If I type one more word, I'll have accidentally written my first novel.

[TheRedChamber]

On the first of March I sat down with a well-ordered outline and a goal to write somewhere short of 21k by the 14th of March (at 1,500 words a day) so my beta reader could have a week to look at it and then I could submit an entry for this years April Fool's contest. Despite writing more like 2,000 words a day, that didn't happen.

Just now, with the deadline just passed I sent him a completed first draft containing 39,999 words.

The minimum commonly agreed absolutely minimum length for a novel is 40,000 words. (No, major publishers probably aren't going to actually publish anything that short - nevertheless)

My draft is messy as hell and is probably going to need extra chapters to make the structure work better, so odds are it's only going to get longer. Still the story is complete, so I maintain anything from this point on is simply the process of making a bad novel better and I can officially go around calling myself a novelist in polite society (it might get awkward if anyone actually expresses an interest in reading my novel, but then, no-one ever does...). At least I can when I type one more word. I somehow feel I should chose a meaningful one.

The irony is that I started on this project (after piddling around writing a few sub 10k stories at the start of the year) as a way to avoid editing the first half of my planned novel which stalled at about 36k words and which has needed some tough decisions made about it for the past four months or so. Hopefully my current momentum will carry over to that work.

So, tell me about your longer works and what went into writing them. How long? How much time? What problems did you encounter?

 

[MelissaBaby]

On the first of March I sat down with a well-ordered outline and a goal to write somewhere short of 21k by the 14th of March (at 1,500 words a day) so my beta reader could have a week to look at it and then I could submit an entry for this years April Fool's contest. Despite writing more like 2,000 words a day, that didn't happen.

Just now, with the deadline just passed I sent him a completed first draft containing 39,999 words.

The minimum commonly agreed absolutely minimum length for a novel is 40,000 words. (No, major publishers probably aren't going to actually publish anything that short - nevertheless)

My draft is messy as hell and is probably going to need extra chapters to make the structure work better, so odds are it's only going to get longer. Still the story is complete, so I maintain anything from this point on is simply the process of making a bad novel better and I can officially go around calling myself a novelist in polite society (it might get awkward if anyone actually expresses an interest in reading my novel, but then, no-one ever does...). At least I can when I type one more word. I somehow feel I should chose a meaningful one.

The irony is that I started on this project (after piddling around writing a few sub 10k stories at the start of the year) as a way to avoid editing the first half of my planned novel which stalled at about 36k words and which has needed some tough decisions made about it for the past four months or so. Hopefully my current momentum will carry over to that work.

So, tell me about your longer works and what went into writing them. How long? How much time? What problems did you encounter?

My longest project was Mary and Alvin, a 36 chapter series that I published once a month for three years. During that time, I also wrote two stories for special events. The series totaled about 340k words. It was in my head every day, I think I spent more time with my characters than with my husband. (And that time period includes our wedding and honeymoon).

The conventional wisdom is that it's not a good idea to put chapters up as you go along; that you should have the series finished before going public with it. But I doubt that I'd have stuck with it if that had meant publishing only two stories in three years.

The Adventures of Ranger Ramona was originally planned as a trilogy, but I thought the first part was a little light on plot, so I took the centerpiece of part two (the forest fire, for those who have read it), and incorporated it into Chapter One. I took a couple of weeks off from it to write a story for the Halloween contest before finishing the rest. Between the two parts, I spent about four months on it, and it came in at 105k word.

The longest stand alone I have written was Isabel, which is a little over 70k. I had not expected it to be nearly that long. I had planned it as my Pink Orchid submission, but after spending a couple of months without making much progress, I knew I would not finish it in time, so I set it aside to write Oyster River, (a mere 30k) for the event. Afterwards, I had a hard time getting back into the flow on Isabel, so I went back to the start did a second draft of what I had, and when I caught up kept going.I spent a couple of months finishing it.

My takeaway from those experiences was that, to succeed at long works, you had better be 100% committed to the project, and have a pretty strong sense of the project from the beginning. Generally, I know how my stories end before I begin them. With long projects, I think that's essential. Deciding to ditch a 100k word story because you can't find the ending is a much bigger deal than having the same issue with a 10k story.

