Is this the new record?

[pink_silk_glove]

Also, by making it relatively short it makes it easier for authors to turn something out for the event. I have at times dropped what I was doing to write one of these stories on a whim and churned it out in under 2 hours. That's part of the fun.

So you admit that it's not a challenge.

 

[YmaOHyd]

This seems like a pretty classic Chesterton's Fence to me.

So you admit that it's not a challenge.

I absolutely do not admit this.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is my answer. 750 words is just barely long enough that you can, with some effort, tell an actual story. 400 words, and it's really just a single scene or snippet. 2000 words, and it's no longer a meaningful challenge. There are many short stories of 2000 words. So 750 words is a pretty reasonable "sweet spot" where it's short enough to make it a real challenge but long enough that one can just barely tell a story. Also, by making it relatively short it makes it easier for authors to turn something out for the event. I have at times dropped what I was doing to write one of these stories on a whim and churned it out in under 2 hours. That's part of the fun. I wouldn't have bothered if the limit was 2000 words. There's no fun in that.

All right, you are looking at it from the standpoint of the challenge itself. I don't agree with your reasoning about the lower or higher number of words not being a challenge then. It would just be a different sort of challenge, but okay, I can understand at least where you are coming from.

What then if a 750-word limit would be allowed for specified challenges only, and for normal stories it would be set to 2k? Then the whole challenge would even make more sense as now even without a challenge you can write 750-word stories. It would make those challenges even more unique and interesting possibly?

 

[SimonDoom]

This seems like a pretty classic Chesterton's Fence to me.

I think that's a clever and apt analogy.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I think the point of the challenge is that you're writing to the minimum allowed word count. The limit's set by site policy. Increasing the minimum word count would actually make 750 words arbitrary.

And -- correct me if I'm wrong, please -- very few people write 750 word stories outside the time period when the challenge is running. Between March 1 2023 and February 1 2024, there were only twelve (tagged; who knows how many untagged) 750 word stories published.

 

[SimonDoom]

All right, you are looking at it from the standpoint of the challenge itself. I don't agree with your reasoning about the lower or higher number of words not being a challenge then. It would just be a different sort of challenge, but okay, I can understand at least where you are coming from.

What then if a 750-word limit would be allowed for specified challenges only, and for normal stories it would be set to 2k? Then the whole challenge would even make more sense as now even without a challenge you can write 750-word stories. It would make those challenges even more unique and interesting possibly?

I'm curious why you have such strong views on this subject when you do not, in fact, write these stories. Why do you care? I've written nine of them, so this is something I've actually experienced. I've done it over the last three years or so. I'd say based on experience 750 words is a sensible length BOTH as the minimum for a publishable Lit story and for this event. I don't see a groundswell of desire among other authors to change it.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

What I am implying is that Laurel's 750-word limit is completely arbitrary. She has every right to set it to whatever she wants; it's her site, of course. Also, no matter what we discuss here, it has zero relevance for Literotica. It's only for us to debate and exchange opinions. Just saying because some people get edgy about these things for some weird reason.

Anyway:


Authors with some credit to their names set this limit. I see no 750 words here and I see that all up to 7.5k words counts as a short story. Just proving that 750 words is a completely arbitrary limit.

 

[PennyThompson]

At the risk of arousing the ire of some of y'all who are far more established than I am, I loved participating in the 750-word challenge

It challenged me to strike just the right balance between brevity and closure, suggesting rather than showing, creating characters convincingly in just a couple of sentences. It was hard, and it was rewarding!

I wrote one 750 as a pure monologue, which is something I've never done before. I wrote another one as a pure dialog, which is also something I've never done before

There's no way on earth I would write in these styles for a 3,000+ word story, I would hate writing it and hate reading it. But as a little 750 snack, they were delightful!

