Length of Story

[galaxygoddess]

This has been rattling around in my head for years, and I'm just going to ask it.

Generally speaking, how long (in a word processing program) is a good length for a story?


I usually wind up with 8 pages, and my readers (on thatawfulwowporno) ask for longer, so I started trying for 15 pages and my readers seemed to appreciate that. This is a little difficult for me to do, since I write a situational series. It's really based on what scenes I want to add, what I've got going on in my head, and quite frankly, what I'm trying to do in real life. (Granted, "For the Whored" is thousands of pages by this point).

I've been told before "a story is as long as it takes to write it", or "how many words needed are how many you should use". But these seem kind of vague.


On a secondary question, what's the longest story you've ever written, and at what point do you say: "this is getting too long, I should break it into parts"?

When I write a "long" story, I try to break it up into segments that make sense. For "My Little Fairy" I broke it up along the day. A day was a story.


Finally, I went digging through the FAQs and I could not find an answer, but what is the maximum word limit for a story submission to lit?

I'm working on a new story (one that is frustrating me, but I digress), but I have no idea how long or short it may wind up, or if I'll even post it to lit, but it's already turning into a bit of a beast. (it may, at this point, just be a practice piece no one sees)

 

[KeithD]

Gee, has it been even a week since we've hashed this out?

"As long as it takes to tell the story" isn't vague at all. It's putting a number to such a question that's ridiculous.

No, there's no "too long" established for a story--or even a single entry--at Literotica that I know of. To meet contest requirements, I've jammed novel-length works into one entry here and they've been posted--one of them even won a contest.

 

[NotWise]

Similar questions have been asked and discussed on the forum recently.

Finally, I went digging through the FAQs and I could not find an answer, but what is the maximum word limit for a story submission to lit?

There is no maximum limit. People have posted epic-scale novels as single publications.

My longest stories are novellas -- a little over 30,000 words. I posted a longer story in parts when I first started here. Since then, I've only posted stories in parts when they weren't originally intended as long stories and ended up being written in parts.

 

[galaxygoddess]

Similar questions have been asked and discussed on the forum recently.



There is no maximum limit. People have posted epic-scale novels as single publications.

My longest stories are novellas -- a little over 30,000 words. I posted a longer story in parts when I first started here. Since then, I've only posted stories in parts when they weren't originally intended as long stories and ended up being written in parts.

I'm sorry, I didn't see them when I was browsing.

Holy shniky, that's a long story for what I was thinking. I guess I'm clear


At that rate I could have posted Aquarius. *shrug*

Thank you.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Hey, the reason that we have records is so that people can try to break them. Have at it, go for 50 Lit pages! Coffee breaks and naps are permitted.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

Hey, the reason that we have records is so that people can try to break them. Have at it, go for 50 Lit pages! Coffee breaks and naps are permitted.

I'd assume coffee and naps would be required for something like that... Either that or your muse is a pissed-off DeNiro!

 

[jaF0]

I'm sorry, I didn't see them when I was browsing.

The most recent of several was still at the bottom of the first page just now: https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1515299

My reply on other previous ones was along the lines of : If it appears to be more than 3-4 pages, I don't even start. If I do and it doesn't grab me in the first 3-4 paragraphs, I don't continue.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Lower word limit = 750 words, unless it's poetry.

Upper limit = there isn't one. The biggest single submission I've seen (not read) was over 80 Lit pages (about 250,000 words).

Talking about Word pages is meaningless, really, but one Lit page is about 3,750 words, give or take (20,000 characters looks like the maximum data bin size).

A useful rule of thumb (every time this comes up) is that 3 - 4 Lit pages is an optimum chapter size for multi-chapter works.

But to constrain yourself in a standalone story by a word count is just silly. A story needs only as many words as it needs to tell the story - but yes, some could be little tighter .

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Lower word limit = 750 words, unless it's poetry.

Upper limit = there isn't one. The biggest single submission I've seen (not read) was over 80 Lit pages (about 250,000 words).

Talking about Word pages is meaningless, really, but one Lit page is about 3,750 words, give or take (20,000 characters looks like the maximum data bin size).

A useful rule of thumb (every time this comes up) is that 3 - 4 Lit pages is an optimum chapter size for multi-chapter works.

