Wanted your thoughts on the sixty-character limit.

[HordHolm]

Back in my day, I had to walk ten miles, uphill in the snow, both ways.

Or, I had to suffer, so you should learn to live with it, just like I did.

That's what that argument sounds like. Just because they had to deal with a limitation in the past does not make it something worth keeping.

I'd be very surprised if changing the limitation did anything except make a bunch of authors look at where the new boundary was, and then complain about that - "why have we only got 120 characters? You can't do anything with that!" and so on.

And then, of course, we know that any change is a) unlikely, or at best b) glacial. Bearing that in mind, it's hardly worth discussing.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

As you say, the site has limitations, we all "suffer" in exactly the same way, nobody is advantaged or disadvantaged.

I choose to live within the constraints rather than fight them.

Could I do more with 25 or 26 hours in a day? Sure, but I am happier accepting the reality and learning to adjust.

Learning how to write a more concise and condensed story description should be the goal of every author. It is a skill they should be endeavoring to master, not whining about the need for it on Literotica.

 

[gunhilltrain]

There's a great related thread that started when @bridgetrose suggested adding a story summary. Some of us concluding that expanding the story descriptor would really help.

Many stories hear has an prologue or whatever you wish to call it as a paragraph or even two at the top of the first page. I use it quite often, especially in a series where there will be a link there to the previous chapter and maybe a summary of what's happened so far. I may also have an explanation of what certain abbreviations mean ("LGA means LaGuardia Airport") or where certain locations are. It's a way to avoid information dumps within the text itself.

I suppose the programming should be adjusted to allow for longer story description lines (it couldn't be that complicated to do) but Lit changes things slowly as it sees fit. Maybe being concise there is not so bad.

 

[Jorunn]

Some of the precious listing space is taken up by the author’s name. Therefore, I want to be known in the future as “J”. If some John wants to follow my lead, he can be little “j”.

There is only so much space on the landing page for each category. The longer each listing, the fewer stay on the first page, because they drop off the bottom.

The best idea I see here might be a click point on that page that opens a 4 (?) line story summary written by the author. That would help me as a reader too.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Another 20 characters would be nice. Although apparently, there are people who are posting on Lit using a Commodore 64 dialing up to CompuServ, they've accepted limitations, why can't you?

 

[Statius]

Hate it. Need more

 

[SimonDoom]

I think it's fine the way it is. From the reader's standpoint, a long description isn't necessary. Readers want to skim over the descriptive stuff as quickly as possible and make a snap decision whether to read the story. Limiting the tag link forces you to get creative and snappy rather than descriptive and long-winded. Think of it as an advertising slogan rather than as a synopsis. Ad slogans are short and snappy to grab attention.

I suspect EB is correct, as well: the Site owners won't change it because it will affect the amount of screen taken up by the words of the tagline.

 

[CalBishForNow]

I've rarely had a problem with the 60-character limit. Sometimes I've had to change "exhilarating" to "thrilling" or even "fun," or only mention two plot points when I really wanted to hint at 3, but brevity is an important part of editing, right?

However, most of my stories start with an Author's Note. I've got a disclaimer there, like lots of authors use, and often include a paragraph or two about what I'm going for or how it fits into the overall series, and the very first line of it is usually a repeat of the Summary, mostly just out of convenience. If I had to make serious cuts to the Summary to fit in the character limit, the previous draft of it would go in that Author's Note.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I've rarely had a problem with the 60-character limit. Sometimes I've had to change "exhilarating" to "thrilling" or even "fun," or only mention two plot points when I really wanted to hint at 3, but brevity is an important part of editing, right?

However, most of my stories start with an Author's Note. I've got a disclaimer there, like lots of authors use, and often include a paragraph or two about what I'm going for or how it fits into the overall series, and the very first line of it is usually a repeat of the Summary, mostly just out of convenience. If I had to make serious cuts to the Summary to fit in the character limit, the previous draft of it would go in that Author's Note.

We even have to limit our own avatar descriptions, but there's always a way to deal with these things. (What is it, 35 characters?) "Multi-unit control" was intended as "Multiple-unit control." Since it was invented by an electrical engineer in the 1880s, I'll spare you a description. "Oh God, gunhill, thank you so much for restraining yourself and not hijacking the thread!"

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I'd be very surprised if changing the limitation did anything except make a bunch of authors look at where the new boundary was, and then complain about that - "why have we only got 120 characters? You can't do anything with that!" and so on.

