Hi, everyone! I'm relatively new here, been kind of lurking around, reading stories and forum post while also writing my own story.

I've got my first chapter written now I'm just editing, repeatedly. But, a question has popped up after reading some forum post here at RRL.

Now here's my question: Should I post my chapter after editing to gauge how well received the story will be or should I wait and write a few chapters ahead and have a more reliable release scheduled? On the one hand I want to know if there is interest in my story, but then I also would like to have a regular release schedule.

I'm already leaning toward waiting on releasing the first chapter till I've got a few more written, but i wanted to see what this group thought. Plus it's always nice to say "Hi" when you're new.

Thanks

Hi... i guess (I'm new here as well xD )

I'm by no rights an authority on when to publish a chapter, but I'll share my experience on not waiting. I always post chapters as fast as I can.

Pros
1. Motivation. I've never enjoyed writing before, so to me, having others reading what I write has been a great way of keeping my motivation up whilst this new interest is grows on me.
2. It feels more real to me, keeping what I do close to tangible results: others reading. This makes writing more fun to me, and with fun I think there’s quality.
3. Same thing, but on editing. I’ve edited every single one of my chapters several times after posting. I’ve found errors that I didn’t find before posting. Fixing these feels more urgent than when they aren’t online. That keeps me motivated to improve on my story. Error fixing isn’t as big a deal as with my general writing. It’s been improving a lot since I began. I’ve edited my chapters so many times that I’ve lost count, but I don’t think I would have bothered, were they not already online.

I guess there’s a debate of professionalism vs improving. To my defense, I’d like to make a reference to the study on making pottery, described in “Art & Fear” by Bayes and Orland. It’s not likely that I’m going to pop out any masterpiece any soon, so I’ll focus on power leveling my writing until the, and having fun.
I used to be a terminal case of perfectionism, but if I was like that today, I wouldn’t have posted a single chapter.

Cons
1. There are debates on how much readers judge fictions based on their update speed. General opinions seems to be that regularity boosts popularity. Having a buffer of chapters boosts regularity.
2. If you post straight away, you’ll likely miss out to make major improvements that you might’ve though of, had you had more time to digest the chapter. Worse story is worse story and would discourage readers and author. I don’t care much about this and freely edit my old chapters, but was I super-popular, I would probably be hated unless I saved big changes for a later amazon release. Luckily, I’m nowhere near that amount of fame/completeness.
3. There’s probably a general dip in popularity for posting ‘lower grade chapters’.(That is if you’re someone who’s quickly getting better at writing) I want to think that my average chapter is better thanks to increased motivation to edit them, but when someone has already read an ugly, ‘unedited’ first draft, your fiction is more likely to get dropped. If popularity is a thing to you, this might be a counter argument to “motivation perks from posting fast.”

Out of dimes! Hope you found this somewhat helpful. Have a great time on RRL! :D