The Cons and Pros of Series Stories

[hottchic]

By series stories I mean stories which have follow up chapters.

I am a relative newcomer but since I have been on here I have discovered somethings series that are made up of several chapters. I am writing this post for newcomers like myself who are looking at how to achieve a good and loyal readership.


Cons,

Well there is only one really but it will seem like a really big one.

After reading your first story in the series your readership will always drop off when it comes to following chapters, ALWAYS. Why because if your first story is not to a specific readers taste, he/she will not read any further chapters in the series. But as you will see later, actually this is a blessing in disguise.


Pros (and there are many),

1. And this is the key point, the number of readers who reach the second chapter all liked the first story in the series. This gives you a quantifyable number of people who read the first story plus a percentage figure of all the readers who read this. I have come to believe that this is the single best indicator of how popular a story was.

2. Because on the second and subsequent stories you only have repeat readers this is likely to increase the scores you get on these stories, provided you maintain or increase the standard as compared to the first story. If you do maintain the standard you should not see a significant drop off of readers in subsequent chapters.

3. Each time a new story comes out you initially get more readers, in the case of a series of stories this means that more readers will read your first story and again if they like it they will read subsequent stories. So all of the stories in the series will increase their readership.

4. If people like previous chapters in the series many of those readers will be waiting for the next chapter to appear, particularly if you have been releasing the chapters at regular intervals.


In Summary

So why was the apparent disadvantage of serial stories not really a disadvantage?

Because many readers stopped reading your story half way through and unless you write a second chapter in the series you have no way to guage how many people abandoned reading it.

So do I think serial stories are a good way to gain a loyal readership?

Emphatically 'yes', because people are more likely to remember you as an author because it is easier to remember a series than a single story.

Finally I suggest not calling the first story in a potential series 'chapter 1', because if the first story is not so well recieved it is unlikely that you will want to write follow up stories, knowing that there will be a very small readership for them. Of course if you think that peoples comments and ratings are not representative you might still want to write a follow uo story to test the market so to speak.

 

[estragon]

My only reason for writing a series of stories is the same as for writing a single story--because I have to. The first story in my series "A New Birth of Freedom" got bombed back to Gen'l LeMay's proverbial Stone Age. I will start work on the second chapter next week, and I do not give a raw, red, rusty fuck whether anyone reads it or not. And if Grand Master dweaver999 licenses it, I will publish it. But licensed or not, published or not, popular or not, I'll say it again, the only reason I write is because I have to.

 

[hottchic]

My only reason for writing a series of stories is the same as for writing a single story--because I have to. The first story in my series "A New Birth of Freedom" got bombed back to Gen'l LeMay's proverbial Stone Age. I will start work on the second chapter next week, and I do not give a raw, red, rusty fuck whether anyone reads it or not. And if Grand Master dweaver999 licenses it, I will publish it. But licensed or not, published or not, popular or not, I'll say it again, the only reason I write is because I have to.

Interesting take. In my own case I had already thought out the plotline for Tits Have Benefits as far as the the 3rd Chapter before I started writing it. If it had got bombed I would still have wanted to write the subsequent chapters but I may not have bothered to submit them.

Yeah, in this case it was something I wanted to do for me. In the case of my other series it was already written up to chapter 11 before I started submitting here so I guess if it bombs I am not bothered bacause it is already written I will see how the block of chapters 7-9 fairs before deciding whether to submit the rest.

 

[DG Hear]

I always have a problem whether to post chapter stories all at once or on separate days. I've done both. My problem is a lot of readers sit down and decide to read a couple of stories. They pass the ones that are five or more pages long, hence the longer story gets less reads.

But for those that get read you usually get less viewers but better comments and scores. The ones that don't like your story will bail out before finishing it.

On the other side is a lot of readers aren't on every day and might not want to start chapter stories. An even bigger problem is some writers wait to long before posting new chapters. You really need a viewership if you are going to wait between chapters. I usually post a chapter a day but probably should wait a day in between.

I do have a pet peeve and that has been mentioned before. In monthly and in the year end contest. Chapter stories are included and it just doesn't seem right that one chapter out of a story should be allowed to win. I do say it with tongue and cheek since I have won both contests with chapter stories.

It seems that when the final chapter of a story is finished that the story as a whole should be judged. An average of the chapters scores can easily be figured out. The change was made for contest stories, all chapters must be submitted at once to qualify.

Well I guess I said enough. There are no right or wrong answers here. Try writing both ways and see what works best for you. I know I usually don't read many chapter stories unless they are submitted all at once. I made the mistake of reading some and they were never finished.
With respect
DG

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I'm posting my first lengthy story as chapters as a bit of an experiment. Each "chapter" is a separate sexual vignette, and, since the writing is the same in each, I'm looking to see if the nature of the sex act as any bearing on the score.

