Sequels

Goodgulf
My view is that a story has a beginning, middle, and an end. Once that story is written it can be hard to go back to those characters, because (hopefully) they have changed during that first story.

It can be hard to recapture a spark once things change.

I think that's why stories in a family, roommate, or school setting often lend themselves best to serials. The child, spouse, roomie misbehaves again as is spanked again. The offense and details leading up to later spankings change, but the cast of characters remain the same. Because the same characters appear in each story, we get to know them well and look forward to their next mistake.

To me that's writing a series, which is different than writing a story and then writing sequels. In a series you can plan a story arc and...

Here's an example of what I mean when I think of sequels. I wrote a story called "the Rest Stop" where a family practically enters the twilight zone when they stop for lunch at a rest stop on the highway. The kids are fascinated and bit freaked, but the adults just put it down to "the people here have different customs - no big deal". Spankings are seen and felt. When pressed for a sequel, I rewrote part of it from a different character's PoV (the explanation seems to have been lost when the story arrived in the library, but can be found at http://www.spanko.net/Spanking_Forums_Archives//default.aspx?f=5&m=227813&g=264315#m2 64315 ). If I were to return to that setting again, it would be next year's vacation where they stop at the same rest stop, but this time around they know what to expect. In short, I'd be balancing the old characters in the old setting but having completely different motives.

I love the serials most of all on this site, mainly because as an avid reader of fantasy (non-BDSM) I am used to really long stories and I never want them to end so long as they are still worth reading. The Priestess and The Prophecy are two of the longer serials on here and two of my personal favourites and I defy anyone to say that they are not good well-written stories. The Prophecy even looks like there is scope for a "sequel to the sequel" without getting tedious. As others have said, stories have a beginning, middle and end no matter how long they are, so long as they still hold the interest of the reader then long stories are always best for me. I actually dislike most stories that are too short, some of the longer short stories are probably little different in word count to some of the shorter serials and they tend to be the ones I prefer, I'm always a bit disappointed if I am enjoying a story and it ends too soon for my taste.

I wonder if those who don't much like serials dislike reading a lot (by which I mean longer written pieces of any kind) online anyway? I'd rather be sitting in an armchair reading myself rather than in front of my PC but I'm prepared to suffer for this site, LOL

I can't say that I really dislike reading serials, I just tend not to do so. A few that I've read I've enjoyed, but others I have found tedious (pretty much like anything). If I'm going to invest time in reading a lot, I'd rather have the variety of several stories rather than a longer single story. I consider a serial different from a a troy with sequels, in that it is often a single story, with a planned beginning middle and end (as stated by Goodgulf) rather multiple distinct stories with the same characters (at least some of them). tend to prefer the former (serials) to the latter (sequels), but that's just in general.

But I am NOT someone who refrains from reading longer works in general. I'm an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction novels of a wide range (and long ones as well as short ones). As much as I like stories about spanking (even having written a few), I find that my interest in something longer than a few thousand words pretty much depends on it being about something more than spanking. I can enjoy an episode about a couple into spanking, or suspend disbelief in order to enjoy a more far-fetched scenario, but in many cases (not all), I begin to find tedious waiting for the next spanking to occur. I want to be clear that this is just ME; it is not meant denigrate the very fine writing that goes into many wonderfully written stories (and serials) here.

I agree that serials are not sequels. Also note that multipart stories are not serials. To me a serial is like a soap opera, it's a continuing saga with the same setting and characters, allowing for the addition of new ones, and I do have a couple of these. Some times the line between a serial and a multi part gets blurry, but to me a multiple part story is a complete work that comes to an end, it is just split up into chapters for convenience sake. In print, it would be all bound together, but this is the internet. Most of my multi part stories come in at 5000-10,000 words. I have two novels here that are 35,000+ words, but they are complete works. The thing about a true serial is that you can put it aside and then come back and add new parts whenever you think of something for those characters in their situation. In fact I just sent in a couple of serial parts with athird on the way.

If that correlation is true at all, then I am the exception. I have been reading constantly since I learned to read, fiction, history, technical, whatever takes my fancy. Yet I mostly read individual stories on this site, for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on.

Yes, I write serials, I just seldom read them. Go figure.

Guy

Following on from what saetana said I wonder if fantophiles (I'm one too) enjoy serials because we're simply so conditioned to expecting multiple stories. There's hardly a fantasy story out there these days that is standalone, it's the rarest of beasts.

I'd add that on this site all multiple part stories are classified as "serials" a bit misleading if you just got here. I would venture to say that longer works seem to be less popular due to the time compression that the internet seems to impose and that it is difficult to stare at a screen reading text for any length of time. You can do this with a book in your lap but LED screens are not as cuddly.

Just to be a little clearer as I think the brackets got in the way, when I said about people who prefer shorter spanking fiction maybe not liking reading longer pieces in general I was referring to online reading ONLY, not offline reading of books or anything else. I don't much like reading huge pieces online myself, other than this site, its just not as comfortable as sitting in a chair (I'm sitting at my computer desk right now).

All I think can be drawn from this discussion is that you can't please all of the people all of the time so just aim to please some of the people some of the time and you should have at least some happy readers. I personally think more members should make an effort to comment on stories they have read and enjoyed (nobody is likely to comment on everything they read), I always comment on ones I have enjoyed (plus a few for other reasons) as I think we should show the writers our appreciation of them letting us access their work for free

Except Sebastian, of course. But otherwise your point is on target - you should give some positive feedback on stories you enjoyed. I'm not sure exactly how that works for the handful of authors who are deceased, whose whereabouts are unknown, or simply aren't active here, but I tend to leave comments just the same.