Fic Talk > General Discussion
Just a general pop in thread
RokofAges75:
I have a spreadsheet where I keep a list of all the stories I've written and their word count so I can keep track of how many stories and words I've written. (Like I said, I'm a numbers nerd LOL.) The discussion about ending on an odd-numbered chapter inspired me to add a column for number of chapters. I haven't always been that way with wanting to end on a friendly number (ideally, a multiple of 5 or 10, but if they have to land somewhere in between, even numbers are better than odd); my early stories are all over the place. BMS is the first story I remember making a conscious effort to end on a nice, round number, which is why it has 200 chapters, plus an epilogue, plus a post-epilogue, instead of a Chapter 201 and 202 LOL. But ever since then, almost all of my multi-chapter fics have ended on good numbers: 10, 15, 25, 50, 80, 90, 120...
I also added a column to average the word count per chapter, and it was funny to see how that has gone up over the years. For the first couple years I wrote, I was averaging under 1000 words per chapter. Then I was in the 2-3k range for quite a while. In the last 5 years, though, my average has crept up from around 3k to 5.5k for my current story. This is why I can't maintain weekly updates anymore LOL; my chapters are too long and typically take longer than a week to finish, unless I'm really inspired and have a couple good writing days in a row.
Have you noticed any change in your typical chapter length since you came back from your hiatus?
mare:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 17, 2024, 11:44:07 AM ---Sometimes AO3 takes a few minutes to reflect recent updates, so if you sorted immediately after posting your chapter, your story may not have showed up at the top. But if you waited longer or had still updated it in June, it should have showed up among the most recent stories. Not sure why it wouldn't have otherwise, unless you had something else checked under the tag options to filter it out when you searched? Or it could just be a glitch.
I'm glad your writing went well! I hear you with the ending on an odd number thing. I wouldn't like that either, unless it was a multiple of 5. 25 chapters is perfect. 21 or 29 is unacceptable. I could live with 23 or 27 if I had to, but it's not ideal.
A schedule seems like a good way to balance the two stories. I know readers appreciate a predictable update schedule, too. For a while, I was updating every Saturday, until I ran out of chapters. Now it's whenever I have an update ready, but I still typically wait until Saturday. I don't think I could handle more than one ongoing story anymore. I haven't even finished the one-shot I started for April Fool's Day. I'm okay with having something like 00Carter around as a side project that I write on once in a blue moon, but it would be hard for me to balance more than one multi-chapter fic that readers expect regular updates on without having finished the whole thing first. Do you ever find it difficult to stick to your writing schedule? If you feel more inspired to work on the Friday-Monday fic on a Wednesday, do you let yourself, or do you stick with the Tuesday-Thursday fic?
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I put in Succession as the fandom and then Roman Roy as the character and pressed search and things showed up by the date they were updated but mine weren't there. I just did it again now. Who knows?
I agree about the fives too. I have stopped at chapter 25 before, that seemed to be fine. The last one I actually finished I stopped at chapter 20 but then I included the epilogue at the end of the chapter just so I wouldn't end on chapter 21 LOL
The schedule does help since for some reason, I always find myself working on two stories at once. I think that's what I did when I first started writing fanfic forever ago. The ideas just all came flooding out. I'm pretty sure this is the last time I'm doing that. After my Monday one is done, I'm just going to work on the Thursday one. Now that it's summer, the time I would spend in here on the computer, I'll be more likely to want to go read my book outside on the rocking chair. But to answer your question, I haven't done that yet, but I might today for the first time. Write more on the one I just updated yesterday while I have a thought about how to continue in my head. Not too much more, but at least a starting point. I very rarely will do that though. Normally today would be back to the Thursday story especially since I never write ahead on that one, but I told everyone in my AN at the end of last week's update that I wouldn't be updating it this week so I feel like I can take my time.
It's funny you mentioned your April Fool's fic because I was going to ask you if you did continue on that one or not.
mare:
--- Quote from: RokofAges75 on June 17, 2024, 12:35:30 PM ---I have a spreadsheet where I keep a list of all the stories I've written and their word count so I can keep track of how many stories and words I've written. (Like I said, I'm a numbers nerd LOL.) The discussion about ending on an odd-numbered chapter inspired me to add a column for number of chapters. I haven't always been that way with wanting to end on a friendly number (ideally, a multiple of 5 or 10, but if they have to land somewhere in between, even numbers are better than odd); my early stories are all over the place. BMS is the first story I remember making a conscious effort to end on a nice, round number, which is why it has 200 chapters, plus an epilogue, plus a post-epilogue, instead of a Chapter 201 and 202 LOL. But ever since then, almost all of my multi-chapter fics have ended on good numbers: 10, 15, 25, 50, 80, 90, 120...
