So how long is too long? Never ending chapters...

How long is too long to continue a story? I've started submitting a story I'd been messing around with for a year or so. Polished up the first few chapters, submitted them and so far they are doing okay.
But I don't see any end in sight, because I don't know how it would end. And I'm not sure yet if I want to end it.

So do I just keep writing at my own pace and adding chapters and those interested will keep reading? Or eventually, sooner rather than later, do I write an ending of sorts?

Anyone had any luck with people following a series for a long period, or will everyone eventually get bored and stop reading?

Here's chapter one of four chapters if anyone is interested in checking it out.
https://www.literotica.com/s/no-such-thing-as-time-ch-01

CoffeeWithMonkeys said:

How long is too long to continue a story? I've started submitting a story I'd been messing around with for a year or so. Polished up the first few chapters, submitted them and so far they are doing okay.
But I don't see any end in sight, because I don't know how it would end. And I'm not sure yet if I want to end it.

So do I just keep writing at my own pace and adding chapters and those interested will keep reading? Or eventually, sooner rather than later, do I write an ending of sorts?

Anyone had any luck with people following a series for a long period, or will everyone eventually get bored and stop reading?

Here's chapter one of four chapters if anyone is interested in checking it out.
https://www.literotica.com/s/no-such-thing-as-time-ch-01

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My intention with Mary and Alvin is to chronicle the course of the relationship. If they are together a long time, it's going to take a while. I already have notes for twenty chapter, just published the fifth this morning.

i don't know how many people, if any, will stick with it, or discover it later, but it's the story I feel compelled to tell.

I do have an ending, it's just a matter of how long and winding the road to get there will be.

I have a shaggy dog tale in Erotic Horror that went for 23 chapters, each one 2-3 Lit pages. A bunch of readers settled in by chapter three and stuck with it to the end.

Each chapter in the first half was stand-alone in terms of erotic encounter, and slowly an overall story arc developed.

Then I had a major plot twist around chapter 12 - a brand new set of characters appeared out of nowhere, and it took another eleven chapters to pull it all together. But it wrapped itself up in the end.

I personally think you have to 'end' stories eventually. That said, there are stories here that just go on and on forever. I couldn't write one of those, I'd die of boredom first.

But remember, there is a whole bunch of readers who won't even start reading multi-part stories unless they know it is in fact finished.

electricblue66 said:

But remember, there is a whole bunch of readers who won't even start reading multi-part stories unless they know it is in fact finished.

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I have had readers contact me to say that they think my series looks interesting, would I let them know when it is finished.

If you are writing a long series, and you don't want to wait and post it all at once, you have to accept that you are trading away some instant gratification.

I think it also depends on the category. In SF&F, I think readers are much more tolerant of many, many chapters to a story than other categories.

i have three or four serials that i am writing simultaneously along with my one-off stories. interest seems to sustained on them, actually the later chapters seem to do better than the early ones in some cases. two of them will definitely end, i've plotted them in advance. the others, who knows. i'll write them till they're done with me. i write mainly to entertain myself, so there's that. do whatever feels comfortable for you and just remember that no matter WHAT you do, someone will find something to bitch about.

Speaking purely as a reader, I tend to find an incredibly long list of chapters a bit daunting. I like long stories, but there are limits. As a general rule, I would say half a dozen chapters is about right. Of course it does depend on the quality of the writing; if the story is hot enough, the number of chapters is irrelevant.

I intended to write a single chapter story and ended up with 47 chapters, over three years. Reaction was from "Get this stupid thing over with" to "Another chapter please". The story lost readers and gained readers, some going back and reading from the beginning. My advice is don't worry about it, if the story needs to continue, continue it. Just end it when you're ready (or not)

RelentlessOnanism said:

Speaking purely as a reader, I tend to find an incredibly long list of chapters a bit daunting. I like long stories, but there are limits. As a general rule, I would say half a dozen chapters is about right. Of course it does depend on the quality of the writing; if the story is hot enough, the number of chapters is irrelevant.

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Well I wouldn't call it 'hot', it's a slow paced romance set in a world ending scenario.

I think I'm an okay writer.

And thanks everyone! I guess I will continue at my pace and if even one person stays until the end, then I'll be happy.

CoffeeWithMonkeys said:

How long is too long to continue a story? I've started submitting a story I'd been messing around with for a year or so. Polished up the first few chapters, submitted them and so far they are doing okay.
But I don't see any end in sight, because I don't know how it would end. And I'm not sure yet if I want to end it.

Click to expand...

From an audience point of view, progression is what drives engagement. The more you set-up and pay-off things across chapters, have evolving characters, and have a clear idea of what your story is, the better it is regardless of length.

To use non-Lit examples, I gave up on the Walking Dead as I got bored of the cyclic plots* and dull characters, but I'm still fully invested in The Expanse and Game of Thrones (and a number of graphic novel series). If you don't know where your story is going, then 6 chapters can be too many, if you do, then you can have people still invested by chapter 30 (I'm still waiting for Hispet21 to get back writing the Rebellious Slave, and that has some really lengthy chapters...)

