How long is too long?

[DarkSollat]

There is literally no answer to this question. There are people who like short stories, people who like long stories, and people who like ass-long stories (like 93 Lit pages).

 

[Bodington]

Where do you get that a 'novel' is a minimum of 100,000 words? That's double the standard definition, although it fits well into what's the traditional range (up to about 120,000, with 80,000 a usual sweet spot.) All this depends on genre and target ages, to a degree. No publisher would call a 77,000 word work a novella.

To add, the 'Novels and Novellas' category here isn't defined by length. It's for works with erotic (thus, not Non-Erotic) themes and material but without a 'dominant' theme regardless of length. Not that you couldn't put Non-Erotic there, just not much reason to.

View attachment 2201338

Perhaps you would not quarrel with this characteristic of what consists a novel as being of considerable length/word count. There is no specific word count that automatically makes a work a novel, but in general, a short novel would be considered a novella, and even shorter than that would be short fiction.

If instead of saying the “technical definition of a novel is..,” but phrased it: “as a rule of thumb a work of fiction exceeding 100K words would be considered a novel and a work exceeding 25K words would be considered a novella” you might not really object to that. Or to paraphrase a famous description of pornography, uttered by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I know it when I see it.” In any case, your listed table is just as arbitrary as my original description. I wonder where you came up with such different minimum requirements for a novel depending on the character or genre of the work of fiction in question.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Perhaps you would not quarrel with this characteristic of what consists a novel as being of considerable length/word count. There is no specific word count that automatically makes a work a novel, but in general, a short novel would be considered a novella, and even shorter than that would be short fiction.

If instead of saying the “technical definition of a novel is..,” but phrased it: “as a rule of thumb a work of fiction exceeding 100K words would be considered a novel and a work exceeding 25K words would be considered a novella” you might not really object to that. Or to paraphrase a famous description of pornography, uttered by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I know it when I see it.” In any case, your listed table is just as arbitrary as my original description. I wonder where you came up with such different minimum requirements for a novel depending on the character or genre of the work of fiction in question.

The Difference Between types of Stories by length Here is one place. There are literally dozens of sites that note the difference.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Perhaps you would not quarrel with this characteristic of what consists a novel as being of considerable length/word count. There is no specific word count that automatically makes a work a novel, but in general, a short novel would be considered a novella, and even shorter than that would be short fiction.

If instead of saying the “technical definition of a novel is..,” but phrased it: “as a rule of thumb a work of fiction exceeding 100K words would be considered a novel and a work exceeding 25K words would be considered a novella” you might not really object to that. Or to paraphrase a famous description of pornography, uttered by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: “I know it when I see it.” In any case, your listed table is just as arbitrary as my original description. I wonder where you came up with such different minimum requirements for a novel depending on the character or genre of the work of fiction in question.

The issue is that 100k words is too long even for a rule of thumb. The following works would not be novels according to this definition. (Source)

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald – 47,094 words
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green – 67,203 words
1984, George Orwell – 88,942 words
Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan – 91,419 words
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery – 97,364 words
Pere Goriot, Honore de Balzac – 87,846 words
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger – 73,404 words
Persuasion, Jane Austen – 87,978 words
A Separate Peace, John Knowles – 56,787 words
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut – 49,459 words
Welcome to the Monkey House, Kurt Vonnegut – 99,560 words
Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston – 70,957 words
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera – 85,199 words
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne – 63,604 words
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde – 78,462 words
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury – 46,118 words
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury – 64,768 words
Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison – 92,400 words
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf – 63,422 words
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner – 56,695 words
Lord of the Flies, William Golding – 59,900 words

From what I've read, it seems that 40k words is an industry used seperator for things like whether a work can be entered in a novel/novella competition, but that most publishing houses won't publish works a significant bit longer unless there are special circumstances or its a super-famous author.

I've seen different versions of Wombats charts on various websites and Youtube videos dedicated to professional writing. The advice is that, if you are seeking to get published for the first time, make sure your work matches the given word counts for the genre (or if the publishing house your sending to has their own, even better). Some publishing houses won't bother to even look at your manuscript if you don't show understanding of what they are after.

Of course, for Literotica, none of this applies and a piece of string can be any length you cut it.

 

[PastMaster]

Tefler, wrote his story - Three square meals, and as far as I know, his word count is somewhere in the region of four and a half million words. He has over six thousand followers and his story is not done. So, if his story is not too long for lit - then i doubt there are many that will write longer.
Chapter length though - I find that about 10-20k works well.

 

[YANKEE DAN]

I like my porn stories to have a moderate amount of build up and be like, 50% sexy time, total length about 12-18k. Now by that I mean CHAPTERS. If there are a bunch of chapters following that formula I'll be very happy.

