I am losttrying to write a serial ...

Here's how I write most of the series I've posted here. When I say most, I've written 27 series and by my count 24 were written the same way.

I write a long a story and I chop it into chapters. Sometimes I edit things to make each "chapter" more self contained, but most times I don't.

When writing a long I'll often do an outline, and I'll always do a list of characters. Otherwise I might lose track of which character is which. Often the list will include many of the character's traits and or include plot ideas for that character.

Oh, and the three series that were written in chapters? The Chronicles of Bamber, Jennifer to Jenny, and What the Cat Saw.

@goodgulf

In other words I should ignore size and simply write my story and once I feel I have said everything I think necessary, I should chop it up as needed and then follow TheEnglishMasters advice and add some spankings where appropriate to keep readers interested.
Actually at the moment I am a bit chasing my own tail going 1 step forward and then 2 steps back.

Moody

I believe the quote is usually rendered as "the only good Indian is a dead Indian."

Not to change topics or anything, but I've always believed that "the only good language is a dead language."

Think about classic Latin (so pure, albeit complex) which, rather than being killed off completely, devolved into "church Latin," not to mention such atrocities as Romanian and French.

And don't even get me started on that mutt of a language English!

Moody, one thing to consider in writing your lengthy serial, is the reduction in readers as the serial grows.

For example, far less than half of the readers will make it to the end on long series. Why that is the case is unclear. It might be because readers are limited to 12 chapters at one time. So for example, if you just posted part 16, ideally a reader would like to quickly review the earlier chapters, so they know where they are in the story before they read part 16. Do you see what I mean when I say readers will quickly run into the LSF 12 "story" limit?

That's NOT the only problem. In our age of "instant gratification" keeping a reader's attention in a long series is most difficult.

A number of very successful writers on LSF have solved this problem, by writing individual stories that are loosely connected. That is, all the stories are set in the same town, school, community, etc. Then the same characters "pop up" from time to time. The key is each story is a standalone! There is no need to read them sequentially.

Further, readers, who enjoy the stories, can easily find additional stories by simply going to the author's page.

@njrick

I hope that you accept that I 1st translated Gen. Sheridan from English to German and then retranslated the quote back from my memory into English
Why not use the original quote? you probably ask. Blame my less than stellar organization.
In the mid to late 1990ies I read an article in Command Magazine 14 This edition was mainly about the battle of Midway and the card board game with it was about Midway as well. But one not Midway article fetched my interest 'The battle that saved English.' It was about the 'Clades Variana' in 9 AD and how as a result the English language was saved. That this battle is one of the reasons the British speak English and not Latin. I think I first encountered this battle during 3rd grade but after this article I really searched for sources. The existence of this battle was discovered in the 17th (?) century in an English monastary. The only mention in Germany is a grave inscripton in the city of Haltern for a Roman Centurion of the XVIIII. Legion. The German tribes annihilated the 17th, 18th and 19th Legion during a 3 day battle. The 3 Legions lost their eagles and were never reformed for this great dishonour. With the death of Augustus, Germanicus started 3 years of successful(?) campaigns that were stopped by emperor Tiberius due to insufficient supplies from Gaul it was no longer possible to provide enough horses for the cavalry and in 15AD the return to Roman held terrain travelling across the north sea cost lots of troops during a storm.

@tiredny

As I said I originally planned a one piece story but due to the size I assume it would reach I very fast decided on a 2 part story with part I being the crime and part II being the punishment. I even was ready to accept that part I would most likely reach more than 4000 words. But then I wanted the scheming teacher getting her just dessert which made a serial inevitable. Now I will try goodgulfs advise and ignore size for now and see how large the story turns out to be before I decide how i split it up. I am at one month of planning now without progress...

In the terminology of the library, this is known as a series (as opposed to a serial) and a series can be either ordered or unordered. So there are plenty of options available.

Hi Moody
If you haven't done much writing in the English language, I suggest you start off with a short story of around 3,000 words. Get the sentence structure, tense, grammar and punctuation right, then perhaps follow up with a longer story, say 5,000 words. When you have a few short stories under your belt and are more confident with your writing, then you could consider writing a more challenging and lengthier serial.
Good luck,
flopsy

Yes indeed - in fact English dropped most of the tedious grammar rules (gentives, datives, imperfect subjunctive and the like) that clutter other languages. Against that, though, we've probably got the most illogical spelling of any language in the world. (Seven different pronounciations of '-ough', to look no further.)

@flopsbunny

I could act cross now
I only encountered the the random Brit, that got lost and somehow ended up in Germany and asked me for the route because I couln't get into cover fast enough or hide behind others
As you probably can guess the only English I normally encounter are instruction manuals or game manuals and since you got a male sidekick you should know how males act around such things 'trial and error' works ok unless money and health are involved
My most damging mistake was in wow on a pvp server. I selected priest assuming their skill to shackle undead would be later prettty handy. Later I was killed by an undead mage. Since it was a close call I decided to go after him. The second encounter was anything but close while I unsuccessfully tried to shackle him, he killed me. I then whined to a Palladin I played together with before and he told me I should know my skills better or read the manual you can only shackle mobs but not players. 'Trial and Error' The manual is so boring. Your advise start small end big has merrit but I know myself it won't work. Whenever I encouter a recipe the first I try it works out but the second time I start to experient and it is all but satisfactory, but nobody has died yet. People say I still can improve I always remember when I made noodle salad. Suddently my godmother who was helping in the kitchen on a birthday said "You know what you have done now?" Under shock I mumbeled "NO, what have I done ?" She got all smile and said "Majonaise" It was a recipe for light noodle salad. The only thing I learned by it were the ingredient for majonaise and that its much easier to buy a glass of a good majonaise and add a joghurt to create a majonaise with less calories. I never mad mojonaise again too much labour. I will try a compromise since I write the story in German and I already did the 'start small' part in German I will follow goodgulfs advise and create the story as a one part story with no regard to its size. Then when I slaughter it (cut it up) I will stick to small chapters to allow for better control of the parts but will embrace TheEnglishMasters suggestion to add a spanking to each part. I have the intention to honour all the advice but I won't promise that I will always be able to follow it. Luckily the library has no pillory
I already invision myself already at this place of horror

Ah... about that...