How many chapters before publishing?

W

whatever3132

Virgin
I realize this isn't a clear question with a clear answer, but I'm looking for some ideas. I'm currently writing a story on here. Some people post with as few as eight chapters, but I don't want to give readers an incomplete read and hit a dead end, but at the same time, I want to leave some parts open. I'm just curious how deep do you think it should be before I unveil it? Before you answer, I'm going to be working on this alone, and I write 2-3 chapters a day. There are currently four characters to choose from. Right now I have about nine chapters. Maybe I should publish it when I have a sex scene for every character? Or if I reach a possible end for each them (but keep possibilities open)?. What do you guys think? Sorry for the brick of text.
 
It depends entirely on how you choose to do it: a story could start with just a single chapter, although more is usually welcome. There's no real set standard.

In terms of readership, depth seems to attract more attention than breadth. If the story is essentially linear, having a run of 8-9 chapters will generally attract more interest than fewer chapters following different options (say, 2-3 paths of 3 chapters each), and chapters with sex scenes generally attract more interest than chapters that just involve plot or decisions.

If it's a game with variables, chapter depth is better - people like to be able to play around a little, and having a single main storyline is easier to go back and add on sidequests and alternate paths as the game expands.

tl;dr - Post what you want; nobody is going to gainsay you for posting too much or too little. At worst, you might get a few people asking you to hurry up and publish more!
 
Zeebop said:
It depends entirely on how you choose to do it: a story could start with just a single chapter, although more is usually welcome. There's no real set standard.

In terms of readership, depth seems to attract more attention than breadth. If the story is essentially linear, having a run of 8-9 chapters will generally attract more interest than fewer chapters following different options (say, 2-3 paths of 3 chapters each), and chapters with sex scenes generally attract more interest than chapters that just involve plot or decisions.

If it's a game with variables, chapter depth is better - people like to be able to play around a little, and having a single main storyline is easier to go back and add on sidequests and alternate paths as the game expands.

tl;dr - Post what you want; nobody is going to gainsay you for posting too much or too little. At worst, you might get a few people asking you to hurry up and publish more!
Click to expand...

That was actually helpful. "Depth, not breadth." I'll take that to heart.
 
Generally speaking. Regular updates help too, as it gives more people a chance to see it.

I actually go the other way - more breadth, less depth - because I like variety and pursuing different options. But most of the top stories tend to have great depth - 50 or even 100+ chapters deep eventually - and since readers can see chapter depth from the front page but not how many chapters a story is overall, stories with greater depth stand out more.
 
If you publish two chapters a day, there shouldn't be a problem in any way.
Though maybe prepare a few chapters and hold them back (don't save them in the story while publishing) for a few days. Then publish your introduction and a chapter every few hours.

I think that depth is quite important as you can filter chapter depth on the search page. So you may want to be in a higher category.
 
I wouldn't call myself an expert (only published one story which I accidentally released early), but in my mind, I would at minimum want:

-Two branching paths (It's in the name: CHoose Your Own Adventure)
-At least 5 chapters deep on each path (although they don't have to have five chapters each. For example, if you start to branch at chapter 3, I'd argue you'd only need two more chapters for each branching part.)
-Reach some sort of sex scenes (I mean, it is an erotica site). If that takes more chapters than five, you should go for those chapters.
 
Write one, post one. It's a serial kind format so you can keep the reader waiting.
 
I think as soon as you have something interesting for a reader pursuing erotica (a decent sex scene, in most cases), you've got a green light to publish.

Anything more is up to you.
 
I think that a story with a great opening plot device that practically invites other authors to write, like The Backpack, can get away with 1 chapter.

But if you've got a story to tell or want to see, at least 3 deep in my mind. I check maps after first chapter and seeing 6 branches each going 2 deep is a quick skip for me.
 
When I write a story, I write the intro, which establishes the essentials of the setting, the protagonist, and theme. Then, I write several branches off the intro which each lead into a different plotline. One of my rules is that no submissions will be accepted which lead off the introduction itself; all threads must branch from one of the Second Chapters, or later.

I do it this way partly because I want to maintain some control over the general directions in which the story might go, and partly because I want to be sure I CAN write four or five different "Second Chapters." If I can't come up with four significantly different ideas for storylines, then it's probably not a good concept for CHYOA.

But, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with publishing just the intro. It all depends on how much of the story you want to establish up front.
 
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