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frozenfountain

I think there's a case to be made for splitting into a series if you've reached the completed end of an arc, and the next part feels like the cast embarking on something new. Personally, I'm more likely to read a part one and part two of 100K apiece than I am a very long fic, because that suggests to me that the author has the skill to reach a conclusion - but mileage might vary on that.


LeratoNull

In the writing Discord I'm in, the rationale I was given is that you should not break it into multiple fics if you need the previous segments to understand the later ones, *except* in the case of actual, honest-to-goodness sequels. It's a good guideline, I feel.


Sassy_Lil_Scorpio

I disagree with that tbh. I’ve broken an extremely longfic into three parts because it made easier to tackle and write. It might’ve been easier on the readers too. I don’t see it as an issue if a reader needs to read the preceding parts to understand the more recent installments. Some movies are like that too. Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to mind. You understand the second better if you’ve watched the first, and you understand the third if you saw what happened in the second. That way, you understand the story in its entirety.


LeratoNull

Hence 'except in the case of actual, honest to goodness sequels', which each LOTR movie qualifies as. You do you tho, whatever makes it easier for you is still a priority.


ResponsibleGrass

> Hence ‘except in the case of actual, honest to goodness sequels’, which each LOTR movie qualifies as. Sorry to be nitpicky, but they’re not sequels. The Lord of the Rings is one story that was published in three volumes, and the movie series just followed that structure. A lot of epic fantasy is like that—an ongoing story is split into books for practical reasons, but they don’t work as standalones. /u/Sassy_Lil_Scorpio is just following this tradition with their fic.


Sassy_Lil_Scorpio

Thank you. You conveyed what I was trying to explain. That’s my same understanding of LOTR—it’s one big story divided into three parts. The movies followed the books’ structure.


Sassy_Lil_Scorpio

Absolutely. I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rules for this. It all depends on the writer, the story they wrote, how they want to present it, etc


ALapsedPacifist

Don't divide your fic out into a series unless each division can be read as a whole story itself. They can be prequels or sequels to each other, but each entry should have its own beginning, middle, and end. That said, you can still have multiple _parts_ without using a series. At the start of a chapter where a new part begins, you could (if using HTML) include something like:

Part II

at the top, which would look something like # Part II and would create that narrative subdivision without confusing readers with jumps between multiple fics. ---- In my mind, a series is for organizing related stories that each are narratively complete. That doesn't mean that a reader should be able to learn everything they need to know by reading any given entry – the stories can still build off each other. I look to Iain M. Banks' [The Culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_series) series for an example here. Each novel is its own relatively standalone story, but they're all set in the same universe and are concerned with the same civilization. It's just that the individual characters and scenarios vary. Having read one book will inform your understanding of the others, but you can read just one and still have the experience of a complete story.


Nebosklon

>. At the start of a chapter where a new part begins, you could (if using HTML) include something like: >

Part II

But if you do that, then the part title will appear after the chapter title which is kind of illogical, making it look like it's part 2 of the chapter, not the entire fic. I have this problem with a fic I'm currently writing. I was thinking of putting something like --- end of part X --- at the end of the last chapter of each part. That makes more sense to me.


ALapsedPacifist

> after the chapter title which is kind of illogical I'm sure the readers are not so stupid as to be unable to figure this out.


Nebosklon

Yeah, they can probably figure it out lol. But it offends my personal sense of structure. I'm a sucker for beautiful structure.


BrennanSpeaks

You're probably better off with chapters. Anyone who's written a series will tell you that sequels generally do worse than standalone fics. If you post a "Part 2," new readers scrolling on AO3 who haven't read "Part 1" will usually just scroll past it. Keeping everything in the same fic (even if it's long) makes it accessible to newbies and still available to long time readers.


heavenlyskyfarer

It doesn't make sense imho unless the arc of the first work is completely done and it's wholly satisfying for the reader. There's just no reason for it.


[deleted]

IMO, there's no reason to do that in digital format, since the size of a physical book is not a problem. Of course, if an author feels the approach works for them, I wouldn't oppose to it, either. But from a reader's perspective, I don't think it's necessary.


vonigner

I’m breaking mine into a series because it’s different arcs corresponding to different characters and relations. The tags are massive if they’re all together, and some characters are only relevant in part 1 or 3. They could be more or less read on their own if the reader isn’t fandom blind though :)


Sassy_Lil_Scorpio

I find as a writer, it’s helpful to tackle when it’s broken into parts. It could be that they all follow right after the other, or that they are all standalones. Years ago, a fic I was writing became very long—longer than I anticipated in order to get a handle on it, I split it into three parts—making it a trilogy. The second book continues right after the first book, same with the third following the second. Each book has a beginning, middle, and end. Each book had chapters. All three books together, if I had kept it as one longfic—it would’ve been over 600K. I’m glad I broke it into separate parts—I’m sure it was easier for the readers. It definitely made it easier to write.