I also added a column to average the word count per chapter, and it was funny to see how that has gone up over the years. For the first couple years I wrote, I was averaging under 1000 words per chapter. Then I was in the 2-3k range for quite a while. In the last 5 years, though, my average has crept up from around 3k to 5.5k for my current story. This is why I can't maintain weekly updates anymore LOL; my chapters are too long and typically take longer than a week to finish, unless I'm really inspired and have a couple good writing days in a row.
Have you noticed any change in your typical chapter length since you came back from your hiatus?
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I love you and your spreadsheets! You really are the queen of organization. I have never really kept track of my overall word count, but it's the chapters I watch. I have noticed I tend to write about 3,500 a chapter. Sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less. My first chapters always tend to be longer than the rest but for the most part, I tend to gauge where to stop by the word count. I think that has always been a pretty consistent thing for me even in the before time. With the exception of the first few stories, I wrote. Mizpah was all over the place LOL i do think the overall count was less though. I might have considered stopping after 2,000 words or so. Now I feel like that's not enough to truly get out what I want to say.
It's so funny, because when it comes to books, I generally set a goal of 100 pages a day and sometimes I surpass that, but when it comes to reading on the computer, I feel like 3,500 is my maximum. The few Succession stories I've tried, the one shots were 5,000 plus words and I didn't get through them and because they were one shots, they were harder to pick up where you left off. This one person wrote a one shot that was well over 10,000! It should have been broken into chapters. The way it was set up, it would have been really easy to do that. I'm not sure why she chose to keep it one length. It was good, but I stopped and started so many times, I lost the plot. I think this is another reason why I don't use my Kindle. Although, at least with that, you can bookmark where you left off.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: mare on June 18, 2024, 09:09:49 AM ---I put in Succession as the fandom and then Roman Roy as the character and pressed search and things showed up by the date they were updated but mine weren't there. I just did it again now. Who knows?
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Sounds like you're using the Search Works feature? I tried it that way and was able to find The Invisible Child on the first page of results, but only if I set the Sort By to sort by date updated. When I sorted by Best Match, which is the default, I didn't see it on the first page, even though the other stories displayed there were updated in June. I have no idea how it determines the order for Best Match since all of your stories are clearly Succession fics starring Roman Roy.
What I do to filter or sort the fics for a certain fandom is go straight to that fandom's category through the Fandoms menu at the top of the page (I have BSB's category as my bookmark to AO3), then use the dropdown menu on the Sort and Filter box on the right side of the screen to sort them by whatever stat I want. Here's the Succession category page: https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Succession%20(TV%202018)/works It sorts by date updated by default, so I can see The Invisible Child on the first page. There's no right or wrong way to use the site, but I find this way quicker and easier when I'm just trying to sort or filter for a common tag within a fandom.
--- Quote from: mare on June 18, 2024, 09:09:49 AM ---I agree about the fives too. I have stopped at chapter 25 before, that seemed to be fine. The last one I actually finished I stopped at chapter 20 but then I included the epilogue at the end of the chapter just so I wouldn't end on chapter 21 LOL
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LOL I totally get that with the epilogue. Whether I even have an epilogue or not is sometimes dependent on the number of the last chapter. If I get to Chapter 50 and still need one more chapter to wrap it up, that chapter becomes an epilogue, whereas if the second to last chapter is 49, the last chapter is just called Chapter 50 LOL. AO3 has turned me off to using prologues and epilogues because of the way it automatically labels the first chapter Chapter 1. If I post a separate prologue, then the numbering is off for the whole story, which I hate. So on my old stories that do have a prologue, I just posted the prologue and Chapter 1 as one big chapter.
