Open Thread: Oracle Hotline

[mithen]

Writing emotional setback of the week: posting a sad chapter full of foreshadowing of terrible canon (non-comic) events, then discovering no one wants to read depressing stories foreshadowing terrible canon events! I know that the story is going to swerve at the last second and the terrible canon is never going to happen, but it belatedly occurs to me that since my readers cannot know this, they may well sensibly decide they want no part of a story that seems to be leading up to it, so they may never even find out it has a happy ending. D: Lesson learned: some kinds of stories are better off not being posted in installments! I had no idea it was going to end up being such a fraught story when I started, and that kind of on-the-fly plotting is fun but quite risky.

I know for some of you this isn't an issue for various reasons, but it seems a fair topic for the week--Writing and posting longer stories!

A. Write the whole story and post at once time?
B. Write the whole story and post in installments?
C. Write on the fly and see where the story goes?

Obviously C is no good when writing modern profic (though a lot of 19th century literature did just this), but I've had so many stories evolve from casual one-shots into something I've really enjoyed that I can never quite rule it out. I hope whatever process you do it 's going well for you!