This shouldn't be such a big deal but I'm stuck on thinking about it. In the next couple/three months I'll be wrapping up the "first book" of one of my stories. I'm still trying to decide if I want to start the second book as a new story on the site or continue with the old.

With a new story I have the benefit of finally having a "Completed" story under my belt and a brief time in the "New Stories" tab on the main page. I'd expect my normal readers to jump ship easily enough.

Keeping with the same story I'd maybe better keep my "brand recognition" (for what it's worth), keep my more casual readers in the loop, and maintain the feedback I've received.

The way editing's going, I'm expecting to break 200K words, though by how much would rely on how I choose to break things up.

Thoughts, opinions, something else? I'd appreciate the input.

Thanks very much for your time and take care,

Pone_Heap

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It really depends. Has the MAIN story arc been concluded? If so, I'd start a sequel instead of continuing off the original.

6619276
I can't believe I didn't think about that. When the "book's" goal is over, beginning anew would make sense.

Thanks. This gives me something to think on.

6619280
You're welcome.

Heya! So, finishing your first story, and you're thinking about whether or not to keep going or start fresh on your next... let's say season.

Warning: Wall of text.
TL;DR: I recommend you close the book on your first story and make a sequel.

Too Long, Read it Anyway:
You just said it's around 200k words. Is that the first part, or all the next part you haven't written yet too? Because that's about 2 and a half full novels, by average word count. Few irl books exceed 100k words. Most are less than that. Keeping in mind that my person record for reading a novel that kept me glued to the pages and consumed my social life is 3 days, a new reader entering your story and not willing to invest every noneeping moment into it would take 1-2 weeks or more depending on reading speed to catch up.

If I told you the only way to be caught up on the pokemon anime was to go watch every one of the 800+ episodes, most wouldn't try. Not even me, and I LOVE the critters.

I suggest wrapping everything up so the story COULD be complete if you disappeared the next day. But leave enough loose ends open so that when you edit the story's description to include a link to the sequel and link the sequel to the prequel, fans will follow. Don't give them too much to work through at once. Let's look at some examples.

Bad: An Extended Holiday is one of the longest stories on the entire site, weighing in at a whopping 2.1 MILLION words. Assuming a book is 80k words on average, this means that one story is about 26 full-length books. One glance at that word count is enough to turn me away. Hell, 150k can be a minor deterrent if it doesnt have a stellar like/dislike ratio.

Bad: The 'pony waifu' series (which I cannot link because NSFW) consists of several clopfics pairing you the reader with anthro versions of nearly every main and secondary character in the show. Regardless of its content, each story consists of 1-3 chapters and rarely goes over 10k words. Despite this, every one of them is listed as the sequel or prequel of the next one, even though the only connecting thread is that they all take place in the same universe. I understand separating the stories by character, but I should not have to cycle through 7 ponies I don't care for to find one I do. But much like the robot masters in megaman needing to be beaten in a specific order, each fic in the series is in chronological order, so some events seem out of place unless you read ALL 30 STORIES. Again, it seems intimidating.

Good: The stories of the pony Blank Page, starting with New Beginnings, follows the show with an extra character. The saga is currently in its 6th book with the longest one barely exceeding 50k words. These are each manageable reads that can be done in an afternoon or two, and each one tends to start a new story arc after the previous story's one ends.

-Ashfur wuz here

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Really, I feel kinda dumb. That's "Writing 101" stuff. But that's a purpose of the group, I suppose.

You can continue on to a second story arc in the same story if you really choose too, some people do choose to do that. Just label things Book 1 and Book 2 retroactively. Things that would make that change not workable would be if there is a dramatic change in style. I have done two sequels to two different stories and in both cases a sequel was needed because I shifted from using a single character's perspective to many characters which qualifies as a major shift in format.

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Sound advice; since you took the time to write all that, I read all that. Starting fresh might be good. I wouldn't mind a chance at maybe, possibly, remotely chanced, I doubt it improving upon the like/dislike ratio. I got sniped pretty bad back in May when I added a big old appendix as the "shifting" final chapter (site admins said it wasn't against the rules); also, I found adding in some groups triggered "campers" that hit everything that comes across their feed.

Appendix for Princess Essenta

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Thanks for the input regarding a possible change in style. I've gotten a few pieces of advice, all different, and I'm getting some good ideas.

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Glad to help, and I wish you the best of luck. Heaven knows it's not doing me much good, lol.

Prank War! isn't doing badly. Unless you mean something else; not my business.
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Prank war is fine. I'm talking about Tale of a Comet, since I've been dreaming up the plot for like 3 years.

The key phrase here is... well, I don't know the exact word, but I'll put it as something like 'Read-thru' as in 'How much does a reader need to read before they can enjoy this part right here?'