*Plot 1 - Group wander until they find a safe haven. People die.
Plot 2 - Safe haven gets ruined by evil faction. People die.
<<<Rinse & Repeat>>>

There is no right answer to this question.

As a reader I'm reluctant to dive into a story with lots and lots of chapters. But many readers obviously are not like me. Tefler's Three Square Meals epic started over two years ago and is up to 99 chapters, and his last chapter drew over 21,000 readers and had very high scores. So it can be done. Sci Fi seems to be a good category for these kinds of stories. Romance might be as well.

I just finished writing an 8 chapter story, and that was enough for me. I found myself getting stressed out about needing to complete the story before moving on to other things I wanted to write, and I had readers impatient to see me publish the next chapter. In the future I am likely to finish writing all of the chapters before I publish the first one.

I'd argue that 1 novel is all you can get out of a simple genre like romance or classic horror, which are usually quite straightforward and relatively short. The essence of their genres do not lend to lengthy plots.

Fantasy, SciFi, and variants thereof can last a long time, because the plots can get quite complicated, as can the intersections between characters, and even the settings themselves.

That said, you can take a simple romance and draw it out over a bunch of novels. It'll be garbage, hot steaming garbage, but cat&mouse or carrot-on-a-stick or WE CAN'T BE TOGETHER BUT I LOVE YOU romances can be dragged out over several books and sell like cocaine.

CoffeeWithMonkeys said:

Well I wouldn't call it 'hot', it's a slow paced romance set in a world ending scenario.

I think I'm an okay writer.

And thanks everyone! I guess I will continue at my pace and if even one person stays until the end, then I'll be happy.

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I was speaking more generally, rather than any specific story. I'm afraid I have yet to read yours, although I'm sure it's great.

It's too long when you're becoming repetitive, having the same characters in the same situations doing the same things. Or just dragging out the length of scenes to make a chapter what you think is long enough.

Hi,
As a writer of a series that has 9 chapters so far , I say
"Write till you are out of Ideas."
If your story takes time to tell ,so what ?
Your core readers will like it and you will enjoy writing it.
That's what it all about.
Stories of a certain theme or fetish will always be adored by the audience they were intended for.
You will know when your story gets stale .
Writing becomes monotonous.
I would advise you to remember that erotica is about sex and you must include a little in each chapter.
Sex alone can be boring and too much set up with out a pay off is to much work for some readers.
so find your niche and the readers will let you know when they don't want anymore.

As far as losing interest goes, I think you're safe to start posting chapters once yoi have completed a couple arcs in your story. It feels like a letdown when the story is going somewhere and it stops right when it's heating up but I'm always ok when I can reach some closure with a section of a long story.

Readers who sign in and follow you will get alerts in their own profiles when you publish new chapters. I don't have any problem keeping uo with when writers I've favorited post new work.

electricblue66 said:

I have a shaggy dog tale in Erotic Horror that went for 23 chapters, each one 2-3 Lit pages. A bunch of readers settled in by chapter three and stuck with it to the end.

Each chapter in the first half was stand-alone in terms of erotic encounter, and slowly an overall story arc developed.

Then I had a major plot twist around chapter 12 - a brand new set of characters appeared out of nowhere, and it took another eleven chapters to pull it all together. But it wrapped itself up in the end.

I personally think you have to 'end' stories eventually. That said, there are stories here that just go on and on forever. I couldn't write one of those, I'd die of boredom first.

But remember, there is a whole bunch of readers who won't even start reading multi-part stories unless they know it is in fact finished.

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This was sort of the case with my series “A Slut’s Triangle”. It went 24 chapters with chapter 23 having the epilogue, but I added a “bonus chapter” going beyond the epilogue. Honestly, I could have continued on past the “bonus chapter” at chapter 24, but tailored a nice, short epilogue to end the series.

The readers from the beginning stuck with me until the end, many leaving nice comments as the story arc took shape and plot twists followed. The number of views dropped, but over all the comments are what drove such a compelling story with so many chapters.

To the OP: don’t let the chapters length or number deter you from telling the story you wish to tell. Only you know when the storyline has reached an end. Just a side note: “Best Friends Forever” is sort of like a “prequel” to “A Slut’s Triangle” or Book one in a series. There are even a couple characters from the storyline that appear in “AST”, especially Kevin, before Brenda gives him the name “Ashleigh”.

Now that lit writers are using Patreon and offering sneak peeks at upcoming chapters as reward for donations expect to see series that literally have no end. There's an author here with a close to 100 chapter series who is doing well on patreon. The series will never end and that is going to become the new model. Watered down repetitive crap with no end and just spinning wheels because now people have figured out how to profit off of Lits free platform.

So I guess the answer is now there will never be such a thing as too long, and there will also be a lot of low quality in those series because its now about profit and not story.

I’ve been debating this very question for my own series (see the link in my signature). Based on what I’m seeing, it really depends on the story: if you can keep your readers engaged, then that’s a good sign that it’s a story worth telling.

