Young Writers Society

Hey, I have a quick question.

How many chapters of a novel should you post in the Literary forums section. As in, if you're writing a novel slowly and posting each chapter to YWS for review, is there a limit to how many chapters you should post?

I'm guessing 5-6, or maybe as long as people are following your novel? Or is there some generally accepted limit I have somehow missed? Thanks in advance!

Wariofart wrote:Hey, I have a quick question.

How many chapters of a novel should you post in the Literary forums section. As in, if you're writing a novel slowly and posting each chapter to YWS for review, is there a limit to how many chapters you should post?

I'm guessing 5-6, or maybe as long as people are following your novel? Or is there some generally accepted limit I have somehow missed? Thanks in advance!

By no means is there a limit. Feel free to post as many chapters of a novel as you wish. First I would like to draw your attention to this. Basically YWS once again has a pay to post system. That thread should explain it.

Let's say you do have enough points to post as many parts of the novel as you wish. If this is true then I still wouldn't recommend doing it all at once, for multiple reasons. First it would overrun that forum if you posted it all at once. Second it may seem daunting for a prospective reviewer if they see 10 chapters all at the same time. Most people like to start from the beginning, and once again it might seem too daunting. One positive about waiting a while is that you have time to go over it and edit. If a certain person or group of people finds a lot of interest in the novel then you could always PM them if you didn't want to post so quickly.

Just some ideas, but no there is no limit.

No limit what so ever. I have seen people post 30 chapters (with two parts for multiple chapters).

However, I'd suggest to start slow and find somebody really, really dedicated to the story to review it. The only thing about multiple parts posted is how people don't tend to review multiple parts, because as Day pointed out it's daunting. Start off with a few parts and contact your favourite reviewers, asking if they'll follow any more chapters.

I'm thinking you mean post one when it's done, not all at once, am I right, Wario? I'd follow the advice of the other two, but another option is, when you get high enough in chapters that you no longer have enough reviewers, or no one reviews regularly, then you could always ask for an Advanced Review, so long as you do one first.

Just to continue ultraviolet's comment, you can only post something as an Advanced Critique if a distinct part of the novel or the whole novel is finished.

I would also suggest looking at Novels/Novellas under the Read/Write drop-down in the header. It's a great way to organize all of your posted chapters in one neat place. That way if you have a following, those people can easily go on to the next chapter without searching through the forums.

Possible solution: Attach a file to the post, containing the first three or five chapters.
May it works? Then, you just write the first 500 words in your post . . .

Or

Each post have the first 500 words from a chapter, plus the complete chapter attached as a document.
Is it okay?