Question...Are Series With 5 Parts Or More Worth It?

Relevant:

SNM--my sentiments exactly. And this is why you should never start posting an unfinished epic.

And on brighter news Scott Lynch announced a publication date for Republic of Thieves, whereas I doubt we'll ever see The Winds of Winter in print, probably have to wait for HBO to do their version.

Really depends on the topic. Some warrant a continuing series, others ought to end in a shorter time.

As Goodgulf says "finish the story and then submit it", I assume you don't have have to get it all submitted at the same time. It also depends if the reader wants to stroll through the the country side or get down to brass tacks. Spankzz and I spent an enjoyable couple of months reading and commenting on her great marathon 20 plus stories. As an old university Prof use to tell us " This a a 3000 word essay but if you can get it done with one line, I will accept it." Hemingway is the only one that I know of that made it, and he wasn't in my class. Write what you want but if it has several parts don't come up lame after the second or third. Going back to reading serials now.

If you enjoy writing serials, then you should do so. I enjoy reading some that are no more than 6 installments. After that it seems a lot just get repetitive. If you post one every so often on the serial, I probably won't read it, as I don't keep track of what is a continuing story and what is a stand-a-lone. Also, I don't comment on each section. I usually will comment when I finish the set.

I rarely look at any of the "Part 57" thins; I generally find that the idea has been exhausted by the second or third installment.

But de gustibus non est disputandum.

Offhand, the only one I can ever remember trying to read that actually kept itself going with anything new each part rather than seeming to be rehashing after more than a few was the Mail Order Bride set.

Given the nature of the ideas/plots/etc., most (not all) tend to be about two to three thousand words worth.

There is a huge problem in the commercial world with book length--two and three hundred page stories being stretched to five to seven hundred, or a tale worth three three hundred pages dragged out to nine volumes of seven hundred pages. The miniskirt advice that gets professors fired happens to be spot-on.

And was JK Rowlings ever spanked for book 5? The ones after it weren't so interminable . . .

I tend to disagree, at least I think there are quite a number of spanking stories I have read that were much longer than 3000 words and needed to be. My own "Jane comes to the Institute" is really a single story of about 15,000 words, and while it could probably be cut some, I don't think it could be cut much below 12,000 at best. Here I posted it in 6 parts, but it was originally written and sold (yes it was once published commercially by CF Publications) as a single story. I just read "Exchange Student Surprise" in 19 parts (over 75,000 words) and it kept me clicking for the next part every time, and indeed I want more. Lurking Dragon's 'Melody" series was posted in something like 60 parts, and it had rather little fluff in it in my view. (I wish it were here on the Library.) Those are just the first three that come to mind.

It depends on how much character development and world building you include. If it's a story with spanking in it then 3000 words are barely enough to paint the world.

Goodgulf

I'm not sure you can generalize fairly about this, but to me short spanking fiction tends to be built around an idea or a situation and frequently relies on immediately recognizable conventions and character types. The longer fiction, whether serial, series or novel, allows for a greater depth of characterization. And as in real life, I like to get to know a spankee before she bends over.

Also, I would add to what Goodgulf says by noting that once you've gone to the effort of creating a world with endless opportunities for spanking, why let it go to waste when you can return to it again and again? (The massive "Promise" of Dr. Keates' "Brotherhood," for example.)

And one other thing: I think the record of diminishing comments and views for later episodes of long serials can be misleading. Readers will open a story or a first chapter to check it out. Some will like it and some will not. But I think it's safe to say that anyone who reads, say, chapter 10 of a serial knows what they're getting and likes it. The shrinking number of views after the first chapter or two doesn't mean fewer readers like serials; it just means the readership of the serial is condensing around a satisfied core. In other words, a short story may have more views than a later chapter of a serial, but it doesn't necessarily have more satisfied readers. As for diminishing comments, readers will likely feel they've expressed their opinion on the series with a single comment and not feel compelled to comment on each chapter. Doesn't mean they're not still engaged.