Er...story length limits?

[tehuti88]

Noob here. I think I'm in the wrong subforum. But I can't find any subforums that seem to address site-related questions. "How To" looks to be full of how-to sex questions...not quite what I'm asking about. *blushes*

So...if I'm in error posting this here, somebody in power please feel free to move, and I apologize.

My question regards limitations on story length/length of written submissions. Submitting something too short (under 750 words or whatever) is highly unlikely to be an issue for me. Submitting something too LONG, however, could quite easily be a frequent problem. Is there a limit on how long a single story submission can be?

If so, what is the limit?--and:

1. can you submit the rest of the story in parts, like a miniseries?; and

2. is there a limit on how many submissions/parts a user may post in a day? (I guess that question could go for posting one story in multiple parts, or posting multiple unrelated stories at a time...would not want to flood the site.)

Thank you very much for any answers.

 

[StrangeLife]

1. can you submit the rest of the story in parts, like a miniseries?; and

Yes - just make sure the title indicates that they're part of a series.

2. is there a limit on how many submissions/parts a user may post in a day? (I guess that question could go for posting one story in multiple parts, or posting multiple unrelated stories at a time...would not want to flood the site.)

Thank you very much for any answers.

As far as I know there's no limit.

 

[Handley_Page]

Personally, I'd recommend that each part is in the order of 3 or 4 Lit pages long.
I have trouble with my eyes longer than that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My question regards limitations on story length/length of written submissions. Submitting something too short (under 750 words or whatever) is highly unlikely to be an issue for me. Submitting something too LONG, however, could quite easily be a frequent problem. Is there a limit on how long a single story submission can be?

Not that I've heard of. IIRC people have successfully posted submissions of around 50 Lit pages (one Lit page is around 3700 words) so you're unlikely to have technical problems there.

But like Handley_Page said, a lot of readers get fidgety if an installment goes over 3-4 Lit pages, so you might consider chunking it up.

1. can you submit the rest of the story in parts, like a miniseries?; and

Yes. If you submit the parts as individual stories with titles like so:

Catgirls in Bondage Ch. 01
Catgirls in Bondage Ch. 02
etc

then Lit will automatically recognise them as part of a series and create some links. (You can look at my stories for an example of how this looks.)

2. is there a limit on how many submissions/parts a user may post in a day? (I guess that question could go for posting one story in multiple parts, or posting multiple unrelated stories at a time...would not want to flood the site.)

My understanding is that if you submit multiple parts to the same story all at once, they will be posted one day apart. However, some writers have mentioned hiccups with chapters posting out of order, so you may prefer to wait until each chapter goes live before posting the next. Posting with a bit of a delay may also help build up a readership.

I think it's possible to post multiple unrelated stories from the same author on the same day, but I could be wrong.

 

[Hypoxia]

I think it's possible to post multiple unrelated stories from the same author on the same day, but I could be wrong.

I will find out in a couple days, when I submit four unrelated pieces.

I personally don't get hung-up on page lengths. Most of my LIT reading occurs on an eight inch Android tablet via the LIT app, which builds pages quite differently than how a browser renders. A one-page-in-a-browser story might have three or five pages on the app, depending on whether I hold the tablet in landscape (horizontal) of portrait (vertical) orientation.

I'll read some stories on the tablet's browser (Chrome) which gives yet another reading dynamic. Big deal. If the story moves right along, I'll read it, no matter the page count or access method.

As already mentioned, some readers are discouraged by long stories (yet some long stories by good writers are quite popular). I'm at the other end of the spectrum: I find many one-page stories to lack development and interest. The vignette is a tough literary challenge -- longer works are much easier to write.

My first couple dozen LIT submissions were mostly 2-3 LIT pages. At least one set of four stories COULD be combined into a 7 LIT page item. I'm writing some pieces now that will be 4-5 LIT pages long. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable submitting stuff that's much longer.

 

[StrangeLife]

I think it's possible to post multiple unrelated stories from the same author on the same day, but I could be wrong.

You're not wrong - at least I've seen it happen. I think they operate with a simple queue- system and process the stories in the order in which they are submitted regardless of author (unless there's an on-going competition).

 

[ShaeLeeTanner]

The avg chapter length should be about 10-12k words long. That will make up 3 Lit pages of story.
As others have mentioned, readers get picky if it goes past 3-4 pages in length, unless it's a great chapter and they'll enjoy the read.

