Something that's been on my mind lately with regards to long fiction pieces (as a Writing Contest assignment has taken on a life of its own, and I'm now actually working a semi-serious fiction piece that's shaping up to go way beyond what I normally write) - I've come to the conclusion that it's best to write the entire thing beforehand, but post it a chapter at a time, with a couple days between chapters.
Bear with me here. Let me explain:
The problem with dumping an entire lengthy piece into a thread - or posting a link to it - is that, if we're totally honest with ourselves, most people are not going to read the whole thing. It's just not going to happen. I realize this is also the case with chapter-by-chapter pieces, too, but a giant wall of text is a lot more intimidating than easily digestible 1000-word morsels.
Secondly, there's the discussion. One giant piece, all at once, is pretty much going to result in comments like "Wow." and "GJ" and "This was really great, thanks for sharing this!". There's nothing wrong with any of these comments in themselves, of course, but it's not really a discussion of your story. No plot details or character developments are being discussed. Rather than a lively and engaging conversation between readers about your story, it's just flat praise that doesn't tell any other readers anything about your story.
When you piece out your very long story in easily-digestible chapters, though, you help ensure that your entire story will get read, eventually, one chapter at a time. Between chapters, if you allow a window of time for discussion, readers can comment, complain, speculate, criticize - they can engage, in other words, which will entice more readers to check out what they're missing here.
However, there's a danger in posting chapters as you write them. It's called real life. Even if you are certain that you're going to have the time to write and post each and every chapter in full and on schedule, you really cannot account for outside influences beyond your control interrupting your work. And even if you move to a cabin on top of a mountain with nothing but your laptop and a powerful connection to a satellite hook-up, you also cannot account for the dreaded writer's block, which can strike anyone at any time. By posting as you write, you run the risk of falling behind schedule, disappointing your readers, and weakening their trust in your ability to deliver.
Another danger of posting while you write is that the process of writing a story is never about going from A to Z. As you edit, you will go back, changing details, moving plot points forwards and backwards, removing previous dialogue that contradicts things said later on, or vice versa.
In the end, I think it's best to have the entire story written and polished beforehand, but to kindly serve it to your readers, one chapter at a time, allowing them some room to discuss the story thus far, without leaving them to wait to long before the next chapter arrives.
