I Need Help!

[goke]

this is my first post/thread on litero.
I desperately need help with something. I've been working on this story for a while now; about 9 months. It started out as a short story but now it's so huge. I don't know whether to put it in one big stretch or to space it out or...

What do you suggest?

 

[SweetErika]

Edit it down to the parts that really add to the story and reader enjoyment. If you've been working on it that long, and it's that big, there's probably a lot of superfluous stuff in there. Definitely work with an editor and a beta reader or two (you can find them in the Editors Forum); they can help you decide what really needs to stay vs. go and help you put out the best work possible.

Then break it into reasonable chapters. I can't recall approximately how many words go on a Lit page (though you could easily find out by copying a sample of pages and pasting them into Word, then getting a word count), but aim for your chapters to be 3-5 Lit pages. You can submit your chapters consecutively right away so readers don't really have to wait to read the next installment.

Or, depending on how long the story is, submit it under Novels/Novellas, but you'll probably get fewer readers in that category.