Final Remarks (Part 3)
Let me talk about the second problem with this topic: [The short story collection model is fundamentally unsuitable for serialized online articles]
Many authors who have actually written novels probably know that if a large number of readers leave, 90% of the time it is not because of something flawed in your writing, but because they have “lost expectations”.
What is "expectation break"? Simply put, it means that the story has come to an end, the reader's original expectations have been met, and so they stop reading.
The protagonist finally escaped from his death row status and was released from prison.
The criminal in this shocking unsolved case has been caught.
The eternal problem that has puzzled experts has been solved.
The villain who exploited the people in the village finally got punished.
At this time, even if you write a new story immediately, if the next new story is not strongly connected to the current story, there will be a strong sense of interruption, and a large number of readers will be lost.
Even great authors often worry about meeting expectations.
Rumor has it that when Tudou was writing Fights Break Sphere, he was worried that a large number of readers would leave after the three-year agreement was fulfilled, so he forced a lot of things to happen in the last two months of the three-year agreement, even putting Yao Lao into a deep sleep, just to avoid fulfilling the agreement.
This characteristic is not limited to novels, but is prevalent in various serial works.
In order to fight against "discontinuous expectations", the authors have to rack their brains and use all their tricks to make the development between stories have continuity and always create a feeling that "the story is not over yet".
The protagonist escaped from the death row and came out of prison, only to find out that he was in prison for no reason and was framed, so he began to look for the framer. The framer had already targeted the protagonist, and this time, she did not intend to kill by borrowing a knife, but to do it herself...
The criminal of the shocking unsolved case was caught, but he escaped from prison soon. Behind him, there seemed to be a mysterious mastermind...
The high-ranking official who bullied the people and committed heinous crimes to the point of being completely inhumane was punished. No one believed the weird stories he told before his head fell off, such as the reincarnation of a celestial being or being exiled to the mortal world. Three days later, when the man who backed him came angrily to question him, the gates of the nine heavens opened, snow fell in the summer, officials trembled to welcome the celestial being, and the emperor knelt down to apologize for his death penalty... (What the hell is going on!)
In any case, there must be continuity between the stories. They cannot simply end abruptly, but must constantly lead to new developments and new expectations.
This is why there are so many “after the younger one is beaten, the older one comes” routines, and this is also the easiest routine to create the feeling that “the story is not over yet”.
It is obvious that the book "The Magician of the Fairy Tale World" is more like a "collection of short stories" in its overall structure.
I intentionally added some connections between the stories so that the characters in the stories could be connected and a long-term main line could be established.
But the closeness of this connection is limited. It is more like a layer of skin, a cover, forcibly connecting the stories.
This type of short story format is common in real fairy tale books. Each story is almost independent and you can read any of them at any time.
As a physical book, you can buy the whole book and read it back and forth at will.
But as a serialized online novel, the short story collection format is obviously inappropriate, and the end of each stage of the story is fatal to the follow-up reading.
One of the common problems faced by authors who write about astronomy is that every time they change the world, they will lose a lot of readers. Other types of creators are also often troubled by the sharp drop in readers caused by changing the map.
So, generally speaking, the author will choose to write hundreds of thousands of words about a map, and then change it after squeezing out its potential.
And because of my initial settings, I had to change maps frequently.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
If I were to rewrite this book, I might choose to compress the world view even more, try to integrate as many stories as possible into one kingdom, and make the connections between the characters closer. Of course, there are no ifs when writing a book.
Having talked about the two difficulties I encountered while writing the book, let me now talk about my future creative plans.
(To be continued) (End of this chapter)