Forum: Author Hangout

Ernest likes to dump his stories, so he'll schedule a chapter a day until the story finishes.

Actually, I post what I call a SoL chapter (about 5,000 to 10,000 words) every other day so the readers get a decent read with each posting and don't have to wait ages for the story to finish appearing. I realise I could get more downloads by spreading them further apart, but I don't bother with that.

Actually, I post what I call a SoL chapter (about 5,000 to 10,000 words) every other day so the readers get a decent read with each posting and don't have to wait ages for the story to finish appearing. I realise I could get more downloads by spreading them further apart, but I don't bother with that.

Spreading the time out further (less often than every other day) would also boost your scores, as the longer the story posts, the more people likely to discover it on the "New Stories List" (see the increased scores of long-running stories for evidence).

The more unread chapters are available in a given 7 day period, the more downloads and the higher the score.

I've not seen any real evidence of a higher download rate meaning a higher score, however, since the number of votes on a story tend to be a fairly consistent percentage of downloads, then the high the number of downloads the higher the number of votes for a story would seem logical - be they high scoring votes or lower scoring votes than the first ones is yet to be determined.

Personally, I think there are number of people who start to read a story when it's being posted and they vote on each chapter, as more story is presented they think the story is better, and thus they amend their vote upward. In this situation if their initial vote was a 6 and they change it to a 7, then the score is adjusted for one less 6 and one extra 7 since the newer vote replaces the older vote in the system - it tracks what vote you made on a story before. This would result in the vote going up over time, but it would happen that way if you posted once a week, once a month, or every day.

Regarding your puzzler; 'a hypothesis' sounds fine to me.

'A hypothesis' is what I'd say/write too. But then it was pointed out that we Brits aspirate 'h' more than some other nationalities. As an editor, I wouldn't correct 'an hypothesis' other than for inconsistency, but to my ear it sounds affected.

AJ

I prefer "a hypothesis", though I typically prefer a plurality of hypotheses. That way you can pick those you prefer the most! 'D

Yes, that's the effect of long running serials. But the way I understood CW, he implied that spreading out the period posting a story will increase its score, no matter its length, or number of chapters.

If you post 20 chapters in a single week, then those who frequent the "New Updates" page only have a few days to ever notice it. If it stays up longer, it's more likely to be discovered while it's still posting, which should affect it's later scores. That's how visibility raises scores. If a reader quits a story, his score will never improve, and when a reader finishes a story, it's unlikely he'll think any more of it a year from now than he will when it first ends. The difference, then, will be new readers, not the existing limited number of readers changing their scores.

There also seems to be enough who vote on every chapter for CW to detect from fluctuations in scores when readers enjoy his exciting chapters more than the slower paced ones.

That's especially vital in discovering particular issues. We all know, long before we post, which are the most exciting chapters. Hell, I typically try to schedule my posts so the most exciting chapters, things like cliffhangers, happen on Thursdays, so readers have to wait for the next chapter the following week. But what's most important is when a chapter's scores tank for reasons you didn't anticipate, or when the score spikes for no apparent reasons (maybe a new character than resonates with readers). Then you should sit up and take notice, figuring out what changed to sway readers' opinions.

That's what CW postulated too, but I can't see a correlation between the number of votes and its score.

I was basing my opinion on the fact that ongoing serials (which remain before the public for longer periods, rather than being 'better written', by and large, typically achieving much higher scores than shorter stories. That has nothing to do with how frequently you post, after all, many of those stories post monthly, or even less often than that. You can theorize your own rationale for that phenomenon, but I see 'remaining in the public eye' as being a major objective. Posting your entire story in a week or two, by this metric, seems less productive, though I can't offer any metrics defining that belief.

The other thing I've noticed is that an initial score (based largely on the first couple chapters) often define the future scores. The scores may raise over time, but they're unlikely to change a great deal. This is evidenced by how the same story will often scored differently when posted to different sites, and the fact that each store remains largely intact over the life of the story. If you score well initially, your story is likely to be successful, while if it scores poorly (for whatever reason, a bad story being one of them), it's unlikely to suddenly shoot up to the top of the charts.

Typically, when a story finishes the people who have stuck with it will vote on the story as a whole, taking into account the ending, and the score will rise, for about a day or two. At that point, more voters will descend, those who weren't interested enough to read it while it was posting, and the score will drop (I assume, without any proof) simply because you now get more people not as committed to the basic premise voting their displeasure over the story content ('not quite what I was looking for').

Yet, the score tends to rise over time, regardless of how long it ever initially posted. So there's that to consider too.

I found that chapters 3+ of my story scored substantially the same, although all were better than chapters 1 or 2

Traditionally, your first few chapters—which should be your strongest writing—are often your weakest, since you haven't gotten into the story yet and are still unfamiliar with how to approach it.

