Oneshot Or Chaptered?

I don’t think there’s a topic for this.

Which do you find the easiest to write? With oneshots it’s necessary to have a full plot which packs a huge punch during a short amount of time, and a fantastic ending is key. Characters can remain mysterious throughout, but there still has to be some character development and a story behind them, even if we never find out their name.

Chaptered stories require not only the skill to create an interesting plot that keeps readers hooked, but the determination to keep writing, even during writer’s block. Endings are important to tie everything together, so they need to be a good finale to do the rest of the story justice. Characters must come even more alive as the story goes on, and face challenges that test their strengths and weaknesses.

So which is your main choice of writing? Are you a writer who enjoys the quick punch of a oneshot, or the long character and plot development of a chaptered story?

Personally I love oneshots. With so many ideas for stories floating round my head, it’s easier to pack them all into separate oneshots rather than commit myself to a long story which I might grow tired of. On my mibba account I have only ever written oneshots, but in my dark days of starting out as a writer I tried to do a few chaptered stories. Needless to say, I ended up stopping them half way through and deleting all traces from the internet, since they just weren’t working for me.

I can write one-shots so much easier, but I think I prefer chaptered stories. With one-shots you have to try and get everything right and wrap up it up pretty well. But with a story you can space everything out much easier, and if you want to add something to it it's easier to do so.

I guess I like both pretty much the same, but chaptered a bit more.

I don't think either is necessarily "easier," they are both challenging in their own aspects. I rarely ever write chaptered fics because a.) I have commitment issues, and with class and work, I don't have the time to update a chaptered fic consistently enough to keep readers and subscribers and b.) I hate writing filler

I prefer oneshots because once I'm finished with a piece, that's it, it's over. I don't have to deal with it anymore or stress out about getting x amount of readers per chapter or when I'm going to post the next chapter, all of that nonsense. With oneshots, I don't have to bullshit some filler because I'm only telling the more eventful part of the story, I'm only writing the scene that stands out to me that I'm interested in writing.

I also only read oneshots

I prefer chaptered stories, and I think that, in a way, they're easier for me too. I write a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, which I think is really hard to write in oneshot-form because only a small aspect of the world that the characters are living in ever gets mentioned. However, in a full-length story, you can create an entire intricate world and then explore it in detail.

I also find it hard to consistently come up with interesting characters, so once I've developed a few, I like to write about those people for a long time. I like to develop one or two characters and make them really 3D and really realistic. And let's face it: there's a limit to how much effort you're going to put into character development if you're only going to write 1,000 or so words about them, and then never hear about them again.

I actually prefer to write one-shots and drabbles because I usually don't have enough motivation to plan out and write a full length chaptered story. As for reading on here, I like reading both chaptered stories and one-shots. But I'd rather read a chaptered story that has been completed because I'm too lazy to keep up with active stories. lol

I agree with Kandi in that fillers suck xD But I still love writing chaptered stories.

I dunno. I just always feel like there's so much more to my story if I write a oneshot. Like, once I get rolling with a story, I want to write it to it's fullest, and I can only do that with chaptered stories or series of oneshots.
Not to say I don't get tons of ideas for oneshots, because I do. I just feel most... I guess satisfied when I write chaptered fics. I have more time to flesh out characters and plot and discover stuff about them.

@ Icamane the Mistress

I feel more satisfied when I write oneshots because I still have the chance to flesh out my characters and explore various characters (because I do write multiple oneshots about the same characters, same pairings, that sort of thing), but I don't have to write about the boring shit I don't care about writing and I'm not limited by P.O.V. or the pacing that would accompany a chaptered fic. A lot of the time I get stuck in a oneshot cycle because there are certain points are a moment that's mentioned in a oneshot that inspires another oneshot and so on It's an endless cycle for me.

@ amaranthine.

As far as your points on oneshots go, I really think that depends on the writer I put a lot more effort into character development in my oneshots than a lot of the chaptered fics I've read on here. I also have written two oneshots that are set in a futuristic and a supernatural universe that I've had to develop while still developing characters and providing adequate backstory, and while they were oneshots, they were also fairly lengthy (10,000-20,000 words), so I've never felt the limitation that you're referring to. I actually feel that, for me, it's the opposite. I feel like I have to put more effort into development in oneshots because everything has to be stated in one chapter and still be understandable without coming off as an info dump. Plus, I use oneshots as a way to experiment with various pairings/topics/universes/genres that I don't necessarily have to desire to write a chaptered fic about, but that I still want to explore, if that makes any sense

@i saw sparks
Fair enough. I think that's probably an exception though - most oneshots I see are quite a bit shorter than that, and when I write them they're mostly quite short. And as bad as it sounds, I almost can't be bothered to spend hours extensively filling out character development sheets if I'm only going to write 1,000 or so words about that character - there's a limit to how much information can ever be revealed about them. For instance, a writer might hint at a character's back story, but it's probably never described in great detail. But if you write longer oneshots, or if you write lots of oneshots about the same person, then I guess it's probably different and you would need to develop the characters further.

@ amaranthine.

It may be the exception on this site, but I don't feel like it's the exception in general because lengthier oneshots are fairly common on LiveJournal and FF.net. I mean, that's fine if you feel like your oneshots are short/you don't put as much effort into them, but I don't like your generalization that oneshots are limiting in general because, as a predominantly oneshot writer, that's not my experience. I rarely ever write anything that's only 1,000 words, and even when I do, I don't half-ass my writing or my characters. I'm morel ikely to half-ass chapters in a chapteredfic because I can just add whatever information in the next chapter.

