When is a serial story finished?

[noonehastoknow]

The backstory:
I submitted the sixth installment of a series over the weekend and it was published a few hours ago. It's a sentimental series for me; the first chapter was the first erotic story I ever wrote. I drafted it when I was nineteen and then let it, and every other story and poem I wrote, languish on my hard drive for years, unread and unedited. Then two years ago, I made a pact with a friend on new years to "get rejected ten times" in 2021, to overcome the fear of negative feedback. One of my intended rejections was to post that story onto this website. (I did not edit it, and it's likely riddled with grammar mistakes. The horror!)

Of course, I did not get rejected. Instead I found a community of readers so welcoming it brought me back to writing for the pure joy of it. The positive feedback and requests for more installments inspired me, and I found myself posting installments 2-5. On number 6, I wrote my rough draft and then couldn't bring myself to publish it for almost a year. Why? Because I think it might be the end.

When I finally get to the point:
I love my two lead characters dearly. I could keep writing them. But their story doesn't have a happy ending. They were conceived of by a younger, less-mature me, and the characters reflect that age and stage, and so must the plot. So, my question is, how do you know when a story is finished? Do the demands of erotica as a medium that attempts to satisfy masturbatory desires weigh into your decision on when to stop the story? ("Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet," et al.)

 

[gunhilltrain]

Unfortunately, sometimes I only know it's finished when I've run out of ideas of how to finish it. Of course, one never knows when the Muse will hit again, so there is always some hope.

 

[NotWise]

I have two kinds of serial stories: anthologies and chaptered stories.

Each story in the anthologies stands alone. There isn't necessarily a need for an end. I planned a final installment for my first anthology, but reader interest in the series died out before I got there. The second one will be done when I run out of stories, which may have already happened. Maybe I'm starting a third. We'll see.

The chaptered stories -- including their endings -- are planned. Even the one I didn't originally intend to expand to a series had a plan before I wrote the second chapter. I think that if you get into a chaptered series without building to a planned end, then the ending is likely to leave the readers wanting.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I too, struggle with ending a chapter story. The ones I have finished I tried my best to cover every detail that led up to that point. Sadly, readership always dwindles whether the story is well rated or not. Though it's satisfying to finally finish, with hopefully a satisfying conclusion, no matter how many people read it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do the demands of erotica as a medium that attempts to satisfy masturbatory desires weigh into your decision on when to stop the story? ("Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet," et al.)

It depends. Sometimes the story ending trumps erotica (where the story comes first, with erotica second); other times erotica is the point of the story, in which case, you end on an erotic high note, with an implicit "this might continue".

Being an erotica website, it's logical for the latter to prevail - most of the time, but not every time. Sometimes tissues are for the come, other times, for the tears.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I know this isn’t helpful, but the only answer for a series (vice a chaptered tale) is ‘when it’s finished’. There seems to me to be a point where anything more becomes not only irrelevant, but counterproductive. I wish I could express that better.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I have two kinds of serial stories: anthologies and chaptered stories.

Each story in the anthologies stands alone. There isn't necessarily a need for an end. I planned a final installment for my first anthology, but reader interest in the series died out before I got there. The second one will be done when I run out of stories, which may have already happened. Maybe I'm starting a third. We'll see.

The chaptered stories -- including their endings -- are planned. Even the one I didn't originally intend to expand to a series had a plan before I wrote the second chapter. I think that if you get into a chaptered series without building to a planned end, then the ending is likely to leave the readers wanting.

The anthologies usually are not planned; they happen spontaneously, one might say. They could have been series if I had known before hand. Usually, they are sequels to each other, with events connecting through the course of time. Strangely, sometimes they do have a real ending, also not planned.

I have had series that sprouted various additions. Sometimes these are far enough into the future that they work as stand-alone sequels. Sometimes they are events inserted into the timeline later, and thus can't be numbered. I've found that if I explain to the readers what what is going on, and add some links as needed, they will not complain and they will follow along. In fact, they may not comment on the issue at all, so I assume they are satisfied. Some of them may not read everything related to it, but seem to pick what interests them.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I had one series that started as a stand-alone story. Some reader griped mightily about it. The guy in the story didn't get the girl; I argued that she was hardly the ideal girl-next-door for him. Then a year later, I found his comment again and I realized that this reader was right. This strange romance seemed to have some potential. So I rewrote it and replaced it as chapter 01. About half of the original text, mostly at the the beginning, remained.

That was the one that grew all the additions. In the end, it wasn't a HEA story, but it seemed worth doing. I might even take it ten years into the future when they meet again by chance. They both have been married and divorced to other people by that point.