I prefer writing long. It forces me to find nuance in the story and give depth to my characters.

 

[oneagainst]

Just now, with the deadline just passed I sent him a completed first draft containing 39,999 words.

The minimum commonly agreed absolutely minimum length for a novel is 40,000 words.

Your lack of commitment, or at least your lack of OCD has been noted. Surely there was room for one more adjective?

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I technically have a few novels, but they're mostly fan fiction. Took about a year to do one, a few months for another one, I think one took a few weeks. The one that isn't fan fiction; I'm still writing it, because I haven't touched it. And one I started last November, that I've been going mad trying to restore, because the file got corrupted on my bday, tuesday- best gift ever.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So, tell me about your longer works and what went into writing them. How long? How much time? What problems did you encounter?

I took ten months off to write my 104k Arthurian novel. I released two shorter side projects during that time, which I had to get out of my system quickly.

Other than those two stories, the myth story kept coming and was my focus. I had a couple of key pivots to get through, the birth of the king being one, the lady in the lake the other, but being a pantser writer, I had no outline or plan to join these two events together, so it pretty much "wrote itself".

The only writing aid I used was a rough story timeline, so I could keep the character's ages under control, but since Maerlyn was to all intents and purposes ageless, that only applied to the story's women, weaving around Artur the king and all the babies being born, the essential plot babies.

The discipline paid off for me, in the sense that most of my subsequent longer works are finished before I publish - and I developed an ability to write side projects more easily while the main story was cooking.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

On the first of March I sat down with a well-ordered outline and a goal to write somewhere short of 21k by the 14th of March (at 1,500 words a day) so my beta reader could have a week to look at it and then I could submit an entry for this years April Fool's contest. Despite writing more like 2,000 words a day, that didn't happen.

Just now, with the deadline just passed I sent him a completed first draft containing 39,999 words.

The minimum commonly agreed absolutely minimum length for a novel is 40,000 words. (No, major publishers probably aren't going to actually publish anything that short - nevertheless)

My draft is messy as hell and is probably going to need extra chapters to make the structure work better, so odds are it's only going to get longer. Still the story is complete, so I maintain anything from this point on is simply the process of making a bad novel better and I can officially go around calling myself a novelist in polite society (it might get awkward if anyone actually expresses an interest in reading my novel, but then, no-one ever does...). At least I can when I type one more word. I somehow feel I should chose a meaningful one.

The irony is that I started on this project (after piddling around writing a few sub 10k stories at the start of the year) as a way to avoid editing the first half of my planned novel which stalled at about 36k words and which has needed some tough decisions made about it for the past four months or so. Hopefully my current momentum will carry over to that work.

So, tell me about your longer works and what went into writing them. How long? How much time? What problems did you encounter?

I'm going to focus only on my novels posted on Lit, of which there are currently 9.

The shortest of my novels here is just under 53K words, the longest is approximately 180K words, with an average of 101K words.
I don't really track the time from start to finish, but I think the typical time from inspiration to completion would be 6 to 10 months depending upon what other commitments I have going on at the time, how many other stories ideas interfere, and the amount of research required for the story. I don't submit incomplete stories so all of the time frames are based on the complete story and not just parts of it.

By contrast, my average story that isn't a novel is only 17K words.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Once upon a time, in response to a couple prompts, I wrote about 3k words to continue from a series of books. It was observed it looked like the first chapter of a novel.

There was a big question left from the series I'd always wanted to play with, so I scribbled a few ideas. Some months later, a conversation about characters we'd grown up with led me to 'what if Protagonist met this character?' Which resulted in key plot points for a novel. I added some more points to cover, started writing them. Chapters on AO3 were well received, so I kept going.



About 9 months and 99k words later, I got to the last chapter. The whole thing needs some tidying up and clarifying certain subplots, but as a first novel I'm quite proud of it.



Then in 2020 I caught Covid. Idly played with a couple voices having conversation to see if I could make them distinct. The taste of stale smoke in my mouth led to the idea of a bet to one of them to give up smoking (winning sex with the woman the bet was with) and of course the other would have to find out eventually. I kept adding bits to it, fleshing out the characters and their motivations, adding anything I thought hot, and about 6 months later basically had a novel. Which fell into 14 chapters, which I posted on Lit every few days after some final edits.



