Reading Habits, WIPs, and Serial Fics.

[annerbhp]

I've been reading a really loooooong fic for the last week or so and I noticed that when originally posted, this 27 chapter novel of a fic had been posted serially. Meaning that the authors (there are two of them), routinely posted a chapter every Monday and Wednesday night until the fic was complete. I found this an interesting idea. Kind of like

Comments

[aurora_novarum]

Hah! First answer!

You can tell by the 100% on several options including ticky and SG-1 is hot, but 0% on the "where's the pron" option. :-)

[annerbhp]

Haha. I am now disturbed to see that the "SG-1 is hot" ticky is not at 100%. Lol.

[gabolange]

I agree with this: Fic is not TV. Having to wait until a proscribed day is stupid for one reason.

That is that inevitably authors say, "I will post every Monday!" and inevitably something happens such that they can't. And unlike TV, there isn't a guide or something saying, "Wait, rerun this week!" And then the reader is left hanging until the author returns (maybe on a random Wednesday, and then they should have just been posting when convenient and not getting hopes up) or doesn't (having had a baby or gotten a job or been eaten by dinosaurs, but still having gotten hopes up). All-in-all, I haven't ever seen it end well for the readers. Authors keep getting eaten by dinosaurs!

[katcorvi]

I ADORE your icon.

[annerbhp]

Very true. Stupid dinosaurs. That is why I rarely get seduced by WIPs. That and I am an impatient person. Lol. I do remember there was a comm who did a virtual season after Janet's death. Each week was a different author. That was a pretty cool serial fic thing. But it does seem sort of doomed for unscheduled reruns. ;)

[rigel_7]

Heee! TICKY!

I don't really read WIPs - purely because I have trouble recalling WTF happened in the last chapter if it was posted some weeks previously - my brain is easy to confuse that way :)

I'd be more inclined to read a serial that had THIS IS COMPLETE indicated on it, and the posting schedule was nice and regular.

[annerbhp]

Boy do I hear that. It's hard to remember sometimes if it's a while between updates! (I say like I haven't just made readers wait NINE MONTHS for an update on a WIP. I am going to fanfic hell.)

[abyssinia4077]

I tend not to read fics unless they are finished. If an author is posting serially (like every Monday and Wednesday) and assures the fic is all done, that doesn't bother me - but I may or may not wait until it's all posted before I read. I also think that's only worth doing if the length of your fic requires a very large number of posts (say, more than 5?) because, yeah, flooding the flist kinda sucks.

Um. Does that make sense?

[annerbhp]

Yeah, as a reader I think I would do the same thing. Do the math out in my head and be like, oh, okay, I'll come back in X weeks. Lol.

Totally makes sense.

[aurora_novarum]

Oh also there is a way not to flood the list. You can backdate your earlier segments so they won't show up on the flist except the first one.

[annerbhp]

Ah, very true. Doesn't help the poor ffnet people doomed enough to have author alert on, but what is ffnet if not a pit of self-punishment?