As of now, x number of people complain about the 60 character limit. If it were increased to 100 the x - y still want more. But y would appreciate the new benefit and use it accordingly and even those who still want more will still benefit and use it.

So we can ignore all the people who want more now, or we can make an extremely simple change to improve the site and continue to ignore anyone who still complains.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I think it's fine the way it is. From the reader's standpoint, a long description isn't necessary. Readers want to skim over the descriptive stuff as quickly as possible and make a snap decision whether to read the story. Limiting the tag link forces you to get creative and snappy rather than descriptive and long-winded. Think of it as an advertising slogan rather than as a synopsis. Ad slogans are short and snappy to grab attention.

It's too short. 60 characters, including spaces and punctuation is maybe ten words. For most stories, that's barely or not enough for a complete sentence. Most descriptions are not complete sentences and many even skip all punctuation just to be able to cram it in. That's pretty ridiculous for a site that aims to have at least some minimal literary threshold of grammar and style and readability and such. You don't think that 100 or 120 characters isn't too much to ask?

I suspect EB is correct, as well: the Site owners won't change it because it will affect the amount of screen taken up by the words of the tagline.

The story cards were already enlarged last year taking up more screen space than ever, yet that can't find any room for an extra 40 characters when we've been asking for this for years?

 

[stickygirl]

Violence flares over the ongoing fight for an extra 40 characters. Some people are blaming immigrants for stealing the space promised for the extra characters and ICE operatives have rounded up dozens of letter W's that are too wide to fit sideways in a 40-wide box, forcing people to using single U's instead.
"Ue demand our uider boxes nou!!"
"Uhat do ue uant?
uider boxes
uhen do ue uant it?
Nou!"

 

[BobbyBrandt]

So we can ignore all the people who want more now, or we can make an extremely simple change to improve the site and continue to ignore anyone who still complains.

Alternatively, we can encourage people to live within the limitations imposed upon them, and help them to become better at writing concise and condensed descriptions.

As in chess, the queen always protects the king

That is the 46-character description I am planning for my current work in progress. It is a romantic adventure with the working title "His Queen Mary". Placing it in the appropriate category and utilizing the correct tags will allow any discerning reader to understand exactly what they would be venturing into with this story. I don't have to say that she was an aspiring porn actress that he forges a business arrangement with, or what she protects him from.

Many of my descriptions on this site simply say something like, "A sequel to..." which tends to be advantageous in driving readers to the previous story, and provides them with much more insight than any other description would.

Other descriptions include:

A beautiful Mormon woman discovers her inner slut.
Two aspiring actresses learn to be whores in Italy.
Young model has one last high school assignment to complete.
A journalism intern finds a sexual mentor.
Brother and Sister enter a video contest for Valentine's Day.
Getting revenge is sweet. Getting justice is sweeter.

Allowing more characters in the description field is merely an 'enabler' that allows writers unskilled in conciseness to remain so.

 

[Statius]

View attachment 2563292
Violence flares over the ongoing fight for an extra 40 characters. Some people are blaming immigrants for stealing the space promised for the extra characters and ICE operatives have rounded up dozens of letter W's that are too wide to fit sideways in a 40-wide box, forcing people to using single U's instead.
"Ue demand our uider boxes nou!!"
"Uhat do ue uant?
uider boxes
uhen do ue uant it?
Nou!"

Love this! Fogging hilarious!

 

[SkyBubble]

I'd like to say "more is always better"

To a point. The trick is to balance brevity with enough room to make your point. 60 may be a little on the short side of that. OTOH, some sites allow 100-150, or even more. I've never needed that much space for my description blurb. But I have had to cut a couple.

 

[Britva415]

It's named "Description" but a far better use of the contents of the Description field is not to try to describe or synopsize the story, but to entice people to click on it.

The first text of the story could be more of a descriptive blurb or brief synopsis of what the reader will be getting themselves into if they continue reading.

Or more enticement, why not. It's the only place to put a back-cover blurb, which inevitably is going to be more than 60 characters.

 

[dirk2024]

It's named "Description" but a far better use of the contents of the Description field is not to try to describe or synopsize the story, but to entice people to click on it.

The first text of the story could be more of a descriptive blurb or brief synopsis of what the reader will be getting themselves into if they continue reading.

Or more enticement, why not. It's the only place to put a back-cover blurb, which inevitably is going to be more than 60 characters.

"Teaser" would be a better term for it.

 

[Voboy]

I like the challenge.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

"Teaser" would be a better term for it.

In the publishing world, it's most commonly referred to a a "tagline"

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Alternatively, we can encourage people to live within the limitations imposed upon them, and help them to become better at writing concise and condensed descriptions.