Finishing the whole thing first certainly resulted in higher quality story arc, with threads being trailed before becoming significant, and the story having better structure.



Since then, I've mostly written individual stories that happen to be connected in a series, but could be read alone, which I figure is more what most Lit readers are looking for. One series was going to be a novel, but I stalled on the second half, and in the end put the first 5 chapters into the On the Job event that year, as they made a story by themselves. I've got so many other stories I want to write, I don't know if I'll ever finish that.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Once upon a time, in response to a couple prompts, I wrote about 3k words to continue from a series of books. It was observed it looked like the first chapter of a novel.

There was a big question left from the series I'd always wanted to play with, so I scribbled a few ideas. Some months later, a conversation about characters we'd grown up with led me to 'what if Protagonist met this character?' Which resulted in key plot points for a novel. I added some more points to cover, started writing them. Chapters on AO3 were well received, so I kept going.



About 9 months and 99k words later, I got to the last chapter. The whole thing needs some tidying up and clarifying certain subplots, but as a first novel I'm quite proud of it.



Then in 2020 I caught Covid. Idly played with a couple voices having conversation to see if I could make them distinct. The taste of stale smoke in my mouth led to the idea of a bet to one of them to give up smoking (winning sex with the woman the bet was with) and of course the other would have to find out eventually. I kept adding bits to it, fleshing out the characters and their motivations, adding anything I thought hot, and about 6 months later basically had a novel. Which fell into 14 chapters, which I posted on Lit every few days after some final edits.



Finishing the whole thing first certainly resulted in higher quality story arc, with threads being trailed before becoming significant, and the story having better structure.



Since then, I've mostly written individual stories that happen to be connected in a series, but could be read alone, which I figure is more what most Lit readers are looking for. One series was going to be a novel, but I stalled on the second half, and in the end put the first 5 chapters into the On the Job event that year, as they made a story by themselves. I've got so many other stories I want to write, I don't know if I'll ever finish that.

One of the most frustrating thing for me as a reader on Lit is the confusion that so many writers have related to what a chapter story should be versus a series of stories and even anthologies.

Each has their own place in storytelling, but when they get misused or abused, the reader suffers. I've started reading a lot of stories which had been submitted as "chapters", only to discover at the end of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two that it was actually a disjointed and inconsistent mish-mash of tropes, characters, and plot ideas that simply had the same title naming convention. It was sometimes like they were written by different people and intended as stand-alone tales.

I have also read "series" stories that could not and should not be able to stand on their own. It was impossible to figure out something later in the series without starting all the way back at the beginning and moving forward from there. I'm not implying that every detail and back-story element needs to appear in each episode of a series of stories, but there needs to be enough detail and continuity so that a reader isn't completely lost when they join a series story mid-stream.

 

[EmilyMiller]

So, tell me about your longer works and what went into writing them. How long? How much time? What problems did you encounter?

My first work in this territory is currently sitting at approximately 47,000 words with the final instalment not finished.

Yes it was a total accident, from start to finish.

TBH, I can’t imagine sitting down with the aim of writing 50k words. Way too intimidating. It just kinda grew organically.

Em

 

[Lifestyle66]

One of the most frustrating thing for me as a reader on Lit is the confusion that so many writers have related to what a chapter story should be versus a series of stories and even anthologies.

Each has their own place in storytelling, but when they get misused or abused, the reader suffers. I've started reading a lot of stories which had been submitted as "chapters", only to discover at the end of chapter one and the beginning of chapter two that it was actually a disjointed and inconsistent mish-mash of tropes, characters, and plot ideas that simply had the same title naming convention. It was sometimes like they were written by different people and intended as stand-alone tales.

I have also read "series" stories that could not and should not be able to stand on their own. It was impossible to figure out something later in the series without starting all the way back at the beginning and moving forward from there. I'm not implying that every detail and back-story element needs to appear in each episode of a series of stories, but there needs to be enough detail and continuity so that a reader isn't completely lost when they join a series story mid-stream.

