Short or Series?

[lissy]

Hi all! I have a question that's been bugging me the past few weeks. I have been adding a series of mine, chapter by chapter. I notice that there aren't anywhere NEAR equal amounts of views on the stories. In fact, my 3rd chapter was read more than my first 2!

Are people not interested in on-going stories? I love to make a story more than just sex. I want people to really KNOW the characters and I can't do that in one chapter. Each chapter's at least 10 pages long (an assignment I was given). Should I concentrate more on shorter stories that get straight to the point?

Sorry for the bother!

~lissy

 

[TheEarl]

Never compromise your writing style for what you think an audience wants. I did that once and it resulted in the lowest ranking I've got so far. Unless you're a top-notch author, it'll feel forced and the readers will notice.

If you want to write long stories, you write long stories. Who gives a fuck whatpeople expect? You should build up a following after a while (hell, even I've managed to gain one fan who comments on every story I write).

The Earl

 

[jfinn]

A lot of people hear feel that a long story turns readers off. I don't know, that might be true, but I write long stories and they do pretty well. Ironically, my lowest scoring, and least read, work is my only short story. I think that's because I'm just not as comfortable with that format and it shows.

As far as chapters getting uneven amounts of reads, I've had that happen too. I usually find the most traffic is generated from my chapters that are heaviest on sex. I don't have a clue why that is. Maybe word gets around, or maybe people just come back for seconds.

At any rate, you could worry about this stuff for the rest of your life and you still won't know the answer. So basically, I agree with Earl. Write your story the way you think it should be written and if it's good enough, it'll find an audience.

BTW, you want to give us a link?

Jayne

 

[Pookie]

I believe there are some readers that will not read stories with multiple chapters until they are certain the author isn't going to leave the story hanging forever. I tend to do this myself, skipping the posting of the first few chapters and clicking on the third chapter.

It doesn't mean I read the third chapter first though. I might glance at the first few paragraphs just to see the style of the author, but then I click on the author's profile page to begin reading chapter one, then two, then three. Therefore, chapter three will get clicked on twice by me. Remember, views are not necessarily reads.

The more readers see new chapters, the greater the likelihood that they will decide to read the whole story after clicking on a later chapter just to see what it's all about. Also, the description with a later post might cause more readers to click on later posts as well.

Pookie

 

[lissy]

Okay, that all makes sense! My shorter story is the one with the least hits as well... and a rating of only 4.0... Then again, it was the first one I posted here (just to see if anyone liked my writing style).

That's really great advice, not to compromise my writing. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you

About people reading the chapters that have the heaviest sex detail and everything... I didn't notice that, but yeah - my 3rd chapter has more of a girl-on-girl play, which isn't even mentioned in my other 2. Damn! How did I not see that?

Oh and Pookie... by not leaving the story hanging... do you mean by keeping it going on and on too long or by just not finishing it?

I had actually written my first story as just a typical short story... and I titled it "Sold 01" - numbering it as my first story since I've done that on previous sites... now it's called Sold Ch. 1 and I never intended on continuing it... sigh.

~lissy

Oh, ty you all! And, my link is:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=173478

I guess that's a hint that I need to make a signature... lol

 

[virgin_rose]

for me i ussually like to read it from the start... but i must admit sometimes i likes the sequel more that the first one... maybe the numbers was different because somepeople read it more than once each chapter... just my opinion