I plan on releasing a companion piece to my main story, not quite sure of how to format it.

[just_darkjazz]

Unlike the regular serial nature of my main story I have had these ideas for prequels, sequels, or just putting one or several characters in wacky and zany situations that would be too much of a distraction from the main plot. Also smut that I deem to shameless and a detriment to the rest of the story. Short stories in the 2k-10k ballpark, released alongside the main story as bonus chapters.

My initial idea was to drop the parts of the side stories, as I call them, in the regular story and just changing the naming convention to make them evidently different. There are several obvious drawbacks to that though. My second idea for this is a new story, serving as anthology companion piece for me to dump my short stories into. I looked the TOS up to the best of m ability and found nothing signifying that I can't just do that, but it still feels somehow wrong and Im having concerns of accidental trending manipulation, which is in no way my intention. I'm posting my first one onext Saturday (get hyped ), so I wanted to ask first before going through with anything.

What do you think?

 

[Arkus86]

My opinion as a reader is, do NOT dump it into the main story unless it is actually relevant for the main story, or at the very least part of the canon and involving your major characters. And takes into account the continuity of the story.

One or two chapters might be fine, but if it becomes a regular thing, it gets frustrating to read, especially if you are reading multiple chapters in sequence. Imagine reading a few chapters, following the events, and then when you click the "next chapter" you are thrown for a loop by something that completely breaks the continuity and has no connection to what you were just reading.

 

[just_darkjazz]

My opinion as a reader is, do NOT dump it into the main story unless it is actually relevant for the main story, or at the very least part of the canon and involving your major characters. And takes into account the continuity of the story.

One or two chapters might be fine, but if it becomes a regular thing, it gets frustrating to read, especially if you are reading multiple chapters in sequence. Imagine reading a few chapters, following the events, and then when you click the "next chapter" you are thrown for a loop by something that completely breaks the continuity and has no connection to what you were just reading.

That was a cocnern of mine as well. I hope to make those side stories semi regular, and I can see it becoming very messy very quick

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Maybe create a second "novel" as the Companion Volume with the extra stuff, and maybe direct links in the Author's notes to anything that might be relevant in the main story?