Or, we could shorten it to 30 characters, now that would be a puzzle challenge for ya. ; )

But this isn't a puzzle. People aren't here for that. The more literary folk here don't need the exercise and the rest who just want to type up their wank fantasies couldn't be bothered with the exercise. It's not a puzzle, it's a site feature.

You can get as arty and crafty as you want with your descriptions. Most readers don't give a fuck. All that they want to know is if this story will be hot for them or not. Usually, we need to spell it out and more often than not, 60 characters is not enough to really do that very well.

We're not talking about extended prefaces or forewords here, it's an extra 40 to 60 characters so that we can easily put a complete sentence into the line. It's not anything new or fancy, just to make the feature that is already there work properly. 60 characters for this function is laughably silly small. It's like a car window that won't roll down because there's no handle. Just put a handle on it please so we can roll it down? That's all.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

60 characters for this function is laughably silly small

It's never going to be big enough for some.

Of all the feature enhancements that we would like to see on this site, fixing one that thousands of writers have successfully navigated for more than a decade shouldn't be high on the list.

A writer's creativity shouldn't end with the completion of their tale. It should also encompass their ability to properly promote their story within the confines of the site with an appropriate title and a simple tagline. A description over 60 characters isn't necessary, as has been proven here for years.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

It's never going to be big enough for some.

Like I said above, so? I believe that 60 characters is not enough, so do many others. You believe that it is enough. That's fine, but that's not the issue. You believe that 100 characters is too much. Yes, you do or you wouldn't be arguing this. How the hell is 100 characters too much? For the thousandth time, we're not asking for a full foreword, just 100-120 characters. How is that too much and who does that hurt? It's not too much and it hurts absolutely no one and nothing. There is plenty of space on the new larger story cards for 120 characters.

Of all the feature enhancements that we would like to see on this site, fixing one that thousands of writers have successfully navigated for more than a decade shouldn't be high on the list.

A writer's creativity shouldn't end with the completion of their tale. It should also encompass their ability to properly promote their story within the confines of the site with an appropriate title and a simple tagline. A description over 60 characters isn't necessary, as has been proven here for years.

Actually not. have you seen most of the tag lines here?

Emma and Andrew CH: 02
"Emma and Andrew hook up."

:/

That is not successfully navigated. We've had tons of discussion over the years here in the AH from many writers, "Gee it would be nice to have a few extra characters for my tag line." It's such a s small thing that hurts no one and helps so many. Why can't we have this?

We've asked for it for years. And I'll agree that there are other things more important, but it's such a simple tiny thing that would take 10 minutes to code. So many little things that could be done so easily that we've been asking for for years. Like word count on the story card ffs! We all want it and would take 2 minutes to code!! Manu comes in here and starts a thread linking the new story cards beta pages and asks for feedback. Immediately, 6 people shout, "put word counts on the card, please!" "Word counts!" "Yes, words counts!" ... "Feedback is greatly appreciated guys, thx," says Manu. Do we get a word count? Nope. Fuck you, litizens. We don't care about your feedback or what you want. We only want it to look like we care. The feedback thread is window dressing.

I fucking hate people who ask your opinion when they don't want it. That thread was like some of my old staff meetings where I used to work. "You don't talk at these meetings, pink." "You're not interested in my ideas." "Oh no, we care about what you think, share with us. Participate." "Ok, I think we should do x. It would solve a b and c that we all hate so much." Blank stares, sighs and eyerolls. "Ok, we can look into that. Thanks for sharing." None of my ideas get enacted. I'm fine with that (I'm paid by the fucking hour), but I KNEW no one would go for it, that's why I never offered the ideas in the first place. Now I'm looked at funny every day as the disagreeable loose cannon that people are unsure of. The only reason they wanted my opinion was to pretend to care about my feelings. Fuck my feelings. It's a job. I work for you. You pay me. I hit or exceed all the targets and adhere to all standards. You pay me enough, my feelings will be fine no matter how well or how poorly I'm treated.

 

[Statius]

Like I said above, so? I believe that 60 characters is not enough, so do many others. You believe that it is enough. That's fine, but that's not the issue. You believe that 100 characters is too much. Yes, you do or you wouldn't be arguing this. How the hell is 100 characters too much? For the thousandth time, we're not asking for a full foreword, just 100-120 characters. How is that too much and who does that hurt? It's not too much and it hurts absolutely no one and nothing. There is plenty of space on the new larger story cards for 120 characters.