I agree that those posting a series should include enough backstory in each post to allow each one to stand alone.

So, those here saying their series chapters taken together add up in word count to a novel should consider how many of the words are repetitive between the chapters.

I've found in continuing my series that I copy & paste some paragraphs (with few changes) from earlier chapters to allow the latest one to make sense. Even the repetitive descriptions of the main characters would need to be excluded if I were to compile them into one novel. I'd guestimate that 20% of the total word count would be lost in such a recompiled and cleaned-up version of my stories.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I agree that those posting a series should include enough backstory in each post to allow each one to stand alone.

So, those here saying their series chapters taken together add up in word count to a novel should consider how many of the words are repetitive between the chapters.

I've found in continuing my series that I copy & paste some paragraphs (with few changes) from earlier chapters to allow the latest one to make sense. Even the repetitive descriptions of the main characters would need to be excluded if I were to compile them into one novel. I'd guestimate that 20% of the total word count would be lost in such a recompiled and cleaned-up version of my stories.

Wouldn't you consider a compilation of series "chapters" more of an anthology than a novel?

Now, if it wasn't a compilation but instead a rework of the individual series chapters to make a whole story with just one beginning-middle-end format, I could see a lot of series here being made into novels.

There is one major advantage (for me at least) to completing a story before posting any of it, and one that I see being neglected too often on Lit, and that is the ability to "adjust" chapters. Even though I don't break up stories any more, when I did, I always went through the story to verify that I had the most effective stopping points for each chapter that would draw readers into the next one. Maybe I had to move one or two paragraphs from the end of one chapter to the beginning of next, or do it the other way around. The point is, I had the option to do so because nothing had been posted yet. I was also able to consider the word count for each chapter to try and keep them all relatively the same size. I think a story flows better here if the number of Lit pages for each chapter are within one or two pages of each other. Having an eight page chapter followed by a two page chapter sometimes can't be avoided, but I try.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Wouldn't you consider a compilation of series "chapters" more of an anthology than a novel?

Now, if it wasn't a compilation but instead a rework of the individual series chapters to make a whole story with just one beginning-middle-end format, I could see a lot of series here being made into novels.

There is one major advantage (for me at least) to completing a story before posting any of it, and one that I see being neglected too often on Lit, and that is the ability to "adjust" chapters. Even though I don't break up stories any more, when I did, I always went through the story to verify that I had the most effective stopping points for each chapter that would draw readers into the next one. Maybe I had to move one or two paragraphs from the end of one chapter to the beginning of next, or do it the other way around. The point is, I had the option to do so because nothing had been posted yet. I was also able to consider the word count for each chapter to try and keep them all relatively the same size. I think a story flows better here if the number of Lit pages for each chapter are within one or two pages of each other. Having an eight page chapter followed by a two page chapter sometimes can't be avoided, but I try.

Yes. Compiling chapters which were roughly about the same character/s might be an anthology, as long as those chapters were written to stand alone. That's why I said I'd remove roughly 20% of the word count from my stories in the series, if I were to recompile them into a novel. (I'd also need to re-write those earlier chapters to somewhat improve that shitty writing.)

In my opinion, an anthology is more an open-ended group of stories which are not heading toward any logical conclusion. The Amorous Goods author's challenge is an anthology, because the stories are/can be unrelated, except for the store front and those orchestrating characters setting the stage. But for my own submissions to Amorous Goods, I have two parts to an on-going story arc, which could be compiled with the next submission (and beyond) as a "War of the Worlds" novel.

For my own series about swingers, I have different points or issues I'm resolving with each chapter. And they do build on each other as the MCs evolve. But I usually end each chapter at the logical point of the MCs leaving an event to return to their non-swinger life.

 

[oneagainst]

I try and separate these... I have stories with chapters, all complete before the first chapter rolls out, and then anthologies sharing title words and recurring characters that you can read in any order, such as Influencers and Click and Collect. The anthologies are generated on the fly, like a soap opera, so less upfront work.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Yes. Compiling chapters which were roughly about the same character/s might be an anthology, as long as those chapters were written to stand alone. That's why I said I'd remove roughly 20% of the word count from my stories in the series, if I were to recompile them into a novel. (I'd also need to re-write those earlier chapters to somewhat improve that shitty writing.)

