The first class of Riley’s Tower academic career was, unsurprisingly, from the Academics department, and taught by Alexis. Headmistress Gaveny lurked in the back of the room, her expression unreadable; it wasn’t clear to Riley if she was there to offer critique or evaluation or just wanted to see how her odd boy student was getting along. He felt uncomfortably watched.
The classroom was notional, thankfully; Riley wasn’t prepared to deal with being one of four people in a vast lecture hall. Instead it was more like a small conference room, with an oval table made of dark wood, surrounded by comfortable upholstered chairs with carved wooden arms that looked like the claws of lions. Allie sat at one of the narrow ends of the elliptical table, with a slate board behind her on the wall, and a heat shimmer next to it revealed the presence of a celestial construct.
“Okay, let’s get started, everyone. I’m hoping you all settled into your new accommodations comfortably?” There were various nods; Riley was still iffy on the idea of sharing a communal bathroom – or more particularly, a communal shower – with three girls, but they didn’t seem to mind, so he’d put it out of his thoughts. He nodded as well.
“Good. Today I’m going to go over what we’ll be teaching you in the next year, and then we’ll save some time for questions at the end. And just so you’re all fully informed, this is my third time as a first-year instructor, so if I seem scatterbrained and disorganized, I promise it’s actually just me, not lack of experience.” She grinned, and gestured behind her without looking; the construct rose and now Riley could see that it held some sort of stylus within its shimmering distortion. The stylus swept across the slate, writing ‘Year One Structure’.
“We’ll start each day with Academics. That means my face will be the first thing you see every morning.” She tucked her fingertips under her chin, smiling, tilting to one side. A cute little pixie smile, staged for entertainment, but it worked for her. Something about her presentation and persona made cutesy gestures feel natural.
“I’ll just be reviewing what the day will contain, so there aren’t any surprises. Which department will get you for the morning session and which will get you for the afternoon session will change over the course of the year, but early on you should expect to spend a lot of time with Theory and Archives, which will likely be Nora and Key this year. And me, of course. I’m going to be in charge of keeping you safe, and getting you past the early bits of Sigil manipulation.”
The stylus had added ‘Theory’ and ‘Archives’ and ‘Academics’ as bullet points below the ‘structure’ header.
“So for today, we’re going to spend the entire morning session on meditative practice, because you need to be in the right frame of mind to even perceive Sigils, much less call them, and you’ll need to be able to do that as reflexively as catching yourself when you stumble. This afternoon, you’ll go to the Archives and learn about the Index, and explore the upper level. Bring a snack from the dining hall; you will probably get lost in the Archives.”
Riley looked closely at her expression, trying to determine if that was a joke or not, but her smile was unreadable. Eve looked worried, of the others, but Eve seemed to have resting-worried-face so he wasn’t sure if that meant anything or not.
“Mornings start here at 8AM, and then from 9 to noon, you’ll have your morning session. After lunch, the afternoon session runs from 1:30 to 4:30, and then we break, and the rest of the day is left to you. Though, if you don’t have other plans, I strongly suggest you spend that time together, in your suite’s common room, reviewing and practicing whatever you learned that day.”
She put both hands on the table, and the stylus wrote a new header: “SAFETY”.
“Which brings me to the first and most critical rule we’re going to require you to follow. And before I explain it, I want to make something clear, because I don’t want you surprised by this later.” She took a careful breath. “There isn’t really any system of punishments here. There isn’t any kind of disciplinary regime. It’s not worth the time of any Adept, whether in Academics or otherwise, to enforce anything like that. There’s just one punishment for any infraction.”
She gestured to Gaveny, who spoke from the corner where she lurked. “You’ll be referred to me. If you’re referred to me three times, you will be Sealed and sent home. There is no appeal.”
Allie nodded. “Okay, the first rule. The most important rule. You may not practice anything alone.” She swept her arms open, indicating all four of them. “You are in a cadre for a reason, and that reason is safety. You’re going to be messing about with some of the fundamental forces of the universe, and while this is the safest place to do that, even here you could cause yourself or your teammates serious and even lethal harm.”
