This is a problem with the serial update nature of RR and web series, and how you write transition chapters. 

We all have read stories that have "transition" chapters, or the more unkind moniker, "Filler chapters." I think transition chapters can be important for the story pace in a novel. When you have a huge story beat or crescendo of action, it can be important to give your readers a page or three to mentally catch their breath before moving into the next big story beat. It is useful to give a few pages where you can give a little character exposition or development and have a transition to the next beat. I don't think transition chapters are a bad thing in the abstract.

However, this presents a unique problem in serial uploaded fiction. If you are uploading on a Tuesday and Thursday schedule, and you have a big story beat finish up on a Thursday-- when you upload a translation chapter on Tuesday and then another to introduce the next beat on Thursday, the effect on readers is wildly different depending on if they are binging your chapters or reading your daily updates. If you have bingers plowing through a hundred chapters then having that transition is very important to give them a moment to breathe before you move on to the next big part of the story. On the other hand, daily readers will get their big story beat on Thursday, and then Tuesday comes around and it is just filler. They had four days already to catch their breath and are looking for the next big thing to start up. Then if you upload a second transition chapter to introduce your story beat or arc coming up, that is a full week of "just filler" which can turn off readers. Having stories peter out to filler is a huge reason that views and reads and interactions can taper off as people just move onto another story that is more interesting. 

So my question to the writers here is this-- how do you handle this? Do you write for the bingers like you were writing a real novel, or do you write for your daily readers knowing they have days between chapters and want more "story" in the upload schedule? I have not really figured out which is a better approach, but I have noticed that once I binge a story to current, many times I lose interest after a week or two as filler chapters seem to be uninteresting enough to keep attention even though during the binger it was easy enough to breeze through them. 

Looking for options as I contemplate how to structure my own story for putting up on RR. 

Huh. This is a superb point. I hadn't thought of this, but how you're laying it out makes sense. I guess one way to overcome such a thing is to make an exception in your release schedule for transition chapters. As in market it from a bonus perspective rather than from a standard release. This carries the added difficulty of planning it out, plus the release of an additional chapter occasionally, but it has the benefit of respecting the pace of your readers. This is 100% theory with 0 practical knowledge applied, but it's the first thoughtful (at least on the surface) idea that popped into my head. 

The reason I say "at least on the surface" is I don't have any experience with how the Royal Road audience reacts to additional chapters outside of the standard release schedule. My guess is as long as they were informed, it wouldn't be an issue. 

I'm going to have to think about this more. My plan is to move into a 5/week schedule which doesn't leave a lot of time for "bonus" or "transition" chapters, but still distinguishing the differences in audience habits is super important. Great post. Hope my response helps a little. 

That's a troublesome issue indeed. I usually write for Bingers, but I still try to keep the transition chapters few in succession so that the update readers wouldn't be bored. I think the key here is to make the transition chapters fun as much as possible. If every chapter is adding something to the story and is an enjoyable read, then people wouldn't mind waiting for the real fun parts. 

I don't write filler. Every chapter either moves the plot forward and/or develops the world, the characters and their relationships. Just because it's not nonstop action all the time doesn't mean it's boring. I would argue the sort of reader who is actually looking for that isn't my audience to begin with and I'd rather they find something more suited to their tastes than leave me negative reviews or comments. It's impossible to appeal to every reader so I don't try, I'm just writing the story I want to read. I don't feel the need to manipulate my content to keep readers interested and if I did I would consider it a flaw in my writing or the story structure before anything else.

I write as though I'm making a long-form novel with very short chapters. There isn't really much filler, unless "this thing must necessarily happen to make this next thing happen" is filler. This does have the distinct disadvantage of requiring a full plot outline and a full volume to be written before posting starts (in case of revisions), along with pacing that can sometimes be a bit uneven from week to week, but overall I think it's better for the story in the long term. I'm probably going to speed up the release schedule a bit (from 3/wk) for the second volume, just because I know there are a few parts that are very "dense" that people who want no pauses in story/action might want to get out of the way quicker. I might just have a few weeks where I do 5/wk or 6/wk (2 per release day while keeping the MWF schedule), or I might change the overall schedule.

If you do it well, there is no filler. The whole concept of filler chapters and episodes comes from when it's done badly. 

