Is it doomed? (How does long form story survive?)

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Yeah, sorry for making another useless topic I know I should erase my existence

Is there any survival trick for longer form story?
From what I saw here long form works may it be comic or novel are at least slightly less preferred by audience than shorter form.
I don't blame readers as their preference is understandable, I just want to know how to gain readers and make them stay engaged to longer form work?

I just wondering since some people here said works that has many episodes/chapters published can deter potential readers, then how many episode is preferrable? (This thing set an irrational fear of me of not uploading episode). Is it recommended to make sequel instead of putting them all on a very long one series?

If a work posted here does not gain audience while the series is going on, any chance it will pick up a new audience on the go (with all the new episodes adding, just like the previous point)? Or if it doesn't have a smooth take off, it will never fly forever?

Thank you

[HGohwell]

One thing I've found from publishing off Tapas was to stay in very strict arcs or one shots that are part of the bigger story. When I did long stories of 50+ chapters no only would I not gain new readers but I'd slowly lose older readers as they just gave up on something so huge. But, when I published shorter stories that were self contained but written as part of a bigger story, much like arcs of only 10 or so chapters, they'd maintain readership and sometimes others would pop up because it was more manageable. Something AO3 has that was quite useful was the ability to create a series to put oneshots/smaller stories in. People picked which ones were interesting to them, and they were self contained and you could just pick one up and read without having to go through lots but had the option of more too. Those were often the ones that saw new readers turning up even after I'd left the series as no longer updating.

I'm not sure how it's recommended to be done on Tapas but that's how it's always worked best for me outside of Tapas and I don't imagine it's that much different.

[SleepingPoppy]

I just wondering since some people here said works that has many episodes/chapters published can deter potential readers, then how many episode is preferrable?

There isn't any ideal number that can be recommended. It's just a vague understanding that for some readers, many episodes would be intimidating, that's just some readers, not all. You shouldn't let this stop you from publishing, and you're definitely overthinking things! For some readers a hundred is a lot, for others it's more like a thousand.

If a work posted here does not gain audience while the series is going on, any chance it will pick up a new audience on the go

Generally it's good to think of comics as a long game. You'll pick up subs over time as you update. The best determiners of how you'll do is the quality of the art and writing, your hook, your thumbnail, the popularity of the genre. These are individual factors that work together, but there's also luck and what not.

I publish a long form comic, I'm starting chapter 4 soon (30+ pagers per chapter), and so far it's going fine.

It's good to think about how long your comic will take you, approximately how many chapters, and what your ending will be. It's fine to make a long form comic, but it is a good idea to make a one shot or two as practice and to prove you are capable of finishing something. At the end of the day you do what you want. =)

[ZombieOwl]

I've been thinking about this too because I might want to try it someday :o
I think if the story is planned well and the creator sticks to the plan, the readers don't get confused/lost as easily.

You'd be able to add filler episodes when you know a gap is coming, and you can drop little bits of intriguing foreshadowing to keep readers coming back for more because they know you've got a cool development going.

That's what I've been pondering from the perspective as a reader. I try to think of what I look for in a story, so that I can apply it to my creations

[unknown_user]

I think that this topic is not useless at all!
As I've already said somewhere, I'm the type who prefers short stories or stories which are at their beginning. Despite it is really hard to say which exactly length is the optimal.
But if the description and the few first pages are hooking enough, I can get stuck into long story, too, and don't notice how I've read several chapters or episodes at once. By the way, "Karana" description looked good to me, so it made me curious from the beginning.

About keeping readers interested... can't really help you here All what I can say is "keep story interesting", but it is like saying nothing, because it is too vague. So I'm curious to read other's opinions

[dawgofdawgness]

It's true, I've seen a lot of long form comics get less and less readership as they continue updating for over a year. But I feel like this is inevitable no matter what form of webcomic you're doing. One-shot forms have the advantage of gaining new readers easily - if you see one comic strip they made, you don't have to go to the very beginning and read up until the 283th comic to understand the context. That's why it's a little harder to keep the interest of your readers if your comic is longform or heavily story-based.

