Story length got out of hand

[mendele]

Hi, so I wrote a 10 chapter story. The 10th is basically an epilogue, so its really just 9 chapters.
While writing the 9th, it kind of got out of hand. While the first 8 chapters are on average 5.5k words, (one of them being 12.2k, which I wasnt happy about) this last one is 14.4k words.
Firstly, is it an issue to post such long stories? will i lose my audience? (its in the romance section)
Second, how do I shorten so much into the average? Or should I split it into multiple parts?

 

[lovecraft68]

14.4k is about four lit pages so I don't think its too long at all, and being the final one it would make sense it would be the longest. Something else to keep in mind is anyone still reading by the last chapter is a fully vested reader so they're enjoying the story and aren't going to complain about getting longer chapters and more of what they like.

I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[AchtungNight]

My standard for posting multiple chapter stories here is to make sure each chapter has a climactic sex scene of some kind. If it’s all exposition and dialogue you’re wasting readers’ time. Gotta include some action. Other sites have allowed me to post just expo & dialogue chapters or even split the story by scene and get away with it. But here on Lit I have always tried to put action in each chapter. That way I don’t disappoint readers as much, hopefully.

 

[Djmac1031]

When I first started here, I had no idea how long was "too long."

To me, it felt like I was writing forever; that it took ages to build to the climax, that I was going on and on with nothing happening.

Then I'd post it and it was two, maybe three LE pages, max.

As @lovecraft68 said, if your readers are still around by part 9 or 10, they're invested.

So no, it's not too long.

 

[gunhilltrain]

My standard for posting multiple chapter stories here is to make sure each chapter has a climactic sex scene of some kind. If it’s all exposition and dialogue you’re wasting readers’ time. Gotta include some action. Other sites have allowed me to post just expo & dialogue chapters or even split the story by scene and get away with it. But here on Lit I have always tried to put action in each chapter. That way I don’t disappoint readers as much, hopefully.

You can do it your way; the rest of us will do it however we see fit. By the way, this site will definitely allow you to post chapters with whatever content you wish, as long as it meets the site's guidelines.

If readers feel that I'm wasting their time or I'm disappointing them, then they don't have to read it.

 

[alohadave]

Other sites have allowed me to post just expo & dialogue chapters or even split the story by scene and get away with it.

You can do that here too.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

If the story is well-written, length is not an issue.

 

[oneagainst]

It's not how long it is, it's what you do with it.

Sorry, I'll get my coat.

 

[Djmac1031]

It's not how long it is, it's what you do with it.

Sorry, I'll get my coat.

It's not the length of your story, but whether your reader is satisfied with the ending.

*grabs coat, joins @oneagainst in seeing myself out*

 

[harmonicks]

My standard for posting multiple chapter stories here is to make sure each chapter has a climactic sex scene of some kind. If it’s all exposition and dialogue you’re wasting readers’ time. Gotta include some action. Other sites have allowed me to post just expo & dialogue chapters or even split the story by scene and get away with it. But here on Lit I have always tried to put action in each chapter. That way I don’t disappoint readers as much, hopefully.

This is the key, for me at least, when reading longer stories.

I don't necessarily mind a story that is several pages before it really gets steamy, but it definitely helps if there's something in there early on. Or at the very least, if there's nothing sexy happening early on then you've got to really back your writing to keep people interested until there is. There are ways of cheating this if you want to really sustain the tension between the main characters - you can leverage fantasies in their imagination, or other people having sex in the story.

For trimming length, I think the main thing is to read back through your story and question why each paragraph and scene is in there. Are things moving plot along, or fleshing out characters, or are they just wasting the reader's time? If you took it out entirely, would the story really miss it or would it just help get to the point more quickly? I don't think there's necessarily a right answer, but there are definitely sections I write as I'm going which later in retrospect I decide don't add much overall.

Lastly, as someone who struggles with stories getting a bit long, combined with solid writing time being a bit of a scarce luxury, I think it's important to recognise that stories feel way longer as you're making them than they actually feel to the reader. Whenever I feel like I've written War & Peace it only actually ends up being a handful of pages when uploaded to the site, which is probably longer than average but definitely not offputtingly long to most people.

 

[Cagivagurl]

The length of a story, is never the issue.
I write mostly very long stories. On average, they run at about, 40,000 words. I have couple at well over 1100,000 (Broken into chapters)
The very best advice I was given, is forget about the length... It will be what it will be. If you can tell the story in 750, then good. If it takes 100,000, then good. The important thing is. "TELL YOUR STORY" You are the most important reader. If you aren't happy, then you failed.
Write what you write, express yourself. Forget about pandering to others. Forget about scores, or comments. Remember, we do this for fun...
Be true to yourself.

Cagivagurl

 

[AchtungNight]

And then, if you can make it more fun for others, do that too.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Hi, so I wrote a 10 chapter story. The 10th is basically an epilogue, so its really just 9 chapters.
While writing the 9th, it kind of got out of hand. While the first 8 chapters are on average 5.5k words, (one of them being 12.2k, which I wasnt happy about) this last one is 14.4k words.
Firstly, is it an issue to post such long stories? will i lose my audience? (its in the romance section)
Second, how do I shorten so much into the average? Or should I split it into multiple parts?

Sounds to me that your story ended up being as long as it needed to be.

Your first eight chapters are short compared to many longer stories. This topic comes up often, and there's generally a consensus that a good chapter length is 2 - 3 Lit pages (that's between 7500 - 11000 words). So your last chapter is on the money, I reckon, as is the 12200 one.