After the somewhat epic battle and before moving on to confront the final boss, your heroes stay in town to unwind, resupply and prepare. It's a time for foreshadowings to be made, red herrings to be placed, get to know the characters outside of battle, camping and surviving, show how they've changed since last time they've done so... And your readers need it too. As has been mentioned, you can't go from action filled high to action filled higher all the time. It's tiring to read, and readers get desensitized to the constant high pace. 

There is SO MUCH you can do with it that if something feels like an actual filler chapter, it's more because the author was either lazy or out of inspiration than anything else

However, to get back to your sort of question - bingers or people who read per update, who to keep foremost in mind.
Always bingers. They'll read your story more like it's an actual book. They'll feel your changes of pace more than people who read per update. If you mess up somewhere, they'll be the ones to notice. They'll be the ones to tell you something like 'I started reading last week and went through more than ten chapters each day, but it got really tough to keep going around chapter 58, 59-ish. It just felt off, you know?'. You'll also get more and more 'bingers' as you go on. Simply because it's highly unlikely the majority of your readers will start following you in the first few weeks, there will always be more people who consume a lot of your chapters at once. The longer you keep on going, the more people will discover your story, but the more there is to go through before they catch up. You'll also have regular readers, who check your every update, decide they're going to start reading from chapter one again. Just because.

Also, people who are reading per update are probably going to stick around regardless of what you do

I do not think anyone has ever written anything that did not have at least some filler, and if you did I am not sure it would come out as well as you seem to think. That is one of the reasons I called it a transition section. Every narrative has them because we don't see every single second of the story. Time jumps, scene jumps, perspective shifts, traveling-- all shorthanded with transition sentences and chapters. Without transition chapters, your story is nothing but frantic and manic scenes smashed together with no way of keeping track of anything or time to process what the story is before it's onto the next cardiac arrest story beat.  

Transition chapters are not a bad thing, and some of the folks so far have fixated on me calling them "filler" which is what they end up if they are done poorly. You can call these downbeat chapters, or transition chapters, or travel chapters, or level-up chapters, or a half dozen different names. I think we all have some ideas for what I am getting at. These are the skippable chapters on your second read-through. These are not the chapters that you retell your friends about when summarizing the highlights of the story, they are just the chapters that get you from highlight to highlight, from memorable scene to memorable scene. (And no, they are not all memorable scenes) 

Chapters like that are important, but dangerous when presented in this serialized format, so trying to find a way to structure the story correctly in pacing and action is a challenge when on a release schedule. It changes the way people read the fiction and that changes how the story wants to be structured. I was curious how other people dealt with this, or if they even thought about it at all. 

From what I am gathering people either ignore the schedule in favor of just writing more traditionally or they don't really think about it. 

I am writing a book first and foremost, so I am writing for bingers, clearly. A chapter is also a little over a weeks worth of work cause I got like 30min a day, so I will never do fast serial fiction, wouldn't be able to keep up.

For myself, I hope that I'm addressing both kinds of reader with a bit of a hybrid release. My story is designed to be read serially as a sequence of episodes, each one weighing in at around 20k words. For episodes, I'm using RR's volumes feature and I'm posting at least a chapter every day (sometimes multiple chapters; aiming for at least 1000 words each day).

By posting daily, my hope is that update readers can be satisfied... and if they get busy, then they automatically become binge readers until they catch up. And if they are really impatient, binge readers can purchase the full season of episodes and read everything before it goes live here on RR.

That's the idea at least.

J.J. Wrote: For myself, I hope that I'm addressing both kinds of reader with a bit of a hybrid release. My story is designed to be read serially as a sequence of episodes, each one weighing in at around 20k words. For episodes, I'm using RR's volumes feature and I'm posting at least a chapter every day (sometimes multiple chapters; aiming for at least 1000 words each day).

By posting daily, my hope is that update readers can be satisfied... and if they get busy, then they automatically become binge readers until they catch up. And if they are really impatient, binge readers can purchase the full season of episodes and read everything before it goes live here on RR.

That's the idea at least.

That is an interesting idea. I had contemplated doing something similar in trying to organize by story arcs. Getting an arc done, and setting that to publish before i work on writing and editing an arc at a time and if i need breaks between arcs I will take them. That might be a better way. Now I just need to learn how to use the volume feature before i start publishing. 

Volumes are pretty easy. They're just an organizational feature within a fiction on RR. However they can have their own covers, each visible on the fiction's page. I still number my chapters as [episode].[chapter] (so, episode six, chapter eight is 6.8) so it's clear in the TOC.