 

[lovecraft68]

By series stories I mean stories which have follow up chapters.

I am a relative newcomer but since I have been on here I have discovered somethings series that are made up of several chapters. I am writing this post for newcomers like myself who are looking at how to achieve a good and loyal readership.


Cons,

Well there is only one really but it will seem like a really big one.

After reading your first story in the series your readership will always drop off when it comes to following chapters, ALWAYS. Why because if your first story is not to a specific readers taste, he/she will not read any further chapters in the series. But as you will see later, actually this is a blessing in disguise.


Pros (and there are many),

1. And this is the key point, the number of readers who reach the second chapter all liked the first story in the series. This gives you a quantifyable number of people who read the first story plus a percentage figure of all the readers who read this. I have come to believe that this is the single best indicator of how popular a story was.

2. Because on the second and subsequent stories you only have repeat readers this is likely to increase the scores you get on these stories, provided you maintain or increase the standard as compared to the first story. If you do maintain the standard you should not see a significant drop off of readers in subsequent chapters.

3. Each time a new story comes out you initially get more readers, in the case of a series of stories this means that more readers will read your first story and again if they like it they will read subsequent stories. So all of the stories in the series will increase their readership.

4. If people like previous chapters in the series many of those readers will be waiting for the next chapter to appear, particularly if you have been releasing the chapters at regular intervals.


In Summary

So why was the apparent disadvantage of serial stories not really a disadvantage?

Because many readers stopped reading your story half way through and unless you write a second chapter in the series you have no way to guage how many people abandoned reading it.

So do I think serial stories are a good way to gain a loyal readership?

Emphatically 'yes', because people are more likely to remember you as an author because it is easier to remember a series than a single story.

Finally I suggest not calling the first story in a potential series 'chapter 1', because if the first story is not so well recieved it is unlikely that you will want to write follow up stories, knowing that there will be a very small readership for them. Of course if you think that peoples comments and ratings are not representative you might still want to write a follow uo story to test the market so to speak.

My series is at 29 chapters and counting with a halloween one shot and 5 part spin off. Yes the downfall at least initially is by a few chapters in casual readers drop off and very few new ones seem to want to "invest" in a long series especially "strokers".

However the great thing is that because the series si so long I have a very loyal following and have had a great correspondence with many of them. By this time I even have "factions" amongst my fans of whether or not the sister brother should become a couple. It is a thrill to see people this invested.

Now if you are the type that gets upset with the low views and votes that come along with a long series and need an ego stroke just toss out an occasional one shot type of story. My chapters have only been getting 50 votes or so. In Feb. I put out a one shot and it got about 150 votes.

Now one other thing I said it seemed like a lot of people don't want to invest if a series is past a certain point but many do. I still have chapter one get bookmarked sevearl times a month and will have someone contact me with "I just started your series and...

Big plus there is after a few chapter you generally don't get to much negative because they are your following. Course I write incest so have trolls and that has nothing to do with if the story is good or bad. Like I said if the voting seems skewed and you want a "reality check" pop off something new in between to Gauge where you are.

My last few chapters are 4.68-4.86 because it is the regs. My last "oneshot" got 4.65 so i was happy with that.

 

[oggbashan]

If you really want to see how NOT to do it, look at the Authors' Hangout Chain Story, The Worst Chain Story Ever. (Link is to my contribution, Chapter 01)

Apart from deliberately bad writing, there were lapses in continuity, and even missing Chapters because they were never written.

Some of the Chapters have reasonable ratings.

Og

 

[PennLady]

I have some general rules for myself for posting. If it's about four screen pages, I'll put it in one piece. That would be approx. 20 Word pages and 10k words for me. That about all I usually have the patience or time to read myself, so I don't like to ask people to do more than I would.

My exception here is if it's a contest entry, and then I just post it. I try usually to keep those stories to about 40k words, although if it takes more, it does.

Hence when I know I'm writing a longer story, I just aim to post in roughly 10k-word blocks. So I'll be writing in Word and when I get to 18 pages or so, I kind of take stock and see if I'm at a good breaking place. I usually write in 18-24 page blocks in Word for my longer stories, and then my serial stories end up with each chapter being 3-4 screen pages.

Votes, views, etc., don't enter into it for me. People follow or they don't and that's fine, but I don't post with an eye towards whether they will or not.

 

[Mrtouf]

I think that having a following of readers should quite rightly give you some encouragement to keep going.

At the same time though you have to be realistic about how much content you can write. In the relatively short timeframe in which people will keep your story bookmarked, you have to come up with more. If you can do so, it would be sensible to build up a buffer of story parts so that if you need to take a day off or take an extra day to work on polishing one part in particular, you can do that.

