Forum: Bug Report and Feature Requests

I enjoy the much better reader interaction I get from publishing small chapters over time instead of dumping the whole story in one go, but trying to keep the submission form straight is sending me crazy!

I understand that I can post multiple chapters at once if I have "Chapter n[: Title]" on a line of its own. However, they all get published together.

Can we extend this to allow a schedule to be specified too? Perhaps something like "Chapter n[: Title[: datetime]]"?

This could be implemented as simply as making the code that handles the form submission just split it and insert multiple chunks into the queue. Or there could be some complicated thing that helps reduce the burden on moderators checking over stuff and publishing it.

I complete a story prior to posting then I post the first chapter. Once that's moderated and up on the site I can then use the submission system to post each chapter with a different date set in advance for each chapter. It emans I post an entry in the Wizard for each chapter, but once they're in the system I can forget about them and let the system display them as each date rolls around.

It sounds like you have multiple chapters in a single file. Submit the chapters as separate files, each with a posting date.

Start each chapter file with:

story name
author name
chapter name
(then the chapter text)

That's how most of us do it (posting each chapter separately, but with different posting dates to be delivered over time). As you've noticed, if you spread the chapters posts out, over time, you attract readers who might never have noticed your stories if you'd posted them all at once. Moreover, there's the magic of anticipation. For some strange reason, readers seem to appreciate having to wait for the next chapter (as long as each chapter makes a satisfying read, that is). So posting on a regular, consistent basis helps too.