Posting Buffers and Pre-Writing

[BellaLestrange87]

So this is something I've always been curious about - how many people write a large chunk of a story before posting it? It's something I've wanted to do but I always end up finishing a chapter and posting it before I can blink.

So.. questions!

 

1. Do you prewrite a story before you post the first chapter? If you do, how much do you prewrite (how big is your chapter buffer)

2. If you don't, why not?

[Alexis Black]

1. Do you prewrite a story before you post the first chapter? If you do, how much do you prewrite (how big is your chapter buffer)

2. If you don't, why not?

 

Ah, such a 'Claw question! I can't resist answering.

 

Yes, I tend to do a little prewriting for multi-chaptered fics. I won't submit Chapter A until my beta has had her way with both it and the following chapter, Chapter B. Chapter B gets submitted once Chapter C has been through my beta and sent back to me for alterations, and so forth. The last chapter goes when it's ready.

 

So one finished (beta'ed) chapter is typically the buffer I prefer.

 

Occasionally things get a little backed up. Currently I have four chapters in the buffer, just over 20K words. I just dislike posting stories without having another set of eyes go over it.

 

[WindingArrow]

1. Do you prewrite a story before you post the first chapter? If you do, how much do you prewrite (how big is your chapter buffer)

2. If you don't, why not?

 

It depends. When I started rewriting House of Stone, I had like a six chapter buffer but I hit a block and then signed up for challenges and wanting to keep up a regular posting schedule, I soon lost my lead. Now I post when I finish a chapter because I don't want anyone to think I abandoned it. T_T I do have other buffers, though. I constantly have other projects in the works and I will write on them when I get blocked and whether they are one-shots or WIPs, they get stored away because I don't post unless I have a banner made to go with them.

 

Depending on how I feel about the piece or if I am concerned about something, I'll send it to my beta, but if I like it (and if I want to mess with her and surprise her) I'll just post it. If I'm waiting on her, before I had other projects, I would write future chapters.

[ichigopan]

I totally pre-write a story before posting. For me, 3 chapters are a minimum just to see where the story plot's going and whether or not it's interesting enough to post.

 

It also gives me time to read and revise any grammar mistakes, story, and see which parts could use further development in future chaptesr.

[lostinthelightss]

I always tell myself I'm going to wait before posting, but for Making the Reserves, the post-a-thon happened and I posted a few chapters when I wasn't planning on it. I never really plan things out though... I'm trying to! But it's difficult because I want to know how people like the development of the story, I love their ideas for what's going to happen next and their musings!

 

I think for the rest of them, I'm pretty sure I'm going to try and wait until the whole thing is written to post more, although if I'm going to be honest, it'll probably be after NaNoWriMo, which may or may not cause the story to be finished... I'm hoping to have at least 5 chapters written as a buffer

[dirigibleplums]

I do the buffer ?

 

Well, most of the time. If you look at my APs, most of my stories are one shots so it's not really necessary to have one going on. I currently have three WIPs, though two of them are on hold atm.

 

For Kiss My Lips and Swear to Die aka my first multi-chaptered fic, I always stayed three chapters ahead. It allowed me to see where the story was going and gave me some time away from the chapter before I went back to re-edit again. Also - and this really came into play this exam season - it was a useful way to have a backup in between prolonged absences. I usually liked to finish the chapter I was working on before uploading a new one - that is, I liked to have finished Chapter E before uploading B - but if it was taking too long, I could just dip into the buffer zone.

 

With Dormitory 2.6A, I don't do that, mostly because it was supposed to be a side-project before it consumed me like Kaleidoscopic. The latter, however, I don't seem to have any enthusiasm for... which I really wish I had known before I'd uploaded it. I usually write a few chapters to decide whether or not I'm going through with an idea, but I jumped the gun with these two and it failed with one of them.

[Aphoride]

I never have a buffer

 

I've tried, honestly, but it just doesn't work for me. I'm a slow writer usually - I tend to write bits/halves of chapters or one-shots in a sitting and then not touch stuff for another week or so - and trying to have a buffer of chapters waiting to be posted just means that there end up being huge gaps between chapters and that I can take even longer, because I know I've got two other chapters to go before the one I'm writing, so it doesn't matter so long if I take a break from working on it and work on something else. A lot of what I write is pretty long, too, and having a buffer of three chapters would mean I'd need around 9-12k words of prewritten stuff, which really, really wouldn't help with the slowness issue

 

Also, I love posting and seeing what people think, seeing the read count go up slowly, requesting reviews... all that kind of stuff. I'm really impatient, haha, so waiting for that is really hard for me. I'm also pretty lucky because I have a good memory, so I can hold pretty much all of the details of the story in my head - and I always know how the story will ultimately end, if it's a multi-chaptered one, at the beginning so I know where I'm going - so I don't generally need to go back and tweak things for plot-purposes.