So, sorry, I like them, I like to write them. I like reading them from other people, it's like when your city does a "restaurant crawl week" where local restaurants have sampler specials so that you can get outside of your comfort zone and try new things and maybe find a new favorite!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm curious why you have such strong views on this subject when you do not, in fact, write these stories. Why do you care? I've written nine of them, so this is something I've actually experienced. I've done it over the last three years or so. I'd say based on experience 750 words is a sensible length BOTH as the minimum for a publishable Lit story and for this event. I don't see a groundswell of desire among other authors to change it.

Not sure why you are trying to read into my motivations. We are just discussing ideas here. What I see as a potential benefit of increasing the word limit is that we would get rid of a good deal of spam that crowds other stories and makes them less visible.

And I agree fully with @pink_silk_glove. A story you can write in under 2 hours isn't a challenge worth publishing, in my view. It's something more suited for a forum challenge or something like that. It's certainly not something that should stand and compete for the same space with regular stories. That's my view at least.

 

[StillStunned]

If I had a say in all this, I would simply increase the world limit globally. The current 750-word limit that Literotica imposes on authors is an arbitrary one, and it's a limit that was set in a different age of Literotica when promoting the number of stories made much more sense. Today, this is mostly spam.

So in my view, maybe there would be no need to get rid of various challenges or for setting the limitation for the number of entries. I would simply set a new threshold for all stories, challenge or no challenge.
I'd say that something around half the Literotica page - 1870 words, or maybe setting it to a nice round number like 2k words would be a step forward for everyone.

Hell, if I had my way I would set it to a full Lit page but I guess 2k is less of a shock for authors who are used to writing scenes rather than stories.

The first story I published here on Lit was 1523 words. I'd written more than a dozen like it, all for my wife, and she encouraged me to publish them here.

At the time, 1.5k words felt almost a novel. The other stories ranged from 800 words to perhaps 2.5k. If Lit's threshold was a full page, or even 2k words, I'd never have submitted that story in the first place. It would have been too daunting.

I'm probably not the only one. 750 words is low enough that it beginning writers can give it a try. Setting a higher minimum is gatekeepery enough that it will keep out anyone who isn't already used to writing fiction.

Will it keep the number of story submissions? Probably. But Lit's entire model is based on inviting everyone to read and write. At its heart, it's also about sex stories. If the site was to set rules, it should ban stories that don't feature lots of sex. Those 50k character-driven pieces where no-one even feels a boob until half way through. That makes as much sense, or perhaps even more.

For myself, I like to think I've become a better writer just from being able to publish here, and I'm very happy that there isn't a higher minimum word count.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Aren't those just arbitrary as well? The British Science Fiction Awards, to name one, use different definitions: shorter fiction is up to 10,000 words, short fiction is between 10,001 and 40,000, and novels are 40,001+. And it wasn't that long ago that the editor of Locus was calling for SFWA to re-categorize short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels based on principles of storytelling rather than strictly word counts.

At least the 750-word challenge is pinned to a particular piece of technical reasoning.

Edit: I also think it's very worth making a distinction between short stories and 750-word challenge stories. Short- or micro-fiction is one thing. I can definitely see how requiring 2,000 words would turn off people who have stories they want to tell but aren't comfortable writing. The point, though, of the 750-word challenge is to be at exactly the minimum allowed word count. A 751-word story will get rejected. It's not necessarily new-writer-friendly, or intended to be; it is a technical challenge of authorial craft. I think that's a separate consideration from what the minimum allowable word length ought to be and how that would affect new writers, you know?

I also disagree with difficulty being linked to the time the task takes. It took me all day last summer to paint the exterior windowsills on my house. It took my wife a little less than 30 minutes to complete a wet-on-wet oil painting of a seashore using only a palette knife. God knows that's a lot harder, but the nature of the technique means it's either done quickly or not done at all, because once the paint starts to dry you're done.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The first story I published here on Lit was 1523 words. I'd written more than a dozen like it, all for my wife, and she encouraged me to publish them here.

At the time, 1.5k words felt almost a novel. The other stories ranged from 800 words to perhaps 2.5k. If Lit's threshold was a full page, or even 2k words, I'd never have submitted that story in the first place. It would have been too daunting.

