Your first story and first chapter

GDLiZy

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At first, I found that writing the first chapter is easy, just follow the heart!

Now though, I mainly wanted to write about the intricated plot that resulted in many foreshadowing and throwback to the past, so writing first chapter is so hard, especially when you had so many things planned. The start is now hard for me, but the flow after that was a great ride, even as a writer.
 

TheHelpfulFawn

A small animal that helps you with your groceries
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5k words took me a week to get the first draft. Didn’t like it, so scrapped and made entirely new one in 2 days. I do on the stop editing and I usually do a quick proof read before showing anyone or uploading so that might have cut corners in terms of time
 

Nakakure

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The first chapter and i got " I wonder how the story will be if it's has proper grammar" comment. Damn i am suck:blob_teary:
 

ThrillingHuman

always be casual, never be careless
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Back then I only just opened the world of Jp (well, East-Asian oriented really but it was mostly Jp for me) webnovels, light novels and anime. It was oh so novel to me and I got really really excited about all those ideas and plots and tropes... I read many good and interesting things back then... Kumo desu ga nani ka, overlord, hataraku Maou-sama, umineko koro chiru ni... Many other, maybe not as impressive too. Ah, the innocence of when I didn't even know that harem was a popular trope and spineless beta morons where everywhere in the novels... But I digress. I, of course, inevitably faced the question of "how would I write something similar?" and then I began having all those ideas and it was also very fun and exciting. At that time I was fascinated with the ideas of existential nihilism and also read a few Lovecraftian books, so there were the ideas of cosmic horrors too. It all just began to slowly mesh together in my head and I really had a kick doing it. Then I found RRL and found out there was an English-speaking community where people could just publish whatever they got in their heads, so... As for how I wrote the first chapter, I can't evrn remember anymore, despite it being slightly over a year ago...
 

ThrillingHuman

always be casual, never be careless
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Personally, my readers have been my best advisors when it comes to polishing my story and my writing style :blob_melt:
My readers just write thx for the chapter. It's sometimes frustrating as comments apart from these are the things that are the most fun in web writing
 

Thor

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The only thing I can say is that - don't worry about it. It's a pointless question since everyone is different. For example: I can take 3 days to write a 1.7k word prologue and yet take 3 hours for a 4k word chapter. In the end, it all boils down to the contents that are in it; how careful you are being; and how content you are with the quality of the writing.

My first story got the prologue, chapter 1, and chapter 2 on the same day. Which totaled to around 2.5k words. I really had no idea what I was doing, or what was a good length. I simply went for what I thought would be a good cut-off point. And now in the very same story chapter, 80 is 11k words.

Also as for speed, it can improve or decrease in time, it also depends on first draft writing standards and what you focus on improving. How well you have planned out character thoughts, for me dialogues are rather easy, for others they can feel often impossible. You can either focus on improving your first draft writing quality; which makes it turn out great but it is still the first draft. You can focus on speed and get a lot of typos, missing commas, among other things.

I personally just post chapters that are a husk of what they could be - first drafts. it all depends on writing styles, there are people that over-describe things, there are others that write it too plain. I am on the plain side, so a chapter can increase by 50% in word count through an edit or two. However, the best advice there is, in my opinion, is to turn it into a habit.

Write daily, don't give up, know what you are doing. Things like that - such as keeping notes of your story, simply actively writing. In the end; the most consistent one wins, not the fastest nor the highest quality. Consistency is probably your highest priority as a web-novelist. Although I must note that simply writing won't get you better at writing; it's all about your mindset.

Good luck o/

Thanks for your thoughts. After reading the experience of other I see that many share the same worries I have. I just was surprised at how long it took me and wanted to know how it was for others. Even before opening the thread I knew that its probably different for everyone but I was craving for information and thoughts to see if I did something 'wrong'.

Right now I see that I just have to do what I did and go on with it.

Exactly. I remember spending half an hour researching waterfalls and how high a human can fall from without dying and the injuries they could sustain falling from a certain height.

Its like you use suspension of disbelief all the time but its the little things that you get anal about. You can have a character dodging bullets and deflecting arrows with his sword but you get all insane about if a giant tentacled slime monster will fall at the same pace as your regular human characters or not.

I find thats the stuff readers call you out on, too. The simple physics.

