Serial Installment Length and Frequency

My readers have pretty much convinced me that shorter and more frequent is better than longer and less frequent. So if you have a 6,000 word chapter, for instance, it's better to post it in six chunks of 1,000 words 3 times a week--giving you two weeks of updates--than one chunk of 6,000 words once a week, or Gods forbid, once a month.

When I start serializing the completed first novel of the History, I'm going to make each installment about 1200 words or so and post two times a week (Scryer's Gulch will be the third weekly post). If I can post an entire scene, I will, but some scenes will necessarily be spread over two or more installments.

As I was writing this post, I was considering the possibilities posting on a scene by scene basis, which can run between 700 and 1500 words usually (so far), and figuring it will all even out. I'd like to work with natural breaks in the story as much as possible, but I might have to actually be doing it to figure out how I would split scenes if necessary.

I keep hearing the shorter-more-frequent thing, and I can see the sense in this medium. Though it's a different form, I can see how it really works with diary-based webfiction like Tapestry and Aphorisms of Kherishdar. If I did do 1000 word average installments, I could update six days a week without the audiobook updates, or do both and get two weeks of material per chapter as you say. Shorter installments would also mean shorter recording sessions if I updated the audiobook concurrently.

There is a part of me that resists breaking it up so much, accustomed as I am to having the entirety of something in my hot little hands with a physical book or typical e-book. But part of the reason I want to serialize is to play with that sense of anticipation, and because then the reader is moving at a similar pace to the actual story. It won't be exact, but much closer than furiously reading for three days straight and being finished with it.

Thanks for your perspective!

I consider an update long if it goes to 1100 words. With Valley of course it was different because of the pics, but 10 is full text. I have a goal of at least somewhere close to 800 words and I've never had one go over 1200.

And I'm a huge fan of serialization. The people who read Valley as it was posted had a much stronger emotional reaction than those who read it in its entirety after it was completed. Over the eight months it took to write it, the characters became familiar friends that they wondered about between updates.

It also gives you more opportunity for community involvement - I've learned a lot about my story through what the readers see as it goes along and what they guess will happen.

Ummm - it sounds like you guys already have stuff written and then just release it in bits. This is strange and interesting to me.

I do mine scene by scene and generally end on a cliffhanger. That pulls in readers. They gotta come see what happens next when you update again, right?

So that's my thoughts, for whatever they're worth. Which I fear isn't much because our processes seem quite different, but hey.

What you describe are some of the reasons I'm interested in doing the serial thing. I don't know if it's that common for people to pre-write then serialize. It was my impression that most webserial authors wrote as they went along. MeiLin is doing an epic rewrite of her story before reserializing it in my understanding, but when I was reading it originally I was under the impression that she wrote it on the go.

"The people who read Valley as it was posted had a much stronger emotional reaction than those who read it in its entirety after it was completed."

Thanks for bringing that up. Of course it might not be the same for everyone, but it's interesting to keep in mind in case there's a trend. I've heard webserials compared to the serialized novels of Dickens and the like, and I wonder if publishing at that time was tapping into the same emotional anticipation.

Oops. Double post.

I pre-write then serialize, because I like to publish a finished product. I'm generally pretty good about motivating myself to draft, but not so good at motivating myself to revise. Knowing that people will actually get to read it if I revise it helps me motivate myself to fix the darned thing.

I usually update twice a week, and my updates have traditionally been between 4000-8000 words. But this means that my books get serialized really fast, like in two months or so. To keep up, I'd have to write like six books a year, and I don't think I can do that. Two books a year seems to be my sweet spot. So, I'm considering cutting the updates for my forthcoming books down to smaller pieces.

My only fear is that my readers will notice the smaller size of the updates and complain. I'm hoping they'll be understanding if I explain I just can't write that fast.

I also want to publish a finished product, which is requiring mad motivation. I've never actually finished a book before (though I've been saying I would since I was eight), so it will be a new experience for me.

I'd be interested to hear how the transition goes for you if you switch to shorter updates, and how your readers react. Would you be updating more frequently as well, or about the same?

Hmm...readers prefer short and frequent? Gosh this is news to me! But then again, I've never asked my readers what schedule they'd prefer.

I update once a week, and in the beginning my posts averaged 3000-5000 words a week. When I started my second story arc, that steadily jumped up to about 4000-6000 each. My last few updates seem to show that my word count is increasing again. 7000-10,000! In the broader sense, it takes me about 3-4 weeks to finish a chapter--so a chapter is anything between 15,000 to 18,000 on average. Naturally I have a set day to update: Friday. But I've noticed a recent pattern in my work. I have a really bad mid-week slump where nearly no writing gets done--then towards the weekend I can literally bang out up to 9000 words. Usually, though, I miss my update day, and my writing drags out for some 8-10 days instead of 7.

Still, I've become quite attached to my "weekly" schedule. In the beginning, I found it really hard just to manage 3000 words every week, and whatever I came up with below that seemed like a poor update. Now it's become second nature. I like having updates that feel like they could be appreciated by themselves on some level, even if there's a cliffhanger. Cutting off mid-scene seems far too abrupt for me, and I don't think I can move the plot significantly forward in just 1000 words. One solution, it seems, would be to speed up the pacing of my story, but then I could lose the very elements that many of my readers enjoy.

