Replay Value

There are two very different ways tog experience a story: the first time you read it, and every other time. There is nothing like that first time with a story. You literally do not know what will happen next. After that first time, you will never experience it that way again, specifically because you do know what happens next.

The important question to ask is then: is the story worth a subsequent run through?

In video games, they use the term "replay value". You may play through the game in 8 hours, but is it worth playing again? Is it still fun? Is there still more to do? Or do people go through it once and decide that was enough?

Many stories, whether they print or movie or any other medium, I go through once and it's enough. They were nice little romps, but once you know how it ends, there's nothing much left. The experience was ok, but not remarkable. If it happened to be in front of me and I had nothing better to do, I wouldn't mind going through it again (after all, I didn't hate it), but I wouldn't go out of my way to do that.

Replay value matters to me. I never want my writing to be considered throwaway. Even if I make a new one every day, and even if not every one is a glimmering beacon of excellence, I want people to be able to go back, read through my archive, and be moved by what I wrote all over again.

Periodically, I do read an old post or two, and I do see value in them. That gives me hope that other people see such hope, too.