In my opinion, an anthology is more an open-ended group of stories which are not heading toward any logical conclusion. The Amorous Goods author's challenge is an anthology, because the stories are/can be unrelated, except for the store front and those orchestrating characters setting the stage. But for my own submissions to Amorous Goods, I have two parts to an on-going story arc, which could be compiled with the next submission (and beyond) as a "War of the Worlds" novel.

For my own series about swingers, I have different points or issues I'm resolving with each chapter. And they do build on each other as the MCs evolve. But I usually end each chapter at the logical point of the MCs leaving an event to return to their non-swinger life.

I just want to be clear...

When you refer to chapters of your series, you're talking about what I might consider "episodes" since they are related to a common theme or characters, but stand-alone stories otherwise. Is that correct or do you define them differently?

Hell, maybe I should just read a few of them and figure it out for myself. Now, there's a concept!

 

[djrip]

Are we counting very bad novels that never get published anywhere? Then I did one for my college undergraduate thesis. Here on lit, my New RA series has reached 43k. Is it an anthology or a novel? I'm not sure and I don't really buy into the distinction. To be clear, I would definitely call something an anthology if none of the parts shared characters or had anything to do with each other beyond perhaps a shared theme. Stuff like The Stories of Ray Bradbury or whatever. This is not that.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I just want to be clear...

When you refer to chapters of your series, you're talking about what I might consider "episodes" since they are related to a common theme or characters, but stand-alone stories otherwise. Is that correct or do you define them differently?

Hell, maybe I should just read a few of them and figure it out for myself. Now, there's a concept!

Episodes is a good description.

The earlier one through about Ch 10 are not as good as those starting around 11. The six months between those gave me time with other standalone stories for other challenges to create some better descriptive environments (although still not very good.) Even those standalone stories feature the same MCs, just in stories out of sequence for the series.

 

[djrip]

Episodes is a good description.

The earlier one through about Ch 10 are not as good as those starting around 11. The six months between those gave me time with other standalone stories for other challenges to create some better descriptive environments (although still not very good.) Even those standalone stories feature the same MCs, just in stories out of sequence for the series.

This topic seems to come up a lot and I always find the terminology to be confusing. Maybe it's just me. But here's my attempt to clarify.

Chapters- if this were a novel, these would be it's chapters. Absolutely must be read in order. No need to reintroduce/redescribe anything from previous chapters in subsequent ones.

Episodes - like Seinfeld, they may refer to past episodes, but you don't really need to read them all, each one stands alone.

Now, in my series, each part describes a distinct event, each part has a beginning and end. But they definitely build upon what happened previously. So it's almost halfway between chapters and episodes.

I think the most chapter-y of chapters could even end on a cliffhanger, or not have a sex scene at all, or in other ways absolutely depend on the reader reading all of them through. So I guess I'll go with episodes for what my series is doing - each one can be enjoyed alone, but it's much better in order.

Then, finally, there are anthologies - groupings of stories that stand completely on their own individually, grouped only because of a shared theme or a shared author.

Still, thinking about Em's stories with their own titles grouped by life phase, I don't know, is that episodes or an anthology? (Em? Your view if you care to weigh in?) I lean toward episodes, but now I'm thinking these are not discreet categories, but rather a continuum where things could be partway between two options.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This topic seems to come up a lot and I always find the terminology to be confusing. Maybe it's just me. But here's my attempt to clarify.

Chapters- if this were a novel, these would be it's chapters. Absolutely must be read in order. No need to reintroduce/redescribe anything from previous chapters in subsequent ones.

Episodes - like Seinfeld, they may refer to past episodes, but you don't really need to read them all, each one stands alone.

Now, in my series, each part describes a distinct event, each part has a beginning and end. But they definitely build upon what happened previously. So it's almost halfway between chapters and episodes.

I think the most chapter-y of chapters could even end on a cliffhanger, or not have a sex scene at all, or in other ways absolutely depend on the reader reading all of them through. So I guess I'll go with episodes for what my series is doing - each one can be enjoyed alone, but it's much better in order.

