Forum: Author Hangout

I can't read a 'stroke story' that is a vignette.

It bores me shitless. Just when I fall in love with the characters they end it.

Vulgus, Mike McGifford, those authors are the kind that write stories that appeal to me.

As I said, many of my stories of 30+ chapters did well.

I guess I am leaning towards splitting them.

...The War Against the Chtorr

Oh that one I know all to well!

He has only been promising that the next 2 books are "almost finished" for 27 years now. I have long ago given up expecting ever seeing the series finished.

Well hopefully my story won't be completed posthumously, have you been talking to my doctor or something?

Well, it's only been a couple years since the second-last was "released to beta-readers"...

And I take that with a grain of salt the size of Mt. Everest.

Way back in 1993 I remember reading the last book he completed, and thinking "Awesome, just another year or so!" And even then he claimed the next was almost done.

And over the years he has gone through 2 or 3 new publishers, has said he has completely re-written the books at least twice, and I have pretty much given up. I actually used to run a GURPS campaign based on the series, and have pretty much figured out how the Chtorran ecology works decades ago.

***I have been a fan of this series for over 2 decades now, and am eagerly awaiting the next book (have been for over a decade now). And I also have speculations as to the origin and outcome. Mostly, the main characters have been looking for an "intelligence" behind the infestation. They believe that there is a "superior intelligence" behind it all, be it the worms, bunnymen, or something not seen yet. I bet that when it is all said and done, there is no intelligence behind it. It is simply a pattern of creatures that have been infested with the "nerve hair symbiots". And as the "infestation" expands, it adds new creatures to the invasion. And how they got to Earth is also already stated: Shambler Trees. Their seeds are able to survive Earth entry, and contain "spores" of a great many creatures. And if we loose the war, some time in the future such "seeds" would be ejected from Earth, complete with a devolved form of humans and other earth fauna, complete with red fur.***

The above written by me, circa 2007 on the Wiki Talk page about this series. Funny thing is, I actually wrote the first "major expansion" of the Wikipedia article, at about the time I wrapped my my last Chtorran campaign 2006).

I even used to correspond with him, about 20 years ago. When he told me the next book was completed and would be out the next year (that was 2000). And back then he had offers from computer game companies, movie studios, even an animated movie (not to mention the songs that had been released). Now, the property is so dead I honestly think he would be lucky if he even got a publisher anymore.

I still read them every year or so, and is sad, because the things he wrote about as "sci-fi" in the 1980's and early 1990's are now starting to slip from Sci-Fi to Sci-punk. Technology, mindsets, it would seem like the long awaited
"Chinese Democracy". Outdated and nostalgic because it took so long.

But GURPS just never seemed to have any popularity.
Probably a regional thing.

It is great if you want a nitch campaign. I only used it for Chtorr, because there was a rule book made for it, and the system works well in a modern era. One of the few good rules for 20-21st century settings (2003-2006 there were really none other for "modern").

And it was a lot of fun, as when I started only 2 people had read the books. And I did not go easy on them, the first time they met a worm everybody died. But after that they rebuilt and became kind of like bounty hunters, collecting samples and rewards for killing worms in the Southern Alabama - Florida Panhandle area. Kind of like Jim, if he was a mercenary and not in the Army.

Well, I've posted 20 chapters of "Resetting my bitch button" with the sections. I have 30 chapters written but 10 are in editing/still futzing with.

So far readership is about 800 per chapter. Which is steady but not great. The voting (other than a voting bomber) has been 7 or higher which is nice.

At one point the voice telling the story changes from the mother to the daughter. Do you think that may warrant a new story?
It's sort of a 6 chapter arc, because the mom is not the central focus of that part of the story but more of a background character.

At one point the voice telling the story changes from the mother to the daughter. Do you think that may warrant a new story?

What POV are you writing in? 1st, 3rd-limited, omniscient. It makes a difference.

Changing the POV character doesn't require a new story. It's common to tell a story from multiple POVs. In fact, the majority of stories may even do that.

A story has a beginning, middle, and end. Yeah, yeah, that's obvious. But
what does that really mean?

Plot = conflict. That means the protagonist wants/needs something and the antagonist is in the way. That's why the reader keeps reading. To root for the protagonist. To find out if he will succeed. The inciting incident is what happens to cause the conflict. Set the story in motion. That's the beginning.

