Entry tags:
Writing chaptered fic
So, I have this story that I'm posting in chapters.
It's not my usual way of posting, and in fact, I am sort of adamantly against posting in chapters. I know why people do it, but it's not my thing, and I'll tell you why. Well, I'll give you a history of my (accidental) experience and then the pros and cons, for me (which add up to why - along with the fact that as a reader I hate hate HATE WIPs).
History of my accidental serial fic:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clavally gave me a prompt which I sat down and wrote about 4500 words for. I posted it, and then asked her to prompt me again. She did. I wrote another 1300 words and posted that as a chapter 2, because I'd worked out the rest of the story and it had an easy four part structure. EASY. Ha ha ha ha, oh, no.
Then Kevin died and I wanted to post something to make myself feel better (and also it'd been a while since I posted), so I cut out and posted a part of Chapter 3 and decided to throw the rest into Chapter 4.
I continued writing Chapter 4 and realized, when it hit about 7k, that it was kind of unreasonable to post it all at once - it'd grown a huge plot and Dean was being recalcitrant, so I threw up about half of it and extended the story to 5 chapters.
Then I was about to get kripked and I realized that the story was just going to be huge, so I needed to reorganize. I shifted things and made it into a 12 chapter thing, re-organizing Chapters 1-4 into Chapters 1-6 and posting two more. Ever since then I've been posting a chapter here and there, every two weeks to a month, mostly before another section of the story got jossed or kripked by canon (this happened six or seven times in the story, which is only fair since it became something of an alt!S9, (on complete accident, I swear!)).
So now I've posted 11/12 chapters and It's been an interesting experience, these last few chapters.
There's a certain awesomeness to being able to write and post almost immediately. I just do a quick readthrough for typos and other little errors, and then put it up. Also awesome has been the hit count and the bookmarks. People keep coming back to it as I post, and that's pretty neat.
Less awesome: If I write myself into a corner, I'm stuck with it. Since I've published the chapter, I have to live with whatever I put in there, so trying to re-write Dean to be less recalcitrant or skip Cas's stupid farewell presents is now impossible because the damn thing's out there already. Probably no one would care but me, but I feel like it's sort of the challenge of writing a serial - you have to live with what came before, even if it was stupid. I suppose it's a little like writing on a TV series, heh.
Awesome side benefit to that: you realllllllly have to think around corners when you do something stupid to yourself. This has been great practice in forcing myself to write creatively to solve problems I would probably have edited out if I was writing straight through.
Other awesome benefits: posting relatively regularly is a nice high and keeps the story fun and fresh and it doesn't have the slogging middle that all my long stories do.
Less awesome: The finished product isn't going to be that good. There's a lot of stuff that I short-cutted because of time and space that really... just isn't very good. Corollary to this less awesome: this is likely to be one of my highest hit count stories ever and it's not particularly good. Considering when I post the epic fics I'm currently working on, it'll take years to get to the hit count I've achieved in six months, that's a bit discouraging.
So yeah, I don't think I'll post any more chaptered fics, but I'm glad I did it - it was an excellent experience. I might try it one more time, purposefully, to see if I can do a better job of it.
It's not my usual way of posting, and in fact, I am sort of adamantly against posting in chapters. I know why people do it, but it's not my thing, and I'll tell you why. Well, I'll give you a history of my (accidental) experience and then the pros and cons, for me (which add up to why - along with the fact that as a reader I hate hate HATE WIPs).
History of my accidental serial fic:
clavally gave me a prompt which I sat down and wrote about 4500 words for. I posted it, and then asked her to prompt me again. She did. I wrote another 1300 words and posted that as a chapter 2, because I'd worked out the rest of the story and it had an easy four part structure. EASY. Ha ha ha ha, oh, no.Then Kevin died and I wanted to post something to make myself feel better (and also it'd been a while since I posted), so I cut out and posted a part of Chapter 3 and decided to throw the rest into Chapter 4.
I continued writing Chapter 4 and realized, when it hit about 7k, that it was kind of unreasonable to post it all at once - it'd grown a huge plot and Dean was being recalcitrant, so I threw up about half of it and extended the story to 5 chapters.
Then I was about to get kripked and I realized that the story was just going to be huge, so I needed to reorganize. I shifted things and made it into a 12 chapter thing, re-organizing Chapters 1-4 into Chapters 1-6 and posting two more. Ever since then I've been posting a chapter here and there, every two weeks to a month, mostly before another section of the story got jossed or kripked by canon (this happened six or seven times in the story, which is only fair since it became something of an alt!S9, (on complete accident, I swear!)).
So now I've posted 11/12 chapters and It's been an interesting experience, these last few chapters.
There's a certain awesomeness to being able to write and post almost immediately. I just do a quick readthrough for typos and other little errors, and then put it up. Also awesome has been the hit count and the bookmarks. People keep coming back to it as I post, and that's pretty neat.
Less awesome: If I write myself into a corner, I'm stuck with it. Since I've published the chapter, I have to live with whatever I put in there, so trying to re-write Dean to be less recalcitrant or skip Cas's stupid farewell presents is now impossible because the damn thing's out there already. Probably no one would care but me, but I feel like it's sort of the challenge of writing a serial - you have to live with what came before, even if it was stupid. I suppose it's a little like writing on a TV series, heh.
Awesome side benefit to that: you realllllllly have to think around corners when you do something stupid to yourself. This has been great practice in forcing myself to write creatively to solve problems I would probably have edited out if I was writing straight through.
Other awesome benefits: posting relatively regularly is a nice high and keeps the story fun and fresh and it doesn't have the slogging middle that all my long stories do.
Less awesome: The finished product isn't going to be that good. There's a lot of stuff that I short-cutted because of time and space that really... just isn't very good. Corollary to this less awesome: this is likely to be one of my highest hit count stories ever and it's not particularly good. Considering when I post the epic fics I'm currently working on, it'll take years to get to the hit count I've achieved in six months, that's a bit discouraging.
So yeah, I don't think I'll post any more chaptered fics, but I'm glad I did it - it was an excellent experience. I might try it one more time, purposefully, to see if I can do a better job of it.
no subject
When I edit comments I give on blogs etc., I tend to forget that it will send repeated emails--wrestling the idea I'm working on into shape, making sure it won't be misunderstood etc., seems too important at the time.
no subject
I definitely have the out of sight out of mind thing, too, and I reread for the same reason. I do that whether I'm writing straight through or serially - but when I'm writing straight through I have the opportunity to streamline if I see things that I can't work with. No such luck with serials.
I guess I write comments like I write fic - if there's any content to them, I let them sit and muse on it for a while, make sure I've said what I want to say in a way I want to say it. Not always, sometimes I'm too excited for that, and if someone is responding to me in real time, that can work out, because we create a thread of conversation. But if people aren't around and we're having a discussion extended over days, I'll take the extra time to check my comments over and streamline before I post. I've worked on a comment for an hour or more sometimes. Sometimes I leave it sit open in a tab and go do stuff elsewhere for a while and come back to it, so I can reread with fresh eyes, make sure I'm saying what I want to say and that I haven't missed responding to some important point.
Contrarily, if it's a throwaway comment, just one or two lines, I don't go back and reread after it's posted. I try not to commit typos, but I also try not to edit comments much. It's a balancing act.
no subject
I haven't played with it yet, but I can see some intriguing possibilities...
http://twinery.org/