Then, finally, there are anthologies - groupings of stories that stand completely on their own individually, grouped only because of a shared theme or a shared author.

Still, thinking about Em's stories with their own titles grouped by life phase, I don't know, is that episodes or an anthology? (Em? Your view if you care to weigh in?) I lean toward episodes, but now I'm thinking these are not discreet categories, but rather a continuum where things could be partway between two options.

The confusion part I certainly agree with.

I know what I write and what I expect from other stories, but some don't view things the same way, or at least phrase things the same way, which makes discussions about series/chapters challenging sometimes. I think this is especially true when advising others within the AH when questions on the subject are brought up.

 

[djrip]

Even though I don't break up stories any more, when I did, I always went through the story to verify that I had the most effective stopping points for each chapter that would draw readers into the next one. Maybe I had to move one or two paragraphs from the end of one chapter to the beginning of next, or do it the other way around.

I forgot to mention it but I was thinking specifically of what you said here for part of that post. It would simply not be possible in my series to decide, oh the first few paragraphs of this chapter would go better in the last chapter. Because each one is its own event. Each one takes place within one day, and is separated from the others by an unspecified number of days. So your mention of having to pick out good places to split really drives home how integrated your parts must be in the whole, whereas mine have a kind of episodic quality built into them from their inception.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I forgot to mention it but I was thinking specifically of what you said here for part of that post. It would simply not be possible in my series to decide, oh the first few paragraphs of this chapter would go better in the last chapter. Because each one is its own event. Each one takes place within one day, and is separated from the others by an unspecified number of days. So your mention of having to pick out good places to split really drives home how integrated your parts must be in the whole, whereas mine have a kind of episodic quality built into them from their inception.

There's nothing wrong with your approach. It might make it more challenging to pull all of your parts together as a whole novel or similar, but some stories are never meant to be more than they are written to be.

 

[Northstar4695]

My longest project was Mary and Alvin, a 36 chapter series that I published once a month for three years. During that time, I also wrote two stories for special events. The series totaled about 340k words. It was in my head every day, I think I spent more time with my characters than with my husband. (And that time period includes our wedding and honeymoon).

The conventional wisdom is that it's not a good idea to put chapters up as you go along; that you should have the series finished before going public with it. But I doubt that I'd have stuck with it if that had meant publishing only two stories in three years.

The Adventures of Ranger Ramona was originally planned as a trilogy, but I thought the first part was a little light on plot, so I took the centerpiece of part two (the forest fire, for those who have read it), and incorporated it into Chapter One. I took a couple of weeks off from it to write a story for the Halloween contest before finishing the rest. Between the two parts, I spent about four months on it, and it came in at 105k word.

The longest stand alone I have written was Isabel, which is a little over 70k. I had not expected it to be nearly that long. I had planned it as my Pink Orchid submission, but after spending a couple of months without making much progress, I knew I would not finish it in time, so I set it aside to write Oyster River, (a mere 30k) for the event. Afterwards, I had a hard time getting back into the flow on Isabel, so I went back to the start did a second draft of what I had, and when I caught up kept going.I spent a couple of months finishing it.

My takeaway from those experiences was that, to succeed at long works, you had better be 100% committed to the project, and have a pretty strong sense of the project from the beginning. Generally, I know how my stories end before I begin them. With long projects, I think that's essential. Deciding to ditch a 100k word story because you can't find the ending is a much bigger deal than having the same issue with a 10k story.

I prefer writing long. It forces me to find nuance in the story and give depth to my characters.

I loved the descriptions in Ranger Ramona. I read the first submission and I was blown away by the level of detail in the setting and characterization. I was transported. I will have to add the second part to my reading list.

 

[Lifestyle66]

This topic seems to come up a lot and I always find the terminology to be confusing. Maybe it's just me. But here's my attempt to clarify.

Chapters- if this were a novel, these would be it's chapters. Absolutely must be read in order. No need to reintroduce/redescribe anything from previous chapters in subsequent ones.

Episodes - like Seinfeld, they may refer to past episodes, but you don't really need to read them all, each one stands alone.