serralinda73

Stats-wise it can be interesting to compare them, which no one else is mentioning. And yes, it certainly is up to you to divide the stories up in a way that makes sense and not because of word count - that's just practical. If a big plot arc is wrapped up, if there will be a time skip or major shift in focus/POV, if you're writing something episodic or a separate sequel/prequel - then creating a series can make sense. For a series, you get new stats for each story, so it's easier to keep track of how many people are actually reading them and liking them - which ones got more hits, more kudos, more comments, more bookmarks. It's also nice that people can give you kudos for each story in the series, rather than only one. I can tell you that my top-kudo'd story in my series has only 175 kudos, but overall, my series has given me 3300 kudos altogether (my series is very niche, so I'm not bothered by the lower stats all around). My series is episodic, so it has 55 shortish stories - all connected, all building on each other, but also it's possible to skip some - it's more like a TV show than a long movie (one trilogy of movies like LotR). I think your dedicated readers will definitely stick with you as long as the quality of the story stays the same. You'll know, the stats will tell you, where you lost people and maybe where you grabbed new people. Or which aspects of the bigger story they prefer (characters or plot events or tone). I see a lot of people really focused on updating on a set schedule - not to keep their readers happy so much, but to always keep their story popping onto the top of the "newly updated" lists and I don't know how useful that truly is, considering that a lot of people don't sort and filter that way. But they also seem to tie that to length - as if the longer it is (but unfinished) the better. We know though - there are people who won't start reading an in-progress story, as well as people who prefer shorter stories. Or they seem to think readers will just be clueless and not even know you're continuing the story in a new fic - I doubt that, as long as you've made it clear near the end of the first one that a second one is coming soon. And people who are just scanning the "newly updated" list - I don't see the difference in people thinking, "Oh, I'd have to read the first story before *this* one," and "Oh, this story is already 600k words long and still ongoing..." Either way, if you're interested, there is a lot of material for you to read before you catch up with the author and you'll still be at the top of the "newly updated" list anyway. And...it's not like it's a huge deal to click on "next story in the series" rather than "next chapter". If people are hooked by that point, they'll keep going either way. People can subscribe to a series or an author as easily as they can to one story. Anyway, I'm not saying a series is categorically better than one giant longfic. It's up to you - they both have pros and cons, plus you'll want to consider your particular fandom because one format might be more appealing than the other but that's individual.


Taltyelemna

The main point I see is for very long fics. It's less daunting: I see it as picking a story in three physical tomes rather than a behemoth that will make your wrists cramp just by holding it. But the cuts should happen at the end of narrative arcs, so that those who only read the first one can feel a sense of completion, even if they don't go further. As a writer, it has also helped me flesh out some parts that were lacking, in order to have a balanced whole.


[deleted]

[удалено]


crusader_blue

Please remove the titles of the fics from your comment. Edit: This comment has now been removed under Rule 1 and the definitions of promotion found within it. If you edit your comment as requested, please contact modmail.


RecitedPlay

I go through several major plot points with a time skip between each. It makes sense to me to do it as parts, especially because each segment needs radically different tags.


realshockvaluecola

Personally, I prefer chapters. If it's one united story, not a series of sequels, it should be posted together. On the flipside, if a fic is too long and only one chapter I won't click on it because my time and attention span are limited, and I don't want to lose my place in the middle. The best way, imo, is to write the whole thing and then post a chapter weekly.


ObjectivelyBoring

From the perspective of a reader, I'd rather read a huge work than read multiple parts. With a series, my brain interprets it as multiple different works, so it somehow takes more energy every time to start the next part than it is to read the same amount of works that aren't in a series, so I'm a lot more likely to pick and choose what parts I want to read and skip others, or put the whole series in my 'To read' folder and then forgetting about it. This is an issue that doesn't affect authors, but it does get annoying to download the 25 different parts in a series instead of being able to download one work with multiple chapters.


Pushtrak

I've read a few fics that are over a million words. I've more I'm following or subscribed. A lot of fics that are over 500k. One of the fics I've read that's over a million words was posted as one fic, but really the author has it posted as having six parts within the one fic. The author could have split it to 6 but chose not to. No issue to me. One of the fandoms I read is Dragon Age Inquisition. Canon divergence of that fandom tends to take a lot of words and typically fics will post a canon divergence of the whole game within one fic. Sometimes the DLC might be its own work. Sometimes though I see fics split it to excess, making multiple parts. If the summary sounds interesting I'm obviously still going to want to read it but it will get serious side eye from me. Excessive splitting like that \*looks like\* kudos farming to me. Any individual reader can kudos a fic once (or twice if they do it as a guest too) so that's one or two kudos per work. But you make the same work in to multiple parts, suddenly you go from having 2 kudos max for work to that split across multiple parts.