Ugh, I just went and outlined a whole other story

[Deadman]

This having ideas thing is getting annoying. I was going to make it a status update but apparently there’s a problem doing that.

I was out an event over the weekend and for whatever reason my mind went to thinking about a story that I had mostly left behind for a while.

There was a chapter that I wrote probably a year or two ago. It’s now up to 11 chapters for the story. It’ll probably end up here on this site.

What’s annoying is that I already have like 6 story ideas already in my head and several I haven’t posted yet. Maybe I should just start posting them instead of spacing them out.

Thoughts about posting more than one story at a time?

 

[Desiderius Price]

5 hours ago, Deadman said:

Thoughts about posting more than one story at a time?

*whistles as I check mine*  Got three WIPs and two needing rewrites in the AFF archives now. 

I tend to write on the story I’m most passionate about in the moment, which right now, is my potter fanfic (which is on AO3/FFN instead).

[Deadman]

16 hours ago, Desiderius Price said:

*whistles as I check mine*  Got three WIPs and two needing rewrites in the AFF archives now. 

I tend to write on the story I’m most passionate about in the moment, which right now, is my potter fanfic (which is on AO3/FFN instead).

Well part of my issue is that I got a lot of writing done while AFF was having to be read only. So now I’m thinking about what I should do.

Maybe just post the, I think 3 finished stories? Instead of just waiting until the current story I’m posting is done.

[BronxWench]

I tend to have a couple of WIPs going at one time. It’s just how my brain works, I think. I’ve never been good at the linear thing when it comes to writing.  

[GeorgeGlass]

My plot bunnies are so fecund that I have to limit myself to having no more than twenty stories in progress at a time. 

[Desiderius Price]

8 hours ago, Deadman said:

Well part of my issue is that I got a lot of writing done while AFF was having to be read only. So now I’m thinking about what I should do.

Maybe just post the, I think 3 finished stories? Instead of just waiting until the current story I’m posting is done.

Well, If you’re looking to maximize exposure on the “fresh-in” lists to attract readers, definitely spread out the chapter postings, no faster than one every couple of days.

To me, I generally post what I’m working on, so in your case, maybe post the finished stories when you’ve got a “dry spell” in your actual writing?  Ideas since I tend not to sit that long (though I totally understand the AFF woas late last year)

[Deadman]

13 hours ago, Desiderius Price said:

Well, If you’re looking to maximize exposure on the “fresh-in” lists to attract readers, definitely spread out the chapter postings, no faster than one every couple of days.

To me, I generally post what I’m working on, so in your case, maybe post the finished stories when you’ve got a “dry spell” in your actual writing?  Ideas since I tend not to sit that long (though I totally understand the AFF woas late last year)

One every couple of days? Currently my schedule is once a month. I have thought about maybe posting in other sections.

For instance, my current piece that’s getting posted monthly is in the Buffy category. Whereas I have some that would go in the Television category.

But a lot of my finished pieces are in the Buffy category.
 

[Deadman]

17 hours ago, BronxWench said:

I tend to have a couple of WIPs going at one time. It’s just how my brain works, I think. I’ve never been good at the linear thing when it comes to writing.  

Do you post them as you go?

[Deadman]

17 hours ago, GeorgeGlass said:

My plot bunnies are so fecund that I have to limit myself to having no more than twenty stories in progress at a time. 

Do you at least post them or is it a wait until they’re finished?

[Desiderius Price]

13 minutes ago, Deadman said:

One every couple of days? Currently my schedule is once a month. I have thought about maybe posting in other sections.

Depends on how fast you write and want to post.  If you’re taking a super long vacation but can’t write, then that might be a good time to post.  For me, this past month the wind has really gotten into my writing sails for my potter fanfic, so it’s chapters per week right now.

[Deadman]

40 minutes ago, Desiderius Price said:

Depends on how fast you write and want to post.  If you’re taking a super long vacation but can’t write, then that might be a good time to post.  For me, this past month the wind has really gotten into my writing sails for my potter fanfic, so it’s chapters per week right now.

Well being unemployed is like a super long vacation.

So I have a couple stories I completed. One is a 7 part story in the Buffy category, a single chapter story in the TV category which may or may not turn into more chapters later. A two part story in the Buffy category. A 5 part story that I wrote a long time ago which isn’t finished in the Buffy category. I also have 5 chapters finished of the story I’m currently writing the second to last chapter for. Also, I have a very old story that I’m debating putting out there again because it’s probably the darkest story I ever wrote which is finished in the Buffy category.

Technically, I have 3 finished chapters of the piece that inspired this post in the TV category which I will probably be combining into one chapter or possibly two. Mainly because the first two are mostly set up and the third kinda begins what I outlined over the weekend.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Deadman

[BronxWench]

36 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Do you post them as you go?

I tend to post as I go, which might mean a serious wait for my next update if it’s not a one-shot.

[Deadman]

24 minutes ago, BronxWench said:

I tend to post as I go, which might mean a serious wait for my next update if it’s not a one-shot.