With that being said, here are some tips I found to be useful for long-forms webcomics:

• try to update as frequently as possible. If you update in large batches once a month, you might risk losing some of your readers' interest since they've forgotten what happened so far. Remember that most of your readers are keeping track of 100 other comics on Tapas!!
• Update 1-2 pages at a time
• Don't make your content too niche. It's true that unique stories are highly praised and refreshing to read, but don't make that your number one priority. Don't be afraid to have some cliches and common tropes in your story.. It serves as something familiar for your audience to cling onto.
• If you don't see a lot of activity on your comic at first, KEEP UPDATING. This is how you create a tight-knit community of readers for your comic. Just keeeeep going.
• In the webcomic world, sometimes character > plot. I've seen a lot of successful comics on Tapas not even have a STORY. They just have some very interesting characters that interact with one another in fun ways. If you don't have the best plotline in the world, don't worry. Well-written characters will hold the audience's interest just as well.
• (write romance or BL) (I'm kidding) (write what you want)

[unknown_user]

Mmm... But what should do the people who don't want to add cliches, fillers or strict themselves to BL/romance?
If the author will add to their story too much things they don't like themselves only to please the audience, they can lose their interest to their own story. Cause it will not be the story they wanted to tell anymore.
I think that it is especially important for a long story, that author themself should be interested enough to continue for a long time. One of my main worries about my own story is that I'll lose interest before finishing it. THAT would be real fail.

[dawgofdawgness]

The thing is, cliches aren't necessarily bad. All GOOD stories have them. I've seen a lot of people make the mistake of trying so hard to eliminate every single cliche from their story that it just becomes a mess. There is a certain point where cliches become distracting when the reader is able to predict everything that happens in a story, but that's really all you need to worry about. I'm not saying "please your audience with cheap techniques!!" I'm saying "unique does not equal good". If you look at some of the best characters, the best stories, the best origins, they all have some kind of overused trope. If you read the original Spiderman, you'll see that it's absolutely LITTERED with them. I guess what I'm trying explain is that you shouldn't try to include cliches for the sake of the audience, but for the sake of storytelling.

Also the romance and BL part was a joke lol but I get how that's confusing. Personally I don't like writing in either of those genres, but having a romance/BL comic DOES give you the advantage of attracting more readers. I also don't think people who DO write romance and BL on this site do so just to attract an audience. They just like writing in that genre.

[joannekwan]

Persistence is key!

That is my main takeaway, most of my stories are longform and I've been here on Tap for over 3 years now.

Other tips:

• HAVE YOUR STORY PLANNED OUT: If readers sense that the plot really isn't going anywhere, they are more likely to drop it.
• Update at least once a week, or if you have to do every other week, have more than one page in the update.
• Make sure something happens in your update! Readers won't stay for the long haul if it takes 3 updates for your character to get out of bed in the morning. If you need extra 'filler pages' for pacing, lump them in with consecutive pages that move the plot.
• Speaking personally as a reader, episode counts do not deter me unless they break 500. In that case I may evaluate the series a little harder to see if I think it's worth my time. So if your first series is near that mark, then I would have its sequel be a separate series.
• You can still find readership after your story is complete! Just promote as you would an on-going series. I still get the occasional subs on Erie Waters and that completed 2 years ago!

[karunashi]

I actually have your story on my "to-read" list as I've been going through a giant list of recommendations I got on my previous thread that I've been slowly going through.

Not entirely sure how Tapas audience is, but I've been reading plenty of novels (including WNs/LNs ranging from short stories to 1000+ chapter ones). For me personally, length is something that I look at secondary to more important elements such as the actual story (if the current arc is engaging for instance if it's a long story), and/or the world-building elements that make you remember and almost immerse yourself into the fictional world, etc. Only time I would actually look at length and let it decide for me is whether it has a lot of short chapters as its first 5-10 chapters (which is like the first impression sort of a deal). If I see that the quality of the first few chapters are mediocre, and I see that there's 100+ chapters more to read, I might just drop it and leave it. I think the number one concern for avid readers that find an interesting premise to a long story, is whether the story will get dropped randomly at some point leaving the story with no ending and abandoned.