I don't write filler.
I'll have some chapters that are more relaxed and could be considered a breather chapter, but they provide something useful to the plot and the reader.
It could be more exposition with worldbuilding, backstory, and general useful info.
It could be a long conversation where important details are brought up in a relaxed fashion, or setting the stage for future plotlines.
Or it could just show how the MC recovers from the horrible wounds I've inflicted on them and is preparing for the next battle.

It's all important, even if it's more relaxed.

I’m not I very experienced writer. However I will always try to make every chapter interesting in its own way. Maybe there is not much plot development or action, but I can explore the theme of the novel. I like to write very emotionally heavy arcs so after a big event the protagonist will need to some time to process or recover and combine that with some foreshadowing and it’s usually fine.

LegionOfReason Wrote: I do not think anyone has ever written anything that did not have at least some filler, and if you did I am not sure it would come out as well as you seem to think. That is one of the reasons I called it a transition section. Every narrative has them because we don't see every single second of the story. Time jumps, scene jumps, perspective shifts, traveling-- all shorthanded with transition sentences and chapters. Without transition chapters, your story is nothing but frantic and manic scenes smashed together with no way of keeping track of anything or time to process what the story is before it's onto the next cardiac arrest story beat.

We're all calling it filler because you did in your opening post...

And if you're at all familiar with anime, filler is a highly derogatory term for the episodes and arcs written by the show writers to stretch the content and fill seasons when they're waiting for new material from the manga author. It's a very loaded term with a lot of negative connotations. You're not going to see very many writers willingly say "yeah I'm writing and posting crap between the good bits" because that's a real turn off, you know?

What you're calling filler or transition chapters are just part of plotting and pacing. Stories have a natural flow to them, up and down like waves. If the crest of the waves where the action/conflict happens are the only good bits of a story, there are serious flaws in the writing or story structure. Plus, not all stories have this sort of up and down, rising tension, conflict, falling tension structure. But for those of us who write that way, the chapters between the action should never be boring or dull or considered anything except part of the plot. It would have been more precise to ask if or how writers pace their stories in regards to their chapter releases.

For example, I am writing a web serial specifically and not a novel, with 2 chapter releases a week. While I don't base my plot around an infinite number of 2 chapter acts, I do write my chapters to be more episodic than a standard novel chapter. They trend a little on the shorter side and typically only contain 1 long scene or 2-3 short ones. If I write too many scenes into a chapter it will read much shorter than it already is and leave my readers unsatisfied. If I write too long of a chapter it becomes excessive, drags out the scene unnecessarily and would be more like filler. Thus why I say I don't write filler, because I'm not stretching my chapters out to meet any arbitrary quota nor am I manipulating plot elements to coincide with how chapter releases fall. Even if I did, my pacing would be killed every time I reach a follower goal and release a bonus third chapter, which I don't think your post is actually accounting for. While release schedules are normally steady, they aren't static unless a significant amount of the story has been pre-written and scheduled for release. Many writers such as myself will offer more content to reward readers for supporting their story. That's why basing a story's plot pacing around a release schedule isn't a great idea. We also have many writers who are following TheFirstDefier's guide and releasing daily chapters to try and hit the Rising Stars list, which would make this entirely irrelevant anyway.

Plus we have the Writathon coming up soon where all bets are off and the rules are out the window, lol. 

I think that serial work does present a unique problem, if we can even call it a problem. Yeah, the chapters between big story beats might theoretically build less excitement with readers. But this is something to be overcome through skill, not something to try and finagle around. Downtime is important to a story, and if written well it can be just as if not more interesting than action or whatever else. Look at the MCU; the main reason anyone ever started caring about those films is because of the character interactions in between action scenes, and I don't see why the same couldn't be true for a serial story if the characters and their dynamic with each other are engaging. If you find your attention flagging during these "transition" chapters, maybe that says more about the story than it does about the format.

Wow, some really great advice in here!

My current series is basically a seven part novel series, so each chapter is around what I consider book length. With that in mind, I suppose bingers are my main focus, but I also want to make sure update readers appreciate every chapter I post as well by providing significant development in each chapter so it never feels like they're reading filler.

Cymas Wrote: I don't write filler. Every chapter either moves the plot forward and/or develops the world, the characters and their relationships.

This is one of the most important lessons that I have learned in my short writer career. Not just every chapter - every paragraph needs a purpose. Plot, World or Characters.

(That also happens to be a key to unlock writer's block - at least for me. If I know that what I write needs to serve a purpose, it is much easier to work through the resistance)