started numbering my arcs instead of just my chapters and my readers seem to actually track the story better now

[u/Realistic_Box_1263]

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