Okay, maybe I should just go ahead and post some of the stuff. I suppose I space things out to make sure people have the time to notice the story update.

[Desiderius Price]

49 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Okay, maybe I should just go ahead and post some of the stuff. I suppose I space things out to make sure people have the time to notice the story update.

Like Bronx, I basically post as I go, or at least that’s the goal.  I’ll wait a short while, preferably a week and a chapter, before I proofread.  If I can keep it to a schedule, such as consistently post on Saturday or something, that gives it predictability.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Desiderius Price

[Deadman]

7 minutes ago, Desiderius Price said:

Like Bronx, I basically post as go, or at least that’s the goal.  I’ll wait a short while, preferably a week and a chapter, before I proofread.  If I can keep it to a schedule, such as consistently post on Saturday or something, that gives it predictability.

Totally get that. I might have a problem doing the proofread because I have a similar policy. Currently, I just post one chapter at a time and reread it probably twice before posting.

[GeorgeGlass]

7 hours ago, Deadman said:

Do you at least post them or is it a wait until they’re finished?

Well, for chaptered stories, I post the chapters as I finish them. But I sometimes have a story that is obviously going to be long but that doesn’t seem suitable to split up into chapters, and those stories take a while to get posted. 

[Desiderius Price]

We talk...and what am I’m in the middle of?   Built up a huge lead on my potter fanfic (like eight chapters worth), so I’ve started posting them daily until I cut it down.  (August’s simply been very productive with the writing.)

[Deadman]

17 hours ago, GeorgeGlass said:

Well, for chaptered stories, I post the chapters as I finish them. But I sometimes have a story that is obviously going to be long but that doesn’t seem suitable to split up into chapters, and those stories take a while to get posted. 

Makes sense. So how long are the stories that take extra time? 30 pages? That’s usually what I have, though it’s more often chaptered.

[Deadman]

13 hours ago, Desiderius Price said:

We talk...and what am I’m in the middle of?   Built up a huge lead on my potter fanfic (like eight chapters worth), so I’ve started posting them daily until I cut it down.  (August’s simply been very productive with the writing.)

Daily? How long is the story that you’re writing? It seems to be incredibly long.

[Desiderius Price]

10 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Daily? How long is the story that you’re writing? It seems to be incredibly long.

1.3M “short” story    Posted Chapter 196 this morning, working on 203 which I hope to have finished shortly.  (It’s posted on AO3, not here.)

[Deadman]

6 minutes ago, Desiderius Price said:

1.3M “short” story    Posted Chapter 196 this morning, working on 203 which I hope to have finished shortly.  (It’s posted on AO3, not here.)

Damn, the longest I ever got was 114 chapters personally. Though I would say that I started writing in more detail.

My 114 chapter story is 140,000 words. Whereas the story I started after finishing that one was 22 chapters and had 80,000 words. So my number of chapters get shorter but the amount of words stays the same.

[Desiderius Price]

2 minutes ago, Deadman said:

Damn, the longest I ever got was 114 chapters personally. Though I would say that I started writing in more detail.

My 114 chapter story is 140,000 words. Whereas the story I started after finishing that one was 22 chapters and had 80,000 words. So my number of chapters get shorter but the amount of words stays the same.

Using the posted word count, it’s averaging 6.7k/chapter for the explicit/adult version, or 5.6k/chapter for the cleaner version (which is also a paltry 450k/80 chapters).

Technically, its a rewrite ATM, because when I went to “restart” with a read through, it became the rewrite I’ve got going on; but filling in detail and it’s like 7x-8x the word count previously.  Way more detailed, covering things that used to be waved off with a single sentence “Harry and Ron took their girls out to restaurants, but separate restaurants” has become fully involved scenes.  I’ve also added in a new line of original characters (first years) that really round out what’s happening at Hogwarts during some key points; also restoring some of what was lost in a previous edit/prune. 

Overall, quite pleased with the outcome.

To some degree chapter length is preference.  Shorter chapters move at a faster pace, longer chapters can go deeper.  My “disasterous” edit of the potter fanfic (about 15 years ago), decided it’d be GREAT to merge chapters together to make super-long chapters (some in the 70-100k range), which made individual scenes almost nothing, drowned them into a wall of text.  That’s why this rewrite is undoing that change, thus I’ve got around 180 chapters where I used to have THREE.

[GeorgeGlass]

17 hours ago, Deadman said:

Makes sense. So how long are the stories that take extra time? 30 pages? That’s usually what I have, though it’s more often chaptered.

My first such story was 23 pages (and about 8,000 words). The two that I’m working on right now I’m not sure about, because each of them is split up into separate documents by subplot; later, I’ll put them all back together according to the outline. I’m finding this easier than having them all in the same document.

[Deadman]

And it just happened again. I had an idea for another story and outlined the story very quickly.

This is getting annoying.

[Desiderius Price]

6 hours ago, Deadman said:

And it just happened again. I had an idea for another story and outlined the story very quickly.

This is getting annoying.

Your plot bunnies seem to be having an orgy.