Another way to publish stories to your blog is in cliffhanger or serial form. At regular intervals you post part of the story, and repeat until you have published the whole thing on your blog. Visitors who like the story will return to read more of it, especiall if you work the post to leave them hanging.
There is one immediate problem with the blog serial story. New blog posts make the old ones scroll down, so your story will read to a casual/unaware visitor as if you started it in the middle or wrote it backward. Placing links to previous parts of the story in every story post can solve this problem.
Another way is to start a fiction blog like this sample blog* I made up tonight with my story Back to Back. There are a few blog templates out there that are story-friendly, and you needn't bother with all the bells and whistles if all you intend to post on the blog is your fiction. Set up a permanent sidebar link to your fiction blog and you're in business.
*I manipulated the post dates so the story would publish to the blog in order.
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I've been thinking about doing this with one of my favorite stories, "The Mechanic," which I published on a really obscure Scottish crime zine. I suspect if I pubbed it on my blog, I'd get a lot more readers than I ever did at that zine. I think I should ask permission of the zine, though -- I can't recall the terms of our contract!
ReplyDeleteYou own your own stories - mostly.
ReplyDeleteI just wouldn't post a story on my blog if it is simultaneaously in print or online zine for the first twelve months after publication.
After that you should be able to pretty much do with your story as you wish like sell it again or post it on your own site.
You could also mention that it was published and where it was published when you post it on your site. Might keep the original publisher happier - but it's your choice and your creation.
Blogger doesn't have it, but a lot of blogging software allows you to do static pages as well as normal blog posts. Then you can create a table of contents and add your chapters as you go. The nice part is it has the same design as the rest of your blog, but is seperate so you don't have to worry about chapters getting pushed down the page in backwards order. When you add a new chapter to the story, you can link to it on your blog. But people can also bookmark the table of contents. I know wordpress and serendipity both have that built into them.
ReplyDeletewhat about starting the story in a post and then the rest of the story in the comments section?
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about doing that and even allowing reader comments to go between each post and so forth to heighten the reader afterwards to post as well.
right now as I re-post an old story of mine called Dreams of Reality with an added story line, I'm posting a chapter a day and then at the end of the week I go to Lulu.com and add the chapters I posted that week up so people can just download the book at the end of theweek of any post that they miss. Some like this method a lot better and I can see that on Fridays and Saturdays I get a high amount of downloads of the story as more and more people join in.
If there is a perfect story template out there I'm sure your quest to find it will be fulfilled soon.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for this valuable informtion!
ReplyDeleteJust this week I posted an announcement that I'm seralizing my latest novel and actually posted Chapter One yesterday. But in all the excitement I never even thought of the posts getting lost in all the others.
This couldn't have come at a better time....YOU ROCK!!
It's also possible to adjust the html code for blogger posts fairly easily, deleting the date function altogether (which I've done on my short story blog). Or you can simply reset the date manually each time you post a new segment, moving backwards to force the correct reading order.
ReplyDeleteThe story is great! I hope we see more of Gnat soon.
ReplyDeleteOr you could post the story backwards, as in, the last chapter is the first post, and work your way to the start.
ReplyDeleteI've done that using blogger.
Another way (with wordpress) is to use the PAGE function. Every page you write automatically goes into the side bar. No linking required. I udes this for a WIP.
From one Lee to another, good idea about posting backwards!
ReplyDeleteLooks like you borrowed heavily from the Blade Dancer worldbuilding. Loved that book. Back To Back looks like a fun romp. *~)
ReplyDelete