Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

I think the real problem is that in dead tree, these long series get chopped up into multiple books. The average reader isn't looking at the entire series at once.

Interesting. Often they're shelved right next to each other and they're certainly tagged as a series, but I can see your point. They don't look as long.

Actually, when he first wrote it, as his magnum opus caping a lifetime of work in linguistics, it flopped, and while it got some stella reviews, no one wanted to read it, so it essentially flopped commercially.

It was only in the mid-sixties, when the whole counter-culture movement began, rejecting the 'All-American' pro-war crowd, that it was 'rediscovered', and suddenly the more-modern readers couldn't get enough of it. And that's when the publisher insisted on splitting it into three separate books, purely to maximize their profits. And it worked, as it's been popular ever since, no matter which different turn the country as a whole took after that.

But as you can tell, I spend a LOT of time studying the story's history, as I've always considered it a literary masterwork of the highest order.

That pattern repeats often - neglected but quality work suddenly gains prominence decades later, often for reasons unrelated to the actual quality of the work.

Look at the story of 'It's A Wonderful Life', which owes much of its rediscovery to a copyright glitch. It was virtually unknown when copyright lapsed, and is now generally considered to be one of the best American films of all time.

And then there's a book like 'Rage' by Richard Bachmann aka Steven King. It came and went, was reissued and did moderately well (because the real author was revealed) - and then was withdrawn by King because he feared it might inspire copycat school shooters.

All of which is entirely beside the point of book length, but relates to the notion of rediscovered works.

And I agree: LotR is a masterwork.

As always, different generations, different tastes, as literary fashions change nearly as quickly as clothing fashions do (generally every generation vs. each separate 'season' of the year). But still, those tastes change fairly frequently.

I've always referred to stories written by military vets—usually as a part of their therapy—as 'gun porn', because their description of cleaning their weapon, is almost exactly like most pornagraphic of passages, as it's single-focused and unrelenting in it's approach.

Which I understand, as with someone in combat, having a working weapon is essential, and the act itself is typically calming and self-centering, another essential element, yet from a story standpoint, it's little better than the typical 'girl of the week' variety story, where the girls are essentially meaningless, they've so utterly interchangeable.

As always, the key is the whole story arch, not what's most satisfying for you (to get you're own nut off), as the focus should always been on the reader and NOT pleasing yourself, otherwise the entire thing is nothing but mental masturbation.

However, there are a LOT of these 'porn-type' stories, car-porn, gun-porn, 'mother'-porn (where someone is hung up on their mother due to some indecent in their past). So I usually end up abandon the whole thing when it first starts, guessing where it's going to end up. As I'm more interested in the story, rather than the particular kink.

I certainly don't mind the various kinks, yet if the particular IS the entire story, then there just nothing there for the average reader—most pony-stories fit into this category as well, with 'pony-porn'.

I can understand not liking serialized stories, especially those "in progress" which might not get finished.

That said, around here it's pretty clearly the way to build up an audience. A story needs to show up on the first page multiple times before a lot of people will start reading it. If I post the entire story at once, I get a small fraction of the readers/reviewers/commenters/etc. than if I post a chapter a week. Even then, it's become clear that I need to be posting multiple times a week.

It just really is noticeable how much the readership falls off if a story isn't front and center regularly and serialization's the only way to do that.

If I post the entire story at once, I get a small fraction of the readers/reviewers/commenters/etc. than if I post a chapter a week. Even then, it's become clear that I need to be posting multiple times a week.

For a story that long, reading it all in one go would be too daunting for most readers. Even long chapters can be daunting.

The optimum number of times to post each week is a question awaiting resolution. The older hands with high-scoring stories seem to choose once or twice a week, probably the latter more often.

I'm a bit like @REP in that there can be long gaps between my chapters. I know my readers hate me for it.

AJ

If I post the entire story at once, I get a small fraction of the readers/reviewers/commenters/etc. than if I post a chapter a week.

Snekguy has recently uploaded a story, 'Rule of Three'. I like Snekguy's stories and I would like to read it but at nearly 150,000 words I just don't have the time.

AJ

SOL is unlike any other story/book site, as most other places just offer books or stories, where they purchase the whole thing. Yet on SOL, everyone reads stories differently. Then, once they've read the entire story for free, they'll then purchase the story to encourage the author to continue writing.

So again, the best solution is to cater to both crowds, so you offer the finished book, for those too impatient to wait, while posting the story at a constant pace to help build the story rating over time (it's almost impossible to achieve a score of seven any other way).

However, the main benefit of this dual SOL approach, is that the direct feedback you receive from SOL readers, allows you to focus on your strengths and strengthening any particular storytelling weaknesses, as SOL readers are more than free with their suggestions, comments are reactions. Which is something you really can't get anywhere else, especially NOT through mainstream publishing, where then ONLY time you get direct feedback in on literary promotion tours, where you're traveling from one city to another, visiting multiple book stores, overstressed and exhausted and ready for it all to be over.

The feedback can be emotionally satisfying, yet the support and encouragement isn't nearly as helpful.

I shudder to think how quickly you'd read one of my stories! The longest is only about 260k words!

Still, after I posted that one, I realized that I couldn't post a story if it wasn't complete. (My hang up) I felt it wasn't fair to the readers.

I'm working on Knox #3 right now (editing what I've done, not writing) and it's 224k words and 37 finished chapters. Unfortunately, since I admitted I had PTSD after 30 years in EMS, I haven't written much. It's been almost 2 years since I wrote anything substantive.

Part of me wants to publish what's done so far, but my editor and I agree that would put me under too much pressure.

I won't publish Knox #3 until it's finished on my end.

When I've finished Knox #3, I'll post 2 chapters a week (1 on Mondays, 1 on Thursdays), or about 70-80k a week.

I also have a plan for Knox #4, a fan-fiction follow-on to Fail Safe, and the additional chapter/follow-on to Tovette, but who knows when I'll get around to all those..

That's why, I've always preferred, writing and editing the entire story, before posting word one online, so I can then offer the completed book for everyone who can't stand those long chapter 'teases'.

However, some phenomenal authors are utterly unable to write that way, so while I bitch and moan, I still dutifully read them, but it does get exhausting!

Most of the character lists I have seen in other author's stories are basically useless to me because they contain physical descriptions of the characters and rarely mention the characters role in the current and prior stories.

Ooh, I like this. Yeah, they've been useless to me before because they're just a list of names and maybe which group or family they're with. But tagging their role... hmmm....

Well, if "this" means the story I mentioned I was writing, I hope it doesn't get added to your "dislike the most" category. ;-)