Every Story Doesn't Have to Be Multi-Part

[Prizmatic]

Yet again, I've gotten anonymous (of course!) feedback complaining because I'm "lazy" and didn't write multiple chapters to every story. Here's a thought: It is possible to write a short story that is complete in itself! I wonder why readers seem to think every story should have 50 chapters. Doesn't it occur to anyone that some stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end?

I didn't respond to any of the feedback, of course--who needs to feed trolls?--But I wonder, how many other authors have gotten this criticism? Or is there some kind of unspoken rule I'm not aware of?

Just want to know how other authors perceive this kind of assumption on the part of readers.

 

[RejectReality]

If you're getting criticism as opposed to requests for "more!" then there may be something you actually need to look at. You may not be wrapping up your stories as well as you think.

Almost all of my stories in this name are 1-shots, and I almost always leave an opening for a sequel, but I've never once had anyone criticize me for not finishing a story.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yet again, I've gotten anonymous (of course!) feedback complaining because I'm "lazy" and didn't write multiple chapters to every story. Here's a thought: It is possible to write a short story that is complete in itself! I wonder why readers seem to think every story should have 50 chapters. Doesn't it occur to anyone that some stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end?

I didn't respond to any of the feedback, of course--who needs to feed trolls?--But I wonder, how many other authors have gotten this criticism? Or is there some kind of unspoken rule I'm not aware of?

Just want to know how other authors perceive this kind of assumption on the part of readers.

Its easier to read with multiple chapters, and if its good it extends the enjoyment.

 

[horrorotica]

Writing multiple chapters is like writing a bloody free book for these people. Sometimes a story needs it but if all you planned was a short story, a one-off, then stick to that. You can sometimes ruin a good story by trying to extend it beyond what you originally intended.

If they want chapters tell them to buy a book. if you planned chapters then that's a different matter.

 

[RejectReality]

Just looked through all the comments, and I really only see a couple where people are criticizing as opposed to enjoying the story enough to want to see it continue ( including the mentioned "lazy" comment )

Skimming the ones where that criticism appears, I'd say you can pretty much dismiss it.

Don't let a couple of dickwads color your perception of the other readers who are simply expressing how much they enjoyed the story and characters with requests for continuations.

 

[lovecraft68]

People always want the story to continue(if they like it anyway) my last story received 30 comments and nine mentioned me continuing it.

I wrote series that went 51 chapters and people were still commenting that I shouldn't end it.

If you feel the story is complete then don't worry about it. If nothing else be flattered no one wants to read more of a crappy story.

 

[JKendallDane]

I have gotten nearly the same things with a couple of what were intended to be nothing more than "single shot strokers" but more from the standpoint of the commenters wanting the next part of the story.

I took that as a compliment and am even considering multi-chaptering one of them when I eventually decide to.

I agree that sometimes you feel as if you EVER end a story, that you will be crucified. The one lengthy one that was never ended and I will be reposting soon was centered around two college guys...one a freshman and one a first year med student...and I seriously believe that some of the fans of the story wouldn't even be happy for me to end it when they get their first social security checks! I know I can keep up an interesting storyline for another 15 or 20 chapters but sheesh...at some point you have to put it to bed.

 

[SecondCircle]

I sympathize with both sides of this.

As a reader of the site more than a writer, I do get tired of seeing multi part stories going on and on and on and on. I'm not talking stories that are long and split into chapters. And I'm not saying that I myself am not an offender here. But as a reader I like to click on short stories that realize themselves in one sitting sometimes, rather than go soap opera with it.

On the other hand, I do enjoy tales that are necessarily split into chapters correctly, like turning the pages of a good book. And when I write, sometimes I do feel that there could be more to the story, and if enough readers enjoy it, I'll put those ideas in writing. Some tales I'll leave obscure or "open" to more additions or continuations. Simply cuz I like em, and I hope the readers do too. Its a free site, why not?

But I do get what OP is getting at. Too much of one thing can be a little distressing. So yes, not EVERY story needs to just go on and on. To quote a movie, it's like the Sopranos.

"It's OVER. Find a new show."

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Eh.

