Series or Solo

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Just finishing an essay around 30,000 words (just the typos and a sprinkling of continuity errors to put in)
Cannot decide on posting as a solo or splitting into series. Any thoughts?

Comments

I think...

Daphne Xu's picture

I think that solo is fine. 30,000 words doesn't sound too big for solo.

You're going to put in typos and a sprinkling of continuity errors? Um...

-- Daphne Xu

20 to 40 thousand words seems like the sweet spot

crash's picture

20 to 40 thousand words seems like the sweet spot for solos and chapters. If you are confident that the typos and run on sentences have all been properly completed then I'd say go for it. There are some folks around this site that will proof read if you think that Gramarly did not do a good enough job.

Your friend
Crash

Let it stew/mature

before doing any more editing. Then come back to it with fresh eyes. It is amazing what elementary foopahs you can pick up.
Try to put yourself in the mind of the reader. Could it be easier to read in smaller parts? Are there logical break points?
Looking at them objectively can help you make up your mind.
Samantha

Maybe split into two Parts?

Erisian's picture

The guidance I've seen is to try and stick to 18-20k per posting if possible. I've tried to keep to that, but with a last 'Part' reaching to 30k for one book there was some feedback that it was a lot for a single read.
Plus if you split it and post the two parts with a span of a couple weeks in between you could greatly increase its exposure time on the site and get more reads. :)

The First Part

Daphne Xu's picture

Does the advice include ending the first part on a cliff-hanger?

-- Daphne Xu

Of course!

Erisian's picture

I mean, how else would one do it? ;)

My thoughts...

My father was a chef that local restaurants fought over. He said the secret to keeping the dining room packed with diners was making sure they left remembering two things above all else, the food tasted great and there was plenty of it. How many times do you return to a restaurant that your first thoughts about the place is, "Damn that was expensive!"

For instance there is one place here in the city I live in that when it is mentioned the first thing I think of is that it has best best fried calamari I've ever eaten outside of Japan. It's expensive but well worth the cost if you can afford to go.

I would say 30k is not too long to post in a single post. At 250 words per minute (the official average reading speed in the US) it would take two hours to complete. About the same amount of time a person takes to sit through a movie. Then the fact that it being a solo it can appear in the solo window of the front page gaining new readers years later is a plus.

We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.