I'm probably not the only one. 750 words is low enough that it beginning writers can give it a try. Setting a higher minimum is gatekeepery enough that it will keep out anyone who isn't already used to writing fiction.

Will it keep the number of story submissions? Probably. But Lit's entire model is based on inviting everyone to read and write. At its heart, it's also about sex stories. If the site was to set rules, it should ban stories that don't feature lots of sex. Those 50k character-driven pieces where no-one even feels a boob until half way through. That makes as much sense, or perhaps even more.

For myself, I like to think I've become a better writer just from being able to publish here, and I'm very happy that there isn't a higher minimum word count.

I see where you are coming from. But I believe that if the limit were 2k words, you would have risen to the challenge anyway. It would have just taken some more time.

My first story was a chapter of 10k words. I am not drawing any conclusions based on my own example though.

 

[alohadave]

What I am implying is that Laurel's 750-word limit is completely arbitrary. She has every right to set it to whatever she wants; it's her site, of course. Also, no matter what we discuss here, it has zero relevance for Literotica. It's only for us to debate and exchange opinions. Just saying because some people get edgy about these things for some weird reason.

Anyway:

View attachment 2501325
Authors with some credit to their names set this limit. I see no 750 words here and I see that all up to 7.5k words counts as a short story. Just proving that 750 words is a completely arbitrary limit.

Of course it's arbitrary. Why is a lit page 3750 words? Because 15 pages of double spaced, typewritten text comes out to 3750 words. They could have chosen 2000 words or 10000 words for a page length.

There is no technical reason for 750 word minimums besides it's what they thought was a good lower limit.

Word counts below 2000 words is commonly called flash in other places. If we were submitting stories for Nebula awards, that list would be meaningful. Here it doesn't mean anything. Don't think for a minute that the word limits in the list aren't arbitrary as well.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Aren't those just arbitrary as well?

Are they really? Those are limits set by a consensus of successful authors. Other authors' organizations might have their own limitations and those are just as valid. But this is a limit set by Laurel. I am certainly not going to put the same weight on her opinion. The 750-word limitation gives me the impression of a story-number promoting strategy that ran its course long ago.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Word counts below 2000 words is commonly called flash in other places.

Hah, I didn't even know that when I came up with the 2k word limit. Death to flash!

Don't think for a minute that the word limits in the list aren't arbitrary as well.

They probably are in part. But let's not give the same weight (in this kind of discussion) to one website owner's opinion and the opinion of an organization of accomplished authors.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Are they really? Those are limits set by a consensus of successful authors. Other authors' organizations might have their own limitations and those are just as valid. But this is a limit set by Laurel. I am certainly not going to put the same weight on her opinion. The 750-word limitation gives me the impression of a story-number promoting strategy that ran its course long ago.

Well, yeah. Just because they're set by consensus doesn't mean they're not arbitrary. Outside the world of science fiction, what makes a story a short story is hotly debated, and everyone from Faulkner to Poe to Chekhov has weighed in with different, often contradictory definitions. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory doesn't make any distinction between a 'novella' and a 'novelette', grouping both under the category of 'short novel'. And the entry for 'short story' begins: "When it comes to classification this is one of the most elusive forms. It is doubtful, anyway, whether classification is helpful. Certainly there seems to be little point in measuring it.' It goes on to to include both Kleist's Das Bettelweib von Locarno, a work of 800 words, and D.H. Lawrence's The Fox, which comes in at about 30,000, as short stories. And the majority of the writing on the theory of short stories doesn't reference word count at all; it's mostly commentary on Poe's idea that the story should be able to be read in a single sitting, whatever its length, and that the key feature of the short story is its total focus on a single effect.

 

[alohadave]

But let's not give the same weight (in this kind of discussion) to one website owner's opinion and the opinion of an organization of accomplished authors.