 

[Weird Harold]

Cons,

Well there is only one really but it will seem like a really big one.

After reading your first story in the series your readership will always drop off when it comes to following chapters, ALWAYS.

You missed:

2) If you lock yourself into a single setting and limited cast of characters. A loyal series following does nothing to contribute to challenging yourself as a writer with varied settings, styles, genres, etc.

3) Ending a series puts you right back at the beginning; You following may, or may, not follow a new epic, but you'll have to rebuild a following whenever you run out of story for a continuing series.



Of course, there are several different kinds of serial stories. You can write a novel and serialize it by posting it as chapters to maintain a position on the new stories list. You can write related stand-alone stories set in a common location. You can write never-ending sequels for a popular stand-alone story (until you run out of ideas and/or start repeating yourself.) or, you can deliberately write a soap-opera that you can maintain for a generation or two with only the odd evil twin story-line to maintain readership.

 

[sr71plt]

You can write never-ending sequels for a popular stand-alone story (until you run out of ideas and/or start repeating yourself.)

I major con like this is it doesn't help you a bit in learning how to construct a complete story.

 

[jomar]

A story arc through a series is fine and it helps if each chapter sort of stands alone.

Also important is to complete the story then start submitting at reasonable (weekly) intervals. Trust me on this.

 

[hottchic]

Thankyou to everybody who has replied to this thread. They are the comments of writers with much more experience writing erotica than myself.

Hopefully any new writers will may have gained some insights into strategies that may be effective in gaining a following among readers.

In brief it seems that it is all about balance. Some series with several chapters mixed in with some individual stories seems to be a good idea.
__________________________________

In my own case the 'Fiona and Ariel' series (in Lesbian Sex) was written before I ever came to Literotica. I have been submitting it in blocks of three chapters because the original chapters were quite small. I have written up to chapter 11 but never actually brought this series to a close. If the response is good I will think about bringing this series to a close which would probably take 3 more of there small chapters.

In my series 'Tits Have Benefits' (in Transgender and Transexuals), I have so far submitted 4 chapters, chapter 4 comes out tomorrow. I am currently working on chapter 5 and I have a good idea how chapters 6 and 7 will go, it is likely that this series will end up being 9 chapters in total.

I also have a new storyline for a story which will be called 'The Law of Attraction' (in Transgender and Transexuals). This would be 2 chapters told respectively by the two principle characters.

I also have another story in mind, that I will probably be called 'A Week in Spring' (in Transgender and Transexuals). This would be a one off story probably 3 pages long.

Basically the idea is that all this stuff comes out overlapping each other so I get variety in my writing.

As I did say earlier my writing is not driven by wanting to get an audiance, but instead to get the stories in my head and into type. People reading is just an added bonus.

 

[Weird Harold]

I major con like this is it doesn't help you a bit in learning how to construct a complete story.

I didn't say that never-ending sequels was a good way to go.

It is in fact usually a dead end solution to attracting and keeping a following with little scope for experimentation or improvement.

 

[sr71plt]

I didn't say that never-ending sequels was a good way to go.

No, you didn't. I was adding on to what you posted, not contradicting it.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Hang on, guys. Are we saying that a series of self-contained stories with the same characters should be repudiated? This just seems to echo scouries's vacuous rantings against drk. Again, few readers can stomach more than 3 or 4 pages in one sitting so chapters are appropriate.

From J K Rowling through Tolkien, Patricia Cornwell, Karin Slaughter, Mark Twain, Harlan Coben and many others, to the scriptwriters of 'House' and 'Desperate Housewives', writers/directors have long acknowledged that a story series where the faithful following buy into a series where the characters are already established is a recipe for literary/televisual success.

Scouries has recognized this, albeit in a malevolent manner, by railing on against chapter stories predominately winning monthly contests.

To rail against multi-part stories is plain literary snobbery. Selena Kitt's numerous series are a classic case in point. Also, popular/commercial fiction (which is the lifeblood of Lit) depends on creating characters that re-appear regularly.

Lit is what it is and we're not chasing Pulitzers here - just readers.

 

[shabbu]

Hang on, guys. Are we saying that a series of self-contained stories with the same characters should be repudiated? This just seems to echo scouries's vacuous rantings against drk. Again, few readers can stomach more than 3 or 4 pages in one sitting so chapters are appropriate.

No, "we" aren't saying anything of the sort.

 

[PennLady]

Hang on, guys. Are we saying that a series of self-contained stories with the same characters should be repudiated? This just seems to echo scouries's vacuous rantings against drk. Again, few readers can stomach more than 3 or 4 pages in one sitting so chapters are appropriate.