 

[Weird Harold]

Submitting something too LONG, however, could quite easily be a frequent problem. Is there a limit on how long a single story submission can be?

Many, Many, moons ago, I helped test the submissions form for C&P limitations; I couldn't find one except for my computer's ability to store information on the clipboard. IIRC, the maximum file tested was two million words or so, applied to the submissions form as a text file.

 

[49greg]

I've never had a problem with a story being too long, but then I have divided longer stories up into multiple posts.

I DID have a story rejected once. Actually there were three reasons, but among them was that I had paragraphs that were too long. I was told that on the lit pages a paragraph of solid type that gets too long is difficult to read. And it's true, a paragraph that looks good in my word processor takes up nearly a full screen in Lit.

So I move the right margin way over to the left in my word processor so I can easily see when I've got too big a paragraph.

Also 3700 words per page, (as mentioned earlier) depending on para size, amount of conversation lines divided by double space etc is about what fits on a lit page.

 

[TxRad]

I've never had a problem with a story being too long, but then I have divided longer stories up into multiple posts.

I DID have a story rejected once. Actually there were three reasons, but among them was that I had paragraphs that were too long. I was told that on the lit pages a paragraph of solid type that gets too long is difficult to read. And it's true, a paragraph that looks good in my word processor takes up nearly a full screen in Lit.

So I move the right margin way over to the left in my word processor so I can easily see when I've got too big a paragraph.

Also 3700 words per page, (as mentioned earlier) depending on para size, amount of conversation lines divided by double space etc is about what fits on a lit page.

In word a margin of 1.25" and a size 12 font seems to work out for Lit's formatting size.

 

[lovecraft68]

If you can keep the story interesting there are no limits.

If you look at some of the top authors and top story lists you'll see many stories well over the 34 page limits many try to tell you is "what the average" reader wants.

#1 incest story of all time with close to 8 thousand votes and a 4.87 is 40 lit pages. That is not a typo. Somehow many people found that story excellent despite the length.

Now if you as the author want to try to break it into chapters then that's your choice, but do not feel as if there is this unwritten rule that you have to.

You're the author, you can do whatever you want.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If you can keep the story interesting there are no limits.

If you look at some of the top authors and top story lists you'll see many stories well over the 34 page limits many try to tell you is "what the average" reader wants.

#1 incest story of all time with close to 8 thousand votes and a 4.87 is 40 lit pages. That is not a typo. Somehow many people found that story excellent despite the length.

I think it depends on what kind of success you're shooting for.

If you want a high average rating, long stories are the way to go. Looking at the top rated posts on the site, they tend to be dozens of pages long, or several chapters into a multi-part story, or some mix of the two.

But I think that actually supports the idea that the typical attention span is shorter than that. For the top-rated stories, it takes a lot of 5s to cancel out a single 4; one of the best ways to push up your average is by filtering out everybody but the ones who really love the sort of story you're telling, and length is a pretty efficient way to do it. I've certainly seen that with my own multi-part story; about half the readers dropped out in the first four chapters, and my ratings went up steadily as they did.

'Course, if you can get the average high enough to make a toplist, you'll get plenty of views in the long run.

 

[mikoli5763]

I have trouble

reading stories that are more than six pages long so it blows my mind that there is a 40 page story on the LIT. site.
I think chapters is the way to go for long stories. I don't know if its true for other authors, but I have found that my stories have begun getting longer the longer I write and that's why most of my stories have chapters now.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think it depends on what kind of success you're shooting for.

If you want a high average rating, long stories are the way to go. Looking at the top rated posts on the site, they tend to be dozens of pages long, or several chapters into a multi-part story, or some mix of the two.

But I think that actually supports the idea that the typical attention span is shorter than that. For the top-rated stories, it takes a lot of 5s to cancel out a single 4; one of the best ways to push up your average is by filtering out everybody but the ones who really love the sort of story you're telling, and length is a pretty efficient way to do it. I've certainly seen that with my own multi-part story; about half the readers dropped out in the first four chapters, and my ratings went up steadily as they did.

'Course, if you can get the average high enough to make a toplist, you'll get plenty of views in the long run.

So what you're saying is longer stories may get trolled less because people click off them once they see the length?

makes sense because I kind of do that with short ones. If I click a story and its one page and a quick skim had them banging by paragraph three I click off guess I am the oddball.

And another good point is once you can land a good spot on the top list people will tend to put more time into it figuring it has to be good. (not always true, but that is the theory)

 

[Weird Harold]

Also 3700 words per page, (as mentioned earlier) depending on para size, amount of conversation lines divided by double space etc is about what fits on a lit page.

