestions are more than welcome. They are appreciated.

If you name the stories so they can be grouped, then Laurel (aka "the site") will group them. If you name them sequentially, then the site will put them in order.

For instance, if you name the first one "My Story" and the second, "My Story Part 2" the site is likely to show them as "My Story" a two-part series, with "My Story Part 1" and "My Story Part 2" in sequential order under that. Also, when a reader has Part 1 open, there will be links in a sidebar to the remaining parts of the story.

You don't need to post them one after another. You don't even need to post them in order. The site keys on the name to make a group out of them, and anything in the name like "part", "chapter", etc to put them in order.

For instance, I wrote "His Father's Lover" and nine months later wrote "His Father's Lover: The Gift." What shows on my catalog page now is "His Father's Lover: 2 part series" followed by (indented) "His Father's Lover" and "His Father's Lover: The Gift." If a reader opens "His Father's Lover," then on the last page they'll find a box in the sidebar titled "Read More of this Series", and the box contains links to all the series parts.

 

[pumpkindice]

If you name the stories so they can be grouped, then Laurel (aka "the site") will group them. If you name them sequentially, then the site will put them in order.

For instance, if you name the first one "My Story" and the second, "My Story Part 2" the site is likely to show them as "My Story" a two-part series, with "My Story Part 1" and "My Story Part 2" in sequential order under that. Also, when a reader has Part 1 open, there will be links in a sidebar to the remaining parts of the story.

You don't need to post them one after another. You don't even need to post them in order. The site keys on the name to make a group out of them, and anything in the name like "part", "chapter", etc to put them in order.

For instance, I wrote "His Father's Lover" and nine months later wrote "His Father's Lover: The Gift." What shows on my catalog page now is "His Father's Lover: 2 part series" followed by (indented) "His Father's Lover" and "His Father's Lover: The Gift." If a reader opens "His Father's Lover," then on the last page they'll find a box in the sidebar titled "Read More of this Series", and the box contains links to all the series parts.

What NotWise said has been my experience. I just submitted chapter 19 of my story, and it was grouped together just fine. I have always been very careful to make sure the title of each chapter is spelled exactly the same, with exactly the same capitalization, and with only the number of the chapter different. I even use the same short description for each chapter, so that people know it's part of the same overall story.

I try to keep the tags consistent as well, every chapter of my story has some similar tags, since it's all part of the same thing, but if a given chapter is going to have this or that kind of content, I make sure to tag it as such.

The system is actually pretty smart, and as long as you do a reasonable job of conveying your intentions, you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My first story is currently in the hands of the editor. The story falls a little short on the word length, at about 3900 words. However, the story was complete, so I stopped. I intentionally set up the opportunity for a second chapter. The final line in the story is : " I can’t wait until next time."

Even if the two parts are published close in time to each other, do I start with a synopsis of story one, or point the reader to that story instead. While the second story starts where the first ended, each one could stand on their own.

Suggestions are more than welcome. They are appreciated.

Do the chapter or part numbering thing as the others suggest - see my story list for a whole bunch of examples:

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=2002042&page=submissions

Don't bother with a synopsis of "the story so far" though, readers either won't care or will have already read the earlier part and will know what's going on.

 

[PennameWombat]

My first story is currently in the hands of the editor. The story falls a little short on the word length, at about 3900 words. However, the story was complete, so I stopped. I intentionally set up the opportunity for a second chapter. The final line in the story is : " I can’t wait until next time."

Even if the two parts are published close in time to each other, do I start with a synopsis of story one, or point the reader to that story instead. While the second story starts where the first ended, each one could stand on their own.

Suggestions are more than welcome. They are appreciated.

If you follow the naming convention below, IMHO don’t put a synopsis. I do put a line like this in my foreword: “This is part 2 of "Chronicle: Mel and Chris," which began in "Chronicle" Mel & Chris." This series is a sequel to the "Mel's Phone Call" trilogy.” But otherwise I just start the new chapter/story.

A warning. “Chapter 02” will probably get fewer views than chapter 01, chapter 03 even fewer, and so on. That’s because many new readers won’t want to go back to the beginning and some people will drop off. The trade-off is that the readers who persevere will tend to be your ‘true’ fans. See below for a slightly different option.

If you name the stories so they can be grouped, then Laurel (aka "the site") will group them. If you name them sequentially, then the site will put them in order.