Given those scores, you might want to revisit those first couple chapters. Since you know what happens, I'd do like Hemingway did, and start from scratch and write a completely new version (no revisions) and see which version you like the best.

Note: Keep in mind, I've never been able to do that myself, as I generally hate throwing away the elements I already love. But I must say, when I first wrote Catalyst, I ended up abandoning the story because of story conflicts and rewrote an entirely new story. Unfortunately, in went in a completely new direction I couldn't use, but that extra time spend exploring possibilities made the eventual revision I did must stronger and compelling, as I learned much more about the characters than I would have if I'd just bludgeoned through on my initial draft.

But, if you're getting solid 8s, I wouldn't bitch (is this a 'humble whine'?). Even the upper 7s aren't bad, as those scores were probably influenced by early votes by readers uninterested in the basic story premise.

In other words ... I'm no murderer, but YOU should murder YOUR darlings. :-)

I'm saying it's a technique espoused by many phenomenal authors, but few of us struggling authors are brave enough to attempt it ourselves. I supplied the suggestion, then cautioned how rarely it's actually applied. I consider that 'fully informed' advice. 'D It's hoping that new readers may succeed where I've repeatedly failed (on many fronts).

I know, and I know their right, but sadly I'm not a murderer either. :-)

Alas, if I could, I'd slaughter ALL my children! I may love them, but it's only fear that prevents me from ripping their little hearts out! (You should know, having seen how many story's I've developed only to abandon them to other more pressing story ideas.)

Alas, if I could, I'd slaughter ALL my children! I may love them, but it's only fear that prevents me from ripping their little hearts out! (You should know, having seen how many story's I've developed only to abandon them to other more pressing story ideas.)

That's why I have so many slow cooking on the back burners. A slow roasting will do them good.

That's why I have so many slow cooking on the back burners. A slow roasting will do them good.

It also improves their flavor when you finally do slaughter them! 'D

*Those are the raw, unadjusted scores for each chapter that I logged in a spreadsheet

That's what I assumed, which also explains the lower scores for the first chapters, as it typically takes readers a little while to get into the heart of the story where the essential conflicts become obvious. Before that, you're often painting the scenario that's about to radically change in one way or another.

Spreading the time out further (less often than every other day) would also boost your scores, as the longer the story posts, the more people likely to discover it on the "New Stories List" (see the increased scores of long-running stories for evidence).

Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't. I typically write between 50,000 to 120,000 words per story, at an average of around 8,000 words per post that means about 14 to 30 days to post a story. Since I don't live for the scores or the downloads, if it does affect to scores or not doesn't worry or interest me at all. I base my posting spacing on what should interest a reader - which is where my interests lay.

Also, after the first chapter is posted at SoL I upload all the rest of the chapters into the Wizard with future dates so I don't have to remember to be home to post on schedule. Being every other day is very easier to calculate the next date to set in the Wizard's posting schedule. Thus it's easier for me to do the posting.

I'd recommend every six days. Stories are ranked by the last seven day's downloads. For example, if you post on Monday the number of downloads used for ranking will climb through Sunday and then drop on the eighth day, the next Monday.

In other words, your posting schedule shifts by a full day each week it posts. Do you have a specific first post day, or do you simply post every sixth day? (I may have to try that technique, just to see whether it makes a difference or not.)

My basic philosophy has always been to post on specific days, so readers always know when to check in for the newest story (so they aren't fumbling for a story which isn't there).

I'd say no longer than 7 days. Perhaps you could do twice a week on fixed days (such as Monday & Friday)

That's typically what I do, so I'm set. I'm curious, though, whether this consistently achieves higher scores (likely requiring someone with a few books already posted to test). It wouldn't be any harder to post every six days, but it transfers the responsibility of tracking the dates from the author to the reader.

My reason is that no matter how much an author's first story may impress others, the author will learn from writing it. In later years they'll cringe at the mistakes they see when they re-read it.
Authors may as well get their first one out there ASAP and learn as much as possible from readers' feedback.
I suggest you don't attempt to revise your first story, yet, and I understand an author's first story is dear to their heart.
I suggest waiting until after you complete your second, or fifth, story. You may then decide to completely rewrite it and know how to. It's almost inevitable it will have some problems that are beyond fixing. Also, very few people would read a revised version you posted now.
I suggest you'll learn more by starting something new.

Okay, now this is REALLY annoying - I have to admit that you're right, too. You've actually just suggested exactly what I was planning on doing.

Man, what's the world coming to? :)

Man, what's the world coming to? :)

Even pigs turn up treasures when rooting around in their mud-filled sties. 'D You don't have to spend all your time in the mud to reap their few decent ideas.

It's almost inevitable it will have some problems that are beyond fixing. Also, very few people would read a revised version you posted now.
I suggest you'll learn more by starting something new.

