Reading prose on Abc

At the start I also wrote very long pieces. However I would now much rather submit such a piece in a number of separate distinct stories, I have learnt many of our readers don't have much attention span. It is inherently the media itself I think, the pc and internet instead of words on printed page.

A long submission ideally should be as independent posts so that each can stand on its own. This is what I am doing now- well at least trying. When writing it is also always good to have a lot of space if possible in prose (and poetry too!) it displays much better the body should be liberally divided in to paragraphs and empty lines.

This can actually work very well I've learnt these lessons mainly out of mistakes and I actually managed to later salvage a lot of my older work, if a part is well written often it can stand by itself with a bit of editing.

Nowadays I keep my posts short and only around one page on my word processor. Shorter is always better even just one sentence sometimes can do.

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Another very practical thing I've noticed you must not scroll down while you read much rather use only PgOn (and PgUp). Keep the screen fixed, read it, next screen and so on. It reads more like a book or a hard copy. It takes a bit of getting used to and discipline at first.

If a story (a novel ??) is divided into such very long winded "chapters" one after the other, to see it instantly makes me depressed. Such a marathon story for a book is really not a good idea. Also in formatting don't try fancy stuff rather just keep to the defaults and ordinary text.

To be honest I don't think many people actually read such very long stories it is partly because a lot of them are really not very interesting. It often takes a lot of effort and persistence instead of entertainment.

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On the other hand, in my opinion the electronic media is excellent for writing and publishing poetry with much potential exposure and possibly a great many readers. Apart from that there are a variety of internet publishers and a very large audience.

Try to learn from other people and their mistakes too but I for one can assure you it is a very good thing to write, for others, but especially yourself.