Story length on Literotica and partial stories

I am new here to Literotica, and am in the process of writing my first story for the site. I have carefully gone over the submission guidelines and I know there is a minimum length expectation, but is there a maximum? Obviously I will not be writing an entire novel, but it is becoming a bit of a lengthy story - so far I am at 4340 words and the hero has just had the first personal interaction with the heroine. Of course I expect my word count to go down during the editing process, but am still concerned it will be much longer than originally anticipated.

In a related note, in my admittedly short time spent browsing some stories here (I intend to spend more time!) I have noticed some stories are in parts. I am assuming those parts were submitted separately, but assumptions can sometimes be wrong. If they were submitted separately, as a writer do you write the entire story at once and then submit the parts separately, or do you write part one and submit it, then write part 2 and submit it? If you do that - is it unusual for the first part or two to have minimal if no sex at all?

If this is not the appropriate forum to ask this I apologize in advance!

sinfuldeeds said:

I am new here to Literotica, and am in the process of writing my first story for the site. I have carefully gone over the submission guidelines and I know there is a minimum length expectation, but is there a maximum? Obviously I will not be writing an entire novel, but it is becoming a bit of a lengthy story - so far I am at 4340 words and the hero has just had the first personal interaction with the heroine. Of course I expect my word count to go down during the editing process, but am still concerned it will be much longer than originally anticipated.

Click to expand...

At 4,340 words, you're just barely over one Lit page (3,767 words +/- ~500). Many successful stories are four to five times as long as your current effort.

As for a maximum, there is none; I successfully submitted four million words via C&P to the original version of the submission form in Beta Testing. If you submit a text or word document via e-mail, the only limit is what your word/text processor can handle.

Finally, don't worry about the length of your story. It should be exactly as long as is required to tell the story and not one word more or less.

Hi there. There was a great post by one of the Lit gurus on here about story length but I was unable to relocate it and the search function keeps crashing so no help there.

The gist of their post was that your story can be as long as you want if you are writing for the pleasure of writing, if it is good enough it will keep avid readers interested and they will persevere.

However if you are here for ratings/votes/approval then you might want to consider splitting it into manageable chapters to maximize readership (avid and casual readers)

FYI My latest endeavor is 28k words, although I am looking to trim it a little and I will be submitting it in one piece.

Hope this helps

*That's a great word, and not used it in a while - Avid

Let the story write itself and don't worry about to short or too long, just get down what you need to.

Lits readership is huge and there are many who like short stories and many that like long ones, just as some prefer "stroke" and others a "real" story.

So write what you want and your audience will find you.

Mine average 5+ pages (and up to 12) and I have no issues drawing readers.

Thank you so much for the quick and excellent responses. The answers you gave me help a lot! I don't generally have any concern for length, but I was wondering just how much cutting I would have to do to get the story posted on the site - I am glad I won't have to worry about length at least!

A LIT page is ~3500 words. My longest stories (so far) are 16000 words, five LIT pages. My most-read stories are 3300 and 2600 words, just one LIT page, but some of my longer pieces are well-read, too. I'm currently editing a story for another author that will be ~60000 words or 16-17 LIT pages. As was said, any story, chapter, or episode should be just as long as it needs to be.

What influences story-chapter-episode length? Your own goals. Why are you here?

* If it's for self-expression and entertainment, write whatever you want, as long as you want.

* If you're after eyeballs and comments, write it short (one LIT page) for one of the most-read categories like Incest or Loving Wives.

* If you're after high votes and Red H's (brownie points), post long series with big chapters in a more forgiving category like Group Sex or Mature.

* If you want to hone your concise-writing skills, craft sets of vignettes (50-500-1500 words) to bundle together -- I take this approach with upcoming story cycles, where each submission contains a trio of distinct episodes sharing only category and maybe general theme.

* If you want to be a Top Author here, read the highest-ranked stories by LIT's highest-rated writers, and study what they do and how they do it.

Bottom line: Don't sweat it.

Welcome to the chaos known as AH.
If I could make a suggestion; contact an editor (there's a place just for that).
The help you'll get will enable a smoother path to the big H.

I wouldn't worry about the chapter length so much. Write what you want to write. When it's over, let it end.