--- Quote from: mare on June 18, 2024, 09:09:49 AM ---The schedule does help since for some reason, I always find myself working on two stories at once. I think that's what I did when I first started writing fanfic forever ago. The ideas just all came flooding out. I'm pretty sure this is the last time I'm doing that. After my Monday one is done, I'm just going to work on the Thursday one. Now that it's summer, the time I would spend in here on the computer, I'll be more likely to want to go read my book outside on the rocking chair. But to answer your question, I haven't done that yet, but I might today for the first time. Write more on the one I just updated yesterday while I have a thought about how to continue in my head. Not too much more, but at least a starting point. I very rarely will do that though. Normally today would be back to the Thursday story especially since I never write ahead on that one, but I told everyone in my AN at the end of last week's update that I wouldn't be updating it this week so I feel like I can take my time.
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It's nice to see you so inspired again! I bet coming back after all these years and writing for a new fandom does feel a lot like the first time again. My writing slowed down a lot while I was getting my master's, and after I finally finished the novel I had been working on that whole time, Sick as My Secrets, I was in a slump for about a year and a half where I hardly posted anything because I couldn't focus on any one particular project long enough to make enough progress on it to post. I had all these ideas and stories started but couldn't seem to commit to any of them. But once I finally got going on one, I've been able to gradually finish most of them, one by one. But I've realized I do best when I stick with one project at a time. I'm slow enough as it is without getting distracted by other stories LOL.
--- Quote from: mare on June 18, 2024, 09:09:49 AM ---It's funny you mentioned your April Fool's fic because I was going to ask you if you did continue on that one or not.
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I haven't worked on it since April! Whoops. I am fully planning to finish it at some point this summer, but I haven't been the most productive on The World Will Be Waiting lately, so I'm trying to get that one in a good place first before I take a couple days to hopefully finish the one-shot. Even one-shots take me forever to write anymore!
It's funny, though - that April Fool's story has way more hits than any of my other one-shots and even some of my novels, just because of its title and cringey smut tags LOL. I wish I actually enjoyed writing smutty Frick/Frack slash because clearly, that's what people on AO3 want to read! I thought my Nowie slash might do better there, but nope, no one cares about Nowie slash. If I ever write another slash, it needs to be about Nick and Brian. Which I wouldn't be opposed to someday, with the right idea, but I just can't do the porn without a plot. My attempts at porn WITH a plot are cringey enough LOL.
RokofAges75:
--- Quote from: mare on June 18, 2024, 09:24:36 AM ---I love you and your spreadsheets! You really are the queen of organization. I have never really kept track of my overall word count, but it's the chapters I watch. I have noticed I tend to write about 3,500 a chapter. Sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less. My first chapters always tend to be longer than the rest but for the most part, I tend to gauge where to stop by the word count. I think that has always been a pretty consistent thing for me even in the before time. With the exception of the first few stories, I wrote. Mizpah was all over the place LOL i do think the overall count was less though. I might have considered stopping after 2,000 words or so. Now I feel like that's not enough to truly get out what I want to say.
It's so funny, because when it comes to books, I generally set a goal of 100 pages a day and sometimes I surpass that, but when it comes to reading on the computer, I feel like 3,500 is my maximum. The few Succession stories I've tried, the one shots were 5,000 plus words and I didn't get through them and because they were one shots, they were harder to pick up where you left off. This one person wrote a one shot that was well over 10,000! It should have been broken into chapters. The way it was set up, it would have been really easy to do that. I'm not sure why she chose to keep it one length. It was good, but I stopped and started so many times, I lost the plot. I think this is another reason why I don't use my Kindle. Although, at least with that, you can bookmark where you left off.
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3500 is a good length! I try to aim for somewhere in the 2-5k range, but for whatever reason, my chapters have been longer in this story. Many of them are one long scene, too, so it's not like I'm just combining too many scenes that could be split across multiple chapters. I'm not sure if it's the story itself or the way I've been writing it. I have literally worked on this story every day since I started it 2 years ago, and while I've had plenty of good writing days where I write over 1000 words in a day, most days I just add 100 or so words at a time. I think working on it a little bit each day like that makes it harder to see the forest for the trees. I end up with really detailed scenes and long conversations that sometimes veer off-track from where I thought the chapter was going. And because I'm being self-indulgent and plantsing this one, I just let it happen and see where it takes me... but it's led to chapters and the story as a whole being longer than I anticipated.
I don't read enough fanfic anymore to even know how long is too long for me in terms of word count. As long as something holds my attention, I don't mind reading longer one-shots or chapters, but I agree that shorter is probably better because it makes it easier for people to take a break and find their place again if they need to.
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