 

(To be fair, that might also be because I'm terrible at plotting. But, you know... )

[ImaRavenclaw]

What a 'Claw question, of course I'm going to answer 

 

For me it depends on the story, but I think now I've started pre-writting more and more. I think for stories like "Nothing But Perfect", "Don't Mess With a Player", "In My Skin", and "The Hogwarts Diversities Program" I really wrote like mad and posted like mad. But I haven't really been up to going back to the editing horrible ones like "In My Skin" and "Don't Mess With a Player", and there are so many mistakes because I wrote so fast, and often posted without double checking.

 

Other stories like "I Am Norway Finnigan", "ITLWIBBWI", and "The Chef Is In" I get super excited about, write a chapter, post it right away, and then I can't find the mindset write another one. 

 

However, I like pre-writing stories so that updates are quick and readers don't lose interest. I'm currently writing a story called "Little Wanderer", but I've told myself to write at least five chapters before I start posting, and then only update once every week or two weeks. "The Great Tale of Me, Lyra Malfoy" is another story in which I've tried to write, write, write, post, write, write, write, post. It is just a lot less stressful I find, knowing that you have something to give your readers.

 

Sometimes it is nice to just be able to know that oneshots exist. You post it, you write it, and then it's over, ha ha ha.

 

I also find that if you post too quickly, people won't find your story as easily. It's good to have a schedule, seeing the reviews and read counts go up. I agree with Aph on that one.

 

Sometimes there are stories that I want to perfect before sharing, and there are other stories that I simply can't wait!

[FireOpal]

I have two completely opposite answers for this question, haha! As far as the stories I've actually posted, then no, I don't prewrite. The only exception is if I get so much inspiration that I write more than one chapter in one go - then I might wait a day or two before posting the second one. (Oh, and another exception is gift exchanges, of course, where I obviously post the whole story - no matter the amount of chapters - at the same time!)

 

The reason why I don't prewrite is that I just don't write on any type of reliable schedule - it's been more than a year since I last updated any of my WIPs on AO3, oooops! So trying to have a buffer would just be ridiculous. Also, I've only ever written one story that ended up longer than 10 000 words (and that was a Yuletide gift so I posted it all in one go), so I've never really posted a story that was long enough to warrant a buffer.

 

However I do have some longer stories planned that I've begun writing on but haven't started posting because I want to have more of the story written before I do, as the plot will be far more intricate than for a short story, and I don't want to write myself into a corner. Actually, if I were to write a novel length story I might want to have it completely finished before I start posting - which is probably part of the reason why I stick to short stories, hahaha!

[Stella Blue]

1. Do you prewrite a story before you post the first chapter? If you do, how much do you prewrite (how big is your chapter buffer)

2. If you don't, why not?

 

Great topic!

 

1. No. Generally I have a good idea what's coming in the next few chapters,  a detailed outline and maybe some scenes written up for upcoming chapters, but not much more than that.

 

2. Because I'm terrible at waiting. And I'm a very slow writer, so if I prewrote the entire story ahead of time, it might mean I'd have to wait about 4 years before beginning to post the story at all, if it's a long story.

[PinsandKneazles]

It depends; I don't stick to rules, even my own!!

 

For my first short story, I pre-wrote it in 4-5 days, then posted it chapter by chapter over a 2-3 week period.

For my longer project, I pre-wrote the first 2 chapters before I started posting. I already knew the ending in my head. Plans were outlined up to chapter 6. By the time I'd written and posted chapter 5, I'd decided the basics for the next 5-6 chapters after that. I'm still not entirely sure how long it's going to be or exactly how each chapter is going to go, but I have some scenes sketched that I plan on using in my story somewhere. I find it quite refreshing to ad-lib with it, TBH!

My next longer project is in development, and I'll probably pre-write quite a bit of it before I start posting it.

[Diogenissa]

I'm very impatient

 

Usually, I'll post an OS almost as soon as I finish with it, although there have been a lot of times in which I will re-read through it at least 3-5 times, scouring for errors, stray words, evil typos, etc.  I consider myself grammatically impaired, so I really do make a genuine effort to implement the various advice and corrections that others have given to me.  Still, I scour it like mad.

 

I am attempting the buffer-thing for the first time I guess you could say:  for my BCJ series Pocket Watch, I don't have #1 finished, so I used both of last years Camps and NaNo this past November to work on #2 because that's what I was getting stuff for.  I broke what I had from those camps down into chapters prior to NaNo and ended up with about 8.  After NaNo (if I had to guess because I haven't sorted it all out yet) I -think- I have maybe close to 13-15 (and it's only a quarter of the way through  ).

 

I'm almost done with #1 now, so once I settle in and get ready to start posting #2, that sounds like a fair chunk but we'll see how it goes, as the 'kids' can get rather fickle and testy.

[lovegood27]

No, I just write the first chapter as a precaution. If my story is rejected for a plot reason (which has happened before) then I have to change all the following chapters that have been pre-written. I don't like to change the plot of my chapters-once my ideas have been written down, I like to stick to it

 

Normally, I have vague idea of what the next chapter will be about and while the current chapter is being validated the next chapter kind of begins forming in my head. But often, I get bored and just start writing anyway...makes all my points above invalid, I know

[Guest dehlles]

I used to write and post as I go along. Although, I never really seemed to finish my stories that way, so I stopped. If I am gonna post anything, it's gonna be a one-shot. I made a promise to finish writing my whole story before posting anything, because it's more considerate for the readers - for a consistency and to be able to read a complete story.

