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[RokofAges75]

Thankfully, I don't think it was the first or last comment on that chapter.  But yes, very annoying!  And normally I would be happy to discuss my site layout, but not in that context LOL.

Ah, so Roman and Gerri's secret relationship was more of a plot device than an important part of the plot.  I guess the readers can't see inside your head to know that that was your reasoning, but it's funny what seemingly small things they fixate on.  But sometimes those little plot devices end up being bigger parts of the story.  In A Heart That Isn't Mine, I had to have Nick separated from Lauren at the beginning of the story to make the situation I put him in more believable, so I came up with the back story that she'd had a stillborn baby between Odin and Saoirse, and the grief was what tore them apart.  (This was 2018, before Saoirse was born and before Lauren miscarried the baby girl.)  The stillbirth was only a plot device, but once I committed to that back story, it became a part of the plot that affected Nick throughout the story.  If I were writing it now, I would probably just have Lauren leave him over the rape allegations instead and skip the dead baby subplot because that made an already dark story even more depressing, but I didn't think of that then.  Anyway, I guess my point is that you should go with whatever feels most realistic, even if that means turning something that was intended to be a small part of the story into a bigger part.  But if it seems more realistic for Shiv's reaction to not be a big deal, stick with that!  You know the characters better than I do, and you can always explain your reasoning in an author's note if you want to justify it to your readers.

[mare]

Thanks for the advice. I decided to keep Shiv's reaction the same but made a bit more dialogue around it and added a Gerri and Roman flashback and then I added Kendall into the mix and made him have a more negative reaction, blaming Gerri for everything that happened by using Roman's bodyguard instead of leaving him there. I feel much better about the chapter now. We'll see what people think. Since it's such a built up in my mind chapter now, I most likely will not get any feedback one way or the other. Because isn't that the way? LOL

[RokofAges75]

LOL Yup, that seems to be how it goes, unfortunately.  I'm glad you're feeling good about the chapter and hope it does get a good reaction!

[RokofAges75]

When you posted your stories on AO3, did you post all of them or just certain ones?  I've posted just about everything I've written post-Broken/BMS.  None of the stuff I wrote before Broken is worth posting because it's so immature and poorly-written compared to the stuff I wrote as an adult.  When I started posting that stuff, I had just finished rereading most of it for a series of retrospective blogs I did leading up to my site's anniversary in 2020, so I took that opportunity to fix all the typos I'd found and flagged while doing that.  It took a long time, but it was worth it to me, and I did most of that during the pandemic when I had plenty of time.  But I never got around to posting Broken and BMS.  I told myself that would be a summer project one of these years, but I keep going back and forth on whether I want to or not.

Being the oldest stories I would even consider posting on AO3, they would need the most editing - and I'm talking purely fixing typos and grammar errors, not editing any of the actual content.  They're also incredibly long, which makes the thought of editing, posting, and backdating that many chapters overwhelming.  And while both stories will always have a special place in my heart, they are definitely a product of the time they were written and the age I was when I wrote them, and there are some parts that are pure cringe.  I'm not sure they would even find an audience on AO3.

That being said, even though those two stories aren't representative of my best writing anymore, I still think of them as my magnum opus.  I doubt I'll ever be as obsessed with one of my own stories as I was with those two.  Broken used to be (and may still be?) the story I'm best known for, so it seems a shame not to have it attached to my pen name on the most popular fanfic archive.  And BMS would be the longest BSB fic posted there, which, I admit, I would take pride in.  I will probably never write another novel that long.  So there's a part of me that does want to post them, even though I'm dreading the amount of work and cringing it would involve LOL.  Anyway, that's one thing on my mind when it comes to fanfic.

