I started a fic that was SUPPOSED to only be a oneshot... and which has snowballed and is now five chapters. I'm about 95% sure I'm gonna add two more. I've been chipping at it for five years (I counted). When I decided I was gonna make it a multi chapter, I decided I wasn't gonna post the 1st chapter until the 2nd was done so I could keep a consistent update schedule, but that gets hard when I decide to wedge in extra scenes on the fly. Should I just post chapter one, schedules be damned?
Ah, how fun! Of the two longfics Iāve written, one I wrote entirely then posted and the other Iāve been posting as I write. So hereās the rundown from my experience:
No pressure to finish chapters by certain dates
Less guilt if you want to abandon the project
Itās much easier to edit earlier chapters (add foreshadowing, switch scenes around, rework character motivations, etc.)
It takes a lot of internal motivation (unless you can get a friend group excited about it with you)
It's lonely work (once again unless you have writer friends)
Sometimes feedback can be useful
The ppl want updates and thatās External Motivation babeyyy
Itās easy to stay hyped about writing
You get to see ppl react on a chapter-by-chapter basis
Their feedback may be helpful
Ppl may ask for updates, which can be an added source of stress
Updating can begin to feel like an obligation
Harder to make bigger revisions to already posted chapters
Abandoning a fic or taking a break from it is trickier
The feedback of the general public may not be helpful
Updating your fic shouldnāt feel like an obligation, and you shouldnāt feel guilty about abandoning fics*, but those feelings tend to arise in us anyway. Thereās not a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, so itās really down to what you think you need! If it were me, I think Iād start to slowly post my chapter backlog with a couple months between updates. Iām a slow writer, so that would hopefully give me time to work on future chapters while ppl are reading the earlier ones.
*see āsunken cost fallacyā