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I hit upon this blog entry: Muse Wrestling from 4.5 years ago. My own problem is similar, although not identical. During my years here since my first posting ("A Bikini Beach Summer") I've begun many long stories, but I've only finished two even moderately long ones. "Vengeance and Beyond" was written in (perhaps) three weeks after being provoked, and only barely qualifies. "The Blind Date" took about eight months to write.
My firm belief was that I shouldn't post a story or start posting parts until the entire story was complete. I'd seen too many stories begun then abandoned, and I'd forgotten too many stories I'd begun reading after awaiting sometime for the next entry. The consequence is above. Also, like the other blogger, I have plenty of scattered things that I haven't yet combined into something coherent.
I've already gone against that rule to a degree: I've posted two parts from my sequel that were essentially fixed, and that made decent standalones: "BB: Ellen's Daughter Visits" and "BB: Glenn Matsumoto Visits".
I'm thinking of abandoning my rule, and posting parts from a long story's beginning, in order, as long as they are stably complete. There would be no guarantee against subsequent revision, especially if I have to go back after having written something later.
Any ideas?
Comments
Rules
In this community especially, things change. Real world circumstances get in the way of our intentions.
I'm happy to ready anything you write, regardless of format; mainly because YOU wrote it.
Love, Andrea Lena
Horses for courses
My view is that it depends on how long you estimate the finished product will be.
If it will be short, then by all means write it and finish it before posting any of it.
Longer items like novels, you can't do that otherwise you'd post nothing for years. Then, when you started posting, you'll find all the inaccuracies, typos and anachronisms that years of re-reading and editing didn't find!
Besides, think how Angharad would feel, writing all that Bike without posting any of it! Having said that, Bike is a serial, not a novel, and different rules again have to apply.
Then there's the awkward middle ground, where you start writing something that looks as if it might develop and then it grows... at what point do you say, "I can't just keep all this bottled up, I have no idea how long it will be"?
My guess is that the limit is somewhere between 10 to 20 chapters*. Shorter, keep until done. Longer. post in parts.
* Of course, the length of chapters can vary wildly as well. Mine are usually 6,000 to 9,000 words but I know some authors prefer much shorter chapters. Some even have more than one per post. For chapters above, read posts where applicable.
Penny
Serial vs. Novel
I understand that serials and novels have different rules.
"You can't do that otherwise you'd post nothing for years." Precisely my problem. Thank you!
-- Daphne Xu
Second that!
I couldn't say it so well.
Depends on how your mind works
For some people the expectations/pressure forces them to continue writing. For others that only leads to writer's block.
A series not firmly mapped out beforehand may also benefit from input received along the road.
Speaking personally I'd hate to post something I hadn't finished but then again the rare sequels/prequel I'ver written are entirely due to new input.
When and how to post....
One “benefit “ of posting as you go is feedback in the comments. (This can be both good and bad.) It seems to clarify and drive some authors. It can help with editing. It has also helped some authors prepare for publication. (And it has driven some authors away from BCTS too.) The results seem in part to depend on individual sensibility (regency romance use of this term). Can’t predict how it would work for you. I do echo the above comment about reading what ever you write.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
That is what I thought, too, but...
That is what I thought, but on "A Field Trip", while part 1 got a good number of comments quickly, part 2 had none for a long time; there are 5 parts to it in whole, and while things are going fine now, the first and last part are still garnering the bulk of the comments...
The first lesson is to be PATIENT, the second is that this experience is not typical, as I posted the last three parts on the same day. It might have been different had I done what I'd originally intended and posted the rest every day or so, and used the time I spent proofing on the program I'm supposed to be writing for work.
IDunnit
Well, I did it -- the first part of "A Bikini Beach Late Summer" has been posted.
I'm concerned. I can't remember how things work, but some things haven't happened yet. This was the first time I've created a title page. (The administrators did created my other two title pages.) I think that I did it right, although I'm going to edit it at some point. The title page is in my list of stories (mystories) but the first part isn't there. Also, the first part doesn't have a stats box.
Have I done something wrong?
-- Daphne Xu
Title pages and content
Title pages and content structure are handled by the somewhat arcane boxes at the bottom of the submission page.
After you have entered author, categories, body, etc and below "File Attachments" there is a box with various contents, one of which is titled "Book outline". To the right of this is a dropdown titled "Book": this is entirely misleading!
Click on that dropdown and find your own name in it, select that. To the right of the dropdown a "spinny thing" will briefly appear and, when it goes, another dropdown should appear with all your stories in it.
This will show as a "tree" of everything you have posted. Scroll down and select your title page in that; it will become the parent of your chapter which will thus fall under it in the side panel lists. If a chapter is in the wrong place, you can move it during an edit session.
Title pages can have several levels. Somewhere Else Entirely has books within it as well as an epilogue, so I have created (sub) title pages under the title and the chapters go under the (sub) title pages.
One final gotcha! If your story has more than nine chapters/posts you'll need to look at the "weight" dropdown. Since everything is alphabetically sorted by title, that means that your chapters/parts will have 1 followed by 10 followed by 2 followed by 20 etc. To fix this, set the weight to one more than the number of digits in the chapter number. That will ensure that 10 follows 9 instead of 1.
Most of the time setting the weight to 1 when your chapter/post/part number is more than 9 is enough. If your story has more than 99 chapters you'll have to set the weight of those to 2.
Penny
Posting Turned Out Right
My posting turned out right, at least mechanically. I had to edit out a few passages from the content, though.
I'm dealing with the alphabetizing by using 01, 02, etc. However, I've been using weights to alphabetize my story list when using "The", and also to list my BB stories together. I had to change "A Bikini Beach Summer"'s weight to -1 to put it before "A Bikini Beach Late Summer".
-- Daphne Xu