 

[MrPixel]

My preference both reading and writing is in the 8-10K neighborhood per reading unit. I do know that I will start a story that draws my interest in title and summary description; once I get to the bottom of the first page and see that it has 8, 10 or 16 LitE pages, that's where it ends for me. My cutoff seems to be 5 pages. YMMV.

 

[alohadave]

Tefler, wrote his story - Three square meals, and as far as I know, his word count is somewhere in the region of four and a half million words. He has over six thousand followers and his story is not done. So, if his story is not too long for lit - then i doubt there are many that will write longer.
Chapter length though - I find that about 10-20k works well.

There's a story on SOL that is 4.1 million words and published weekly for 16 years, with a rating of 9/10.

And I struggle writing a story more than a few thousand words.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I was just curious as to what other author's consider too long of a story. I recently posted one that is just a touch over 77,000 words and turned out to be twenty-two pages in length after publishing on Lit. About half of the negative comments I received were people complaining about the number of pages, that nobody wants to read a story that long.

On the flip side I received positive comments saying they loved the story, and while it was long, it was worth reading to see the story develop. The number of followers I have, doubled after this story was published and the number of views surpassed my most popular story by 10,000. I know views can be misleading though, as a lot of them may be people opening the story then dropping it.

Anyway, I was just looking for some input to get an idea of how many other's on Lit write long stories. Thanks!

It can be off putting but then again so can a lot of chapters.

I just read and 24 page story by Thornapple and I absolutely loved it and am now reading the 14 page sequel so don’t sweat it.

 

[PastMaster]

There's a story on SOL that is 4.1 million words and published weekly for 16 years, with a rating of 9/10.

And I struggle writing a story more than a few thousand words.

Its amazing that they can keep it going that long, and keep it entertaining enough to keep ratings up -
My Caleb story is probably in the region of 400k words now, and I still have more to say wtih it, but i dont think i could keep it going that long.

 

[SithLordSexyPants1]

I was worried about length for a story I just wrote. I got on a roll and it was 23 pages in Word when I finished. I was worried about it being too long for one story and briefly considered breaking it up into two parts. However when I checked the word count, it was only 9,100. So I'm going to leave it as one story. I just need to go back over the next few days and give it a final editing before submitting.

 

[SamScribble]

My opinion: If it's a good story, well told, with interesting characters, 60,000 words is probably not too long. But for most of the stuff I start reading on Lit, 6,000 words is already too long.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’ve just written my longest story. A minuscule 22k words. Though it’s the middle work in a trilogy and part one was 9k, so I’m over 30k and realistically heading for 40-50k.

Em

 

[Djmac1031]

My Jenna series averages 2 to 3 LE pages, depending.

But it's also at 26 chapters now so...???

 

[EmilyMiller]

My Jenna series averages 2 to 3 LE pages, depending.

But it's also at 26 chapters now so...???

See, you are getting it all wrong, hun. Received Lit wisdom is that you have to write all 69 chapters first and only then publish .

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

How long is too long?​

My previous answer was way too serious. May I withdraw it and instead offer:

More than nine inches. Ouch!

Em

 

[Djmac1031]

See, you are getting it all wrong, hun. Received Lit wisdom is that you have to write all 69 chapters first and only then publish .

Em

I am filled with shame.

 

[Filipinawife]

The longest I have taken was probably 10 inches

 

[EmilyMiller]

The longest I have taken was probably 10 inches

The only 10” guy I met couldn’t get fully erect and so preferred oral. Penetration wasn’t possible.

Em

 

[Filipinawife]

The only 10” guy I met couldn’t get fully erect and so preferred oral. Penetration wasn’t possible.

Em

Well there was no way I could take it all in me

 

[Bisexguy70]

My previous answer was way too serious. May I withdraw it and instead offer:

More than nine inches. Ouch!

Em

Em. Mine is exactly 6”. Just perfect for you . Then you can write a 6 page story about each inch. Not too long, not too short, just right

 

[EmilyMiller]

Em. Mine is exactly 6”. Just perfect for you . Then you can write a 6 page story about each inch. Not too long, not too short, just right

Let me get on to that.

The writing I mean, not the…

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

Well there was no way I could take it all in me

Eight and a bit inches, yes. Ten, probably not. Depends where we are talking of course.

Em

 

[Bisexguy70]

Eight and a bit inches, yes. Ten, probably not. Depends where we are talking of course.

Em

I cant relate to taking in a pussy, but orally im inclined to take a bigger cock. I like to be able to use both hands and still have a mouthful. The bigger ones are pure bliss. As long as the guy doesnt force it down my throat and lets me control how much i take.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I cant relate to taking in a pussy, but orally im inclined to take a bigger cock. I like to be able to use both hands and still have a mouthful. The bigger ones are pure bliss. As long as the guy doesnt force it down my throat and lets me control how much i take.

To learn, much you have, young padawan.

Em