That sounds good, in theory, but my earliest stories have always been my consistent highest scorers and biggest sellers, despite how much I've improved my techniques and raised my standards. It's reached the point, I'm terrified of 'mucking' with my earlier stories by improving them, for fear they won't be as popular. On the other hand, those earlier stories' scores are putting my more recent efforts to shame (I finally addressed this, by moving The Catalyst to Premiere status, where it'll continue to generate reads, but will encourage more people to purchase copies while also reducing (hopefully) the lower scores of my later stories.

As always, it's hard to know how these schemes work out in real time, and to make up for removing the stories from those who can't afford them, I'm shifting the free versions to another SOL site, but the sales of Catalyst while they've always been strong, have been stronger since I first implemented this change.

How much writing had you done before the Catalyst series? My theory was the numerous authors known for never publishing anything as good as their first novel probably had a lot of practice at failing before their first success.

It's funny you should ask. After asking me about my 'abandoned story' collection, I started nosing around (looking for versions of stories I recalled writing but couldn't find) and found a series of short stroke stories I wrote before ever posting anything. There were 26, ranging in size from 2,000 to 9,000 words, including 3 in a series (all uncompleted) which had a 17,000 word version. There's no telling how many I deleted outright, and many of those dated a full eight years before I posted Catalyst.

So yeah, I invested some time trying to come up with a story, before deciding to abandon the stroke story format and instead moving towards something with a little more meat on it's bones.

Now I'd rather wait six months and get a new story totally done and then post it instead of fighting deadlines, even if they were only self-imposed ones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in deadlines, but it's easier to maintain when you have the chapters already in the can. I typically believe in writing (at least one) new chapter for every one you post, revising another, and editing a third. If you post 2 chapters every week, that means working on six chapters each week. If real life intervenes, you can sit on it for a few days, but at the end of the week, you know you've got to put in the time. (And if you don't, you can still post anyway.) But it helps keeps the fire to your feet, forcing you to dance when many simply decide they're 'too busy' to write, and thus never finish anything beyond their first book.

I would now say:
- You will learn more if you post your first lengthy story, or two, as you write to get feedback early, and then post only after you complete stories.
- You will learn most by doing whatever it takes to post completed stories. :-)

That's especially apt, as few of us ever expect our stories to be popular (i.e. appeal to many readers). Thus getting feedback reassures you that your ideas are worth exploring.

In my case, I decided to explore issues (incest, past-lives, multi-dementionalism) along with techniques (complex sentences, complex ($10 words), more common in pre-1950's novels). As such, I didn't particularly care whether the stories appealed to anyone else or not, as I was writing the kind of story I couldn't find in a bookstore.

I'd further qualify your response to include: "... but keep your first story relatively short (less than 50+ chapters), so you can get a better feel for what works and what doesn't before committing years of your life to a single story. I've noted that many authors who begin with such stories rarely write any others, frequently burning themselves out in the process and suffering substantial writers' block afterwards. Like Ross's Joseph Heller example, after producing such a phenomenal work, why even attempt another?

I'm going to revise the opinion I expressed earlier, and StarFleet Carl agreed with.
I would now say:
- You will learn more if you post your first lengthy story, or two, as you write to get feedback early, and then post only after you complete stories.
- You will learn most by doing whatever it takes to post completed stories. :-)

Dammit, Ross, quit that. You're making too much sense on here. Go back to your nitpicking and arguing about little stuff that doesn't matter. Because your revision sounds even better and I'm agreeing with you.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I suppose...

:)

Mind you, some will come back and say something might be good for a sequel, but those are a lot rarer than the ones who want to tell me where to go with the story while it's being posted. I often wonder how some of the other authors handle those people.

I've found I'm often able to apply the 'fixes' to sequels, much more easily than I can add them to existing stories (and I often do). Hell, the entire premise of Speaking With Your Demons was based on some off-the-cuff reactions from an editor who had better ideas than my main character (in The Demons Within) had.

3. I can put the completed story out as an e-pub on Lulu while it's still being posted at SoL and some impatient readers will go to Lulu and pay for it

What's more, many SOL readers will wait until the entire story is posted (for free) and they've already finished reading it before they purchase the book as a way to encourage the author to continue writing. As you said, I then invest that money back into the next book, trying to make my books better to 'pay the money forward'.

I'm getting real tired of seeing this happen. I appreciate a good pun, but try to save them for after a topic has already derailed in the future.

Better yet, instead of simply inserting a meaningless pun, include it in with an honest contribution (something I'm NOT doing, at the moment)! That way, hopefully, people will respond to the comment, and then add to the pun when they're done.

Note: I've wrestled with this problem with ad-hoc punning before, but never figured out any central answer for every circumstance.

However, seeing as there was no response to my last post, I'm guessing the discussion effectively petered out on it's own. :(

I appreciate a good pun, but try to save them for after a topic has already derailed in the future.