Actually, one Literotica page averages 3,767 +/- ~400 words. Page divisions are actually computed on a character/byte count around 15KB.

Dialogue, line spacing, margins, font/font size all have nothing to do with how Lit computes page breaks. There is some degree of orphan control, adjusting forward or backward to the nearest paragraph break, if one is in some preset character count, which accounts for the wide variations in page lengths.

The best way to estimate story length in Lit pages is to use your word processor's word count feature and divide by some easily computed number in the 3000 to 4000 range. (I use 3500)

 

[Acktion]

Actually, one Literotica page averages 3,767 +/- ~400 words. Page divisions are actually computed on a character/byte count around 15KB.

Dialogue, line spacing, margins, font/font size all have nothing to do with how Lit computes page breaks. There is some degree of orphan control, adjusting forward or backward to the nearest paragraph break, if one is in some preset character count, which accounts for the wide variations in page lengths.

The best way to estimate story length in Lit pages is to use your word processor's word count feature and divide by some easily computed number in the 3000 to 4000 range. (I use 3500)

Thank you!

This was something I really wanted to know, but couldn't figure out how to formulate the question.

Thanks.

 

[tehuti88]

Thank you all very much for the answers, this has been very helpful! Especially this:

My understanding is that if you submit multiple parts to the same story all at once, they will be posted one day apart. However, some writers have mentioned hiccups with chapters posting out of order, so you may prefer to wait until each chapter goes live before posting the next. Posting with a bit of a delay may also help build up a readership.

It would bug the snot out of me for my items to be out of order, so I'm very glad for this information!

Seeing as the maximum character/word limit seems to be so very high, I'm thinking that if/when I submit, I'll just keep my single-part items as single parts despite whatever length they might be (sometimes they run over 10,000-20,000 words or so, I believe). I figure that if a story is good enough, then it'll be read, and if it's not good enough, then a user wouldn't have read it anyway no matter what the length. I also figure I'll never gain many, if any, readers, so, not much need to fret over chaptering things, I was curious more for the sake of not ending up posting something only to have it cut off in the middle. *blushes*

...

I'm not sure if anyone is still checking this thread, but anyone know how stringent they are regarding long paragraphs? Do they ever make exceptions depending on context/quality or no? I sometimes use rather lengthy paragraphs (not always--it's not like a habit or anything--but it happens) because that's just the way they happen to turn out, but I imagine if it kept a story from being posted to the site I could try to modify some of them. But I'd prefer not to do that until I know for sure a long paragraph is a problem. (My guess is the only way to know for sure is to have a submission rejected?) I do all my work in HTML format in my browser window so that's how I'm always seeing my paragraphs.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm not sure if anyone is still checking this thread, but anyone know how stringent they are regarding long paragraphs? Do they ever make exceptions depending on context/quality or no? I sometimes use rather lengthy paragraphs (not always--it's not like a habit or anything--but it happens) because that's just the way they happen to turn out, but I imagine if it kept a story from being posted to the site I could try to modify some of them. But I'd prefer not to do that until I know for sure a long paragraph is a problem. (My guess is the only way to know for sure is to have a submission rejected?) I do all my work in HTML format in my browser window so that's how I'm always seeing my paragraphs.

I don't think there's an exact criterion on paragraph length, it'd be at Laurel's discretion.

BTW, if you're writing in markup in your browser window, do you have a way to save as you go?

 

[tehuti88]

I don't think there's an exact criterion on paragraph length, it'd be at Laurel's discretion.

Thank you again, looks like I might be finding it out the hard way, ha.

BTW, if you're writing in markup in your browser window, do you have a way to save as you go?

I type up my writing in Notepad using basic HTML (all the necessaries like line breaks, bold, italics, centering...I don't use the paragraph tag, never understood the point of it when there's the "br" tag) and then view it in the browser. I'm thinking that if/when I submit to the site it'll have to be in .RTF format with an appended note to mods/admins regarding the formatting.

 

[MSTarot]

If I click a story and its one page and a quick skim had them banging by paragraph three I click off guess I am the oddball.

They waited all the way to the third paragraph? Wow.

I saw a story (while hunting for another) that had a son walk in the door, and was having first time sex with his mom in three sentences.

She was vacuuming naked and he just wanted to.

O...kay...be.


The only issue with length is keep the story moving. If it gets dull after a page or so they will scroll down, see that big page number and click off.