Unfortunately I'am one of those readers to call out author on stuff like that if they absolutely make no sense. I would be the biggest hypocrite if wouldnt properly research but I guess it will also lead me into a rabbithole at some point :S
 

Nerodith

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My readers just write thx for the chapter. It's sometimes frustrating as comments apart from these are the things that are the most fun in web writing
Ah, yes, I relate to that too ^^' They are a lot of readers who comment that. But hey, it's better than no comment at all ! And sometimes, they just don't have anything to say, but still want to encourage the author, so it's fine as well, I guess. But I do agree, constructive comments are the best reward you can have as an author. Also, it's good to keep in mind than people tend to be more vocal about things they don't like rather than things they like :p

On the side note, if you want more comments, try to post on as many platform as possible. Some communities are more active than others. My story is actually 3 years old, but I've started publishing it on Scribble Hub only two weeks ago. I received most of my comments on Royal Road, where I originally started publishing it. And then on Wattpad. You got to be patient with Wattpad, though. Wattpad algorithm absolutely does not favor new stories, so it can take months before your story starts to gain attention. Once it does, though, the comments will keep coming. The community there is quite active; they'll even start conversation and debate in the comments (but keep in mind that reincarnation/isekai stories are not exactly the most popular there, so it's very unlikely you'll get even half of the number of your readers on Royal Road/Web Novel/Scribble Hub there) . And then, there is Webnovel. But the community there isn't as active as it used to be. I barely get any comments recently, while I used to get a dozen of them per chapter when I started publishing it there.

To put it in a nutshell, based on my experience, here is my average number of comments per chapter depending on the platform, to give you an idea of how active the different communities are:
Royal Road: ~50
Scribble Hub: ~10
Wattpad: ~200 on the earliest chapters, ~60 on the most recent ones (like I said, they like to talk ^^')
Web Novel: ~10 on the earliest chapters, ~1 on the most recent ones
Honey Feed: 0 (don't waste your time, it's dead there.. You barely get any readers, let alone comments)
Creative Novels: ~4
Inkitt: ~1
 

CupcakeNinja

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Thanks for your thoughts. After reading the experience of other I see that many share the same worries I have. I just was surprised at how long it took me and wanted to know how it was for others. Even before opening the thread I knew that its probably different for everyone but I was craving for information and thoughts to see if I did something 'wrong'.

Right now I see that I just have to do what I did and go on with it.



Unfortunately I'am one of those readers to call out author on stuff like that if they absolutely make no sense. I would be the biggest hypocrite if wouldnt properly research but I guess it will also lead me into a rabbithole at some point :S
Im lucky since my main story is so crazy people just switch off their brains when reading it. I mean i dont lie to them either, they know I'm usually high as balls when writing--with safe, family-friendly weed, mind you. Not that chemical nonsense.

So maybe that has something to do with it.

Which raises an interesting question for me; howany other authors here get baked when writing? I bet my left nut there are at least a few who just havent admitted it
 

Dezel

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The fuck? 9k CHAPTERS? either you made a mistake there, you are a lying sack of shit, you wrote short af chapters or you have burst of godly writing speed.

Im guessing you meant your chapters were mainly around 9k long each around that time.

Me, i always average at 2k per chapter. Anything less seems short, so if it isnt at 2k i either aknowledge its a short chapter or make it into a part 1-2. I can normally get around 2k in just an hour or two barring laziness. Tho thats without revisions. You know, adding stuff in, researching stupid details that arent too important to anyone but me, or even just re-writing scenes...maybe taking entire scenes out for later and redoing the whole part.

That stuff included, maybe takes three to four hours but obviously thats total time spent writing. I take breaks.
Yeah, I meant that I wrote multiple times a 9k chapter in one afternoon, not that I wrote multiple 9k chapters in one afternoon. Sorry for the confusion!

I wish I was such a godly writer that I could write multiple of 9k words in one day, damn.
 

CupcakeNinja

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Yeah, I meant that I wrote multiple times a 9k chapter in one afternoon, not that I wrote multiple 9k chapters in one afternoon. Sorry for the confusion!

I wish I was such a godly writer that I could write multiple of 9k words in one day, damn.
Fuck, me too bro. We all do. Anyway, that isnstill pretty damn great. Multiple 9k chapters arent easy.

I prolly couldnt do it. Not cuz im slow, but cuz im obsessed with finding good stopping points. So i likely wouldnt be able to just keep writing like that.
 

Dezel

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Honestly, I don't think I could write that much that quickly for any other story. I was working on one that was very near and dear to my heart, and it felt like words were just pouring out. :blob_paint:

More often than not, writing feels like pulling teeth out instead.
 
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