The middle is the story. Depending on the length, there will be min-conflicts that are resolved only to create more mini-conflicts. (A short story typically has one conflict and no sub-plots.)

When the conflict is resolved, the story ends.

So back to your question. Has the conflict been resolved or are you simply giving the reader another character's (mom) perspective? My guess is it's the latter so it's not another story. It may be a sub-plot, but the original story hasn't ended.

Man V Nature isn't gonna give conflict.

Did you read the book "Alive"? (Man vs Nature.)

There's also Man vs Technology nowadays.

Don't think of conflict as a war or fight. It could be a comedy like "My Best Friend's Wedding." If you want to think of it as a challenge, that's fine.

If anyone is so inclined and willing to provide constructive feedback I'd love it.

https://storiesonline.net/s/22921/resetting-my-bitch-button

This story does have humiliation/BDSM in it - so if that is not your bag please don't feel in any way obligated.

The story changes narrator in the third act. The third act is focused on a nudist resort that is hosting a private event for campers away from the main area. I think personally this could be a standalone story except for it happens immediately following the events of act one and act two.

I have already completed those chapters and I am finalizing them, with act 4 changing narrators again as the family heads to Walt Disney World.

I'd really like to know if you think they should be segmented as standalones?

Readership has fallen off even more - with around 350 readers of the most recent chapters. This could be more my inability to be an interesting author instead of how I've organized the story and I realize that - but it may help to get a fresh perspective if it is a contributor.

I really think the nudist resort part adds a lot to the story.

The grand experiment to create a magnum opus story seems to have failed.

There are about 6,000 readers to the early chapter, 4,000 to the next and then it drastically drops off - about 400 for the final chapters.

Either I am a terrible writer or the idea of the long story did not work. It's a shame too because nudist colony stories seem to be quite popular and since that happens toward the end of the story it will seldom be read.

Spycraft

Spycraft only counts if your definition of "modern" is set entirely in the 50s to early 80s. :(

ISTR someone worked out that James Bond was a level 20 wheelman with some non-standard elements to the build. And XXX was viable too.

My argument wasn't with role-playing games, but rather with spy tales now seem relatively nonexistent in the modern era. Modern spies are professional hackers, who seek to exploit older software in corporate sites, rather than working again national spies. It's the 'profit-model' of personal spy craft. I'm not sure how anyone would even write an intriguing story about such a boring topic. Personally, I'd rather read about large-scale coding projects, rather than private for-profit semi-government sanctioned hackers.

Personally, I prefer to wait until a story is completely posted to read it. This includes series.

I've long championed this view, having starting with multiple Day-in-the-Life adventures which ultimately ended up at OVER 1 Million words (spread across 3 to 6 books).

Write your first draft, meeting it unfold naturally, keeping the stories general 'theme' and conflicts at hand, and you can easily cut the unnecessary fluff on each subsequent revision, especially as you learn more about the characters and their situation as the story unfolds (thereby allowing you to foreshadow the upcoming conflicts, with plenty of red herrings to prevent you from giving away any major plot twists.

As for series, each book must form a complete story in itself, without simply continuing the earlier story in a new book. This again means you need to focus on the themes and conflicts unique to each book, while keeping your eyes on the entire series theme and conflicts, which only unfold a little at a time. But, once you identify the key elements of each book, the rest naturally falls away, largely on it's own. By keeping your SHORT story description in front of you, you should know which details are ultimately nonessential to the plot, and which are vital.

Kinda.

It's reasonable for a series to be a long story.

Again, it's all in your focus. As long as each book has it's own theme (emphasis) and self-contained conflicts, while still advancing the overall series' theme/conflict, then it works. But it takes a bit of work to master how you segment each book, especially if you start with an epic length story and merely slice and dice it into individual books. Instead, it's best (IMHO) if authors consider how they divide one series into multiple books, before they write the entire thing. But, that may be asking too much from the many SOL authors who prefer epic length stories.

Again, readers typically demand a resolution at the end of each book, especially if there's a substantial delay between each 'publication'.

It took me a while before I finally mastered how to split a longer stories into separate books, and the difference is both substantial and rewarding (for readers). I started chopping a single overly long story into multiple books, multiple times, before I finally developed the knack for it. Now, it's almost second nature, but ... it requires (for me at least) writing out each book's themes and book-specific conflicts, which you use while revising to keep each book's contents specific to each book.