Mini-poll: Dominant Creed update schedule · 9:24pm Sep 17th, 2018
As readers will know, I'm a pretty slow writer. Chapter 6 of Dominant Creed took nine months to produce, and for all I know it may take as long to get chapter 7 done.
This slow pace is a problem. On one hand, readers start thinking the story is dead. On the other hand, I depend on reader response for keeping my own motivation up, so that gets pretty bad when nine months pass between fixes.
So I'm considering releasing the next chapter in installments. I have a precise enough outline that I think I can get the start of it into a publishable state where I don't have to tweak the text later to make it prepare the rest, and there are somewhat reasonable scene breaks where I can cut it into about five-or-so installments of 1500-2000 words each.
What's the catch, then? Well, I want the whole thing to be a single chapter when the story is complete. But if I publish the installments as technically separate "chapters" and replace them with a single one later, I'm going to lose all the comments on those chapters, and we can't have that. So I'll have to publish a single chapter and then update that chapter with more text from time to time. I would announce these updates with blog posts, but it will not be as easy to keep track of as Fimfiction's usual "unread chapters" functionality.
So I'm not sure whether it's a good idea or not.
Pros:
- You get to read something quicker.
- I get reader feedback more often and will probably stay motivated better, so the whole story may be done faster.
Cons:
- Each installment will not have the same "completed" feel as full chapters have.
- Greater risk of missing an installment because there's suddenly 177 items in your feed and you click all of them away. (But eventually you'd discover that when chapter 8 comes out, of course).
If you're one of the readers who care enough to be reading this, please comment and tell whether you would prefer installments or waiting until the whole chapter is ready, whenever that will be. (Or whichever other thoughts you have about this proposal).
Personally I don’t mind waiting for a full chapter. Writing something so well thought out and complex like Creed takes time. The story is amazing and I don’t think a few months between chapters means a story is ‘dead’. (That’s my opinion anyways). If taking that time allows us to experience the same level of awesome story then I feel it’s worth it.
4939199
I agree
Post the installments in some other format, for people who want them? As blog posts? As dgocs with comments turned on? something else? Then those who are excited can turn up and read and comment, but you don't fuck up the chapter system or make people miss things because they're not paying close enough attention. People will miss things, not read or have forgotten about this blog, and be confused about what's going on.
I think that's a suboptimal choice. I really like seeing the old comments.
What if you post some regular commentary in blog format? If you are open to reader suggestion you can look for people to bounce ideas off of, and if you prefer to keep things close to the chest you can give a few lines of sneak preview to stir some discussion.
I can wait.
I'm a slow writer myself, so I don't mind waiting. I'd rather get the whole chapter at once, even if it takes a while.
The consensus seems to be wait, however I do like the idea of a gdocs with either comments enabled or set to view only for the installments so you can get that reader feedback without having to worry as much about people missing stuff on fimfic. Just announce an update in a blog post with the story tagged and a link to the gdocs and it should work out just fine. I personally have no issue waiting
The gdoc/blog update solution proposed by other commenters looks like a reasonable way to have your cake and eat it too.
I can see the appeal of having a gdoc be out about a completed scene (at least draft wise). But what's to stop random people from making nothing but lewd comments about butts?
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Hmm, that looks pretty unanimous. Thanks for the feedback.
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Somehow I don't feel so enthusiastic about public previews that are nevertheless not official releases. Not really sure where that feeling comes from; I'll need to think about that.
(Anyone who would like a private sneak peek in exchange for substantial comments, please get in touch).
4939818
There are plenty of other places to shitpost about butts where one gets a larger audience than one would in a single fanfic author's gdoc, so I wouldn't think that is a huge risk.
4940706
You don't know that :/.
4940706
Understandable, just figured I'd put the idea out there cuz another author I follow, Kudzuhaiku, he does that kinda thing and on the discord server I run for him he'll post lil updates and snippets in there as he's working on it to get immediate feedback and whatnot
4941213
I post progress reports in the Clocktower Society Discord server from time to time, so I do get some feedback that way. This would more have been a way to get the story quicker to the greater population of Fimfiction readers.
I think I can wait for a full chapter to be out. I really enjoy this story and it's been a lot better and a lot more than I was expecting when I first started reading.
I know I'm late to this here shindig, but I'd love to see it happen, I like this story.