A quick question for a befuddled writer...

[rsasai.livejournal.com]

I hope this doesn't bother anyone, but I had a quick question about FFn that I'm hoping someone can help me with. It ties into FFn being sucky about explaining things, so I guess it is considered a bit of a rant. 

I have a story and it has about 100 chapters... I've been writing it for about 5 years and have been updating and editing the chapters. What I'd like to do is start putting the chapters together and make them into about 40 chapters rather than this ridiculous amount of chapters. What happens if I do this? What will happen to my hits and my reviews?

I sent FFN a letter, but they've got other stuff on their mind (as the stats keep breaking anyway...) and never got back to me. Either way, I'm frustrated. 

So, can anyone help me?

Comments

[caercaia.livejournal.com]

I've never done what you're describing, but I once deleted the last four or so chapters of a story in order to completely rewrite and expand the ending. This is what I *think* happened, but I'm not entirely sure. When I delete a chapter, the reviews are no longer visible because there is no longer a Chapter X to have reviews. However, if I then add a new Chapter X, the reviews are visible again. Obviously they no longer make sense, but they keep the review count up! I don't know what happens to the review count if you never replace the chapters (which, obviously, you wouldn't), but I don't think you'd be able to see the reviews any more. If you want to keep them, you can save the reviews page or paste them all into a document.

I think you might lose your hits, because it counts as a new chapter. But at least no one but you can see those, so if you just want a record of how many hits it had before you did that, you can always take a screenshot of your stats page before you do anything.

Hope this helps! :)

[the8thstone.livejournal.com]

Really? I'm pretty sure the reviews don't go away, though. I once read a fanfic that has 1,000+ reviews with just 8 chapters, but then I went through the review page and saw reviews for chapter 11 or 20.

[caercaia.livejournal.com]

You could be right. That's only how I remember it and it's entirely possibly that FF.net was just on the wonk that day!