Hi, I'm a writer on ao3, and I have a question. I think this question might have been asked already, but I couldn't find it, so sorry if it's double.
I wrote a fic, and I'm almost finished and I hope to upload it soon. It's pretty long, and I've been working on it for over two years. I love it, it's one of my babies.
Now, as you might guess, comments are incredibly precious to me. I've written other stories, and there are comments that are several years old that I still go back to. Sometimes because I need inspiration, sometimes just because I need some positivity in my life. I'm so incredibly thankful for every single one.
The thing is, with my new fic, I feel like it would be better to post it in a couple, maybe three or four, pretty long chapters, so in big chunks. It feels better to me. But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure people react only once a chapter. And I think I'll find out more about what they think about specific parts if I split the chapters up. Also, if it's just finished within a couple weeks, no one is going to read it after that.
It kinda feels wrong to only do that for the comments, but on the other hand, there's so much work in it. I've been working on it for years, and I feel like I want it to be seen as much as possible. I don't know if there's a (ethical) right answer, I was just curious about your thoughts, I guess.
<3
You have no way of knowing this, anon, but I write adult education courses for a living and I've recently been working on one related to Ethics as a practical skill and regulatory requirement.
So I looked through your stated issue here, and I ran it through the ethical decision-making framework that is the basis for the course I've been writing, and you're actually fine.
The reason why I say that is because no matter which choice you provide, you are still giving your readers the story in its entirety. You are not tricking or fooling them into clicking something that will steal their data or their money. You are not feeding them the first three chapters and holding the fourth one hostage until you receive enough comments to release it.
All you are suggesting doing is separating the story into more chapters than you, as the author, think it actually needs. That's your prerogative as the author. Part of your job is determining chapter breaks, and how you make that determination is entirely up to you.
People who prefer longer chapters can read your work in Entire Work mode. People who prefer shorter chapters have a better chance of reading it at all. (I say this as someone who has had an 85K oneshot in my Marked for Later for 6 years now and has never actually opened it because ohmygodthat'ssolong)
You've written a story. You're proud of it. Go and show it off. 💗
To me, what this question comes down to is, “Do I alter my preferred vision of how this story’s contents should be allocated (in the bigger chunks) to try to get more engagement (via posting shorter chapters)?”
So the asker’s question, to me, is creative vision versus attempt to stoke engagement and gain more feedback.
I’m willing to bet many authors have faced both that concern and the opposite — if a multi-chapter fic will probably get low engagement due to aspects that are likely to impede popularity (e.g., fandom disdained pairing, scenario, etc.), is it best to get it all out there or endure the chapter-by-chapter silence or relative silence via lack of comments/new kudos?
Ethics-wise, I see this as marketing (trying to connect the writerly product with the readerly audience) and the question I have is whether the author, if engagement is good, will feel comfortable with splitting up the chapters … and, if engagement isn’t what the author had hoped to receive, will resent having subtly changed the work to try to engage the audience.
It’s a difficult nut to crack, and I don’t envy the author having to make this choice. I hope, whatever the author decides, that the experience is a good one.
