How long do you like it?

[PennameWombat]

<snip>
I've read before that if one were submitting to professional agents for publication, you have a few lines to catch their interest and a few pages to really engage them or the submission will get tossed in the REJECT pile. So as others said, it's good to put something up front to hook the reader--certainly within the first thousand words. That might be more important than length.

First line, first paragraph, first three (‘print’ not Lit) pages equivalent I rarely open with a sex scene but I try to have something that grabs you. A guy gets a surprise phone call from his months-back one-night stand. Why? How? They’d not traded details... Something.

As an aside, I'd be interested in seeing the average length of story submission by category. I suspect some of them, like EC, tend shorter while SF&F by nature will be longer. So OP, maybe that's the answer? Think about the readership of what category you're writing to and let that guide you?

It’s been done, to some degree.
Statistical analysis across categories.

That shows overall story length average is 2.2 pages but varies widely by category. Indeed, SF&F is 3.5 pages, Romance 2.8. Even I&T is just above average at 2.6.

It also shows average views, I&T and LW are tops there.

 

[KeithD]

I often open with a sex scene and almost always open with an action scene. Lodging questions in the reader's mind is a good way to get the engaged readers you want to propel themselves into the story to start trying to figure it out from the get go.

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

First line, first paragraph, first three (‘print’ not Lit) pages equivalent I rarely open with a sex scene but I try to have something that grabs you. A guy gets a surprise phone call from his months-back one-night stand. Why? How? They’d not traded details... Something.

Yes, exactly. An action, an event, or a turn of phrase that makes the reader immediately either interested in seeing what happens or curious about the characters.

It’s been done, to some degree.
Statistical analysis across categories.

That shows overall story length average is 2.2 pages but varies widely by category. Indeed, SF&F is 3.5 pages, Romance 2.8. Even I&T is just above average at 2.6.

It also shows average views, I&T and LW are tops there.

I had seen that analysis but didn't remember the average page length being on the chart. Thank you for posting it.

I think it's interesting to note that according to that month's analysis, SF-F and Novels/Novellas have the highest average page count and are toward the bottom of categories for average number of views ... but also the highest average ratings and highest number of comments per 100K views. Aside from suggesting that those categories have a consistent, dedicated reader base, I think it also suggests that page length is no impediment to those stories getting reads and scoring well.

Fun with stats ...

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I don't look at length when starting to read. 90% of stories put me off within the first three paragraphs, so any story that holds my attention longer, I will give a go, even if I have to leave the tab open until later.

With my own stories, it's noticeable that 3+ pages gets me a red H, but shorter ones generally don't (especially in the middle of a series where I tried splitting chapters). This is probably down to my writing style where even chapters with establish characters are more gradual-build rather than stroke pieces.

I have a writing challenge in mind, to write a classic 5000-word-max stroke piece, which I may try soon. Not sure I can do it with meeting my own internal requirements for characterisation - I did try it once and readers didn't like it, but that could have been simply because kinky women in an ongoing relationship wasn't what Lesbian Sex readers wanted from a short story.

 

[Hypoxia]

I can't really tell how long a story will be when I read with the LIT Android app, especially since page length varies with vertical vs horizontal orientation, so I just read it till it puts me off, or all the way through if it's tolerable.

My individual submissions have ranged from less than a single ~3750-word LIT page, maybe 2500 words, up to 12 such pages or ~40k words. One successful mini-series had three ~3500-word chapters. I write till I stop, and count later.

I wasn't always so loose an author. I aimed at ~8-10k-word chapters in my first couple dozen submissions. I've since freed myself from that straight-jacket. I now mostly aim to avoid chapters, and fit a whole story in one piece of whatever length is required. A story should be as long as needed, more or less.

 

[JJA122]

What is your usual rule of thumb for story length? Do you have an amount of words that you prefer to stay close to?

3,000 - 10,000 words.

If you aren't a writer but an avid reader how long is too long for you?