More important than length is that you decisively question every sentence you write:

1) Does this advance the plot? If not, cut it.
2) Does this advance the characterization of an individual in the story? If not, cut it.

With a small caveat: erotica isn't quite the same as normal writing, so when your story turns that way, I encourage you to ignore any rules you may or may not follow in favor of writing whatever the hell you want.

In short: focus on quality. The length will sort itself out.

My own experience suggests that somewhere around 7,000 words (two pages) attracts a decent readership. But most of what I write could best be described as 'raunchy romance', so maybe 7,000 is just a magic number for raunchy romance readers.

Oh, and as HP has already suggested: if you are just starting out, get an editor.

Length is always an issue regardless of what you write.

When I wrote legal documents my audience were lawyers and judges with no luxury of time for reading unnecessary material. A legal brief should be...brief. Social workers hate brief and hated my writing style. Ditto psychological/psychiatric reports, doctors like it brief and to the point, social workers want it all. One wants to see trees, the other wants to see forests.

I'm reading a collection of writerly essays/lectures John O'Hara published 60 years ago. As for length he suggested writers are best served using fewer words that say more than lotsa words. Call a spade a spade.

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

Length is always an issue regardless of what you write.

When I wrote legal documents my audience were lawyers and judges with no luxury of time for reading unnecessary material. A legal brief should be...brief. Social workers hate brief and hated my writing style. Ditto psychological/psychiatric reports, doctors like it brief and to the point, social workers want it all. One wants to see trees, the other wants to see forests.

I'm reading a collection of writerly essays/lectures John O'Hara published 60 years ago. As for length he suggested writers are best served using fewer words that say more than lotsa words. Call a spade a spade.

Click to expand...

Maybe Mister O'Hara would want to revisit that theory today after looking at the success of King and Rice, both of whom write self indulgently to say the least and whom editors would be afraid to tell them to lose a single word.

From what I hear-as I have not read the books- Martin of Game of Thrones fame is ridiculously long winded, but the success speaks for itself I guess.

50 shades by all reports(even from some people that liked it) is one of the most horribly written books you can find and its three books based on a very limited plot, but again....

So maybe things have changed as to what people will read.

As mentioned, LIT attracts various readers. Even *I* attract various readers. Look at the comments on PRICKLY PAIRS (linked below), a 5-LIT-page LW story. Some praised its steady development. Some said the first 1.5 pages (where all the sex is!) were too slow. So, some like long, and some don't. Can't please everyone; gotta please yourself. (Ricky Nelson sang that.)

EDIT This is my LIT post #2800. Move along; nothing to see here.

addendum

A couple more comments on the questions.

My first pieces here were multi-part series I wrote together and submitted in close sequence. With more recent series, I've written one or two chapters, then awaited inspiration for the ending. Bad move. I let myself get trapped by the I-gotta-submit-something-now syndrome (IGSSNS) before I had an ending. From now on, when I start a series, I'll finish it before submitting bits of it... unless I want to test the waters, as it were. Like, write something that *could* be expanded if so demanded. (And then set an end-point.)

About concision: Yes, it's good to eschew superfluous verbiage (don't use unnecessary words). The question is, what's 'unnecessary'? I have a factoid-vs-fiction distinction. If one writes a unitary piece that is obviously fiction, then keep it tight. IMHO my BIG BANANA and BRIDE OF KONG are tight, with every word advancing the plot (until reaching KONG's muddled ending ).

But, one of the lures of erotica is the possibility that the story is NOT wholly fictional, that there's a lot of reality there. So, some elements may not advance the plot, but they help build an air of credibility. My JOURNAL stories (RON, ALAN, DEXTER, RUTH, etc) are in that mold. And one of those mood-building plot gerbils just might become a crucial turning point in a later episode.

And then there's universe-building in fat sagas. Tolkien, Rice, Asimov, Martin, King, McCaffrey, et al build alternate realities and set characters loose in them -- one of my models of story-making. I'll suggest that fat sagas contain many words not critical to plot that ARE critical to atmosphere. Superfluous? Nope.

Hope this helps.

I really am grateful for the responses here. While answering questions I asked you all provided extra info for me to chew on. Thank you all again!