I read those who are fully released, otherwise i have to read them all over again the whole time. I am making a list with all the stories and I am not done yet and I have already almost 100 … if people read the stories not finished they have to start all over again … when I say that to some of the people who are doing the contest they say they are not allowed to publish more than 3 chapters? Is that true, because how can we rate a story that is not finished, how does episode knows then what we think is good and bad? Because I think it is to have as many reads as you can our am I wrong?
You have to publish at least 3 chapters. You can publish how many you want, unless the rules of a certain contest state otherwise (e.g. the Halloween Contest is usually a short story contest = 3-5 chapters). Many authors do not publish completed stories for contests (neither did I, both times), but continue the stories after the contest has ended and the winners have been announced.
Episode does rate contest stories not really by what we as readers think, but by retention (reader engagement) and rubic score (choices, directing, etc). There is a whole posting on this topic in the “Explain” section in case you are interested in learning more about this
I hope this helped and you’ll enjoy the entries and maybe find some new favorites to keep up with after the contest as well.
Because if you update after the deadline and before the winners are announced, you risk hurting your reader retention if your previous readers don’t continue.
So most people wait just to be safe.
Moved to Episode Fan Community since this is about Episode. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about where to correctly create topics, and feel to PM me if there are any questions.