About serials

I'm the same as rollin in that I won't publish a story that is serialised until I've finished it. I've been left hanging on for too many epic fantasies (George Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire anyone?) and also in fanfic. My wife won't read fanfic stories now unless they say complete.

You remind me of my grandmother: "crying about that? You'll have worse to cry about in life".

This is yet another category - the reverse serial.

Like some others who have posted I like to have the whole story finished before posting - Often one thinks of a joke really late in the process which requires a change to something earlier. There was a case of this in the recent story Collaboration, and if we'd rushed to publish the world would have been deprived of a minor snigger. OK, perhaps none of you laughed, but I thought it was funny.

I did once write a serial in the true sense of the word where I said I'd publish a chapter each week, and that led to its own difficulties, like having to grind out a chapter of Never Too Old (Whoops! a plug escaped there) under a bit of self imposed clock pressure.



These can work quite happily here due to some cleverness from the amazing Febs. I have such sets of stories. SYSTEM WARNING! Plug quota used for the current rolling 24 hour period I think this type are called non-ordered series. Of course, when you use one of your dear characters in a walk-on part in another story you have to decide if it's part of the series or not. I quite like to allow my characters to have an outing in a subsequent story even if it's nothing to do with them, and these remain stand alone stories.

One of the most outstanding stories I have ever read

Ah, so if were write 'complete' at the end of (for example), The Spanking Game - 3 parts 'complete,' the software will put The End automatically? Great. I've been putting The End instead of complete.

Yeah, I know, I asked questions sometimes like I'm in the 3rd grade. Ala Danzel Washington in the movie Philadelphia.

I find series writing, whether ordered or unordered, a lot more effective then serials. One can look at almost any serial on site and see the number of views and comments drop like a rock in the ocean as the chapters continue. Whereas series are stand alone stories that are related but it is not necessary for any viewer to go back to #1 to make more sense of any story.

In looking at my most successful serial (Wife's Cousin) I wrote the 4 parts over a period of months and it did very well, whereas my last one (Life and Blood) was completed within a month and although doing all right for comments the number of views was rather disappointing. Where as my ordered series which begins with Introducing the Hairbrush, has done well, with the views going up and down like a yoyo compared to a serial where numbers drop with each successive chapter.

I have to agree with others though, write how and what you want as the author and don't worry ,about it, we are here to have fun and share our kink with like minded people. I doubt I will write anything beyond 2 parts from now on, but that may change in the future.

Interesting discussion and a lot of different viewpoints.

CS

To Gail and Dr Keate
Gail: I think I understand your feelings about getting

any comments and thus abandoning a serial in mid stream but I have found a few great stories with no comments and have been contacted by the authors who wrote them several years ago, and were happy that someone read the finished product and even liked it. I got a pop up today from a writer who I had read a couple of times and not commented but this time did and included an outline for a sequel for stories written in 2010, 2011. Finish and hope Gail.
In defense of Dr keate, While some of his stories have #'s behind the title they are all stand alone. Maybe there will be more maybe not. Remember the guy who didn't want to see Malcolm X because hadn't seen the first nine.