Story length- one story or individual chapters?

[ChrystalWynd]

I have a story I'm considering posting here. It's around 44,000 words long, divided into ten chapters.

My question is: Should I submit it as one story, or submit each chapter individually?

Thanks for any advice.

CW

 

[sr71plt]

I'd suggest multiple chapters (but there will be arguments on that). There are some readers who will either sit for several hours at one time to read it or remember where they left off and come back to it several times, but logic signals that there aren't all that many such folks in comparison with the readers you'd like to have. This is basically a short story site, and the original definition of a short story is fiction that can be read at one sitting.

 

[ChrystalWynd]

Thank you, sr71plt. That was my feeling as well.

CW

 

[Guest]

I may be off base here, but...

...taking an average chapter as 44,000 words / 10 = 4,400 words, each chapter will be roughly 1 1/4 Lit pages long... each an easy read, but maybe frustrating to some readers. I think it will depend on how well you move the plot along (at that length, I'm assuming you have plot) within each chapter and how well you leave the reader wanting more at the end each one.

Just as a thought, you might consider seeing whether, structurally, you can combine chapters within a single submission.

I'm sure others will have different ideas.

ETA: OK, that didn't come out right. I mean combining two chapters within a single submission.

Yeesh...

 

[sr71plt]

Huh? Where do these "average chapter" lengths come from? You can make a chapter any length you want. And you can have any number of chapters you want. Two Lit. pages seems to satisfy well enough. That would be six or seven chapters for a 44,000-word work. Each Lit. page takes about 3,500 words.

 

[Guest]

Huh? Where do these "average chapter" lengths come from? You can make a chapter any length you want. And you can have any number of chapters you want. Two Lit. pages seems to satisfy well enough. That would be six or seven chapters for a 44,000-word work. Each Lit. page takes about 3,500 words.

SR, maybe I'm having a no-brain day, but I thought I was clear enough in showing how I arrived at a theoretical "average." 44,000 words divided into 10chapters equals an average of 4,400 words each. And 4,400 words does indeed work out to about 1 1/4 Lit pages--3,500 + 900.

Of course the chapters can be any length the author wants. I was simply suggesting that the writer consider whether there would be an advantage to combining chapters so that each submission would be a longer read. No harm in that, I think.

And where does your assertion that "Two Lit pages seems to satisfy well enough" come from? That may be true for your stories and your readership but I hardly think it's a universal truth.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Just My Opinion

I have a story I'm considering posting here. It's around 44,000 words long, divided into ten chapters.

My question is: Should I submit it as one story, or submit each chapter individually?

Thanks for any advice.

CW

I find myself "scanning" instead of reading when a story gets too long, and I have since changed my ways. But this is merely my opinion, for what it's worth.

First off, you need to define a chapter by a "logical" stopping point, or interruption. You shouldn't stop at a bad point is all I'm saying.

One of my first stories was 15 Lit pages long, but lately I've been keeping them to 5 to 8 Word pages long (10 point) which is about 3k words, or 1 Lit page, and an easy read. Any more might overwhelm some Lit readers, although there are some that actualy enjoy long reads.

But on the flip side of the coin I have gotten bad votes for a short story because, in my drive to keep it short, I deprived the readers of more of the story upon which to base their votes and comments.

It's a double-edged sword. Finding the balance takes experience. So post and learn.

 

[ChrystalWynd]

Thank you for the input, everybody. I've decided to keep it in its original format of ten chapters, as each chapter ends on a logical break point. The word count for each chapter isn't exactly uniform, but it's fairly close and should work.

Thanks again.

CW

 

[sr71plt]

Thank you for the input, everybody. I've decided to keep it in its original format of ten chapters, as each chapter ends on a logical break point. The word count for each chapter isn't exactly uniform, but it's fairly close and should work.

Thanks again.

CW

Oh, so that's why Gnome was using the ten chapter measure--you did in your original message. Sorry, my bad in not understanding why that measure was being used.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... The word count for each chapter isn't exactly uniform, but it's fairly close and should work. ...

The word count in the individual chapters of my books varies wildly. This actually matches real life where some episodes of [say] an affair last several hours (and take many words to describe) while others are little more than fleeting moments (and take correspondingly less words).

 

[Intercontinental]

You need to be clear what your objectives were in the initial piece, and don't compromise.

A 44,000 word "novella" should skilfully weave the chapters together with opening questions answered, and problems resolved.This does not lend itself to exciting reading as chapter by chapter postings.

There is nothing wrong with the "episodic novel", Dickens was a master of it.However his novels were largely written as self contained episodes for newspaper serialisation. My concern is that you are proposing reducing an entity into self contained episodes. That is much more difficult.

 

[createashemale]

The word count in the individual chapters of my books varies wildly. This actually matches real life where some episodes of [say] an affair last several hours (and take many words to describe) while others are little more than fleeting moments (and take correspondingly less words).

Stop acting like you know anything about writing, Head down to the general board where stupidity rules the day. You'll fit right in...

 

[LadyCibelle]

Stop acting like you know anything about writing, Head down to the general board where stupidity rules the day. You'll fit right in...

Would you mind not crapping all over here? I'd appreciate if you kept your "shit" out of the EF.

 

[ChrystalWynd]

The story takes place during a wrestling tournament. Each chapter covers a day (there are six tournament days), plus three interlude chapters at the halfway point of the tournament, when there is a break. The chapter breakdown makes sense in context to the tournament.

Note: One of the days is broken into two chapters. That's why there is ten chapters instead of nine.

CW

 

[AsylumSeeker]

What?