[mare]

I didn't post all of my stuff on there. Only the ones that I felt were worth the time. After posting them, there were some chapters of stories that posted with no problem but then there were a lot of chapters of stories that posted with weird symbols where I guess the coding was different from AC to AO3. Every single comma, apostrophe and quotation mark was messed up. I fixed a lot, and it took me forever and honestly, it wasn't worth it. After posting all the stuff I did on AO3, barely anyone read them. If I go back and look at my stats, the number of hits or kudos or comments are so small it was hardly worth all the effort. So, my thinking, and this is probably true for you too, the people who still read BSB fiction have most likely already read our most popular stories. I have had a few random people suddenly give me kudos for my older stuff but that by far is a rarity. Some most likely only clicked on them only to realize it was me since my AO3 penname is different than Mare. I wouldn't waste my time and energy moving your stuff over there unless you know there are newbies who are maybe reading what you're posting now who might have never crossed paths with either of those stories. Maybe you can ask in an author's note at the end of the next chapter you post, or you can always include a link to those stories on your actual site.

[RokofAges75]

Yes, I remember that issue with the formatting!  So annoying!  I think it was an issue with something Microsoft Word does to certain punctuation marks that didn't translate when copy/pasting into AO3.  The weird marks even started showing up in stories on AC, too.  I think I went back through my Google Docs and used find/replace to fix all those punctuation marks.  When I post stuff on my site and AO3, I paste it in as plain text to get rid of any formatting that may be glitchy, but then I have go back through and re-do any italics or other formatting I want.  That's what makes it so time-consuming and why I'm reluctant to take the time to post all 350+ chapters of Broken/BMS.

I think you're right, though.  People who have been reading BSB fic long enough have probably already come across those stories and read them if they wanted to.  People who are newer to the fandom may not have, but I'm not sure I would want Broken to be someone's introduction to my writing because it's not representative of my writing style anymore.  If I eventually post it on AO3, it will include an author's note that explains that.  But even if I don't, I do have a link to my site on my author bio on AO3, so people can still find them that way.

I've had the same experience with my older work not getting as much engagement as the stories I've actually posted on AO3 as I wrote them.  It makes sense, considering some people there have probably already read them.  Also, I backdate them to their original post date after I finish posting them, so they would only be found by searching tags or looking at my works page.

What I'll probably do is hold off on posting Broken and BMS until I see how long my current story ends up.  The way it's going, I might be able to take the top spot on word count without BMS LOL.  It's already longer than Broken and will almost certainly be longer than Song for the Undead, which would make it my second-longest novel.

Anyway, thanks for your input!

[mare]

Where do you see the stats where it would say what the longest fic in the BSB fandom etc. is or does it show when you sort by? I'm back on my computer for the third time today which is a lot for me. Because of making changes to that chapter I talked about, I've fallen behind. I still need to edit it. I am posting that one tomorrow.

[RokofAges75]

You can sort by word count once you're within a certain fandom or tag.  I'm not obsessed with stats, but I am a numbers person, so I like to have an idea of where my works stand within the fandom for different stats.

I didn't expect you to reply this fast, so I can tell you've been on the computer more than usual.  I hope your writing/editing went well.  I probably should have updated yesterday because I have a chapter finished, but I haven't edited it yet and kinda want to hang on to it until I see how the next chapter turns out.  I feel like I'm flying by the seat of my pants now that I've run out of buffer chapters and am basically posting as I write, even though I typically wait at least a week to post.  But I've been so slow lately that I haven't been able to build a buffer back up.

[mare]

I'll have to try and play around with that. I went on earlier to search by stories most recently updated in the Succession fandom but mine didn't show up. Not even for all the way towards the beginning of June, so not sure what's up with that. I probably did something wrong. That site vexes me.

My writing did go well. Like you, I like to stay at least one chapter ahead of a story, so I was able to write next week's chapter which is the last one that I have really had stuck in my head. Now I'm in the same place you are. I'm not sure how much more I have to say but my brain will not let me end on an odd numbered chapter so that means I'll have to come up with at least one more than anticipated. My other one I've been writing; I don't necessarily write ahead on it. I have a method to my madness giving Tues - Thurs that fic and Friday through Monday this one. So, with the other one, if I don't have a chapter ready to post on Thursday, then I'll skip the week and post it the next week. The one I work a chapter ahead; I always post it on Mondays. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so schedule oriented. LOL

[RokofAges75]

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?

[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]

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?

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]

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?

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]

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?

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.

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 

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.

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 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.

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.

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]

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.

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.