General advice needed

[harry87]

I am eager to submit some stories to this site but am not sure if they are ready for public viewing or not. The problem I have is that every time I work on one it expands into something of novella type proportions. It seems I just can't help going in that direction. I am worried that a reader may lose patience reading my story and be angry because the 'pay-off' doesn't come till late on. Mine are character, detail, and mood driven stories which could make them seem ponderous. The sex is a by-product of the plot, rather than the plot itself. The majority of submissions appear to average about two pages and are getting into sexual scenarios within a matter of paragraphs. These stories are fine, but I don't feel I'd be contributing anything new if I wrote the 347th or 348th version of them.

Here is an example of a story idea I had this morning:

Supernatural theme:

A young man, growing up orphaned, meets a stranger who claims to be a vampire hunter. After initial disbelief the stranger proves himself to be such. The stranger then reveals his reason for approaching the young man. It turns out that his dead father was a fellow hunter and great friend of the stranger, who along with the man's mother, was killed one night by a powerful vampire. The stranger swore revenge, and felt that it would serve poetic justice to bring the boy along with him. They travel together to the vampires home/estate where they try to slay them during the daytime. This attempt fails. The vampires are alerted. Like a Bond movie they are not killed instantly, but treated with ironic hospitality instead. It is around this time that the young man discovers one of the vampires to be his mother, whom he had believed was dead. She is extremely beautiful and sensual. The young man is smitten with her...

I have the ending figured out, but I'm sure you've already got the point. It's long isn't it? I started writing it this morning and ran into pages before anything had really happened. The problem is, if I cut things out or move them around, the story doesn't seem to balance the same.

Any suggestions would be very welcome. I don't want to submit my stories anywhere else. This is a great site, and though I'm no there yet, erotic fiction is what I aim to write.

 

[LadyCibelle]

You might want to take my advice with a grain of salt, but I see nothing wrong with what you're describing.

Oh sure, a hot, sweaty, quick fuck, sex story is great but some readers prefer more 'meat' on their 'bones' and they'd be happy to follow you through countless pages of stories.

Or, you could post your story in installments, that way, the reader doesn't get to read too many pages at once and you still retain the integrity of your story.

 

[cantdog]

There are plenty of us who love to be lengthy! Do what you do, and damn the torpedoes, is my advice. Welcome to the Authors' Hangout, too, by the way.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

What they said makes sense. And there IS a category for novellas, too, if you prefer it that way.

 

[cantdog]

I love long ones, myself. I want real people. I even like plot! Go figure.

 

[cloudy]

I love long ones, myself. I want real people. I even like plot! Go figure.

what is this...."plot" that you speak of?

 

[cantdog]

lol

Can't fool me, kid... I've read your stuff.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Nothing wrong with long. My stories vary from one lit page to five (think I've hit five, or is that one I'm working on now?), which is about 30+ word pages. And i'm not one of the more long-winded authors around here (I've seen stories break 20 lit pages).

 

[harry87]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody. It helps to know that others have written longer works and succeeded at it. My one question is, did you throw in regular doses of sex to help it along? That's where I could come unstuck. If I'm on page fifteen and there's not been so much as a little groping there might be some rotten fruit headed my way.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody. It helps to know that others have written longer works and succeeded at it. My one question is, did you throw in regular doses of sex to help it along? That's where I could come unstuck. If I'm on page fifteen and there's not been so much as a little groping there might be some rotten fruit headed my way.

I have heaps of sex that drive the story. That was never much of a problem for me. My problem is actually cuting back on the sex because it was pushing the story too fast (which is why Over the Sink part 4 hasn't been released yet, I keep rewriting it to have less sex).

 

[Darkniciad]

The shortest tale I've managed is 3 Lit pages, 9 Word pages, about 4300 words ( Just finished it actually, in the editor's hands now ) - not counting my chapter of the Laresa chain that is shorter.

My Danica tale averages about 7 Lit pages, 40 Word pages, around 20,000 words per chapter, and will be twenty in total for Book I of III Lots of sex, which is actually a major plot point, but I've had little trouble steadily picking up new readers who stick with me. I've picked up a lot of comments that the people reading it would be just as enthralled, even without the sex. There are long story readers out there in Lit land.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Romance, and Novels/Novellas are fairly forgiving about lower than recommended daily allowances of sex. If your story fits in any of those, you should be just fine.

One of my tales, Casting off Convention, goes a full two-thirds into the story before there is a single sexual contact. I do spice it up with suggestion through the beginning, but it has done well without sex right from the get-go.

Write what you want to write, there is an audiance out there for it. Ignore any trolls that complain about not enough sex, there are plenty of good stroke stories on Lit they can read to take care of that