I guess you could break 14400 into two chapters, but only if there's a natural break in the narrative.

Longer stories run well on Lit, and I think you'll find that especially true in Romance.

You don't have a problem here .

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

My last story, which I considered one of my better efforts, ran to 37k words. It wrote itself pretty much but judging by views/votes/review count, it was too long for most folk. Shame really.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I get a kick out of those who espouse their belief that stories without a lot of sexual content have no place on Literotica.

Some of the most favored and most read stories by some of the most popular authors contain little to no sex in them.

As others have mentioned, story length should not be an issue as long as the flow keeps readers hooked. I have many stories posted over 100K words and they do just fine here.

Four of those were posted in chapters or parts but the rest were posted as single, large submissions. The four that were broken up are all now in the editing queue to be replaced with a single post of each of those stories as well. Soon, I will have only single submission stories (not counting those that are true series stories).

When the individual chapters are removed I'm going to lose a lot of comments, views, and other stats, but I'll just let the stories start from scratch if necessary.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I still have no idea how long is too long. I am finish off a 200k story for literotica right now. Basically a novel. And I'm going to submit it in one post. Hold my beer and watch this..... believe me, 14.4k words is perfectly fine for a chapter. I have done a lot of 20k word chapters and really, it all boils down to the story. If its good, readers won't care.

 

[LetsMisBehave]

On your original question, if people have read and enjoyed the first eight chapters then they will give you the benefit of the doubt on a longer chapter. I suspect that you had earned a long chapter by that point
Personally, if I am reading the first chapter of a story which goes on for 10 -15 pages then unless it has persuaded me by page 3 that it is worth reading then I am likely to give up on it, and if I like it by then I will read the rest. To that extent advice about giving people reasons to continue early on is advice i would agree with.
One of my problems with writing is the length of the first chapter and the lack of incentive for a casual reader to carry on. Sometimes it is worth writing the long version and then letting it marinade for a week and then reordering and subdividing. I believe that I have improved stories by writing that back story I need to know for writing a story but then postponing the reveal untl later in the series or deciding that only I need to know that level of detail.

 

[MelissaBaby]

A story is as long as it is. You're fine. Personally, I try to keep chaptered stories relatively uniform in length, but if the demands of the storytelling cause it to vary, I don't worry about it.

 

[MarkLivingston]

I wanted to comment on OP's question with a piece of feedback I've gotten, which ties in well with ElectricBlue's comment above:

Longer stories run well on Lit, and I think you'll find that especially true in Romance.

I have a long-running series in IR that five of the 2-3 page chapters turned out to be a really sweet Coming of Age tale that I wanted to see how it would do as a standalone in Romance. So I bundled up those chapters with some backstory and posted the 13-page story in Romance. I didn't think about page length at all, I just wanted the story out there for a different audience.

Here's one of the comments I got:
A really sweet budding love story! I thought at the beginning that is was very long but at the end of it the feeling was that it was way too short.

So like the others have said: write what you want to write, and if it's good the readers won't care about the length.

 

[AchtungNight]

A story is as long as it is. You're fine. Personally, I try to keep chaptered stories relatively uniform in length, but if the demands of the storytelling cause it to vary, I don't worry about it.

There was a time when I tried to make the sex take up at least half the story and make it a bit more detailed than I do now. My tastes have changed with the times. I’m not in the same headspace I used to be. These days I try to put in as much action as the story needs. No more, no less. And I review it at least twice before submission with an editor’s eye. Sometimes I have a beta reader do the same.

For chapter stories, keep each chapter as long or short as necessary. You’ll find the appropriate breaking points in your story better than me.

 

[MelissaBaby]

There was a time when I tried to make the sex take up at least half the story and make it a bit more detailed than I do now. My tastes have changed with the times. I’m not in the same headspace I used to be. These days I try to put in as much action as the story needs. No more, no less. And I review it at least twice before submission with an editor’s eye. Sometimes I have a beta reader do the same.

For chapter stories, keep each chapter as long or short as necessary. You’ll find the appropriate breaking points in your story better than me.

I've always looked at it as the story is the meal, the sex is the seasoning.

I do think that if you are publishing on a chapter by chapter basis, it's best to have them all be at least roughly similar in length. A reader who is following the story may be very disappointed, after a half dozen six page entries, to open the new one and find it is only two pages long.

But, when dividing a single entry into internal chapters, anything goes. A very short chapter following a much longer one can have dramatic impact.

In any case, each chapter should have its own dramatic structure and not just be designed to allow readers to take a break.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Hi, so I wrote a 10 chapter story. The 10th is basically an epilogue, so its really just 9 chapters.
While writing the 9th, it kind of got out of hand. While the first 8 chapters are on average 5.5k words, (one of them being 12.2k, which I wasnt happy about) this last one is 14.4k words.
Firstly, is it an issue to post such long stories? will i lose my audience? (its in the romance section)
Second, how do I shorten so much into the average? Or should I split it into multiple parts?

A few years back, @8letters showed a few clever analyses of stories on this site, breaking down how stories of varying lengths tended to fare. It was statistically significant, showing that there clearly is a "sweet spot" of 3-5 Lit pages for short stories and chapters. At the time I read his results, I had just submitted the first six or seven chapters of my first series. The first two had been far shorter than I realized when I submitted them, and many of the comments were to that effect. "Too short." "Try to keep them 3 pages or longer, but keep them coming!" As that series, and then the follow-up series, progressed, my chapters got progressively longer. Almost nobody has complained that they were too long. The only complaints I get now are that I have taken far too long to write more of them.