No, I think we were all just discussing whether one should post a story all in one shot, versus in chapters, versus whatever.

 

[Weird Harold]

Hang on, guys. Are we saying that a series of self-contained stories with the same characters should be repudiated?

Not at all.

Depending on what the author hopes to accomplish with a series and/or self-improvement, a series of never-ending sequels can be detrimental to the author's goals. OTOH, staying with a proven cast and premise can be advantageous to a different set of goals.


I personally avoid writing anything that could be serialized by demands for never-ending sequels. That's because I, personally, don't want to be locked into a single story. It does NOT mean I don't enjoy and collect novel series that run to 12+ volumes; it just means I don't think that is the only/best way to maintain readership/popularity as the OP seems to.

 

[Darkniciad]

Hang on, guys. Are we saying that a series of self-contained stories with the same characters should be repudiated? This just seems to echo scouries's vacuous rantings against drk.

Did you seriously just say that after spending several days riding on his bandwagon last year waving a flag and throwing out candy?

Yeah... Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[sr71plt]

I personally avoid writing anything that could be serialized by demands for never-ending sequels. That's because I, personally, don't want to be locked into a single story. It does NOT mean I don't enjoy and collect novel series that run to 12+ volumes; it just means I don't think that is the only/best way to maintain readership/popularity as the OP seems to.

I rather enjoy picking up plotline and characters for followups (e.g., my just released Choke Hold), but I don't write something with the thought that there will be a sequel. I pick it up because I find I want to do something else/more with it.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not at all.

Depending on what the author hopes to accomplish with a series and/or self-improvement, a series of never-ending sequels can be detrimental to the author's goals. OTOH, staying with a proven cast and premise can be advantageous to a different set of goals.


I personally avoid writing anything that could be serialized by demands for never-ending sequels. That's because I, personally, don't want to be locked into a single story. It does NOT mean I don't enjoy and collect novel series that run to 12+ volumes; it just means I don't think that is the only/best way to maintain readership/popularity as the OP seems to.

But a sequel to me denotes that you did finish a particular plotline or at least enough to provide closure. Then decided to revisit with same characters and maybe a new adventure so to speak.

To me a series although it may contain story arcs is a continuous work until it reaches it's ultimate conclusion.

 

[Weird Harold]

But a sequel to me denotes that you did finish a particular plotline or at least enough to provide closure. Then decided to revisit with same characters and maybe a new adventure so to speak.

Just as there are different types and styles of series, there are different kinds of sequels. To me, a request for "more with those characters" tells me that I failed to tell the story I intended and didn't provide "closure." For me the perfect closure is "and then the universe died."

To me a series although it may contain story arcs is a continuous work until it reaches it's ultimate conclusion.

By that definition "never-ending sequels" don't qualify as a series, but many long running and popular book series are just "never-ending sequels" with no conclusion planned or in sight. Some, especially children's series, have been generating stand-alone sequels for fifty-plus years (Curious George, as an example prompted by the TV in the background, just happens to be sixty-years-old this year.)

What is important about posting serials/chapters or not is what the author wants to gain from the posting and/or what the author intends to accomplish. For some purposes, a trilogy or fixed length series would work best, for others, a never-ending soap opera would be the best choice, and for yet others, standalone works with no connection whats oever to any other work is the right choice.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for every story or every author.

 

[sr71plt]

To me, a request for "more with those characters" tells me that I failed to tell the story I intended and didn't provide "closure." For me the perfect closure is "and then the universe died."

To me it usually has meant that I have a reader who wants a fairy tale happy ending all of the time.

 

[Jake Marlow]

I'm sure that everyone else has the experience that readers seem to request sequels to everything. I think they want to see the characters go on and on, and in many cases, do crazier and crazier things. In the past I've written sequels in response to reader demands, but they usually didn't work out too well because I wasn't writing them for any organic reason, like I had a great idea for a sequel. When I write a series of stories now, it's because I planned on it from the beginning and reader feedback doesn't affect what I write.

On the subject of endless sequels and/or chapters, it seems like a lot of writers here have that problem and in cases push their character into ridiculous situations. Or, they just keep writing the same story over and over again.

I think soaps and comic books have the same problems in trying to write stories about the same characters over years and decades. How many things can one character go through? How many marriages? How many times can they die? Is there anything new you can actually do with Superman? Long running Primetime shows have that problem too. How many times can The Doctor save the universe? By the end of the run of NYPD Blue, I felt like every possible terrible thing happened to Andy Sipowicz. He was Job-like. I feel the same way about Tommy Gavin on Rescue Me, and I'm sort of glad the show is ending.