Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

Loooong chapters

jimq2 🚫

I think my biggest peeve is a long, 100+kb, story that is posted as one piece and not broken up into chapters or that have long chapters. Some are much too long to be read in one sitting, and are a real mess trying to find your place when you come back the next day, or move to a different computer/tablet. There used to be a feature where SoL would break long stories into shorter chapters and put in a note that the chapter breaks were set by SoL, not the authors. Some of those breaks made for weird reading! Chapter breaks are the reader's friends.

JimQ2

Replies: tendertouch Dinsdale Switch Blayde limab

tendertouch 🚫

@jimq2

I wonder why your browser doesn't keep track of where you are? I just went back to a longer story posted as one file to check something and it took me back to where I'd last been when searching for something who knows how long ago (No One's Ice and Fire)

It might be because I've enjoyed so many of the Discworld books (most have no chapters), but I don't miss them when they're not there.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@tendertouch

I wonder why your browser doesn't keep track of where you are?

I hate looooong chapters too. I've set my browser to clear all cookies when I close it because I visit some weird and wonderful websites while doing story research. So my browser can't keep track of my position.

I found SOL's automatic chapter and page breaks very useful.

AJ

Replies: jimq2 Dinsdale

jimq2 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I've set my browser to clear all cookies

Good practice. I always clear at shutdown. I also read on my desktop, laptop, and 2 different tablets. One tablet is mostly used with ePubs, and the other at night and waiting rooms.

JimQ2

Dinsdale 🚫

@awnlee jawking

I've set my browser to clear all cookies when I close it because I visit some weird and wonderful websites while doing story research.

Doesn't your browser support "Private Browsing"? I have two windows, one "normal" with cookies and one "private". The normal one is set to flush cache when I close it, but some of the information in the cookies is too convenient to allow it to be just junked.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Dinsdale

Doesn't your browser support "Private Browsing"?

Yes, but until the end of my computer day, I find it more convenient to keep cookies. And private browing seems to give some websites indigestion.

AJ

Replies: julka

julka 🚫

@awnlee jawking

On firefox and chrome, private browsing sessions last until the last private browsing window is closed. So if you open a private browser at the start of the day, and then do whatever research you need in a second private browsing window, your cookies will last in the private session until you close the window you minimized at the start. It's essentially an ephemeral profile for the browser.

Dinsdale 🚫

@jimq2

There used to be a feature where SoL would break long stories into shorter chapters and put in a note that the chapter breaks were set by SoL, not the authors.

I had forgotten that that feature had been turned off, if I ever even knew.
Given that https://storiesonline.net/s/11279/the-flats by Lucy Reese (424 KB or 79,334 words) is now just one chapter, you are definitely right.

Replies: Gauthier

Gauthier 🚫
Updated:

@Dinsdale

Three are still a few multipart stories where Chapter n posted as a single chapter was broken as Chapter nA, Chapter nB, etc. but in this case there was no note explaining that the break was artificial. IIRC, some authors at the time started to break their long chapters themselves and use that same asinine numbering to have more posting days. It was a good way to post piecemeal while keeping the real chapter break logical, but once a chapter was completed, it's part should have been merged. But of course that was not possible without readers getting lost.

Replies: Michael Loucks

Michael Loucks 🚫

@Gauthier

It was the artificial chapter breaks that led me to elect to set my own chapter word target and write toward that target (roughly 6000 to 6500 words). I've maintained that, despite the elimination of automatic chapter breaks.

Switch Blayde 🚫

@jimq2

I did a search on Google about starting new chapters in fiction and, lately, Google often invokes its AI rather than return a list of links. This is what the AI defined to be the key points to consider when deciding to start a new chapter. Note, none had to do with length.

1. Change in setting: Moving to a different location within the story.

2. Time jump: Shifting to a different time period.

3. Perspective change: Switching between different characters' viewpoints.

4. Plot turning point: Reaching a critical moment in the story where the direction changes.

5. Cliffhanger ending: Leaving the reader with suspense at the end of a scene, prompting them to turn to the next chapter.

Numbers 1–3 are the basic reasons for starting a new scene (which is often a new chapter). Number 3 is when the story is told from multiple POVs, like 3rd-person limited multiple or multiple 1st-persons.

But it was numbers 4 and 5 that caught my eye. I've said my chapter breaks are influenced by the thriller novels I read. Well, numbers 4 and 5 seem to fit that genre handsomely.

Replies: Robin G. Lovell

Robin G. Lovell 🚫

@Switch Blayde

When writing, I typically apply one of those five key points once I reach my word target.

limab 🚫

@jimq2

John Ringo/David Weber's We Few got sent to the publisher without chapter breaks (an oversight). The publisher printed it as is - he had a slightly warped sense of humor. So it happens even in dead tree publishing.

limab

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Loooong chapters

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