So, when do you read Story Hour?

[Nonlethal Force]

When I came to a point in my story hour that this question came up...I asked the readers. Now, I don't get a ton of comments but the responses that did come suggested they prefer it in one thread.

Now, I know a lot of people like breaking things up into neat single threads for each storyline/adventure, but there are as many that think the opposite from what I can tell. My best suggestion is to pose that question to your readers.

Yeah, I would definately ask the readers. I brought the same question up at the end of my first story hour and got an opposite response - although I didn't get many responses, either. What I did was provide a link to the new thread at the end of the old thread so that people who were reading the new thread didn't actually have to look for it. They could just click on the link, and once they're there they can subscribe to the new thread.

Either way, there is no wrong anwer or wrong way of doing it. It is merely what you as the author prefer and what your readers like.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Asking the readers is clearly one of the steps, but I figure most of them will keep following it either way. I'm mostly wondering which is better for attracting new readers. (Ultimately, I write my storyhour for myself, and if anyone else likes it, that's just gravy--but it's still nice gravy. )

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Personally, I prefer a new thread. Stories with high post counts (say 100+ if it primarily only the author posting or 300+ if the author is in dialogue with the readers) scare me off. It is too daunting to think about reading a thread with 300+ posts - but that's for me.

Of course, this also depends on posting length. I typically average about 1700 words. Longer average posts would make it more daunting, while a shorter average post length would mean more posts wouldn't really scare me off.

However, this is just my opinion - and not necessarily the opinion of others on this board, especially your readers. But if you are looking to attract new readers, give consideration to starting a new thread with links. You're welcome to check out my story hours and how I ended one and began another. There is really nothing special about it. I just posted the links with an explanation of what was going on.

I've also discovered, however, that when you start a new thread you won't immediately get new readers. What will happen is once your post count gets up t around 40 or so - then you'll attract some new readers. Again, just my experience, though. YMMV, and it probably will!

 

[el-remmen]

This raises a related question I've been considering recently. Are you more likely to read Storyhours broken into separate threads at logical points or one continuous one?

I am not sure how I ma going to handle it for "Second Son of a Second Son" - but I did this for "Out of the Frying Pan", not because there were distinct chapters to the story of the campaign (more like indistinct), but because part of the usefulness of a story hour to me is as a resource for planning future adventures and plot arcs and reminding myself of past actions, NPCs, places, etc. . . By breaking it up it was easier to find this stuff by knowing at least generally what thread it happened in.