Riley wondered at the way she said ‘lethal harm’, the slight hesitation on the word ‘lethal’. Something had happened, something she’d seen or known of or been a part of. She wasn’t talking about this as an abstract idea.
“I’m telling you this because I’m about to start teaching you meditative practice, and that seems like a simple thing that you can try for yourself whenever you like. Resist the temptation. Meditation isn’t dangerous, not directly, but this is the time to start reinforcing habitual behavior, so you will practice meditation with each other and only with each other. This starts today, right after this lesson. No experimentation. No solo exploration of the cosmos.”
She paused to let this settle. Riley looked around at the others, who were all doing the same. He suspected they were all thinking the same thing he was: we’re really stuck with each other, aren’t we? They’d known this from orientation, but the physical reality of it was something else entirely. Every day, spent with these three women.
I wonder what they do if we don’t get along?
But of course he knew the answer to that. His eyes flicked to Gaveny. Three strikes and then Sealing.
“Now, questions?”
Suliat said, “When you say ‘together’, do you mean all four of us?”
“As often as possible, yes, because you’re all expected to be progressing at the same rate. But the rule is ‘at least one other cadre member’, so you don’t have to stop working if someone has an appointment.” She grinned. “Or a date.”
“What about other Adepts or Novices?” Himari asked.
“No. It has to be at least one of your cadre. Even in class, even with an instructor, even with the Headmistress herself.” She shrugged. “It seems arbitrary, I know, but the rule is, again, meant to ensure you all progress at the same rate and get used to the thought of working together on everything until it’s reflexive.”
Riley said, “How long does this stay in effect? I mean, you haven’t been running off to get someone from your class to back you up since graduation, have you?” He was thinking of Therese’s telltale Working from the orientation interview.
“The cadre-only rule is for the first year. In year two and three, it’s relaxed a bit, and an Adept can substitute for one of your teammates, but you’re still encouraged to always have a cadre member present.” Allie sounded subdued as she continued. “Because some of you might decide to leave after the first year. Or might leave for other reasons.”
Riley wondered if any cadre had ever lost three of its four members before. He didn’t ask, because he had a sense that Allie really didn’t want to talk about expulsion at all, and certainly not after that ominous bit about safety earlier.
After that, the questions scattered into minutia and logistics.
I believe it's best to do whatever makes you comfortable with your writing without making you feel like you're going to burn out. That seems to happen to a significant number of writers, I feel like you'd know better whether more frequent or longer chapters feel like more pressure for you.
The book is 75% finished and so I'm something like three months ahead of this schedule either way. So I'm not in danger of burning out! ? I'm just worried about burning *you* all out.
@persenche Not gonna lie I like 12,000 slabs of chapters. The story is so good I'm not gonna get burned out. If anything, shorter blocks make me crave more hahaha
@persenche I might be an outlier, but I can spend hours reading a good book when I have the time.
I'm sure there is a wide array of opinions on the quantity and size of chapters, and your partner sounds factually more qualified than I to make a judgment on the subject. On the other hand, you said to let you know our thoughts. When reading web fiction, I tend to prefer one or two decent-sized chapters every week, or if they're larger, every other week is good by me.
With chapters of this size, I tend to wait for a reading backlog to build up and then read them all at once because the longer I'm reading the same thing, the more immersed I usually feel in it. Sadly, when I do that, I sometimes get used to ignoring the frequent updates or forget to catch up, and end up falling really far behind a fic or accidentally completely dropping a fic without even realizing it. Also, sometimes if fic posts really large chapters really frequently, I end up just burning out of reading it for a while. I hate it when any of those outcomes happen.
Anyways, that's just my two cents on that. Take it with a grain or heap of salt.
It's funny because I'm more likely to do that with bigger chapters if something else catches my eye. If I get really into another serial during a gap, then a big update happens, I tend to put it off because I know I'll want to read a chapter in as close to one sitting as possible, which means less time on my current thing. Sometimes I never get back to the first story, though. However, this one's engaging enough that I'm not too worried about losing interest.