Also you will get a lot of people favor your story, then a few days latter unfavor it. They were just using the favor function as a book mark.

Don't take it too personal.

 

[lovecraft68]

They waited all the way to the third paragraph? Wow.

I saw a story (while hunting for another) that had a son walk in the door, and was having first time sex with his mom in three sentences.

She was vacuuming naked and he just wanted to.

O...kay...be.


The only issue with length is keep the story moving. If it gets dull after a page or so they will scroll down, see that big page number and click off.

Also you will get a lot of people favor your story, then a few days latter unfavor it. They were just using the favor function as a book mark.

Don't take it too personal.

Can't you tell by "Thanks for the Roses" I take everything personally

 

[MSTarot]

Can't you tell by "Thanks for the Roses" I take everything personally

Sorry, was talking more at the OP with that.

Oh, I knew you took things personally long before that story.

 

[Hypoxia]

I type up my writing in Notepad using basic HTML (all the necessaries like line breaks, bold, italics, centering...I don't use the paragraph tag, never understood the point of it when there's the "br" tag) and then view it in the browser. I'm thinking that if/when I submit to the site it'll have to be in .RTF format with an appended note to mods/admins regarding the formatting.

In case anyone is interested:

I use an ancient code editor called CuteHTML. I save my work as plain .TXT files. The only HTML elements I use are for italics and boldface. I use CuteHTML because it allows me to work on many many files simultaneously, which is REAL handy for global changes in multiple sources. Also because I'm familiar with it.

When I feel a piece is nearly done, I import the file into an old version of Word for spell and grammar checking. (I mention old warez because I write on an ancient mini-laptop running Windows ME, no shit. I have my reasons.)

I cut-and-paste the completed and vetted text into the file entry box, rather than upload .RTF or .DOC or other files. Why? Straight text apparently runs through the approval cycle faster, and I am not tempted to try any fancy formatting tricks. Be aware that many people read LIT stories on phones or tablets via the LIT app, which strips away formatting markups. Such markups are lost on app readers.

 

[tehuti88]

They waited all the way to the third paragraph? Wow.

I saw a story (while hunting for another) that had a son walk in the door, and was having first time sex with his mom in three sentences.

She was vacuuming naked and he just wanted to.

O...kay...be.

Heh, I'm not a big fan of the PWP/wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am (or sir)-type stories myself...if there isn't some kind of backstory or reason for them to be going at it then my interest is out the window. (There's more than one reason why my smut runs so long!) I do try to keep the entire story interesting but I bet more than one reader could be quickly turned off by just how long it could take my characters to get into the act. So it's a bit encouraging that some readers are actually turned off by more abrupt stories...I figured those were the sort everyone loved.

Also you will get a lot of people favor your story, then a few days latter unfavor it. They were just using the favor function as a book mark.

Don't take it too personal.

Thank you for pointing that out, knowing me I would in fact have taken it personally!

I cut-and-paste the completed and vetted text into the file entry box, rather than upload .RTF or .DOC or other files. Why? Straight text apparently runs through the approval cycle faster, and I am not tempted to try any fancy formatting tricks. Be aware that many people read LIT stories on phones or tablets via the LIT app, which strips away formatting markups. Such markups are lost on app readers.

I'm very anal (er...) about my formatting so will still likely take the .RTF route, but in case I change my mind, are tricks like substituting underscores for italics and, say, asterisks or double asterisks for bold allowed in stories here? Like say, the following made-up-on-the-spot sentence in which a character's thought is expressed:


_Hm_, Jane thought, _that_ is _a strange one._


...You know what, never mind, when I use italics within italics like I did above (which would be, no italics), the underscores just get cumbersome as one can see. I dislike not being able to preview my work but I think I'd far rather go with the .RTF. I tend to write way too much stuff, and am far too eager to share it right away, so perhaps the wait time would do me good.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

They waited all the way to the third paragraph? Wow.

I saw a story (while hunting for another) that had a son walk in the door, and was having first time sex with his mom in three sentences.

She was vacuuming naked and he just wanted to.

O...kay...be.


The only issue with length is keep the story moving. If it gets dull after a page or so they will scroll down, see that big page number and click off.

Also you will get a lot of people favor your story, then a few days latter unfavor it. They were just using the favor function as a book mark.

Don't take it too personal.

IRL I've been greeted at the door by naked women, had them sit in my lap within moments of me sitting on their sofa, get naked, you name it. And I didn't know them from Adam.