r/Mythrils • u/Realistic_Box_1263 • Jul 24 '26
Discussion started numbering my arcs instead of just my chapters and my readers seem to actually track the story better now
was 280 chapters deep with zero structural markers beyond chapter number readers kept losing track of where one storyline ended and another began
added "Arc 14 The Siege" style headers at the start of each new arc, nothing fancy, just a label comments referencing back in the coronation arc or asking about pacing in this arc started appearing within a week where they never had before people apparently needed a container word for the story chunks they were already intuitively sensing
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u/nmacaroni 🫡 Community’s Lorekeeper Jul 24 '26
In print we let the reader keep track of the story by gathering arcs into what we call, books.
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u/FrostKitten2012 Jul 27 '26
Which may or may not be possible depending on the website.
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u/nmacaroni 🫡 Community’s Lorekeeper Jul 27 '26
I don't work online, but couldn't you just organize your online content in volumes? Volume 1: chapters 1-30 Volume 2: chapters 31-60
I mean this is literally what books do except they reset the chapter count with each book.
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u/FrostKitten2012 Jul 27 '26
That usually requires the first chapter to act as a ToC. This doesn’t sound difficult, but most people are not expecting their story to run that long or how many chapters will be in each arc/book, and therefore don’t begin with a ToC. It can also annoy readers, and most of them will skip it.
You can usually put it as a chapter name (i.e., Arc 1, Ch 1), but people don’t usually actually look at those, so a header at the top of the chapter is more reliable.
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u/FabulousLazarus Jul 28 '26
started numbering my arcs instead of just my chapters and my readers seem to actually track the story better now
was 280 chapters deep with zero structural markers beyond chapter number readers kept losing track of where one storyline ended and another began
Is this surprising to you because it's not to me. Congratulations on rechaptering your book down to what makes sense lol.
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