But to constrain yourself in a standalone story by a word count is just silly. A story needs only as many words as it needs to tell the story - but yes, some could be little tighter .

Actually, there is an upper limit set by the column size in the database, currently it's about 200 gigabytes or 2 billion characters.

I would go along with "as long as it takes to tell the story."

I have several that are over 80,000 words long. I also have several that are only 3,000 words long. I have a whole bunch that are between those.

Then I have one that is 110,000 words long.

Most of my stories are between two and three lit pages long. I don't plan them that way, it just works out that way. I have never planned a story on word length. I wrote until I was finished telling the story.

In some cases I then broke it up into parts and published here. A few I posted the entire thing. Some complained about the length, others didn't.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Actually, there is an upper limit set by the column size in the database, currently it's about 200 gigabytes or 2 billion characters.

Useful to know for my next really, really, really long story...









... the really, really, really long one .

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Useful to know for my next really, really, really long story...









... the really, really, really long one .

I have been out of the database business for quite sometime for all I know, the upper limit is now the size of the disk the record will be written too. When I left the business, they were talking about a 400 gigabyte column length. It wouldn't surprise me if it was now up to 800.

 

[UsuallyPresent]

I have been out of the database business for quite sometime for all I know, the upper limit is now the size of the disk the record will be written too. When I left the business, they were talking about a 400 gigabyte column length. It wouldn't surprise me if it was now up to 800.

with Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft all having online storage for rent, and databases having sharding and other related technologies available, the upper end of storage is "how much do you want to pay?"

 

[BelleCanzuto]

My shortest stories are roughly a Lit Page, around 3500 words.
My longest currently published story is about 20,000 words. It's 8 (i think) Lit pages, all one submission.
I'm currently polishing a story that's about 42,000 (probably will be a little less after the final edits). I'm planning to break it up in to three parts, so each section is around 3 Lit pages, and I'll submit them at the same time for Laurel to post on her preferred timeline.

Personally - I'd rather read one story that's a few pages than read three one page stories in the same series. ymmv, of course.

 

[SimonDoom]

Not only is there no maximum limit, but very long stories published as a single story often do very well. One of the most popular all time stories in the BDSM category, in terms of both score and views, is Culture Shock. It's 36 Lit pages long. That's over 120,000 words, the length of a full-size novel. It has received nearly one million views, over 3200 votes, and a score over 4.8.

 

[Hypoxia]

I'm too lazy to look up my answer from last week but it went something like:

• A story should be just as long as it needs to be told, give or take a little.
• No matter what you write and how much, some will love it, some will hate it, and most won't notice.
• You're not getting paid so write to please yourself. If pleasing others pleases you, fine.

The minimum story length is 750 words; poems can be shorter. If 750 are too many words, pull an Ogg and write fifteen 50-word stories bundled in one submission. Fifty 15-word stories would work, too. WARNING: Many readers feel cheated by short-shorts, say a submission under 3k words. Expect some slings and arrows there.

 

[FifthEstate]

I do wonder if story length becomes more of a factor, now that the reading time is indicated in on the new Story-page.

I had this same concern. I tend to write longer chapters/stories and wonder if readership will go down based on perceived length of read time.

 

[FifthEstate]

Lower word limit = 750 words, unless it's poetry.

Upper limit = there isn't one. The biggest single submission I've seen (not read) was over 80 Lit pages (about 250,000 words).

Talking about Word pages is meaningless, really, but one Lit page is about 3,750 words, give or take (20,000 characters looks like the maximum data bin size).

A useful rule of thumb (every time this comes up) is that 3 - 4 Lit pages is an optimum chapter size for multi-chapter works.

But to constrain yourself in a standalone story by a word count is just silly. A story needs only as many words as it needs to tell the story - but yes, some could be little tighter .