With smaller chapters, I know I can let a backlog build up and if the update names make it clear what's meant to be "one major narrative unit" (i.e. an actual chapter) then I can wait until one full unit's released and read that in one sitting, or, if something else does catch my interest, I know I can read the bits and not be pulled away from my current thing for too long, unless it's so good I'm pulled back in, of course.
I don't think there's a one-size-fits-all answer to this question, so it makes sense to ask... But it might be that smaller, frequent updates are what most people tend to prefer (in general), so maybe that's the "expert recommended" approach.
I like the longer chapters. This one definitely felt short. Maybe cutting the weekly 12,000 words in half, posting 6,000 biweekly would work. Real short chapters end just about the time I'm reengaging with the story. It's not a problem for me now since I'm just catching up. But I could see a 5 minute read every two days becoming tedious. Also, I really like the story so far. Thank you.
i have to confess that i think the longer chapters read better on a craft level. it's clear that they're meant to break where they do—or at the very least, the ending of this sequence feels abrupt comparatively. i like the 7k sweet spot suggestion in another comment as a question of length, but i would prefer the full chapter if half-chapters messed with the pacing too much
Personally, I most prefer to have a whole story out at once, then I either finish it in a binge or read it at my leisure without any "anxiety" around a story being abruptly dropped (most never make it out of such a hiatus) or just having to deal with the gaps between content, whether that be days or weeks. Many stories stay in my "plan to read" for ages for just that reason -- I've been burned too many times by getting really into a serial and then the author just kinda... vanishes. You're almost done with this so that (hopefully) takes care of that worry, leaving just the gap question.
If I can't do the binge thing, then I'm actually more partial to smaller but more frequent releases. If I don't have time to read each one as they come out, they can pile up and maybe it'll amount to a lot by the time I get it the updates. Often, when it's just one big chapter a week (or month), I don't have the time to read the whole thing when a serial updates, so I just end up breaking it up into smaller bits over a day or several anyway. At least if the update's out and I know it's there, I can look forward to when I can get to it, rather than know I've the time but "there's nothing to read." For a lot of "one big chapter a week" serials, I manage to keep up for a while but eventually let them sit if something else catches my attention, and for some I've long since lost interest in picking up where I left off. Bigger chapters are more exciting, but that isn't going to matter as much if I let them pile up either way (whether it's because of time or disinterest).
So, if giving it 100% of my attention in one big binge isn't an option, then smaller, but more frequent, updates are the better bet. That gives me the most freedom about how I can/will consume the content with the second-lowest risk of me losing interest.
I think 7k once or twice a week is around the sweet spot for my reading habits
That might be an interesting compromise position. Something I'll consider after chapter 5.
Not really related to this chapter but it just clicked what you're drawing on... Sigils, mentions of demonic possession, that's an underlying theme of Solomon's Key, right?
The Tower and Working I think is more properly attributed to taking themes from Hermetic-era lit, but even they referenced back to the Key. Really should have twigged as soon as the word Goetia was mentioned.
I personally would prefer longer weekly chapters but it's obviously your call!
Whatever size works out for you. There are stories I follow here, like Rising Shards, that post only a few paragraphs but multiple times a week and on the other side there is Sisters Of Dorley which only posts every few months but each post is the size of a novella. Each of those really works for the type of story that they are trying to tell. If you break down into too many small chapters just for the sake of reader retention, then will you be able to keep the flow going? So far, I really think the length of the previous chapters was just fine, and will see how this experiment works out.
I honestly prefer shorter, more frequent chapters. It was nice to be able to just sit down and read an entire short story once a week but I would have to do it in multiple sittings and there was often so much to talk about that I ended up with a mile long comment at the end.
Frequent updates is also a great way to get more visibility on the work too. People are more likely to see it if it's at the top of the recent updates more often, and you'll get more engagement just because of the broken up chapters. I would avoid just doing little snippets though. If one little scene is only a thousand words, you may want to group it with another even if it gets a bit lengthy.
That being said, if you prefer to release weekly chapters that are a bit chonky, I would go with that. It's up to you how you want people to experience your work.