Stop acting like you know anything about writing, Head down to the general board where stupidity rules the day. You'll fit right in...

Why are you such a disagreeable person? The question was fair. Why are you spewing venom?

 

[sr71plt]

The story takes place during a wrestling tournament. Each chapter covers a day (there are six tournament days), plus three interlude chapters at the halfway point of the tournament, when there is a break. The chapter breakdown makes sense in context to the tournament.

Note: One of the days is broken into two chapters. That's why there is ten chapters instead of nine.

CW

Makes sense.

 

[sr71plt]

Why are you such a disagreeable person? The question was fair. Why are you spewing venom?

Well, Snooper (and Lady C too for that matter) do just the same thing to me here, so I guess what goes around comes around.

 

[LadyCibelle]

Well, Snooper (and Lady C too for that matter) do just the same thing to me here, so I guess what goes around comes around.

Uh, I know that you have a thing for me, but, when was the last time I had anything to say to you? You've been on my ignore list for the past couple months and it's only because someone notified me that you had, once again, crapped on me that I saw it.

I've been leaving you alone, LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE too!

 

[sr71plt]

Uh, I know that you have a thing for me, but, when was the last time I had anything to say to you? You've been on my ignore list for the past couple months and it's only because someone notified me that you had, once again, crapped on me that I saw it.

I've been leaving you alone, LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE too!

The last time snooper made what he mistakenly thought was an out-of-the-blue jab at me (suggesting that someone needing Japanese translation ask me--when unbeknownst to him I do speak some Japanese), you chimed in with your usual "spitting up Coke on my terminal here." Neither of you did a thing to really help the requestor and, contrary to what you did here, telling a poster not to jab at Snooper, you joined in jabbing at me from out of the blue.

This is certainly not the behavior a "moderator" should be exhibiting.

If you want me to bump up the thread, I'll be happy to do that.

You are a lousy "moderator"(as evidenced here by your double standards and abusive language)--and as I showed on another thread just now, Snooper doesn't know have of what he claims to about editing either.

 

[AsylumSeeker]

Why This In-Fighting?

I know I'm placing myself in the middle of this and will likely receive hits. But please! SR, I have developed a respect for you based on the editing help you have provided, for which I am grateful.

Yet you pick on snooper who has also offered help when neessary. Not sure why, yet sensing you'll be quick to expand.

And LadyC holds a special place in my heart.

There are new writers and readers looking all the time and these arguments are counter-productive to the cause!

 

[sr71plt]

I know I'm placing myself in the middle of this and will likely receive hits. But please! SR, I have developed a respect for you based on the editing help you have provided, for which I am grateful.

Yet you pick on snooper who has also offered help when neessary. Not sure why, yet sensing you'll be quick to expand.

And LadyC holds a special place in my heart.

There are new writers and readers looking all the time and these arguments are counter-productive to the cause!

Bullshit. It's Snooper who continually dings on me from out the blue. You can read the threads for yourself.

My correction of him this morning is someone correcting doubly incorrect guidance given to a question--and citing an authoritative source. If he has a source to cite for his assertion, let him do so. My concern is for the one asking the question--not for the one pulling incorrect answers out of their nether regions.

And Lady C has been a banshee from hell at me from her first post to me.

If you can't see this from the running threads and the thread I bumped up, you're blind.

Other than that, this is just a case of what goes around comes around. Snooper dings on me and Lady C, supposedly the "moderator" here, laughs through her spewed ginger ale. Someone comes in here and dings on Snooper, and she's all over them. Double standard, and she be along any moment now to erase my posting (or try to), only because it points to her bad behavior--and she'll do so in contradiciton of the forum rules.

And the "I've left you alone" claim? She made a snide dig at me on another board not more than twenty-four hours ago.

Can you read tea leaves?

 

[LadyCibelle]

I know I'm placing myself in the middle of this and will likely receive hits. But please! SR, I have developed a respect for you based on the editing help you have provided, for which I am grateful.

Yet you pick on snooper who has also offered help when neessary. Not sure why, yet sensing you'll be quick to expand.

And LadyC holds a special place in my heart.

There are new writers and readers looking all the time and these arguments are counter-productive to the cause!

I'll tell you why. "srwhatever his name or real occupation is" has crapped on me and Snooper because we never ONCE bowed down to his superior intellect. It eats at him that we're not cowed by his pretention of grandeur.

He thinks that he's god's gift to humamoty and the editing world.

What makes it even funnier is the fact that what he's been complaining about Snooper and me is the exact same thing he, himself, has been doing on a friend's thread.

Apparently he and his 'friends' are allowed and entitled to shit on people and accuse them of milking a situation, going as far as saying that my friend's health problems are completely false.

Funny how, when we tell him we don't believe his ideas of greatness it's "gangbanging'" but when He's the one doing it, it's in the interest of fairness.

Is that what they call, do as I say and not as I do?

BTW. thanks for speaking up for Snooper and me, but you're wasting your time on this one. Because neither me nor Snooper are afraid to call him an asshole and a liar when he's sprouting his condescending verbiage. well, he goes crying into 'mommy's skirt and stomp his feet like a 2years old.

 

[sr71plt]

Yep, that exhibits the "moderator" here nicely.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... BTW. thanks for speaking up for Snooper and me ...

I add my thanks, though I don't know what was said because I have had the poster in question on [IGNORE] for some time now.

 

[LadyCibelle]

I add my thanks, though I don't know what was said because I have had the poster in question on [IGNORE] for some time now.

He was and still is on my ignore list, but, a friend told me he had sprouted some more shit on us and I had to take a look.