2 pages I could read almost anything.
3 Pages, mostly the same.
4 pages, if the opening paragraph is interesting OR targets a specific kink or interest of mine.
5 - 11 pages, absolutely fine, but I may stop reading around page 4 if it's not solidly well written or I feel the plotline has lost it's spark, and no other interesting plotlines begin. Some stories are like this where everything transitions so well that it can't be divided into separate (submission) chapters. Which is great! well done to you.
12+ pages, too long. I will get lost which page I got up to. Intimidated by the length. The writer needs to truly call themselves an author here... Or the story premise deserves it... Or the parts/chapters are divided inside the submission. There is just something unappealing about a wall of text - divided automatically into pages at that.

 

[Blind_Justice]

That's easy, at least for me:

Unless I am given a hard word limit (for example for an anthology publication or a contest entry), I stopped giving a damn how long my stories run. On average, a typical submission runs between 10,000 to 20,000 words, but I have managed to put together whole novels (for example, "Express Delivery", this year's Geek Pride submission, ended up at 104,000 and change words). My readers don't seem to mind, so I stopped chopping up my stories into bite-size chunks. I did that with "Leo and the Dragon" and it hurt the story more than it did help, but I'm loath to resubmit it as a single entry because I'd lose on quite a lot of comments.

As a reader, I'm in the same boat. Keep me entertained and I don't care how long the story (or series) goes.

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

As a reader, I like the stories to be pretty substantial, so usually I’d expect at least four pages. As a writer, I tend to be fairly verbose (some might say self-indulgent), so plenty of my stories are on the longer side. I think my longest story clocked in at a little more than forty-thousand words (twelve pages). I'm sure some people would say it could have done with some pruning, but I like a story to have room to breathe.

 

[Hypoxia]

...I like a story to have room to breathe.

I find that some of what I write deserves or needs breathing room, and some just wants to be succinct -- I may have difficulty taking some beyond ~3500 words without sloppy padding. I was trained to not waste words.

My current project, after a few days of interrupted keyboarding on laptop and tablet, is a bit over 15k words and can easily go twice as long with the episodes I've planned. It's a mature romance with the first sex just now, but difficulties lie ahead, before a HEA resolution. The tale develops at its own pace. It's slow-going because it's fairly complex and I must constantly review and revise to avoid story holes, continuity fuckups, and weak descriptions.

Again, reading with the Android app renders the 3750-word LIT page count irrelevant. I had no problem reading a series with five 50k-word chapters. They didn't slog and I was not pressed for time, so it was fine. YMMV.

(Why the app? Because I can pre-load 11 submissions to read when offline.)

 

[RelentlessOnanism]

As a reader, I like the stories to be pretty substantial, so usually I’d expect at least four pages. As a writer, I tend to be fairly verbose (some might say self-indulgent), so plenty of my stories are on the longer side. I think my longest story clocked in at a little more than forty-thousand words (twelve pages). I'm sure some people would say it could have done with some pruning, but I like a story to have room to breathe.

...although I have to say, certainly in my experience, very long stories deter readers. I'm not a massively read author, so none of my stories have had a huge audience, but my longest stories have had markedly fewer reads. I think three or four pages is probably the optimum length.

 

[bowlerhat]

From a readers point of view (I know this is not a real answer) it depends how good the story is. I am currently reading a story on a different site that is up to about 300 pages split over 9 chapters and the first thing I do after finishing work for the week is read the latest page.
I only start reading a new chapter if the author posts that it is complete as I hate to read a good serial only to have the author not finish it. He posts a page a week, if you want it all in one go you have to buy it from a different site. I find stories of less than 3 pages to be a bit skeletal but if the story has not "caught" me in that time I will not finish it no matter how long.
I am not a writer but how about write a good hook for the start, a good ending, then the length will be determined by how many ideas you have left for the middle.

 

[TreskaNovell]

Honestly, it depends on the writing. if its good ill rip through it quickly. If its poorly edited and choppy I have trouble getting through length. however, when reading a story, I tend to try to stick under 4000 words, but not always.

 

[Ginlover]

It's never the length, it's the operator behind it. Thickness can make a difference. Thick and meaty is often better than thin and weak, but it's still the skill and knowledge of the person behind the length that makes it crap or eye rollingly good.

Oh sorry are we talking about stories?

Its fine, my answer still stands