Does story length come with experience?

[SexualisPhantasia]

Maybe you could try a different approach. Write the scene that you are excited to write first, get it out of your system. Then start thinking about plausible ways how those people involved could have reached that moment. What are their personalities, their thoughts. What are they thinking after the scene, how it made them feel, do they want to do it again, are there any regrets. Once you do all that, I bet you will get an idea for the next sex scene and so on. Just don't get caught in the other common anxiety, to publish the story asap

i rarely write a story in order. I write them as inspiration comes to me, then I put them in order later on.

 

[KeithD]

Once I’m inspired, and my creative juices start flowing. The words just flow like a river. I’m at 27 thousand words at the moment and this is just ch. 01

I get carried away with dialogue and detail maybe that’s also why haha.

Umm, I think you need to rethink 27,000 words and more making up a chapter.

 

[SexualisPhantasia]

After a year and a half or so, I still consider myself a new writer.

When I first started, I felt like I'd spent hours writing some long, drawn out thing, only to discover it barely fit two pages here and only took minutes to read.

It is a learning process, one that can take time. And effort.

Read other stories. Read shorter ones; read longer ones. Compare differences. Look for the little details. Study the wording, sentence structure, how one event flows into the next. Or doesn't.

Study CHARACTERS. If people simply want two nameless beautiful people fucking, they'll go watch porn.

Erotic stories need characters, people we care about enough to want to see what happens next.

Stories need build up; a set up and a payoff.

Writing people fucking is easy. Giving them a good, interesting reason to fuck is much harder. But ultimately far more entertaining.

create characters that are flawed, beautiful in their own way and relatable. that makes any story more interesting

 

[SexualisPhantasia]

My first story on here is over 50k words. I just started writing Cindy's journey and it kept expanding as time went on, I added new scenes and characters during the writing process. At the time, I wasn't concerned about word count.

 

[12oclocktales]

Dialogue. Find places in the story where characters have an opportunity to talk to one another and invent conversations. Before you know it they'll be talking about what they think and feel, past experiences, hopes for the future, you name it, maybe even all kinds of things you hadn't thought about yourself. Be prepared to throw most of it away, but it will keep you directed down particular paths that may not lead to dead ends.

 

[KeithD]

I’m sorry I don’t understand what you mean. Can you clarify?

27,000 words is about five times too long for a chapter. You'll exhaust whatever readers you can retain for any time. There are general standards for these things for a reason. Can you point to any book that has chapters this long?

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I see your point and that’s totally understandable and fair. However If they feel that way that’s totally fine they don’t have to read it. You can’t please everyone in this world. I’m sure some will appreciate my work. Even if it’s a few readers that’s good enough for me

I'm just finishing a 27k words chapter. It encompasses a certain event in a much larger story. I used to split such chapters into smaller ones, and they didn't do bad at all, but I feel that something was lost in the process... some sense of continuity, a chance to give the readers an opportunity to read that chapter as a whole and not in pieces published several days apart... So I will publish it as a whole. I've done the same with my previous chapter (a bit smaller with 22k words) and that chapter had great reactions from my readers. It might depend on the category and type of story though

 

[AwkwardlySet]

That’s lovely that you’ve gotten to try out both ways. Very nicely put and thank you for sharing you wonderful view on this

I’m definitely going with the uploading my first chapter 0.1 as is route. Not trying to capture a huge audience. Just a few will do hehe.

Publishing your first story is always so special. Good luck

 

[PastMaster]

I dont think its experience - but i think that confidence in what you are writing plays a part - Some newer authors seem to feel that they need to keep their stories short - because they dont have the confidence in their ideas. I have written short stories - when ideas have occurred, although i've never tried a 750 word challenge - My current series has just passed 500,000 words. I've been writing on here for just over 6 months - What has given me the confidence to continue is the feedback and reactions to the story. Had they been less favourable - chances are i would never have got this far.