84 posts on a topic of this nature should have given everyone who wanted to share their opinion the opportunity to do so.

Many of us reach a point where we think a topic has been run into the ground and is now going nowhere. That is when the puns start to appear.

Many of us reach a point where we think a topic has been run into the ground and is now going nowhere. That is when the puns start to appear.

I try to sprinkle them in whenever the topic becomes too heavy-handed (i.e. people start attacking one another, rather than discussing the topics). As such, I interject them precisely to lighten the topic, rather than to derail a topic that's already gone off the rails.

For me, it's not so much trying to be funny as it's a way to avoid hurting people's feelings.

I think the only practical solution for your problem is entering exchanges yourself with questions to reopen exchanges which begin to drift off topic.

That's always a valid point. If you come across an interesting thread, and you have an opinion on the topic or have questions which haven't been addressed, then feel free to post your own take on it.

Many of the regulars here are eager to help, so we'll offer what we can. We're always interested in new opinions, it's hearing the same two or three opinions for the eighty-third time which gets tiring.

How did she seal about the Navy?

Duh! She clapped and barked, waving her pretty little tail. 'D In return, they fed her something fishy!

I appears common to refer to people as 'that' and I cringe every time. I am a 'who', not a 'that.' Personhood, dammit.

I actually had to struggle to decide whether demons, fairies and dragons qualify as 'persons' deserving a "whom" or 'unknown creatures' earning the use of "that" and the pronouns of "it". I finally decided on personhood for all intelligent beings, including monkeys, dolphins, dogs and cats, and of course, extraterrestrial alien species.

So. Apparently the topic was dead and I hadn't realized it. And that this isn't the first time I hadn't realized it.

I don't think you're oblivious, by any stretch of the imagination. It's likely you simply weren't tracking this thread for long. The thread slowed down some time ago, but every now and then, someone else comes along and addresses the issues raised, which breaths a little new life into it, but since the thread was already largely played out, that brief breathe of life doesn't last long.

In general, the best comments on a topic occur in the first dozen posts. After that, they fall into the see-saw debate of "yes it is" vs. "no it isn't". That back and forth will often span hundreds of individual posts, but the discussion typically won't advance much since neither side is willing to relent to give up their established positions, which they've already outlined early on in the process. (Which is WHY I and others feel the need to relieve the tensions with a few humorous puns.

"Are you dead yet, Mary Queen of Topics?"

"No."

AJ

"Are you dead yet, Mary Queen of Topics?"

"No."

"How about you, Frank, Queen of the torts?"

"Nope. I'm still alive and raring to go, too." 'D

Try stirring the pot and see what pops up.

"How about you, Frank, Queen of the torts?"

Is Frank incensed?

AJ

We're heavy on the puns - the thread must be dead.

Yet we keep posting them regularly, so they're right on target!

Keep the thread alive, keep posting puns. 'D

Why did the robot sea monster sink? It had a Kraken it's hull. :P

Since when did the ancient word Kraken become a robot? It's apparently not tied at all to the ancient Greeks. The name instead derives (according to Widipedia) from the Norwegians in the sixteenth century.

Talking to agents etc, as a rule of thumb they expect a good quality dead-tree author to churn out two 80 Kword novels a year.

That's with all the back and forth with the publisher's editors to amend the story to suit the publisher as well as the author.

I'vve taken several weeks yo do a 50,000 word novel when I've had an issue with a scene or two, and have also completed a 100,000 word novel within two weeks, then took several weeks going through the editors and proof readers on each of them.

When I get an idea for a new story I can usually write a few scenes and the outline of about 10,000 words in an hour or two.

NaNoWriMo aims at 50,000 words in a month, and many people exceed that. My first NaNoWriMo attempt took me ten days to write 65,000 words and do two self edit runs, then it went to my editing crew for their normal 6 week process.

Since every chapter I posted has its own title, I've no problem to formally name them chapters.

"Chapter where Taylor Goes to Town"
"Chapter where Taylor Visits the Movies"
"Chapter where Taylor Meets a new girl"

'D

Ending a chapter with a cliff hanger is probably fine. I ended Time Scope 2 with a cliff hanger. Some of my readers let me know they don't like 'Perils of Pauline' endings.

I prefer resolving the outstanding conflict when you conclude the book, although that still leaves the central conflict remaining in an ongoing series. Cliffhangers are difficult to avoid in serial postings, as typically chapters feature specific episodes, which typically end when the episode revolves, not when the characters are out of danger. What's more, if you can time them so they fall on the week end, the added tension typically drives interest in the next chapter (i.e. it pays to leave the readers waiting for a short time).

But I agree, I don't appreciate incomplete endings. Even if you've got to kill someone off, I prefer clean endings over incomplete ones.