 

[Duleigh]

I've had one just die on the vine, one is still moving on, slowly, and one had a definite end point and when I reached that end point I bound up my extra ideas in a epilogue and pulled the plug.

 

[ronde]

The backstory:
I submitted the sixth installment of a series over the weekend and it was published a few hours ago. It's a sentimental series for me; the first chapter was the first erotic story I ever wrote. I drafted it when I was nineteen and then let it, and every other story and poem I wrote, languish on my hard drive for years, unread and unedited. Then two years ago, I made a pact with a friend on new years to "get rejected ten times" in 2021, to overcome the fear of negative feedback. One of my intended rejections was to post that story onto this website. (I did not edit it, and it's likely riddled with grammar mistakes. The horror!)

Of course, I did not get rejected. Instead I found a community of readers so welcoming it brought me back to writing for the pure joy of it. The positive feedback and requests for more installments inspired me, and I found myself posting installments 2-5. On number 6, I wrote my rough draft and then couldn't bring myself to publish it for almost a year. Why? Because I think it might be the end.

When I finally get to the point:
I love my two lead characters dearly. I could keep writing them. But their story doesn't have a happy ending. They were conceived of by a younger, less-mature me, and the characters reflect that age and stage, and so must the plot. So, my question is, how do you know when a story is finished? Do the demands of erotica as a medium that attempts to satisfy masturbatory desires weigh into your decision on when to stop the story? ("Happy endings are just stories that haven't finished yet," et al.)

My way of ending a story is to stop writing, but in order to do that, I make a plan before I start. I know what the ending is going to be before I write the beginning. I believe most writers who actually make a living by writing novels do it the same way. Without a plan for ending the novel, how else would they know how to choose their characters' personalities, what situations to put those characters in, and how they will resolve the situation. In other words, you have to know the ending in order to develop a cohesive plot that follows a plausible story line.

That's not to say the ending can never change. It's often that my characters derail my original plan, but the ending is usually at least close to what I'd originally planned.

I'll probably have some who think differently, but without a definite plan, that's how you end up with a Chapter 34 of the story you've been writing for the last two years. It's inevitable that the plot changes unless the story is really a "serial" made up of the same main characters put into different situations in each. In that case, each chapter will probably have an end. Think every series on television since the invention of television and more than a few movie franchises.

I don't really care about "masturbatory desires" when I write. I write what I believe would be a plausible story with plausible characters.

 

[Djmac1031]

My first three stories I ever wrote here three very short little stand alone tales.

Out of those three, only one of them I deliberately labeled a "Pt.1" because I knew I wanted to write more about those characters.

The other two I tried to continue for a bit because reader reception was good, people asked for sequels, and I was an eager to please new writer.

Discovering Amy made it to 4 parts and finished up an evenings adventures between a new couple.

The Doctor Is In Me never made it past part 2.

My third story, The Jenna Arrangement.... is currently at chapter 26, and a prequel.

At this point, i consider it a serial; kinda like a fun, mostly light hearted soap opera.

Readership is small but loyal.

And I have admittedly slowed way down on new chapters.

At some point I suppose I'll have to call it quits when I run out of ideas.

But I see neither the need to split my characters up, or tie things up in a HEA ending either.

I like to imagine these characters will carry on their fun little adventures with or without me writing them.

 

[Duleigh]

I like to imagine these characters will carry on their fun little adventures with or without me writing them.

I have the same feeling with my characters, a couple I really loved writing about, and I may add stories featuring them, but their main story is over. It was supposed to end with their deaths (she was supposed to die ran over by a car, he was supposed to die of loneliness) but the readers saw that in their future and clamored for their survival, so we said goodbye after their first child was born.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've had one just die on the vine, one is still moving on, slowly, and one had a definite end point and when I reached that end point I bound up my extra ideas in a epilogue and pulled the plug.

I've had the worst luck on another site when it comes to dying on the vine. You're supposed to say at the end of each chapter it the story continues or not. (It's unavoidable; the submission system forces you to pick one or the other.) So I have two of them hanging there for the moment. There was a third I just closed without an ending, and I wrote that I may or may not get back to it. One reader was quite annoyed by that.

 

[Duleigh]

Was that SOL?
I've been thinking of expanding but so many other sites look like hell, their front end is so amateurish. Say what you want about [lit] but it is much easier to navigate than most. If I go anywhere it will probably be self-publishing

 

[gunhilltrain]

I have the same feeling with my characters, a couple I really loved writing about, and I may add stories featuring them, but their main story is over. It was supposed to end with their deaths (she was supposed to die ran over by a car, he was supposed to die of loneliness) but the readers saw that in their future and clamored for their survival, so we said goodbye after their first child was born.

