New writer here - question about word count

[TrixieTrudeau]

Hey,

Just wanted to introduce myself. I'm here to hopefully publish some stories and work on my skills of writing erotica. I've read some of the tips and guidelines for submitting work.

I'm curious about word count. Is there an unwritten rule about what's too short or too long? Some of my pieces are fairly long and I feel it may be best to cut into chapters.

Any advice is welcomed! Thanks!

 

[lovecraft68]

Hi Trixie, welcome to the AH.

The story has to be at least 750 words, but there is no limit as to length. For reference a lit page is about 3750 words.

Lit has a huge readership with varied preferences. Some people like all their stories or chapters to be two or less pages and may not look at something longer than that. Others enjoy longer pieces because they feel those are the ones that have a lot of story with the fun stuff.

Shorter stories seem to get more votes, but longer stories score higher because the readers who like a story tend to invest more and vote higher as a reward.

These are all things you'll figure out for yourself as time goes by. I'll add some people will say three lit pages is ideal. That is not true, it goes by reader, not a set number. Some of the highest voted stories on the site are ten pages plus.

What works best is write what you want how you want it and the readers will come to you, especially if you keep putting up stories to build a fan base

 

[Serafina1210]

There's a written rule that your stories must be at least 750 words long. See here:

https://www.literotica.com/subguide.shtml

After that, opinions differ. Some break their long stories into chapters of two screens ("Lit pages"--circa 3500 words), while others go longer. Currently I'm writing stand-alone stories four or five Lit pages long, but that's just where I am right now--no rule.

Keep your readers involved, and they'll stick with you to the end, wherever it is.

 

[TrixieTrudeau]

Thank you!

Thank you so much for answering my question. I'm sure a lot is trial and error. I look forward to getting to know everyone and submitting my stories.

 

[GoldenCojones]

Hi Trixie, welcome to the AH.

The story has to be at least 750 words, but there is no limit as to length. For reference a lit page is about 3750 words.

Lit has a huge readership with varied preferences. Some people like all their stories or chapters to be two or less pages and may not look at something longer than that. Others enjoy longer pieces because they feel those are the ones that have a lot of story with the fun stuff.

Shorter stories seem to get more votes, but longer stories score higher because the readers who like a story tend to invest more and vote higher as a reward.

These are all things you'll figure out for yourself as time goes by. I'll add some people will say three lit pages is ideal. That is not true, it goes by reader, not a set number. Some of the highest voted stories on the site are ten pages plus.

What works best is write what you want how you want it and the readers will come to you, especially if you keep putting up stories to build a fan base

Three Lit pages is ideal ... if your story is three lit pages long. As long as you make it past the 750 word count, I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

LOVECRAFT has never written a sentence that wasn't at least 750 words.

 

[lovecraft68]

LOVECRAFT has never written a sentence that wasn't at least 750 words.

Oh, yeah? Well....I really can't deny this.

 

[lovecraft68]

Three Lit pages is ideal ... if your story is three lit pages long. As long as you make it past the 750 word count, I wouldn't sweat it.

When I started here in 2010(wow, time flies) For some reason I tried to keep everything to two pages. I'm not sure why because I hadn't come to the boards yet so where I set that limit no idea.

I stuck to that for my first 7-8 stories/chapters, then when I caught myself spending forty five minutes trying to slice off enough words to make a three page into two, I said fuck it and never worried since.

I'd say my average story across the board would be about 6-7 pages.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I said it before, John O'Hara's best erotica were less than 1000 words. On one a teen lures grandpa into her bedroom where she's naked, and screams at him after he gets an eyeful of her. Doesn't take much to get an idea told.

 

[sr71plt]

Three Lit pages is ideal .

The OP deserves to know that this is personal opinion only. In the mainstream, one Lit. page would be ideal, because there are few short story publishers taking more than 3,500 words for a contest or a published story. My personal opinion is that two Lit. pages is the max on "ideal," because on the rare occasion I decide to read a particular Lit. story and I go to it, and it's three or more Lit. pages, I abandon the intent to read it. So, what's the "ideal" length in Lit. pages is very much a subjective issue.

 

[Handley_Page]

I find 3 or 4 pages a very comfortable read.
Any longer and I need the eye drops.

 

[Hypoxia]

As said, LIT's minimum is 750 words. Author Oggbashan sometimes strings 15 fifty-word vignettes together to reach that limit. The maximum... someone test-posted a piece with something like 1/2 million LIT pages. That's close enough to infinity (uncountable).

For contests, longer stories get higher votes. The Hallowe'en winner a couple years back was 19 LIT pages, 70k words. Contest entries must be single pieces, not series.

In series, lots of 2-page chapters rack up high votes if not high readerships. Overall, shorter individual pieces get more readers but lower scores. Do you want brownie points or to grab eyeballs?