I write as I go. This could also be another reason the idea of a more frequent schedule seems so daunting to me. The little time I have to sit on my ideas and perfect them are precious to me.

So far, my system seems to work. I've essentially finished two books and will soon be starting my third. I admire those who can update three times a week, and even two times a week--but I don't think it's for me. It's not that I don't see the merits, active sites mean active readers, but that requires another level of commitment from me that I can't really give. Maybe if I wrote everything out first, THEN posted as some of you said--but I was able to get two books done as I am working now. The weekly goal is a great motivation. I don't feel the need to change it anytime soon.

"Cutting off mid-scene seems far too abrupt for me, and I don't think I can move the plot significantly forward in just 1000 words. One solution, it seems, would be to speed up the pacing of my story, but then I could lose the very elements that many of my readers enjoy."

This is a good point. Different storytelling techniques and paces are going to effect how feasible any update model is.

"I admire those who can update three times a week, and even two times a week--but I don't think it's for me. It's not that I don't see the merits, active sites mean active readers, but that requires another level of commitment from me that I can't really give."

With a write-as-you-go approach a two to three times a week update schedule would be waaaaaaaaaaaay to much pressure for me. Oiga.

Thanks for sharing your numbers! It's great to get perspectives from different ends of the spectrum.

I think posting frequency might be more important than length. I've been told that since I've dropped to a once-a-week update schedule (and with a less-popular story to boot), people forget to check my site but once a month.

I'll be interested to see what happens too. In a lot of my previous serialized books, the chapter size would vary greatly. One would be 15 pages and another would be 30. No one said anything about that. I think it's difficult to gauge length when you're scrolling...?

Anyway, I'll let you know what the reaction is.

I have that happen to me with webcomics that often go on hiatus, or have an otherwise irregular update schedule.

For me personally, length is less important than meat. The fact that there is a progression in the story generally outweighs how long it is, tying into what MeiLin said. To use the webcomic parallel again, when an author who normally does a strip does a full page people are excited, but I haven't seen them get nasty when the author goes back to a strip. The exception to the 'at least there's meat' rule for me is filler. I would rather wait than have to wade through it all to get to actual content. Also, length is really hard for me to gauge scrolling. My standard for length is the microsoft word print layout page.

For mine, each episode is pre-written. They tend to run anywhere from 7,500 words to 10,000 words (with one episode clocking in at 24,000). I tend cut them up into installments of 500-1000 or so words and update once a week.

The length of installments will vary, depending on the action/scene. Sometimes, it's two or more scenes. Other times, one long scene.

Done that way, each episode runs roughly 6+ installments, which translates to 6 weeks between each episode.

That means I have to write, revise, and polish an episode in a minimum of 5 weeks--with the extra week spent cutting up installments and then queuing them to the blog.

Is it working well? So far, the only "complaint" I get is "moar plz! kthxbai"

I'm thinking about a similar approach, with the temptation to run a little longer. But we'll see. Thanks for such specific numbers!

The original History was written on the fly, and boy did it show. From here on out, History installments are pre-written. The Gulch will remain on the fly, unrepentantly full of plot holes and clunky writing, and advertised as such! "Watch Mei dig herself out of the sand trap THIS week!"

Heh. It's certainly one way to make your life more interesting. Sow your own minefield. I guess it could be seen as a marathon writing exercise. I imagine you'd learn a lot while having fun at the same time, kind of like NaNoWriMo. Kind of makes me want to play with that at some point.

Generally before my 15 month hiatus, I post daily with 600 words long which lasts at least last for 100 chapters. It has advantages that I can finish my story arc fast (my series is now stopped at book 4 out of 11) outside of NaNoWriMo or WeSeWriMo, but it made my life busy.

Currently, we post 1500-ish-word chapters 3x/week and have pre-written about 1 book (15 chapters) ahead. Each chapter is an individual scene (though sometimes a "chapter" is 2 or 3 chapters long).

I've found that when I glomp a whole 3000-4500 longer scene into one post, I get less commentary on points past the 1500-point line. And my readers would prefer longer and more frequent, but they're sort of insatiable.

Lyn's readers are totally insane.

I post 2K words+ every weekday except holidays, and at this point it's usually all original writing, depending very little on the dead-tree version of the story because it was so sketchy. The daily deadline is the best thing I ever did to improve my writing.

I have never had a reader complain when I post short (due to something coming up that cuts into my time). When I take a hiatus, however, they complain in a friendly, complimentary way, but of course they don't visit the site.

Moral of the story: short posts are better than no posts at all. What online readers want more than anything else is something new when they come onto your site.

Yes. Basically, as a reader, I want to be addicted if your writing is any good at all. Putting up a lot of little bits is a great way to get readers in the habit of refreshing/vsiting your site obsessively to check for new content. Granted it has to be worthwhile content - I'd say anything less than a flashfic or coherent story scene per update isn't going to satisfy, and of course it's gotta fit whatever style of storytelling you're doing.

My totally unscientific impression is that 1000-1500 words is a common target update for a serial, and I'm finding that as I revise my own story, it's working out to be around 1300 words per post.

I aim at 1k once a week, or 600 twice a week.