I mentioned that it's happened to me. That's fine; I probably will write that story set ten years into the future. Or at least two of these tales, set about a week apart. (It's their future, which makes it happen in 1987.)

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I don't start a chaptered story unless I already know how it's going to end. It's chaptered because most people don't want to sit down and read a thirty lit page story in one setting, and there are natural breaks in the story that can be set up as cliff hangers to end each chapter. I'll write several stand alone stories that are related and now with the new Series function, I can group them together. Those stories don't rely on the other stories so they can be added to or not, as I please.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Was that SOL?
I've been thinking of expanding but so many other sites look like hell, their front end is so amateurish. Say what you want about [lit] but it is much easier to navigate than most. If I go anywhere it will probably be self-publishing

Who mentioned that, I can't find it? But yeah, it's Stories on Line. That was the third site I joined (in 2019?) but that's certainly enough. Like everything else, it has its upsides and downsides. The software is ancient, and the submission process is sort of weird. It has other annoying features. But they will post a story on the same day, for sure, and they will leave you alone and not nitpick everything. You have to do something really egregious to get rejected, assuming that they ever catch you.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I like to imagine these characters will carry on their fun little adventures with or without me writing them.

Even Zola and Updike had to eventually end their multi-generational universes. Their own deaths, for one thing, made it inevitable.

 

[MrPixel]

The only advice I can give on this is you need an "out", and the setup for the possibility has to be somewhere in the middle of the story line. It can be a gentle riding off into the sunset or something between the characters that is life-changing, but, again, you can't drop it on the readers out of the blue in the last chapter. And the setup doesn't have be an obligation to end in such-and-such a way.

Purely my take... don't be killing-off characters to end the story. I hate the Hollywood trend in the past few years to end romance stories with the death of a main character. Sure, I get the thing about "Ohgawd, they'll want me to write a sequel," but it is possible for the life-changing event to be positive, just something where further development would be completely tangential to the original story. @Duleigh 's example of having a child is one such "resolution".

 

[gunhilltrain]

Oh, it was me that implied SOL. Yes, that was it. But's happened on other sites too, including Lit.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The only advice I can give on this is you need an "out", and the setup for the possibility has to be somewhere in the middle of the story line. It can be a gentle riding off into the sunset or something between the characters that is life-changing, but, again, you can't drop it on the readers out of the blue in the last chapter. And the setup doesn't have be an obligation to end in such-and-such a way.

Purely my take... don't be killing-off characters to end the story. I hate the Hollywood trend in the past few years to end romance stories with the death of a main character. Sure, I get the thing about "Ohgawd, they'll want me to write a sequel," but it is possible for the life-changing event to be positive, just something where further development would be completely tangential to the original story. @Duleigh 's example of having a child is one such "resolution".

I don't even know what Hollywood has been doing recently, but it doesn't look good. But killing off characters or just the main one is an old trope. The Postman Always Rings Twice. Anna Karenina. Too many more to list. Personally, I don't usually do that. I only killed off one person, and I had to because it was about a real-life train wreck. But in the "real world," tragedies happen all the time.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I don't start a chaptered story unless I already know how it's going to end. It's chaptered because most people don't want to sit down and read a thirty lit page story in one setting, and there are natural breaks in the story that can be set up as cliff hangers to end each chapter. I'll write several stand alone stories that are related and now with the new Series function, I can group them together. Those stories don't rely on the other stories so they can be added to or not, as I please.

My thoughts exactly. I can’t abide the possibility of throwing myself into writing a story, long or short, only to hit a brick wall or have it peter out unfinished.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My thoughts exactly. I can’t abide the possibility of throwing myself into writing a story, long or short, only to hit a brick wall or have it peter out unfinished.

You are right, but I'm careless and I've hit that brick wall a number of time. I can't find a clip, but it's like that scene in Fearless where Jeff Bridges deliberately crashes his car into a wall. Maybe you've seen it; I don't know. Does it have anything to do with Lit? Maybe, in a very tangential way.

 

[000zing]

Answer: when you've gone past the half hour mark, especially on here.

Sex isn't a matter for War and Peace epics. It can be represented in such things by cameos and side issues but that's about it. If you can't get across a good erotic tale (complete with credible characters and setting) in a twenty-minute read, give up.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It really depends where your plot goes. If you end the series by killing your main characters, then I suppose that is the end, unless you return them to life in some Fantasy spin off series. But however you end the series, it doesn't really have to be the end - the story can ALWAYS continue, one way or another. The only real question is if you actually want it to continue or not?