Honestly, just because someothing is chaptered doesn't mean that the writer fleshes their character out or that they delve into the backstory, it just means they have more space (or not even that, that they have divisions). It doesn't necessarily mean that someone will take advantage of that extra space.

@i saw sparks
I'm not making a generalisation, because I know that there are people out there who only write one-shots, and write them really well. However, if you look at the average length of a oneshot (let's say 5-10,000 words on Mibba) compared with a full-length story that's 100,000 words (my chaptered stories are always pretty long, so that's what I'm going by here) there simply isn't the space to include as much detail in a oneshot about the character's personality, back story, family life, all those kinds of things. I admire people who can continuously create new, interesting, well-developed characters, but personally, once I've come up with a character I like, I prefer to write about them for a long time and take the time to develop them extensively in a long story or even a series of stories, because if I was writing a new character every time I started a new story, my characters would start to become similar to each other.

And I'm talking about "good" chaptered stories here - obviously there are plenty of long stories where the characters aren't very well developed or the story just rambles on mindlessly, but I'm referring to the ones where the extra space is put to good use and the characters are well-developed.

@ amaranthine.

But it's not always necessary to include every aspect of a character's life in order to tell a story. Even in my chaptered fics, I don't chronicle the entire character's life. The only real difference between my own oneshots and my own chaptered fics are that the plot of my chaptered fics spans a longer amount of time as opposed to my oneshots that only describe a night/day/moment in time of a character's life. I put the same amount of effort in both because I put the same amount of effort in everything that I write as far as characters go (plot's another story).

And I'm not creating new characters with every oneshot that I write (and I feel like a lot of people don't as well just based on what I read). I only write fanfiction, and for the most part, I stick to one fandom, so I'm writing the same characters, I'm just exploring different aspects of their lives and putting them in different relationships or situations. I don't see how that's not developing my characters extensively If I write fifty relatively lengthy oneshots centered on one character, I'm pretty sure I've put the same amount of effort and have fleshed out that character just as well as any chaptered story.

I just strongly disagree with your statement that oneshots are limited as far as character development goes (which I feel is a generalization for the reasons I've mentioned: not everyone writes 1,000-word oneshots and not everyone makes an entirely new cast of characters with each oneshot).

I think oneshots, like anything, are what you make of it.

@i saw sparks
I guess fanfiction is different - when I wrote my initial comment, I think I was talking about original fiction, and when people come up with a new character for each oneshot. If you tend to write about the same person/few people then I can see how you'd need to develop them more extensively.

As for the fact that chaptered fics tend to span a longer amount of time than oneshots, that was kind of what I meant by developing a character (looking back, I didn't make that very clear ). If a oneshot is set over the space of one afternoon, there's a limit to how much a character can grow and develop and change, but I've seen chaptered stories that are set over weeks, months or even years, so that gives much more room for the character to grow, which is something I like about those kinds of stories.

Maybe if I wrote oneshots more often, or wrote longer ones, I would put more effort into character development. But I only ever seem to write oneshots for contests (when you're given a specific prompt, etc., so you're more restricted with what you write) or as an aside from my main stories.

I used to write a ton of one-shots and drabbles, but now I really only write chaptered stories for a variety of reasons.

I think the main reason is once I've created a character and setting and such, I find it really difficult to write just a one-shot and then be done with it. I know a lot of users on here will come up with their character and then write numerous one-shots about that character, but I can't do that either. It has to be one long, continuous thing that I can really get attached to and hold on to for a good long time or else it just doesn't hold any real meaning to me. Chaptered fics are not only what I prefer to write, but they're really all I can write.

I do still write one-shots, short stories, drabbles, etc. for fun though, or when I'm going through a bout of writer's block and just need something to get the creativity flowing again. I admittedly don't put a whole lot of effort in to them. Like I said, they're just for shits and giggles.

@ amaranthine.

See, when I think of "character development," I think of how the character is fleshed out and how they're portrayed to the reader, which doesn't differ between chaptered fics and oneshots, but I do agree that it's more difficult to show a character's growth in one chapter. At the same time, for example, if someone was writing a oneshot about a character who had just experienced a major loss, I could see how they could portray that same sort of growth without using numerous chapters, so I feel like that really depends on both the writer and the subject matter.

Even with original fiction, if someone chose to write multiple oneshots about the same character, I could see that being character development. I personally use oneshots as a way to write out different moments spanning X character's life without having to write an entire chaptered fic and have all of that filler in between, especially if I jumping between years. Like I said previously, I also use them to experiment with different pairings and different universes, so I'm still using the same character I already know, just pairing them with a different person or tossing them in the zombie apocalypse or something

I love writing (and reading) both oneshots and chaptered stories. Mostly I just start to write a oneshot, and then if I feel like I want to expand on it, I turn it into a chaptered story (that's what I did with I Wrote the Sky).

I write oneshots to improve my writing style, and I write chaptered stories because one day I hope to be an author, so I have to at least try and write something longer than a few thousand words.

But I have to say, I do love writing with a prompt, so that's why I have a lot of oneshots.

I don't have a preference to what I like more, since with one shots I like that once I've written them, they're over and I don't have to return to those characters ever again. But then, with chaptered fics, I love getting lost in an idea and just surrounding myself with the world I've created and the characters I have. However, chaptered fics are something I struggle with commitment wise because I do get bored very easily.

One shots are much easier. I just get bored of chaptered stories way too easily and give up less than halfway through, most of the time. Besides that, its easier to have a fluid stream of ideas if its shorter and put together like it is in one-shots.

I will always pick chaptered stories over one shots. I can never get enough info in them when I'm writing them, and I can never get fully immersed in them when I'm reading them.