In my case, I started off thinking I’d just write a fun little story, maybe a few chapters, and that would be that. But the characters took on a life of their own, and now I’m up to 11 chapters and counting. I have more chapters written but not yet published, plus a bunch more that only exist in outline form. I do have an ending planned, but it’s hard for me to tell how long it’ll take to get there!

The cool thing is that my readers seem to be going along with it. My ratings & readership have stayed pretty consistent week-over-week (although my total readership is highest on the earlier chapters, since they’ve been out the longest). Still, I do agree it takes some commitment to go through a multi-chapter story, so it”s very possible I may have scared off some casual readers.

The trick for me is how to attract those guys. I feel like telling them it’s ok, you can just read a single chapter if you want, I won’t bite!

Readers often shy away from unfinished multi-chapter stories simply because there are a lot of them here that haven't been finished, some in something like a zillion years.
Sometimes readers force (well, nudge your ego into providing) an extension of an existing story. I certainly had that happen with a one-off that ran nine chapters and another that ran five, and a three-chapter series that ran ten (plus miscellaneous continuing bits and pieces because I couldn't let them go). That said, I'm not sure I would start reading that long a story, so I need to be enticed, as I was with Justin Thyme.

A Different Spin on the Question

I'm writing a story now, and am starting Chapter 5. I'm not yet concerned with the series being too long, but I am worried my chapters are too long. Chapter 4 was the longest and came in at 18 pages 12pt font, about 7300 words.

How would that translate into Lit pages on each post? I looked through the FAQ's yesterday, trying to see if there was a limit. I didn't see any size limit on a chapter. Is there anything i should be concerned with?

Each chapter is a POV from a character, and i don't want to have the same character chapters back to back, so i haven't been able to break them up yet, but if the length of the chapter is going to be too long, i'll figure something out.

TaricJon said:

I'm writing a story now, and am starting Chapter 5. I'm not yet concerned with the series being too long, but I am worried my chapters are too long. Chapter 4 was the longest and came in at 18 pages 12pt font, about 7300 words.

How would that translate into Lit pages on each post? I looked through the FAQ's yesterday, trying to see if there was a limit. I didn't see any size limit on a chapter. Is there anything i should be concerned with?

Each chapter is a POV from a character, and i don't want to have the same character chapters back to back, so i haven't been able to break them up yet, but if the length of the chapter is going to be too long, i'll figure something out.

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You don't need to worry about length. The site will automatically break your submissions up into the appropriate number of "pages" required for the submission. 7,300 words isn't very long at all (somewhere between 2-3 Lit pages). I have a 10,000 word story that was 15 pages in Word at a 12-point font which rang up at 3 Lit pages, so I think you're probably fine.

There are readers for every sort of story- and chapter-length you can imagine, so what's "too long" for you may well be too short for some. Write the story you want to write, at the length you want to write it, and it will eventually find its audience.

Thank you.

Take hold of the reader and then hold on to them

MelissaBaby said:

My intention with Mary and Alvin is to chronicle the course of the relationship. If they are together a long time, it's going to take a while. I already have notes for twenty chapter, just published the fifth this morning.

i don't know how many people, if any, will stick with it, or discover it later, but it's the story I feel compelled to tell.

I do have an ending, it's just a matter of how long and winding the road to get there will be.

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After thinking about reading a story I look at the number of pages and if more than 4 per chapter it’s unusual for me to continue. I think splitting 14-16 pages into 4 chapters is more likely to entice a reader than one long long chapter.

You’ve got to grab the reader with the first sentence/first paragraph and then hold onto them. Also to try and have an ending that makes the reader want to move on to the next chapter.

As long as the storyline continues to be interesting why stop? If you introduce new characters and take the plot in another direction finish the original story or make it a subplot and start it as a new story. You can always make a good story evolve.

Don’t make the reader wait too long for the next chapter. 3 months between chapters and you lose your readers. Also give the reader some idea of what’s going to happen in each chapter.

At the end of the day a good story is a good story. First comment I’ve made on this forum so I hope people think it’s helpful.

Don’t make the reader wait too long for the next chapter. 3 months between chapters and you lose your readers. Also give the reader some idea of what’s going to happen in each chapter.

At the end of the day a good story is a good story. First comment I’ve made on this forum so I hope people think it’s helpful.[/QUOTE]


To Emirus:

This is contradictory, pure and simple. Most readers here read what’s posted in the headlines. If I wait 3 months to post the next chapter, I, myself, pick up additional readers. Those that have favorited me as an author are going to see/read my newly posted chapter as well. To use your own words - At the end of the day a good story is a good story.( there is no boundaries on that statement that say a story has to be posted in a timely manner or length= great story, mind you)

Also, what is the purpose of telling the read what is going to happen in the chapter before they begin reading it? When you’re submitting the story, there is a small part for story description. Entering something like “so and so take their relationship to the next level” that draws the reader into read the story without telling them what’s going to happen in the story. Food for thought

On the flip side, ending a good story with a cliffhanger will keep the reader interested enough to continue to read a series. Few writers on this site use the “cliffhanger” concept because they don’t understand how to write a good “cliffhanger”. TV shows are masters of it on the season finale. But, it’s still scripted in a written format.
Kant