How Long Is Too Long For A Submission?

[labeltornoff]

New guy, here. I am submitting a 5-episode series; two parts so far. The episodes are 5000 - 10000 words each, except for Episode 3, where I got carried away. It is 64000 words.

Is that too long for Literotica readers? I use Scrivener; the episode is divided into 7 scenes, but I think it would ruin the flow if i posted them separately.

Any help/opinions on whether I should submit a 64000-word story?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Hammingbyrd7's The Preacher Man is one of the all-time high-rating, high-views stories on the site. It's 162,000 words.

If it works, it works.

 

[labeltornoff]

Thanks. Much appreciated. It makes me feel better now about submitting a long story I wrote a while ago. It's ~300,000 words but can be submitted in three parts.

 

[SimonDoom]

Stories of 60,000 or more words can do very well at Literotica, so you shouldn't feel like you can't do it, especially if you feel for artistic reasons that this is the way to do it.

I think there's some risk that if chapters 1 and 2 are relatively short, some of your readers will be peeved to face a novel-length 3d chapter. So it's something to consider. But chances are that if the readers up to that point like your story, they'll continue reading. You may well decide the risk is worth it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You could post them separately (Laurel would default to a 24 hour release if you submitted them all at the same time), and maximise your exposure on the Category front page for a week or so.

By the third chapter, you've got your readership anyway, that's not going to change much - but people do pop into later chapters and go back to the beginning.

Remember also, in the long run, once they're all published, future readers are going to see a chaptered story cycle, with chapters all roughly the same length. That makes their navigation easy, and gives you some additional data to assess their reaction, which you don't get with two short and one long chapter.

If it was me, I'd break the long chapter down into additional chapters - you mention seven Scrivener scenes - that's ideal.

 

[PennameWombat]

New guy, here. I am submitting a 5-episode series; two parts so far. The episodes are 5000 - 10000 words each, except for Episode 3, where I got carried away. It is 64000 words.

Is that too long for Literotica readers? I use Scrivener; the episode is divided into 7 scenes, but I think it would ruin the flow if i posted them separately.

Any help/opinions on whether I should submit a 64000-word story?

I’ve released stand-alone stories that are around 70,000 words. One’s been very well received, the other middling reception. I think category has some effect, SF&F seems quite friendly to long stories.

Separately, I try to keep my chaptered stories roughly even in each chapter’s length, about 15K for a WIP. Reasoning is so readers get an ‘even’ rhythm through each chapter. But if your long entry is compelling, folks that’ve ‘bought in’ will probably be ok.

 

[yukonnights]

I concur with what others have said. I'll add this; If you decide to break the 70k part into smaller bites, obviously it is best to do that with a point of tension/doubt/intrigue that would lure the reader forward.

I think my longest chapter style story is about 72,000 words spread over 7 chapters. They were all well received. The chapters were not based on word count, but were based on a good break point in the story. Overall the story was about 19 Lit Screen pages. The nice thing about breaking it up is; as a reader one can read a chapter when they have a bit of time w/o committing to a long read — or trying to bookmark where you left off.

 

[DanDraper]

5-10,000 words is not so bad, even the third part you mentioned. There are a lot of readers here who enjoy stories in several parts, and even some stories that are very lengthy in word count.
I'm not saying you're going to get a ton of readers, some of us have low attention spans, but you'll get enough readers, especially if the story is that good.



....

 

[Abbafan]

If you look at the top lists, plenty of multi part stories pop up there, at least in the categories I'll look at.

5-10k words seem like a reasonable length for a chapter, so you'll be fine, I think.

 

[PetroniusJackson]

As another new guy, I got to say -- any story should be as long as it needs to be.

Let's take movies as an example: The Lord of the Rings extended editions (which I consider a single film) are some of my favorite movies of all time and I wouldn't want them any shorter than their glorious 686 minute run time.

But I also just watched and really enjoyed my new 4k version of Frankenstein (1931) which is a scant 70 minutes.

Which is better? Which is the right length?

Who can say, but I am oh so glad both exist.

Petronius Jackson
"I criticize by creation, not by finding fault." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

 

[labeltornoff]

Thanks to all who replied. Based on your excellent feedback I converted the original Episode 3 into seven separate episodes, each with a reasonable length compared to the original draft. There are now eleven episodes in the story instead of five and, after soui-searching and ego-humbling introspection, I find this is the number of episodes that should have been created in the first place. Your responses have made a better story.

If your are interested in what I am writing and how I responded to your comments, please search either for my user name or for the 'Can Do' series. Fair warning: my preference for erotica involve sexfighting and hermaphrodites (futa/futanari seems inappropriate for what i write).

Thanks for the help.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Thanks to all who replied. Based on your excellent feedback I converted the original Episode 3 into seven separate episodes, each with a reasonable length compared to the original draft. There are now eleven episodes in the story instead of five and, after soui-searching and ego-humbling introspection, I find this is the number of episodes that should have been created in the first place. Your responses have made a better story.

If your are interested in what I am writing and how I responded to your comments, please search either for my user name or for the 'Can Do' series. Fair warning: my preference for erotica involve sexfighting and hermaphrodites (futa/futanari seems inappropriate for what i write).

Thanks for the help.

It might be a good idea for you to put a link to your stories in your signature box.

Good luck.

 

[desecration]

From what I have seen in the comments, some readers prefer short fiction. Others want to get really immersed.

Personally, my answer would be that as long as the content supports the length, it's good.

 

[LaRascasse]

Hammingbyrd7's The Preacher Man is one of the all-time high-rating, high-views stories on the site. It's 162,000 words.

If it works, it works.

And yet it's not even close to this story also by hammingbyrd...

Write your own story with as many or as few words as you want.

 

[LexxRuthless]

If your 64k-word submission were a standalone story, I'd say that's fine. As a chapter, it's probably too long for the majority of Literotica readers. My longest single submission here was just under 70k words -- 19 Lit pages -- and most of the negative comments were that it was too long. If you can, I would suggest breaking it down into smaller sections and making those individual chapters. As was mentioned above, you can submit them all at once and Laurel will publish them at 24-hour intervals to keep your latest chapter atop the category frontpage for a longer period of time.

If you have time, you might go through this forum to search some older threads on the topic. There have been several over the past few years, with some excellent analysis of what constitutes the "ideal length" for a Literotica short story.