Desiderius Price

TBH, that sounds like a *LOT* to digest in a single narrative. I had a similar issue with mine. Essentially, my *main* story is about the group of people escaping the planet (this one). What I had started to do was to try to write the backstory (as mega-flashbacks) to each ofthe characters of the group (over a hundred characters on this voyage). This is where confusion would reign. I’d talk about a particular person in the past tense (ie dead), but in the next chapter, that person would be alive given the flashback nature. (Even had a review that stated this issue… they were confused.) Thus, I split the stories off, and it was a GREAT decision even though I’ve yet to make any progress that main story. For instance, Alaska Trekkers was the first spin off, focused on two. To be fair, it almost reads like two stories by itself, the very strong “inciting incident” that sets up the conditions for the second part, the evolving social conditions which effectively pushed the two characters into joining the main quest. It’s now a 206kword story. From this story, I was able to create a halloween oneshot (The Phone) and a holiday oneshot (The Phone, Part II). Then, I was working on the backstory to the main protagonist of the main story, simply the evolving childhood of him and his friends, turning it into an episodic serialization. However, I realized I needed a swimming instructor for him, which led to Jefferey. YES, it’s a rabbit hole filled with plot bunnies. However, TBH, it’s quite fun and lets me explore aspects of this society the main group of people are fleeing, and why these characters are being persecuted, pressured into taking what could almost be described as a suicide pact (not their intent, because they’ll turn it into a chance to survive/thrive). Overall, I think this does better justice to each character. In the main story, might have some mention to their backstory, but I won’t have to go into three chapters of detail. (And it does create some interesting cross-overs between the backstories too.) My suggestion is that you do the same, peeling the flashbacks & backstory off into separate tales. Lets you focus each one onto a specific character. If a reader on the main story is curious about character X, they know where they can turn for the detailed backstory. BTW – the above is a suggestion, nothing more. Advice to avoid having a million word monster intimidating the reader away.

40430

I know I had offered at one point, however, that faded and I’ve been focusing more on my own world-building software assistant (ie, database + wiki + cool analytics). Not asking for new features, simply illustrating how I use the existing features to try to crack that same question. That is a can of worms, I’m not of fan of canceling/scrubbing-from-history of things I don’t agree with. I’ll err on the side of over-tagging instead of under-tagging. Though I’ll now categorize the tags in the opening of the story, noting which ones are more (CYA) and which ones are “features”/main-themes. I’d love to say I write fine in a vacuum, but I don’t. I do need that occasional pat on the back, the kudos, to keep the motivation. Otherwise, I’ll drift away with “got better things to do at the moment?” which morphs into “why bother?” and I move along. Thus, I record my dragon prints every so often, which helps, to a degree. What *does* help is that as I’ve been squeezing on the finances, it keeps other distracting hobbies at bay.

Guess “appreciated” the effort I put in, is closer to the mark than “rave/love” it, and the gist is how to tease this out from the information at hand. A review/comment is definitely the gold star here, presumably they’ve read the material (aside from the flaming trolls). AO3’s kudos are an easy “like it” for the readers. Subscriptions/alerts hint they’re interested in the next installment. A public bookmark/favorite is an endorsement IMO. Even a private bookmark means they’re wanting to find it again (only AO3 seems to count those). Tallying dragon prints & hits is a last resort hint, because my stories don’t attract reviews.

Once you said “three chapters of flashbacks”… sounded like a backstory spin-off was a good idea. And might still be... even if only to help with writing the flashback scenes. (Also means you don’t need a complete story in the flashbacks either… the reader can go off and enjoy those backstories too.) However, the flashback format can be good when you’ve got a character reflecting on their emotional state at the time, and the implications to the present – which I did for that holiday story. Not saying do “X” or do “Y’, simply food for thought.

In my original story, I didn’t quote, so less apparent. And it covered the backstory to the main characters. However, went really fast and skimped greatly. Thus it became *way* better to spin it off into separate stories. As I was in fact doing several “flashbacks” to a lot of the characters, I realized spinning them off, make each character’s (or small group) backstory a separate story would do the whole thing justice. However, you’re right, doesn’t always work out that way. Now, you *could* still do the above as a separate backstory, in full. So, when the character needs to talk about themselves, you can cut it down to the essentials, or the like. Alternatively, a take I use in my potter fanfic, I basically start off… (small excerpt) Or, in one of my holiday oneshots, I did it as a flashback, the MC discussing a sin of his past to another. So for that, it’s dialogue back and forth as that other person asks questions.

Moving the discussion on flashbacks with @Wilde_Guess here.

Three chapter flashback? I tried doing something similar in my original and got everybody confused (including myself), so I’m still in the process of breaking it apart into multiple back stories (it’s now nearly eight years in the making). A reviewer noted the confusion, and that’s when I realized I’d do better justice breaking the stories apart. Drawback is the main story’s languished since then, because I’ve been busy going down the proverbial plot bunny rabbit hole showing how messed up the society is. Do I regret this choice? No. Each story is pretty strong on its own, though there are characters common to all of them. Some are stories-stories outright, others are episodic serials, and some have become fodder for the Halloween & Holiday oneshots. Though I might’ve crossedthe line when I threw that nun into a woodchipper…. (in one of the backstories, not real life). I tend to not read much anymore, I’m much more of a creator than consumer, feels more fulfilling to me. Though I’ll try to review when I do read.

That’s the question that even published authors have difficulty answering. If you have fans writing wikis and fanfiction based on your stories, then you’ll know you’ve got an audience/fan base (or at least had one before going on homophobic/transphobic rants on twitter). Movie deals help Per chapter & month does help, a bit. Simply cause you know they’re at least hitting “next-chapter” button. My main potter fanfic on FFN, for instance, has 420 views & 39 visitors so far this month. Of that, I see 48 views/29 visitors to the first chapter, while subsequent chapters are 3-8 views/3-5 visitors. The day-day histogram shows that about six bots came through, drowning out the metrics (or humans clicking next-next-next w/o reading or doing very-fast-skimming). I do know, though, many of the “hits” come from people finding a link to the story, maybe from another author’s favorites, and deciding to move on (or bookmarking it for later). AFF & AO3 only have the whole-story hit counters. By recording these daily, I know that a recent post can generate one to two hundred hits/day, but it’ll settle down to the single-digits per day within a week or two. However, as they’re only whole-story, I don’t know if it’s something browsing the first chapter & moving on, vs reading the whole thing & enjoying it. AO3 has Kudos and number of bookmarks/subscriptions available, so that helps measure some level of interest. FFN has the favorites & alerts, also relevant. But, when it comes to knowing that readers enjoy the story, reviews are that golden ticket, the best measure. However, maybe one reader in a hundred will leave a review, if that. (My *HIGHEST* review count here on AFF is NINE, the average is around 2-3 per story. My biggest is that main potter fanfic on FFN, with 180.) Moral of the story, if you want to trend set, try to always review when you read.

“Dragon prints” is basically the “hit count”, to your story. AO3 has the same metric, as “Hits” whole story. However, FF.net does have the per-chapter breakdown, which is more useful (that is until you start deleting chapters...) Not only per chapter, FF.net breaks it down per MONTH, by day within that month, and by (most likely) country of the visitor. FF.net’s breakdown is how I can tell bots are the primary readers of my stories there

40428

In the search for infinity, loops are bound to happen 40426

40424 (so, felt like a repeat?)

40424

40422

40418

40416

40414

40412

40410

40408

40406