It can go either way. If it's a one-shot, keep it as a one-shot. But if it's a longer story (>6 lit pages) splitting it up into two or more chapters can actually garner you more views and fans. It strings them along, gets them to check your biography to see when the next chapter is coming out, and they check out your other stories while they wait.

Other strategies, do a multi-part story as a collaboration with another litster. Then their fans check you out, and your fans check them out. Everyone wins.

 

[SamScribble]

Guy de Maupassant wrote short stories. One part. A beginning, a middle, and an end - often an end that left the reader to draw her own conclusions.

Charles Dickens, on the other had, wrote serials or instalments which later appeared in one volume as a novel.

Neither writer was 'lazy'. They just had different approaches.

Ignore any readers' comments that you don't agree with.

 

[desertslave]

Guy de Maupassant wrote short stories. One part. A beginning, a middle, and an end - often an end that left the reader to draw her own conclusions.

Charles Dickens, on the other had, wrote serials or instalments which later appeared in one volume as a novel.

Neither writer was 'lazy'. They just had different approaches.

Ignore any readers' comments that you don't agree with.

I agree with this! Take the requests for more as the compliments that they are. Set your own pace and tell your own story/stories in the way that works for you.

 

[RichardBacula]

Guy de Maupassant wrote short stories. One part. A beginning, a middle, and an end - often an end that left the reader to draw her own conclusions.

Charles Dickens, on the other had, wrote serials or instalments which later appeared in one volume as a novel.

Neither writer was 'lazy'. They just had different approaches.

Ignore any readers' comments that you don't agree with.

Don't know about Maupassant, but Dickens was paid by the word.

 

[PervOtaku]

It does seem like the single, repeated complaint I've gotten is comments asking that my stories be longer, written in a tone that implies I owe the readers a certain minimum length. Keep in mind that everything I've posted so far are chapters of a single story, so clearly the overall story is longer, and once it's all up people will be able to read it from start to finish in one sitting. (Also keep in mind the site already has a length requirement that I am clearly meeting since the chapters are getting put up.) The individual chapters aren't designed to be any particular length, they are designed to provide logical divisions in the story with a more or less even distribution of sex scenes and plot progression. Are some of them on the short side, sure. The whole story altogether isn't novel-length either. It does what I set out to do and no more than that, because I'm publishing the thing on a free site on the internet and I don't have an editor to answer to. And it's not as if short stories and novellas aren't recognized and legitimate literary formats, and no less than Shakespeare himself tells us that brevity is the soul of wit.

So on the one hand, I do take it as something of a compliment that says "I like your writing and want more!" but absolutely want to say something rude when the tone is closer to "Even though I love your story, I am entitled to receive more out of you, and the story is bad because it's not as long as I arbitrarily say it should be."

 

[RejectReality]

Keep in mind that when you're posting in serialized format, you have readers waiting for the next chapter. Yes, it's passive-aggressive, but it's also a form of praise. The reader wants more in every installment. They're enjoying the story.

Some aren't so passive-aggressive. If your chapters average only 1 Lit page or a little more, there are large segments of the readership in every category who are really put off by that. If you don't get up to the 1 1/2 - 2 Lit page range on average in a serialized story, you're going to lose readers and likely get those sort of comments. The degree of this increases with length of time between installments. The closer together your chapters post, the less likely readers are to complain about shorter chapters.

If that's the case, you might consider combining chapters and marking them with headers within the document, listing them in the title as Ch. X-Y, if that gets you into the 2-(not quite)4 page range that seems to be the sweet spot for the majority of readers of serialized stories.

You can do this only when a couple of consecutive chapters are really short, as well. I've seen no ill effects from longer chapters posting separately and shorter chapters being combined into a single submission within a serialized story. Doesn't seem to confuse or put readers off at all.

Ch. 01, Ch. 02-03, Ch. 04, Ch. 05, Ch. 06-07... so on and so forth.

Sometimes, a little change in presentation can make all the difference in how readers receive your story without actually changing the story at all.

 

[PervOtaku]

If your chapters average only 1 Lit page or a little more, there are large segments of the readership in every category who are really put off by that. If you don't get up to the 1 1/2 - 2 Lit page range on average in a serialized story, you're going to lose readers and likely get those sort of comments. The degree of this increases with length of time between installments. The closer together your chapters post, the less likely readers are to complain about shorter chapters.