 

If such a reader as myself would love to read finished stories, than I shall do the same for my readers.

[melian]

1. Do you prewrite a story before you post the first chapter? If you do, how much do you prewrite (how big is your chapter buffer)

 

Yep! Probably not ALL of it, but certainly most of it. With HTM I wrote about 80% before I started posting; with Year of the Snake it will be at least 50% and probably closer to 80%. I have to do it, though, because I don't write in order. I have tried to do so but my planning is very haphazard and as a result I don't have story plans that say, "this happens in chapter X", but rather write the story, then separate it into chapters. In other words, I write scenes, then join them together. The last chapter - or last scene, rather - is always one of the first I write because I can't tell the story without knowing how it's going to end. It can take me on a few tangents along the way, but I need to know how it ends. Otherwise, no matter how great my intentions, I never get more than about a quarter done.

 

2. If you don't, why not?

 

Answered that one already, haven't I?

[hedwig1751]

Well I tend to jot down a few bullet points for the entire story before I start writing, and then again for each individual chapter. I normally base each part of my story around each bullet point. Sometimes, I'll have a list for what could happen, but isn't necessarily going to happen... I call it my 'maybe' list  but generally, yes, I have a buffer

[Rhaenyra]

I much prefer to have a buffer for long stories. However, I have a tendency to write in bursts or massively in NaNo months and slack after, which can eat up a buffer quickly.

 

My original fic is written, but needs editing and for some parts to be rewritten before it can go up.

[Oregonian]

I pre-write my entire story before I begin to post the chapters.  My goal is to have a firm, well-structured plot in my story, so for me all the pieces need to be there, the bones of the story forming the skeleton and the details and developments acting as the flesh over the bones.

 

Like Melian, I often don’t write the story in order.  I often start at the beginning with just a sketchy summary, not even complete sentences, of how the story is going to go, and as I proceed, the sentences get fuller and more developed until I’m in full-on writing mode, and at the end of the process I will go back to the sketchily-outlined beginning and write it out in full.  Beginnings are hard for me, but they are easier after I see fully how I have written the rest of the story.

 

Since I know my plot before I put pen to paper (not just an idiom — I really do compose in longhand), I will be thinking ahead to upcoming sections of the story while I am writing the current chapter, and I will compose long sections in my head, reciting them over and over as if I were going to be a storyteller at the public library (often do this when I’m outdoors pulling weeds), and then it’s just a matter of writing it all down when I go back indoors.  So when I finally get to the point of writing that chapter in its final form, much of it has already been done.

 

When I was writing my longest story, The Baby In The Closet, I had eleven stacks of paper on my table, one for each chapter, in various stages of completion, some waiting for details of necessary research, most waiting for the pre-written chunks to be joined together into a coherent whole.

 

If the story is long, I utilize the wait time in the queue by looking over my supposedly-finished subsequent chapters for the purpose of doing further polishing, enhancing the story but not changing the plot.

 

I agree with ImaRavenclaw that if you post very quickly, people who are temporarily off the site may never see it.  But, on the other hand, as Lady Asphodel suggests, it’s a courtesy to our readers not to leave a chaptered story unfinished, or to have such a long gap between chapters that by the time the next chapter is posted, the poor reader has forgotten what was in the previous chapters and must start all over at the beginning.

 

[galadriel]

I used to post my chapters as soon as I finished writing them, mostly because I was really impatient and not very good at making myself wait. 

Currently though, I have WIPs that I haven't published even a single chapter of because I'm trying to finish the entire story before posting anything. On the plus side, it's helping me make necessary revisions to the plot and characters (most of my writing doesn't go according to the original plan :P) and be more meticulous and conscious of my writing style and possible ways of improving it. The problem with this is not getting immediate gratification/feedback from my writing - I don't know what's working, what isn't, or what a reader might feel about it. But overall, I think I prefer pre-writing longer stories and then establishing a weekly posting schedule so that it helps me actually finish a project that's long-winded and complicated. This is still new to me though, and I hope it works out. I'm mostly worried about how long I would take to finish a story but if I feel like it's moving in the right direction, I might begin posting it when I'm halfway through writing it.

To balance it out so that there's something going up on my AP in the meantime, I'm working on a couple of one-shots as well - plus, it helps to take a break from the longer fics. 

[hotel california]

oh boy, prewriting. that's something i desperately wish i could do (we ignore that i'm currently only working on one-shots right now, okay), but definitely can't. i think the closest i could theoretically get to prewriting is writing the first chapter, and then like, five lines of the second? like... i need more outside encouragement than this buffer situation can account for, because i'm liable to forget that i'm even working on something if i'm not talking about it. or being talked to about it. or just doing stuff involving it that has me interacting with other people.

and i guess i'm also an impatient person, but really, i'm so forgetful and in need of stimulation that being impatient hardly factors  (or maybe factors too much, and that's why i forget everything...)