New Lives--latest section lost!

[beatrice_otter]

Aaaah! No, no, no, this is bad. The fic I'm currently working on, New Lives, is going slower than the fic I just finished, Consequences. (Which is up on ff.net, and will be here soon.) Anyway, New Lives is a sequal to it and I'm finding it a lot harder to write. So it's going slower. And I sat down to write today and found that the last section I wrote either was never saved or got overwritten somehow. I don't want to have to retype it! I don't even remember exactly what I wrote! I always write a few chapters ahead of what I post, so I have some stuff I can put up this week despite the lost words ... but I hate having a small gap between what I've got posted and what I have on my hard drive. It's a lot less pressure to just get something written if I know I've got some slack to play with if I need it. And the slow writing I've managed with this story so far is not conducive to building more lead time, unless I make the chapters shorter. Which I don't want to do.

Comments

[daisycm83.livejournal.com]

Sequels, I find, are always harder. Matching the thoughts, feelings, and wording of a story that's already done--well, it's just more difficult than to come up with something completely fresh, y'know?

I'm currently in the middle of writing a continuation of something I wrote over a year ago. So I get the difficulty. It sort of sucks.

Oh. Um, I should probably introduce myself. I'm Christi. I friended you...I don't remember. I think it was because "ZOMG, decent Sam/Jack fic!! Yay!", which is generally one of my top reasons for friending people. So, uh, hello.

[beatrice_otter]

But New Lives wasn't supposed to be a sequel, it was supposed to be part of the same story, so I was hoping it wouldn't get sequelitis. Oh, well. I'm posting the next section on ff.net today. It'll be shorter than it would have been if I hadn't lost the frakking chapter.

[lorettakay.livejournal.com]

so I finally found your LJ. I've been following your fic over at FF.net, you mentioned you had LJ, and since that's me new internet addiction, here I am.

Hope you don't mind if I friend you. (and I tend to comment, so if you don't want comments feel free to tell me to leave you alone)

I wouldn't worry about how long it takes for this part. We can all wait for good fic.

[beatrice_otter]

The problem with having long breaks between chapters is that people forget the story. They tend to lose anticipation as they find other good fics to read. If you can keep up a regular posting schedule, they wait with baited breath for the next part. So a regular, frequent posting schedule with shorter chapters is better for getting and keeping readers than an infrequent posting schedule with longer chapters. Cliffhangers at the end of a chapter or section are also a good way of keeping your readers coming back for more. It's all part of a sinister plot on my part to get more readers.

[lorettakay.livejournal.com]

Very true.

if there is too long a break between chapters I have to go back and reread the story again. It can be rather distracting.