Recaps within series chapters?

[Benbrowne1]

Hi wonderful editors.

A little advice please.

I've written a few stories and have a number in series within that. So far I have used a mix of two options. 1. Recapping at the start of subsequent chapters what happened previously, and 2. Assuming the reader is continuing the series and therefore knows what is happening, and therefore not including a recap.

If I were reading a book, a series of chapters, I wouldn't expect a recap at the start of each chapter, however these chapters can also be read as standalone stories so feel different.

I have sometimes described characters again in ch.2 for example that I already described in ch.1, because if ch.2 is the entry point for a reader, I want them to picture the character fully. Also surroundings fall into this dilemma too, to properly immerse the new reader.

Are there any tips or best practices that you could advise. Should I assume a reader starts at ch.1? Sounds simple when I write that, but in practice gives me trouble.

Would be great to hear some of your thoughts.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[CiaoSteve]

I used to recap at the start of the next chapter, and then started to receive negative feedback. I now put simple sentence in the authors notes to mention that this is a chapter of a longer work and that there may be references to events which happened in earlier chapters so it may be beneficial if the reader read from the start. That said, I do try to make all of my chapters stand alone enough that they are a complete episode within the one chapter.

 

[PennyThompson]

I don't do big official recaps on my series stories, but I do often include in-narrative reminders of what happened recently, like:

She replayed the events of last Saturday in her head. She had helped Marci Hamada, the clinic receptionist, achieve an orgasm for the first time in her life. Two of them, actually!

Also, as I did in that passage, you CAN include links to other stories in a Literotica story through the magic of HTML! As long as the link goes to another Literotica page, it will be accepted. Just do it like:

<a href="https://www.literotica.com/s/pennys-first-client">the events of last Saturday</a>

 

[ElectricBlue]

Would be great to hear some of your thoughts.

Many thanks in advance.

Do you ever see recaps in books?

Your comment comes from a mindset that says, "I'm publishing chapters over time," but that completely ignores the point that in six months, twelve months, five years (once the whole thing is published), none of that matters. Once it's all published, short term notions such as this are irrelevant, so why bother? I doubt readers pay much attention.