 

[KeithD]

I'm just finishing a 27k words chapter. It encompasses a certain event in a much larger story. I used to split such chapters into smaller ones, and they didn't do bad at all, but I feel that something was lost in the process... some sense of continuity, a chance to give the readers an opportunity to read that chapter as a whole and not in pieces published several days apart... So I will publish it as a whole. I've done the same with my previous chapter (a bit smaller with 22k words) and that chapter had great reactions from my readers. It might depend on the category and type of story though

I think you've conflated (falsely) a book chapter and a chunk of a work being posted to Literotica in one entry. They aren't the same thing.

 

[SamScribble]

I dont think its experience - but i think that confidence in what you are writing plays a part - Some newer authors seem to feel that they need to keep their stories short - because they dont have the confidence in their ideas.

Dribbling on and on and not knowing when enough is enough has nothing to do with confidence. Read some of the great short stories of the past 100 years. Most of them come in at under 4k words. Being able to tell a story, and tell it well, in three or four thousand words probably does come with experience.

 

[KeithD]

Dribbling on and on and not knowing when enough is enough has nothing to do with confidence. Read some of the great short stories of the past 100 years. Most of them come in at under 4k words. Being able to tell a story, and tell it well, in three or four thousand words probably does come with experience.

Yeah, I don't really see a connection between confidence and being verbose.

 

[PastMaster]

Yeah, I don't really see a connection between confidence and being verbose.

Perhaps I didnt express my self particularly well.
There is a difference between a long story and a story that is long.
A long story is one that captures and holds your interest for its entirety. a story that is long - is, as you say, verbose, and dribbling on and on.
The point i was making is that if you dont have the confidence to expand your ideas, you are likely to rush through the content and write a much shorter story. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with short stories if that's what you set out to write.
Also and to the point- to say that long stories are long because they 'dribble on' or are simply verbose - is no different than saying that a story is bad because it is short. Although i would accept that Robert Jordan's wheel of time 12 book epic might have been better as a trilogy.

 

[Azuldrgon]

I'm a new writer, and I have a problem writing longer stories. Most of my stories are under 2000 words long.

I'm amazed at people who write longer stories. My longest is only 5K words long.

When I'm writing, I feel like I'm getting the story across, but I check the word count (and I know not to base a story on word count, but when most others are writing 5-6K word stories or chapters, it's hard not to compare), and it'll be 900 words, 1500 words, etc.

I guess my question is how do you do it? Do the words come easy and you pare them down?

To me, it all depends.
Even though most of my stories average 800-1100 words, I practice the idea of writing until I get my idea across.
Then again, I believe the simpler the better.

 

[KeithD]

Hemingway had the confidence to say what he had to say and to then move on, often with just one point to make.

While there's nothing wrong with writing long stories, there is no connection between experience and writing long stories, as highly awarded authors have shown and several on this thread have already pointed out, so I think this thread is just sort of meaningless.

Folks on this Web site keep justifying writing long pretty much because this Web site is skewed to rewarding long. It has more to do with experience in milking this Web site than it does experience in writing excellent stories.

 

[DarkCosmos]

Honestly? I'm more impressed by writers who can actually finish their stories. As someone who writes long stories, that's the part I really struggle with.

I get this neat idea, try to explore it through a writing, blow it up into a monster, realize I've bitten off more than I can chew, then put it down for eight months just to pick it up again. It's a vicious cycle.

 

[Djmac1031]

Figured this as good a thread as any to get into this.

Just finished my longest story to date. Just over 19,500 words! Still needs editing, of course.

My longest before that was 18,853. About 5 and a half Lit pages.

Everything else I've ever written usually runs 2, maybe 3 Lit pages.

I still have no idea how authors who write 20+ pages or more do it lol.

This latest one has been a several month journey for me, one I got stuck on several times.

I don't know if I'll ever do something this long again. I find I'm much better at short, simple tales.

But it has certainly been a fun challenge.

 

[IsobelDoc]

I'm currently reading a couple of stories that are seriously long. TSM by Tefler - I think weighs in at about 4.5 Million words last count is the longest. Are there wasted words and chapters - probably, but the overall effect is a great story. Then there's Home for horny monsters by Annabel Hawthorne which I think is hitting the 250k words.
My new read is passmaster's Caleb which I think is about chapter 20 or 21, so about 180k words. I like long stories.
The worry with those is that they will never finish although HHM is a bit more like a collection of stories than a single tale.