Doesn't seem to matter much, I've been submitting each new chapter the very day that the one before it gets approved and moves from the pending queue to published. I have no real concept of how much text equates to a Literotica page, I write using a word processor set up to standard 8.5"x11" paper with 1 inch margins. I'm fully prepared to combine chapters if one falls under the 750 word minimum (I think my shortest chapter just barely makes the cut) but beyond that if I wanted to arbitrarily combine chapters I probably would have just posted the entire thing in one go. If readers are turned off by stories shorter than one Literotica page, let them go bitch to the site runners that the 750 word limit should be increased.

I'm not overly worried or bothered, if "too short" is the worst complaint then I'd say I and everybody else hearing that are doing fairly well.

 

[RejectReality]

Doesn't seem to matter much, I've been submitting each new chapter the very day that the one before it gets approved and moves from the pending queue to published. I have no real concept of how much text equates to a Literotica page, I write using a word processor set up to standard 8.5"x11" paper with 1 inch margins. I'm fully prepared to combine chapters if one falls under the 750 word minimum (I think my shortest chapter just barely makes the cut) but beyond that if I wanted to arbitrarily combine chapters I probably would have just posted the entire thing in one go. If readers are turned off by stories shorter than one Literotica page, let them go bitch to the site runners that the 750 word limit should be increased.

I'm not overly worried or bothered, if "too short" is the worst complaint then I'd say I and everybody else hearing that are doing fairly well.

Less than one page a week ( at current rate of approval ) is certainly a likely candidate to draw "too short" responses and hemorrhage readers.

It's up to you, of course, but you'd increase your readership, feedback, and dramatically decrease the number of complaints by combining 2 of those 1 page chapters for each submission.

 

[PennLady]

Doesn't seem to matter much, I've been submitting each new chapter the very day that the one before it gets approved and moves from the pending queue to published. I have no real concept of how much text equates to a Literotica page, I write using a word processor set up to standard 8.5"x11" paper with 1 inch margins. I'm fully prepared to combine chapters if one falls under the 750 word minimum (I think my shortest chapter just barely makes the cut) but beyond that if I wanted to arbitrarily combine chapters I probably would have just posted the entire thing in one go. If readers are turned off by stories shorter than one Literotica page, let them go bitch to the site runners that the 750 word limit should be increased.

I'm not overly worried or bothered, if "too short" is the worst complaint then I'd say I and everybody else hearing that are doing fairly well.

The question of word/Lit page comes up pretty frequently, and the answer is that there are roughly 3400 words/page on a Lit screen page. I have (or had, at least) set my word processor up so that approximately three typed pages gave me one Lit page, for example. So it might help to pull up something you've written, check the words per page and then figure out how many of your pages equals a Lit screen page.

I can't say that readers are particularly turned off by 1-page self-contained stories. I've written one, and read some, and how good or not they are isn't determined by the length. But like anything else on the site, some probably like them and some don't.

You certainly don't owe the readers a minimum or maximum length. However, when it comes to a longer story playing out in one-page chapters, readers might get tired of that.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

IRL editors have need of variety to fit vacant spaces.

 

[PayDay]

Yet again, I've gotten anonymous (of course!) feedback complaining because I'm "lazy" and didn't write multiple chapters to every story. Here's a thought: It is possible to write a short story that is complete in itself! I wonder why readers seem to think every story should have 50 chapters. Doesn't it occur to anyone that some stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end?

I didn't respond to any of the feedback, of course--who needs to feed trolls?--But I wonder, how many other authors have gotten this criticism? Or is there some kind of unspoken rule I'm not aware of?

Just want to know how other authors perceive this kind of assumption on the part of readers.

Fuck 'em. I broke this bullshit in 2011.

or fixed it.

 

[horrorotica]

I'm working on a novella I might put on lit. Going to be about 40,000 words. Is it better to split it into parts or publish it as a whole?

 

[PayDay]

I'm working on a novella I might put on lit. Going to be about 40,000 words. Is it better to split it into parts or publish it as a whole?

1part @ 40k is Lit poifect.

Splits are for aeffect.