From my observation from various communities I lurk in-- there's the group that wait and let the updates pile up to binge-read (sort of like Netflix), and there's also the group that reads as soon as the next update pops up. I'm part of the group that actually waits for content to pile up-- but that's mainly because some of the WNs I read have like >1000 character chapters and filler chapters that tend to kill any resolution to read regularly based on the updates. One thing I've noticed is that the authors that stay true to their cast of characters/plot(s)/etc are the ones that seem to successfully complete a fantastic story and make people want more (which brings about side-stories and possibly even a spin-off). I would say that while looking at the sub/like/view count is a way to gauge your audience and overall performance, it should never be a primary goal (as it will likely lead to burnout I'm sure) but rather a milestone. Just keep writing and creating content that you're passionate about, and stay true to your story and you'll gain traction from loyal followers who will likely even follow all your other stories.

Now my advice as a reader/consumer:
- I think having a fixed (or an almost fixed schedule) of frequent and regular updates will keep people around and make them want to keep coming back as a routine since they'll know when updates are going to be implemented.

• Perhaps add 'recaps' into your chapters (maybe every arc or every 50 chapters, etc). This is utilized by other storytelling forms that has to compete for attention in the midst of thousands of other works and helps readers not lose their interest in having to re-read everything and can remember what happened via a summary when they return and can also serve as a checkpoint for both you and the reader. This will likely also test whether you yourself understand the story well enough to summarize it well enough that it doesn't conflict with what the readers had in mind. Be sure to highlight in the title that it's a Recap chapter so people don't read it if they're binge-reading

• Utilize filler chapters properly and don't make it seem pointless. A good filler chapter is when you still learn something new/interesting about the story element (character(s)/plot/world/etc). If it's worthless to the progress/immersion, and simply there to pad the chapter numbers and/or sate the readers while you're going through a Writer's block-- it will definitely make people want to drop your content (sometimes permanently).

• Do your research on your current loyal fanbase, find out what they like about your story but keep an open-mind and do not let it heavily influence your writing and warp your story from what it was envisioned in your mind completely (and thus making you lose the trust of some readers who enjoyed your original content). This is likely a very difficult factor as a content creator as you will need to balance between improving your work via constructive criticism to simply catering to a possibly vocal minority in your overall fanbase.

I can probably keep going, but I think I'm rambling so those are my thoughts (unedited and unfiltered).

[unknown_user]

The thing is, cliches aren't necessarily bad.

Well, maybe. I'm personally more thinking about them as an inevitable evil of some sort. Like, since it is hard to avoid them entirely, your story will probably contain some of them anyway. So it is ok if there are not many of those and they are in place...
But it is not the point. What I'm really trying to say: if you already have the plan of the story in mind, than including too much addition artificial things can ruin it.

[chocolatteboss]

It just have to be a really good story I suppose also make the text comfortable looking for the eyes. and have consist uploads although I am following log story comics that aren't so on schedule. I forgive that cuz the art-style is awesome

[Rhonder]

This is something I'm struggling with atm too. I've decided to expand my current one shot into an anthology-ish series (adding more short stories on when I feel like to loosely continue the story/explore the world, but each one should feel more or less okay on their own too) and am totally at a loss as to whether I want to like... plop the next story in the same series or make a new one xD

The pros of moving to a new series seem like:

• Can make a fresh series description (the current one is specific to the current short story, if I were to use the same series I'd have to make a more general one that covers both)
• Stronger starting pages/panels (the first pages of the current story are months old and will always be the first thing people see. They're not bad, but the new "first pages" would be better).
• Since they will be episodic in a way, easier for a new reader to quickly browse them to see which piques their interest (can click and read each summary rather than scrolling through a growing list of episodes)

The cons are like:

• it's understandably a hassle to get readers to migrate every so often when it's technically the same story (end of series updates and new series notifications can help tho)
• Similarly, for folks who want to read it in order a lot of breadcrumb trailing would have to be done somehow.
• Cluttering your creator series list (depending on how many I do, how many separate series would there be??? that in and of itself could be intimidating)
• Title confusion (you could do like Series Name - Subtitle or something, but similar issues to the above point)