Responses to stories of various lengths depends on 1) category chosen, 2) storytelling quality (including number of kink-buttons pushed for readers), and 3) how fast you churn them out. I've done well with 1-page chapters and 7-page novellas, the whole range.

My basic guideline: any piece is as long as it needs to be. And anything posted to LW or Incest will grab more eyeballs that other categories. Short or long -- whatever works.

 

[LIVINRFANTASIES]

Over 750 words

My stories were supposed to be chapters of a book. Since I am digging older stories from my not well organized files they are now individual short stories under different titles.

I had no idea how many words are in a page and lucked out until one story was under the 750 word limit. I was kindly told that I need to add content. This part is easy since I have lots of short stories.

On the other hand, I've also added short stories to others to keep the count down.

I agree shorter stories seem to be more fun for me to read. I have the attention span of a fly!

Whoever proof reads stories does give us leeway for crappy grammer and content. They are fast and helpful. I was worried at first but now just check my old stories and add them in the format other stories are in.

Comments, good or bad, have helped me. I appreciate anyone who reads a story and takes time to comment.

It's been fun and I've kept busy.

 

[nsymserotica]

bye-bye

 

[sr71plt]

Even though Literotica has its own guidelines, I've always measured things by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America guidelines:

Novel: over 40,000 words
Novella: 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette: 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story: under 7,500 words

Anything under 1,000 words is Flash Fiction, in my estimation. Anything shorter than 250 words is pushing into the prose poem world, or is a writing exercise.

Yep, those are good numbers for e-publishing in any genre (wordage higher in the print world, with novellas starting around 25,000 words and novels around 60,000 words and anything shorter printable only in collections combined with other works).

A point that new writers to Lit. might keep in mind. If you feel you need an editor--or are being pushed to have one--new writers would best keep at least the initial stories short. Editors, in general, are more readily available for shorter pieces than longer ones (they are working for free and probably also working a full-time job)--and most certainly than for "I plan to eventually have this a series of 48 chapters when I can think up what to do in the unwritten chapter 2" editing requests (which, yes, seem to be about half of the requests popping up on the Editors Forum here).

 

[oggbashan]

Even though Literotica has its own guidelines, I've always measured things by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America guidelines:

Novel: over 40,000 words
Novella: 17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette: 7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story: under 7,500 words

Anything under 1,000 words is Flash Fiction, in my estimation. Anything shorter than 250 words is pushing into the prose poem world, or is a writing exercise.

Sometimes I write 50-word stories. I have to post them in sets of 15 to reach the Literotica lower limit of 750 words, but they seem reasonably popular.

 

[lovecraft68]

The OP deserves to know that this is personal opinion only. In the mainstream, one Lit. page would be ideal, because there are few short story publishers taking more than 3,500 words for a contest or a published story. My personal opinion is that two Lit. pages is the max on "ideal," because on the rare occasion I decide to read a particular Lit. story and I go to it, and it's three or more Lit. pages, I abandon the intent to read it. So, what's the "ideal" length in Lit. pages is very much a subjective issue.

Yet your recent contest winner was six pages, which goes to show here for whatever reason length has an advantage.

I'll leave it at that so I don't get threatened with being banned for discussing what works in a contest

 

[sr71plt]

Yet your recent contest winner was six pages, which goes to show here for whatever reason length has an advantage.

I'll leave it at that so I don't get threatened with being banned for discussing what works in a contest

That's irrelevant to any point I've tried to make. My recent win wasn't a short story. It was a novella and purposely written as one. Lit's contests aren't short story contests--they are "whatever length" contests (to the extent that they even are contests). It wasn't written to have an advantage in a contest. It was written purposely as a novella as that was the length it needed to be for the storyline it was giving. It was written more for market publishing than for a contest (and it was launched in the marketplace the day the contest ended). I was as surprised as hell as anyone else that it placed; it wasn't entered to compete, and it was saved by major vote scrubbing.

I've frequently said I think the contest should be split into two--short stories and longer works, because they are different types of works with different content requirements. I'm aware that readers on Lit. seem to be more impressed by longer rather than shorter (and are not put off by verbosity, irrelevant or dangling story threads, or completely unnecessary side trips), but that's another issue, and it's not reader criteria I find intelligent or that I cater too just because it sells well on Lit.

Perhaps a more interesting discussion point on the surprise placing of my April Fools' Day Contest goes to another discussion thread running now on the forum--the need to "like" your characters. The protagonist of my story win is a seasoned NYPD vice cop who is flawed to the point of being captive to the extreme fetish vices himself that he investigates. I don't "like" or "dislike" the character, I enjoy working with his complexity and, because this is a sex site, exploring his kinky, contradictory, and imprisoning sexuality.