I see in your post there is a suggested optimal lit pages of 3-4 for multi-chapter stories, which makes sense. I am winding down work on the 7th chapter of a multi story. It is already at 23k words and counting. My experience would put that at 7-8 Lit pages. If I chose to make two chapters out of it, does anyone have strong opinion of how that affects favorites, views, and votes? Also, any thoughts on posting on same day, next day or next week. I don’t think I’d want to wait a week as some readers might the “1/2” chapter is missing the rest. I have a pretty natural place I can break it, but it still might be perceived as needing the second half to be truly good.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I see in your post there is a suggested optimal lit pages of 3-4 for multi-chapter stories, which makes sense. I am winding down work on the 7th chapter of a multi story. It is already at 23k words and counting. My experience would put that at 7-8 Lit pages. If I chose to make two chapters out of it, does anyone have strong opinion of how that affects favorites, views, and votes? Also, any thoughts on posting on same day, next day or next week. I don’t think I’d want to wait a week as some readers might the “1/2” chapter is missing the rest. I have a pretty natural place I can break it, but it still might be perceived as needing the second half to be truly good.

If the chapter is internally coherent and integrated, I wouldn't split it "just because someone said three Lit pages is a good idea." I'd do a chapter split based on the needs of the chapter, not on some notional "best" length. 3 - 4 pages is a handy rule of thumb if your chapter themes are much the same and it doesn't really matter where you break, but I'd always put the needs of the chapter first.

Besides, at chapter seven, only those who are committed to your story are still reading, so it really doesn't matter - they won't care. If it was the second or third chapter, different length strategies might work because that's where you want to keep views; but by chapter three, that's usually the reader base for the whole thing. By chapter seven, they're in your hands.

Posting gap? Depends on category, I think; and it also depends how you're writing it. If you're posting as you go, you need to keep up with the pace you first set; but if you're writing the whole thing first, then submitting, the gap probably should take into account total length, how rapidly stories fall off the category front page.

I've done it both ways - I have a shaggy dog yarn with twenty or so chapters that I released as I went along, over about six months; and I have a novel length work of thirteen chapters that I submitted all at the same time, and Laurel set a 24 hour release clock for each chapter.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Actually, there is an upper limit set by the column size in the database, currently it's about 200 gigabytes or 2 billion characters.

If it's longer than that, you gotta break it into chapters.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I had this same concern. I tend to write longer chapters/stories and wonder if readership will go down based on perceived length of read time.

Well, speaking from experience, I’ve got one or two lengthy stories (20-30 Literotica pages) and I don’t see any drop off in readership on those as compared to shorter ones. I always add a note at the start telling readers if it’s going to be a long one - some readers don’t like long ones so I give them the choice. Seems to work fine, I don’t get any bitching about the length.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

with Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft all having online storage for rent, and databases having sharding and other related technologies available, the upper end of storage is "how much do you want to pay?"

Data storage might be unlimited, but column size isn't.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

It would appear that I have been away from databases for far too long...

There are now columns way, way, longer than when I left.

Maximum size: (4 GB - 1) * DB_BLOCK_SIZE initialization parameter (8 TB to 128 TB)

This is for LOB columns.

But I'm pretty sure Lit isn't using any LOB columns... but who knows.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I have been out of the database business for quite sometime for all I know, the upper limit is now the size of the disk the record will be written too. When I left the business, they were talking about a 400 gigabyte column length. It wouldn't surprise me if it was now up to 800.

Oooooooooh. I now have a new story lengthy goal she says excitedly. I better get the monkeys lined up at the keyboards....

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Write as long or as close to Lits minamum requirment as you want. If you want to cater to readers, you might go crazy. Or ruin a story stretching to please them. They shod just be thankfull you're giving them something to read.

 

[SimonDoom]

I see in your post there is a suggested optimal lit pages of 3-4 for multi-chapter stories, which makes sense. I am winding down work on the 7th chapter of a multi story. It is already at 23k words and counting. My experience would put that at 7-8 Lit pages. If I chose to make two chapters out of it, does anyone have strong opinion of how that affects favorites, views, and votes? Also, any thoughts on posting on same day, next day or next week. I don’t think I’d want to wait a week as some readers might the “1/2” chapter is missing the rest. I have a pretty natural place I can break it, but it still might be perceived as needing the second half to be truly good.

Ignore the word length of the chapter. Focus instead on what EB said: is it coherent and integrated? One other consideration would be whether the chapter, standing on its own, delivers what readers of that category of story are looking for. I assume you are referring to your interracial series. It would make no sense to split a 23,000 word chapter into two chapters if as a result only one of those chapters had interracial content.