& more, I'm sure xD

So yeah, I'm def conflicted. I have a few months before i have to deal with it but as of now I'm not confident in which direction I wanna go. Might just experiment and try both and see how it goes o^o

(side note, a 3rd option I'm considering is like... editing a table of contents episode into the front of my series? Could show the associated thumbnail for each story, a summary/description of the arc, and which episode number it starts on. This may be the best of both worlds, tbh. Just add to and update it each time I start a new story. Series description itself would be general, and I'd just update the thumbnail each time )

[amortelito]

This makes me so sad. I want to continue my story until the day I die but of course I don't want people to get bored or think I'm going nowhere. I am making them conclusive individual adventures to help readers to jump right into the current page without needing to read all of the previous pages. By the other hand, I don't want them to think that the characters remain static and their adventures don't matter because nothing changes, that is not what is happening. Is hard to balance and is frustrating that the more I work on this, the more people are likley to abandon.

[cjjoughin]

I don't know if my experience will help but I've been working on a long-form project for about 9+ years and it's about 1/3-1/4th of the way done at about 450 pages. If you look at a lot of long-form comics like Old Boy or Akira that's honestly about the same length. It's just good to have perspective on length going in, that sometimes a story just needs a bit longer to tell.

City of Cards is not my first comic, it's story I sat on for about five years before deciding to commit to. I spent a year of art school kicking my butt to get better at art/comics, did a test chapter to see if after doing 20+ pages I was still invested in the story, and had lots of help with peers and advisors to make sure my foundation was strong enough to carry for as long as I knew it would take. I still had a lot to learn but I had done my best, and that's all you can do.

This is all to say, if you really invest yourself in the story and the idea, that will help you weather whatever happens. Find the people who have your back and believe in your work and listen to them when you start to doubt yourself.

I say be wary of falling into the trap of page by page reader gratification if you want to tell something that lasts. It might be better to update in larger chunks, whatever works for you. I agree with the people that say arcs help, they can give you short term goals that help you feel accomplished while you're aiming for the bigger goal. Goals are important! They keep you motivated.

Here's some positives as well aside from reader numbers: despite not having gotten a huge audience, I've been able to successfully kickstart a printing of my first 400 pages, I've made a lot of friends in the comics community, and my skills have improved enough that I'm seriously looking into pitching other projects to publishers. From the start I wanted to see my work in print, I do my best to not let numbers discourage me from getting results.

It's up to you what you want. If it's a story you really, really care about it might not be easy to put something out that you know will take a long time for payoff, but it's not all bleak. Additionally: if you decide a couple hundred pages in you can't keep going, you can decide to do something else. You'll have the skills of a couple hundred pages under your belt and that will carry on to whatever you do next.

Your first project doesn't need to be your only project, but if you want to tell a big story you're also absolutely allowed to be as excited and obsessed with telling it as you want to be. Good luck, go for what you want, whatever that ends up being.

[ble]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[cjjoughin]

Would also like to add to Kazsup's comment, as a huge Jojo fan, one of the things that actually inspired me with Araki's work is how much he's grown as an artist, and how much flexibility he allowed himself as a writer.

The structure of his project means he can experiment with ideas within his world so he doesn't get burned out. He doesn't know whether audiences will like what he does next, but it means whatever he's working on he's invested.

[inkythoughts]

I'm having a similar "problem" so thank you for the idea! It never even crossed my mind to split it up between volumes haha
just might not be as self-contained as a one-shot for what I'm working on

[ryoko]

There are some long form comics, like "The Pirate Balthasar", that have more than 1000 episodes, that keep growing and gaining new fans. I love long form comics because there's so much to read

I've got a long form story. I started posting here on Tapas in 2015. Right now it's 11 chapters and over 650 pages long with quite a ways to go before it ends. For me, my views and subs have steadily grown over those years, but it wasn't until about chapter 4 where I started to pick up more readers/view. It's fun to see all those readers still commenting who've been there from day one and new readers who just discover it

I don't think there's really a right or wrong number of episodes, but as a creator, you really have to love your characters and know where your story is ultimately going to keep your readers engaged and interested.

[simplykit]

depends on how good your story is

doesnt matter how long the story is , if its good people will wanna read more