Examples I've Written: Nearly every Princess Prankster story I've got can be read as is, without any other reading needed so you know what's going on. The One Who Got Away/Drifting Down the Lazy River is a 'standalone' sequel, as in you don't *have* to read the first one to understand the second. The Traveling Tutor series... Well, by the time you reach the 4th story, at around 600k words into the series, there's enough plot lines to make it fairly difficult to just drop in on the fourth, so readership drops. Example: Tutor starts at 530 thumbs, Royal Exam about the same, but the total chapter reads are about half by the end. (really, I thought the dropoff was worse until I went and looked just now)

Another thing to consider is TIME. Exam has about a thousand reader drop-off due to six months going by in the middle without an update. People get bored and wander away. The *best* response I've gotten in stories is to get the whole thing done and polished before releasing at about one chapter a day, which is a pace that people seem to like. The flip side of that is The Maretian or Admiral Biscuit's Silver Glow's Journal, both of which updated daily forEVER! Your mileage may vary, goodnight.

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Well, there's pros and cons to both. Starting a new story has the risk of previous readers putting it in their 'read later' list and getting lost, but continuing with it risks the length scaring off new readers.

Personally, I say unless both are part of the same overarching plot, separate them. If the sequel continues the same story, keep it together. If it's super long, try breaking it up into separate parts but in the same 'book'.

For example, my story, Dawn Shield, is one 'book' with a single overarching plot, but divided into 'acts' that each are their own sub plot that fits into the larger picture. This still gives people places to pause and take a break if they wish, but still keep the story together.

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"A story is like a penis. Longer ones are more impressive.
But eventually it gets to a point where it starts to scare people away." - Shakespearicles

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I wanted to get my say in before you decided outright.

Often times when you make a sequel story you will lose a lot of readers, but you can minimize that by making blog posts, linking to the new story in the description/last chapters

At the same time, it really depends on how you feel about your current story. A lot of people feel that they should make a sequel just because their story is getting long, and that’s not the smartest idea.

Sequels are really only used if your story has a drastic change at some point. I’ll use Othoros’ Divine series; each one follows the story of Atlas, but the settings and plot and time zone of each is so different that he made each one it’s own book. (I think he also just wanted more cover art)

His first story is pre-equestria during the three tribes, the second one is during the Twin Sisters Reign, and the third one picks up just after the fight with Tirek.

That’s a good way to use sequels, as it breaks up the stories so that it actually feels like there could be large time gaps in between, sequels are just as much about writing design as they are about actually writing.

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For Celestia's sake, yes, new book! Please! Other's have said it well, but it deserves to be repeated, Don't make your readers slog through miles and miles of text. Yes, you've got two stories that are connected, but humans just burn out if they have to try to focus on one thing after a certain point. The only reason fanfiction can even begin to get away with this is because the nature of the form (chapters getting published individually an often separately) means that it's more like watching an episodic TV show than reading a book.

To take that analogy further than is probably necessary, even TV shows with multi-year story arcs still have season breaks. Consider your books to be "seasons" of your "show" and the divisions make a lot more sense This is also a good writing tool, as it helps you to keep your story elements thematically sorted in such a way as to not be too much of a slog for the readers. I'm reading one particular fic that is actually pretty darn good...BUT the plot-lines are stretched out and dragged through several story arcs, even when it would have been better to keep certain arcs bundled together into a single "season."

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If you are concerned about loosing readers in the 'gap between the books', you could start the 2nd book at the same time as the 1st ends (so both works are live at the same time, I mean). That way there is a natural progression into the new work (a reader can immediately start book #2).

Assuming you can link the two works, that is!

It's what I did with mine; Days of Wasp and Spider and Final Solution are really just one book. Wasp is far too long (250K) and Final even longer (350K and counting), and really need to be split up further. Or finished. Yes that's it. Finished.

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That's something I plan to do now, definitely.

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I'd say that the decision on whether to start a new story or continue the existing one depends entirely on whether the story you're telling is complete.

Historically, the economics of printing had a significant influence on the length of published books, but in a digital medium, those concerns no longer exist, and a "book" can be exactly as long as it needs to be to tell its story. While wide-spanning epic stories are often published in multiple books for ease of printing, they can remain as a single work. One of the common examples of longer multi-book stories is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It tells a single, epic-style story. As I understand it, JRR Tolkein intended it to be a single volume, but it was split into three volumes for ease of printing and as a safeguard against financial losses in case the first one didn't sell well. In a digital medium, there's no need to break it up like that. Internal divisions, covering major arcs, might be appropriate, but if it's all one single story, it's probably better for being together.

That said, I'd say it's important to know when the story ends. One hazard with writing a long story in a digital medium is that it's easy to just keep adding on, but this is a recipe for a meandering and aimless "story" that just keeps going, seemingly without coherent direction. As sad as it can be to see a story end (And I say this having just ended a half-million-word story ), endings are useful. Much like chapter breaks can be useful for pacing, emphasizing events, or building tension, the end of a story can be used to reinforce what came before it. Similarly, the start of a story can be a good way of having a fresh start and change of pace.

So, short version: if it's a new story, start a new story, but if it's really a single unified story, don't feel like you need to split it based on standards for a different medium.

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Thanks for responding. It seems the consensus is "start a new story if the goal of what I'm working on is achieved". I've found this thread to be helpful, but they usually are.