Question Micro-scenes vs. Serials

It seems to me that some of the 'microscene' postings are more like parts of a serial and not self-contained little scenes and vignettes. Would it perhaps be better to have a topic with sub-threads for serial story parts separate from micro-scenes? Or am I just seeing things differently than everyone else?

Nope, see it as well. It probably would be better to have a topic with sub-threads for serial story parts separate from micro-scenes, to make it easier to find all parts of them.

I see it too. Domoviye's 4-lines+ long thing, the Icy series, etc... But... a new topic... I dunno why, but I have reservations about forming a whole new Topic for it...

People have been making different Subjects for their series...

Hopefully those doing the serials will put them all together and create a seperate subject for them when they are done.

I personally dislike having serials in the microscenes thread, as they require me to remember details from previous microscenes to understand them, and digging through the rest of the scenes can be difficult.

That said, occasionally people start getting inspired by other micro scenes and building them into a chain, and that I enjoy a lot. But I don't think that micro scenes thread is the place for planned series with strong continuity.

I will add my voice to the choir agreeing with elrod's statement. Personally, I've had a couple one-off micro-scenes explode in my head in the past few months. In my opinion, once you get to the third or fourth episode involving a particular character and chain of events, it's time to gather up the pieces and move to a dedicated thread. While I haven't worked on it recently, the Brenda 2020/'Twist of Fate' storyline is an example of one such serial. When I next share an installment, my plan had been to create a new thread in the fabrication lab for it, rather than adding it to the microscenes thread. It's kinda been on the backburner in favor of Homecoming 2026, but I still have an idea of where I intended to go with it.

As one of the 'offenders' I get what you're saying E. Thing is having a bunch of snippet threads makes the Workshop sub forum seem cluttered, and I personally don't think my snippets, unless they do make it into/become a story, should to go to the Posted Stories as they may never become finished stories.

I wouldn't use the term 'offender' - I'm not offended. It just struck me that, in the interest of organization, a topic where those who write serials could put all their pieces - it'd be SO much easier to find all the story parts like that. Personally, I can skip over those things which are serials that I'm not watching without being upset. It just seemed it might be better.

Well, we could replace the Micro-Scenes Thread OP with an Index Post or have an Index Thread, and Dreamer, or a Mod, if anyone other than Kristin and Warren can edit posts, could update it.

One alternative that could be considered would be to have an author specific thread. For example:- 'cprime shorts' or a 'Cryptic Shorts' thread in which an author could post their collected short scenes. I seem to remember one Fan-Fic authors doing this in the old forums.

Once such threads were set up previously posted material could be cut and pasted or reposted into a rational collection, should the author wish to, before any new material were added. With each thread being the responsibility of the named author it shouldn't be all that difficult t maintain.

It's just a suggestion but it might be a useful work-around for the problem.

John.

That would be one way. Have it set up after a certain number of stories so that they aren't jsut one or two small posts.

Currently i am wondering whether or not i should create a separate thread for my vignettes. I currently have 3 Blake vignettes, and Pupa (Duncan) is sort of in the same universe. I had promised myself that after 3 vignettes, i would do something about it. (Duncan was a way to dance around this problem by writing something that was technically not the third Blake vignette ...)

The problem is that i don't write those in chronological order. Should i begin a thread without really caring about the timeline, maybe with a table of contents to organize the vignette ? Should i finally try to write them in chronological order ? Or should i try to get on with it and write a WhatIF ... i am not quite confident enough for the last one. For the moment, writing vignettes helps me to find new ideas for the "story" as a whole.

I think that the whole point of the micro-scenes is to house those one-off ideas for which a separate thread would be overkill. If you are developing them into a common context, housing them together in a separate thread makes it easier for the readers to find the previous related stories.

Maybe a singular "serials" thread with the stipulation that the subject is where the title is placed, then after a certain point the serials could become their own fanfics, I can't really keep at a full blown fanfic tried it twice but I may do better writing them as serials

mhalpern wrote: Maybe a singular "serials" thread with the stipulation that the subject is where the title is placed, then after a certain point the serials could become their own fanfics, I can't really keep at a full blown fanfic tried it twice but I may do better writing them as serials

There's nothing wrong in writing a story as a series of loosely connected individual chapters. Indeed a number of published authors have written stories in this format which were later collected together into successful novels. Nor is there any pressing need to always post your stories in a strictly chronological order. In many ways that is the beauty of the 'Micro-scenes' thread, you can post short pieces as and when they spring to mind.

However, for those authors who post several related/connected stories over an extended period of time the thread concept/layout can make it difficult for the reader to locate all the relevant sections of a story so that they can read them together as a collection, let alone trying to read them in the correct chronological order. Therefore it would seem to make sense for those authors who find they are writing a lot of short sections (AKA Micro-Scenes) to consider creating a specific thread where they can post their collected shorts.

This would also provide a place where they can re-post sections in chronological order if they so wish, with a minimum of effort, assuming that they have kept copies of their works rather than just posting them in the thread and relying on the continuity of the website to store them for posterity.

Hope this helps.

John.