Now, in my series, each part describes a distinct event, each part has a beginning and end. But they definitely build upon what happened previously. So it's almost halfway between chapters and episodes.

I think the most chapter-y of chapters could even end on a cliffhanger, or not have a sex scene at all, or in other ways absolutely depend on the reader reading all of them through. So I guess I'll go with episodes for what my series is doing - each one can be enjoyed alone, but it's much better in order.

Then, finally, there are anthologies - groupings of stories that stand completely on their own individually, grouped only because of a shared theme or a shared author.

Still, thinking about Em's stories with their own titles grouped by life phase, I don't know, is that episodes or an anthology? (Em? Your view if you care to weigh in?) I lean toward episodes, but now I'm thinking these are not discreet categories, but rather a continuum where things could be partway between two options.

After posting the first ten "chapters" of my series, I wrote Lifestyle Ch. 12 - The Bar Group, and I asked another author to review it. She came back complaining of multiple issues, some of which I thought were contradictory.

IE. Complained that the meetup in the bar for the first half was unnecessary, then complained that the rest of the story was like mashing a Ken & Barbie doll together. (Well, DUH, the first half of the story was how and why they got there.)

Other complaints were that the MFC didn't make sense, which was due to the reviewer not reading previous chapters.

Then when looking at the views of my various chapters, I realized there was an ebb and flow to the numbers and no more than about 3K viewers have read all of them (the lowest number in the middle of the series.) So, as I pick up more views with better catchy descriptions or from favorable comments, I know I must reiterate the key points of the characters within each chapter to make each chapter almost standalone (episodes).

IMO, those who LOVE the series won't mind re-reading the underlying characteristics. And without such rehash, any new readers won't fully understand the context.

 

[Jmanchu]

I've got an ongoing project that's at over 47,000 words total which I've been working on for a while. I'm waiting on Lit to approve the first part for publishing, which has the first two chapters of the story.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Your lack of commitment, or at least your lack of OCD has been noted. Surely there was room for one more adjective?

Oops, thought I'd replied to this at the time. With the thread being reanimated, I I've just noticed I didn't.

If I have OCD characteristics (I don't particularly), it's that I never add to a story while it's with beta readers. Too much chance of missing something trying to merge two diverging versions. I only noticed the word count after I'd sent it out...

 

[gunhilltrain]

On the first of March I sat down with a well-ordered outline and a goal to write somewhere short of 21k by the 14th of March (at 1,500 words a day) so my beta reader could have a week to look at it and then I could submit an entry for this years April Fool's contest. Despite writing more like 2,000 words a day, that didn't happen.

Just now, with the deadline just passed I sent him a completed first draft containing 39,999 words.

The minimum commonly agreed absolutely minimum length for a novel is 40,000 words. (No, major publishers probably aren't going to actually publish anything that short - nevertheless)

My draft is messy as hell and is probably going to need extra chapters to make the structure work better, so odds are it's only going to get longer. Still the story is complete, so I maintain anything from this point on is simply the process of making a bad novel better and I can officially go around calling myself a novelist in polite society (it might get awkward if anyone actually expresses an interest in reading my novel, but then, no-one ever does...). At least I can when I type one more word. I somehow feel I should chose a meaningful one.

The irony is that I started on this project (after piddling around writing a few sub 10k stories at the start of the year) as a way to avoid editing the first half of my planned novel which stalled at about 36k words and which has needed some tough decisions made about it for the past four months or so. Hopefully my current momentum will carry over to that work.

So, tell me about your longer works and what went into writing them. How long? How much time? What problems did you encounter?

Writing 1,500 words a day is pretty ambitous. I've never come close to that. What should the next word be? (I assume you ended with a sentence, or did you just stop in the middle?) If it's a new sentence, then "The" or "He" or something like that might be inevitable.

I know I've mentioned this before, but about a year before I joined Lit I was doodling around on computer. (I was recovering from surgery.) As this thing grew, I started to think "Hey, I'm a novelist!" I was a bit premature, however. I eventually used parts of it later in short stories. The beginning premise was just awful and completely improbable. I later used a version of that as a fantasy by a male character.

So that was some of my issues with writing something that long.