Why not? We aren't submitting sci-fi stories for Nebula awards, so why would their classification have any bearing here? Lit doesn't even have any kind of story length classification, so comparing to trad publishing standards is kind of silly.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Why not? We aren't submitting sci-fi stories for Nebula awards, so why would their classification have any bearing here? Lit doesn't even have any kind of story length classification, so comparing to trad publishing standards is kind of silly.

I guess you could argue that it does -- there's a Novels and Novellas category. Though on the other hand you have The Island in I&T as a single part sitting at like 41k words, and the probably-a-million-ish words of Home for Horny Monsters in Non-Human in serialized form. There's even stuff like AsnyLark's story Pining, which was published in the Anal category before being withdrawn and sold on Kindle as a novel-length ebook. So the existence of that category is somewhat confusing to me.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Just to be clear. I don't have a problem with 750 words. I've often wondered why they chose such a weird number. Why not a flat 1000? Either way, who cares. I don't have a problem with the minimum. I just don't like the challenge as it floods the site with spam stories that otherwise wouldn't get written. As pointed out in this thread, 750 words is not common at all the other 11 months of the year and we all seem to know that 750-worders score poorly, so there is no real incentive to purposely write them. So what is the issue here? The challenge is an opportunity for attention whores to get their name linked onto a promo page multiple times with little to no effort on their own behalf. It's a straight up abusive exploit of the system.

It's too bad to those who genuinely submit one or two per year in the true spirit of the challenge. i wrote one last year myself. But the 750 challenge is heavily abused by those gaming the system and it's a royal pain in the cunt for everyone else waiting 2 and 3 weeks to get their work approved this time of year when it should take 2 or 3 days, just so that a bunch of folks can say "Look at ME!! Look at ME!!"

750 words is fine. The challenge has to go.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

This seems like a pretty classic Chesterton's Fence to me.


I absolutely do not admit this.

I thought I was the only one who still threw Chesterton's Fence into casual conversation. This is exciting!

 

[YmaOHyd]

I thought I was the only one who still threw Chesterton's Fence into casual conversation. This is exciting!

Well, I was going to stop doing it, but then I figured I'd better examine closely why I'd started using it in the first place.

 

[gunhilltrain]

This seems like a pretty classic Chesterton's Fence to me.

I'm impressed. I don't remember anybody using that analogy on AH before. This has been one of the more fraught threads on here.

https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/...2023_10/f_mo_lon_gazaborder_231007-zhzpb1.jpg

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I'm impressed. I don't remember anybody using that analogy on AH before. This has been one of the more fraught threads on here.

https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/...2023_10/f_mo_lon_gazaborder_231007-zhzpb1.jpg

Except that this is not at all a Chesterton's Fence argument. Chesterton's Fence assumes that those against have not thought through their argument, yet it is very clear from those in this thread opposed to the challenge, that it is fully understood why the fence is there and have made a more than sound case (even if one does not agree with the arguments, they are more than fair) for why it no longer serves and should be removed.

On top of that, it seems that the only people still in favor of the challenge are those who wish to use it for how it has been abused - that is easy-peasy eyeballs on your catalog, which even further proves how this particular fence no longer serves us well at all.

 

[YmaOHyd]

That's... pretty disrespectful.

 

[PennyThompson]

On top of that, it seems that the only people still in favor of the challenge are those who wish to use it for how it has been abused - that is easy-peasy eyeballs on your catalog, which even further proves how this particular fence no longer serves us well at all.

That seems very disingenuous and in bad faith, I think you're claiming false consensus here

It's too bad to those who genuinely submit one or two per year in the true spirit of the challenge. i wrote one last year myself.

So if you accept that there is a "true spirit of the challenge," maybe a less destructive position would be to suggest some tweaks to the format that would reconnect with that spirit?

For example, I'm personally not opposed to limiting the number of submissions a person can make to the challenge each year.

That seems reasonable and would constrain participants to putting more effort into fewer stories, and really try to embrace the art of the flash fiction format