For instance, if you name the first one "My Story" and the second, "My Story Part 2" the site is likely to show them as "My Story" a two-part series, with "My Story Part 1" and "My Story Part 2" in sequential order under that. Also, when a reader has Part 1 open, there will be links in a sidebar to the remaining parts of the story.

You don't need to post them one after another. You don't even need to post them in order. The site keys on the name to make a group out of them, and anything in the name like "part", "chapter", etc to put them in order.

I follow this where I want stories tightly linked and with a reading order necessary to understand them.

But I have one additional model for naming. I have some ’serials’, which are ongoing stories featuring the same main characters but not directly following from the previous. The original was “You Promised Me Geeks“, the next entry was “You Promised Me Geeks: Asha & Tracy. The stories don’t have to be read in order, although it’s a bit richer to do so. Thus, I don’t name them as chapters.

Each story also doesn’t provide a synopsis of previous ones, as they’re meant to be close to stand-alone stories. But I use the naming to let readers know they are connected, but not tightly ordered.

 

[Jay142]

I have written chapters with a synopsis on some stories but most I have not. I'm not sure how readers choose which stories to read so I figured I'd include a synopsis so readers didn't feel compelled to read the other chapters first. If I see a story labeled Chapter 10, I won't read it because I don't want to read nine other stories first but that's just me. I'm also an author so writing takes up a lot of my free time which leaves me less time to be a reader. On the other hand, I've noticed that some of the authors that post multiple chapter stories are also some of the most viewed authors too. The bottom line is put in a synopsis if you want.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If you go to my list of stories, you will see examples of how I have handled multi chapter/part and sequel stories. You will also see an example of how the site doesn't always group named stories as part of a series (there are four with the same naming convention but it is still listed as a 3 part series).

One word of advice: If you set the expectation that there are future parts to a story, readers could get impatient waiting if you don't explain your strategy. You might want to avoid naming a story "Part 1" until you've definitely committed to a part 2.

 

[KeithD]

My first story is currently in the hands of the editor. The story falls a little short on the word length, at about 3900 words. However, the story was complete, so I stopped.

This championing of volume on Literotica is getting a little tiresome. 3,900 words isn't "a little short." It's longer than most mainstream writing contests will accept, and it's falacious that adequate development of characters or anything else can't be done in that length. If you, the author, consider the story complete at that length, which you post here that you do, then the story is long enough. At 3,900 words, it will go to the second Literotica page. So my advice, if you think it's a complete story at 3,900 words, is to stop thinking it needs to be padded out, especially if you are doing so because the Lit. discussion board and Lit. contest voters favor verbosity in some false sense that makes a story better, post this one, and go on to researching and writing the next one. Most serious writers look for getting more focused and succinct in their writing, not more wordy.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

You don't need to post them one after another. You don't even need to post them in order.

From experience if you wait too long between chapters youll lose some readers. Also multi part stories have a major drop in views with each succeding part.

That being said I posted 6 chapters of my Agatha series, then a few YEARS later the remaining 5.

As for the order, it depends if you're writing a series or serial. A serial has a storyline that continues across each part ie Game of Thrones, Soap Operas, etc...

A series has characters or other things in common but can de consumed in any order ie The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc...

This site treats them the same. If you write a serial it MUST be posted in order.

If its a Series like my Neat 'n' Naked stories, you can post them in any order, BUT you must indicate in the nite field that it is not a serial, and the reason you want it numbered non-sequentially. For NNN I am writing in ABC order so the number matches the name of the lead character. Thats how I got 16 posted when 10-15 are not yet.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Others feel differently, but I make it a practice to never post parts of an incomplete story. I wait until it is complete and then submit it either as a single submission, or in multiple parts that get posted on the site day-after-day until all are published. It's a personal preference for me, but it eliminates any potential that later parts conflict with something already published, which I see quite often with other authors' works. I like consistency and continuity so patience in posting is how I accomplish that.

I have submitted individual stories that are stand-alone, individual stories that are part of a "universe", and stories that are part of a common-themed series (Before They Were Stars). The stand alone stories have typically been submitted as a single post, but I have broken larger ones into multiple submissions.

The stories in my universe all have different titles but tie into each other through characters and other common story elements. They all also have an ending that provides a clear indication to the readers that a sequel is coming. Some call it a cliff-hanger, but it doesn't have to be suspenseful. The opening of each sequel ties directly in to the ending of the previous story. The story descriptions also indicate the relevance to previous stories.