I Wrote This Thing... Please Help

[mjl2010]

My very first post.

I wrote this story. It's got a sort of Master/slave thing going on. I hate to reveal the plot really. I just don't know if it fits here. The story's got a heroic save the world guy with a supernatural power. A job he doesn't want by the way. Women find him attractive to say the least. There's more than a few sex scenes.

Ok if it was just a few thousand words, I'd just throw it out there and see what the wolves did, eat it up or pee on it.

I guess I'm sort of nervous about putting it out there. Yea gods, what will people think! If they hate it what will I think? Would I ever write anything again.

See the thing is, it's got well over 1300 pages (microsoft word standard format pages, size ten type.), over a million words. Frankly, the whole thing practically fell out of me, became an obsession over the course of a month. My wife is awed by the length of it and apalled by the content. I myself went back and read it like three times and said a couple of times, "Holy Shit! I wrote that?"

The other thing is, I want to write books 2-6. I doubt they'll come as easily as the first book. But I know I could do it.

So is this the place? Or is it too long? I don't think I've seen anything of this length here. Been reading here a while now. There there's the fact that nothing gets resolved in the first book. Really it's just a good start.

I'd sure hate it if no one liked it at all. Hell. For over two weeks I got about 2 or 3 hours of sleep every two days. I couldn't type fast enough and left out words and had paragraphs three and four pages long (Of course I fixed all that )

Ok so what now. I guess I know how to submit a story. Do I send it up all at once. Should I send it at all? Is anyone out there? Maybe I should drink less coffee. Ok I'm posting this in desperation. Please Help!

 

[joeys-game]

Its always worth it to have an editor look it over.
Go to the editors forum and ask if anyone has the time to have a look at it, before you post it.

 

[starrkers]

Disclaimer: I'm a relative noob and therefore know bugger all.

I wouldn't put it up in one hit. Bust it into chapters and put up the first couple and see how they fly.

 

[Weird Harold]

See the thing is, it's got well over 1300 pages (microsoft word standard format pages, size ten type.), over a million words. Frankly, the whole thing practically fell out of me, became an obsession over the course of a month. My wife is awed by the length of it and apalled by the content. I myself went back and read it like three times and said a couple of times, "Holy Shit! I wrote that?"

My first story was something similar -- 150,000 words or so that just flowed from my fingers. That first story will never be posted because the task of editing it into something I'd let the public see is far more work than I'm willing to put into it. I made almost every "novice mistake" possible in that story.

The question you have to ask yourself -- preferably after letting the story sit for month or more so you can distance yourself frm the story a bit -- is whether the story is worth editing into something you'd want your name associated with in public.

That isn't to say that your experience is going to be anything like mine, just an observation that what makes a story you can be proud of posting is the editing that will cut your million words down to a more manageable 600,000 or so. A very wise man once told me that the secret to writing a good story was to "let the story flow from your fingers until you run out of words. Then delete the one-third that is total crap and edit the remainder into a real story."

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

1 Million words is something like 285 lit pages.

 

[mjl2010]

1 Million words is something like 285 lit pages.

Sorry for sounding like a total novice which I am but what does that mean exactly, 285 lit pages?

MJL

 

[starrkers]

It would take 285 pages if posted on Literotica. The site has roughly 4000 words to a page.

 

[mjl2010]

It would take 285 pages if posted on Literotica. The site has roughly 4000 words to a page.

So I guess that begs yet another question, is the thing too long for this place or am I missing something. I've read stuff from the Novel's section. But...I never saw anything 200+ pages, even stuff with twenty parts.

Thanks for the help and suggestions btw

MJL

 

[Vermilion]

I agree with the poster who suggested you break it up into chapters (maybe 12,000 odd words each) and post up a few of those into the novella section - see what the reception is.
Go on - doooooo it.
x
V

 

[mjl2010]

I agree with the poster who suggested you break it up into chapters (maybe 12,000 odd words each) and post up a few of those into the novella section - see what the reception is.
Go on - doooooo it.
x
V

Yeah well I'm also going with the suggestion to let it sit for a month and then I'm going to reread it, look for crap and then start breaking it up and re-editing. I just wondered. So you don't think it's too long huh? Thanks for looking here V

MJL

 

[Vermilion]

Yeah well I'm also going with the suggestion to let it sit for a month and then I'm going to reread it, look for crap and then start breaking it up and re-editing. I just wondered. So you don't think it's too long huh? Thanks for looking here V

MJL

if it's *good* then a story can never be too long. If it's *bad* 1000 words is too long
x
V

 

[Selena_Kitt]

If it's truly a million words (my god, man!!) then I'd break it up into 20,000 word segments... which is about 6 Lit pages... not too bad...

even at that... you're talking about posting 50 CHAPTERS...

So I'd get an editor to read, say, the first 20,000 words... see what they think... if you've got any errors or if you're defying the laws of physics anywhere...

then post it... see if people like it... if they ask for more...

if they do, keep posting away!

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

1,000,000 words? How long have you been working on this. At, say, 3000 words per day that's like a year?


Why would you write something like a Steven King-sized novel and want to post it on a free site?

 

[i812]

My editor advised that Literotica readers generally like relatively short intense stories.

It seems like good advice because that is the preference for most everybody using this media--the Internet.

 

[mjl2010]

1,000,000 words? How long have you been working on this. At, say, 3000 words per day that's like a year?


Why would you write something like a Steven King-sized novel and want to post it on a free site?

Why post here, I doubt anyone would take it seriously enough to publish it. I actually thought maybe do the first part here, then distribute the rest as ebooks.

3000 words takes a couple of hours to write, re-read, fix grammer and punctuation. I wrote more than that last night between two and four am.

It took just over two months. approximately 18-20 hrs/day of absolute obession where I just couldn't type fast enough (I manage 70-80 wpm). Then another whole month of fixing big stuff and another month of fixing puntuation stuff.

Then there's the other five or six parts to write. depending. But right now I have to leave it alone. I won't even peek. I'm being good.

It won't go away. <glances at the cd it's burned on JIC.>

MJL

 

[kendo1]

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[mjl2010]

You could copy and paste it to this thread.


Helpful Ken

Yeah? I thought of doing that with a couple of shorts I've got here.

MJL

 

[kendo1]

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