Actually not. have you seen most of the tag lines here?

Emma and Andrew CH: 02
"Emma and Andrew hook up."

:/

That is not successfully navigated. We've had tons of discussion over the years here in the AH from many writers, "Gee it would be nice to have a few extra characters for my tag line." It's such a s small thing that hurts no one and helps so many. Why can't we have this?

We've asked for it for years. And I'll agree that there are other things more important, but it's such a simple tiny thing that would take 10 minutes to code. So many little things that could be done so easily that we've been asking for for years. Like word count on the story card ffs! We all want it and would take 2 minutes to code!! Manu comes in here and starts a thread linking the new story cards beta pages and asks for feedback. Immediately, 6 people shout, "put word counts on the card, please!" "Word counts!" "Yes, words counts!" ... "Feedback is greatly appreciated guys, thx," says Manu. Do we get a word count? Nope. Fuck you, litizens. We don't care about your feedback or what you want. We only want it to look like we care. The feedback thread is window dressing.

I fucking hate people who ask your opinion when they don't want it. That thread was like some of my old staff meetings where I used to work. "You don't talk at these meetings, pink." "You're not interested in my ideas." "Oh no, we care about what you think, share with us. Participate." "Ok, I think we should do x. It would solve a b and c that we all hate so much." Blank stares, sighs and eyerolls. "Ok, we can look into that. Thanks for sharing." None of my ideas get enacted. I'm fine with that (I'm paid by the fucking hour), but I KNEW no one would go for it, that's why I never offered the ideas in the first place. Now I'm looked at funny every day as the disagreeable loose cannon that people are unsure of. The only reason they wanted my opinion was to pretend to care about my feelings. Fuck my feelings. It's a job. I work for you. You pay me. I hit or exceed all the targets and adhere to all standards. You pay me enough, my feelings will be fine no matter how well or how poorly I'm treated.

Agree. On soooo many levels.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Like I said above, so? I believe that 60 characters is not enough, so do many others. You believe that it is enough. That's fine, but that's not the issue. You believe that 100 characters is too much. Yes, you do or you wouldn't be arguing this. How the hell is 100 characters too much? For the thousandth time, we're not asking for a full foreword, just 100-120 characters. How is that too much and who does that hurt? It's not too much and it hurts absolutely no one and nothing. There is plenty of space on the new larger story cards for 120 characters.



Actually not. have you seen most of the tag lines here?

Emma and Andrew CH: 02
"Emma and Andrew hook up."

:/

That is not successfully navigated. We've had tons of discussion over the years here in the AH from many writers, "Gee it would be nice to have a few extra characters for my tag line." It's such a s small thing that hurts no one and helps so many. Why can't we have this?

We've asked for it for years. And I'll agree that there are other things more important, but it's such a simple tiny thing that would take 10 minutes to code. So many little things that could be done so easily that we've been asking for for years. Like word count on the story card ffs! We all want it and would take 2 minutes to code!! Manu comes in here and starts a thread linking the new story cards beta pages and asks for feedback. Immediately, 6 people shout, "put word counts on the card, please!" "Word counts!" "Yes, words counts!" ... "Feedback is greatly appreciated guys, thx," says Manu. Do we get a word count? Nope. Fuck you, litizens. We don't care about your feedback or what you want. We only want it to look like we care. The feedback thread is window dressing.

I fucking hate people who ask your opinion when they don't want it. That thread was like some of my old staff meetings where I used to work. "You don't talk at these meetings, pink." "You're not interested in my ideas." "Oh no, we care about what you think, share with us. Participate." "Ok, I think we should do x. It would solve a b and c that we all hate so much." Blank stares, sighs and eyerolls. "Ok, we can look into that. Thanks for sharing." None of my ideas get enacted. I'm fine with that (I'm paid by the fucking hour), but I KNEW no one would go for it, that's why I never offered the ideas in the first place. Now I'm looked at funny every day as the disagreeable loose cannon that people are unsure of. The only reason they wanted my opinion was to pretend to care about my feelings. Fuck my feelings. It's a job. I work for you. You pay me. I hit or exceed all the targets and adhere to all standards. You pay me enough, my feelings will be fine no matter how well or how poorly I'm treated.

I would have absolutely no problem with an increase in the number of characters.

My whole point is that learning to live within the confines imposed, by developing the requisite skills to do so, would be a better use of your efforts.

The example you provided is clearly from someone without the skills, and it is unlikely that doubling the existing character limit would change that.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I can't imagine wrangling 60 characters in a story.