Long form versus short chapter based stories. What's your preference?

[TheRedChamber]

I didn't know George R. R. Martin posted here...

It's entirely possible that GRRM finished Winds of Winter a decade ago, but no one noticed because he published it in Letters and Transcripts.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Lit can handle huge submissions. The longest single submission I've seen was 80 or so Lit pages, about 300,000 words.

My longest here is 81 pages (177,973 words)

 

[Tomh1966]

I’m really trying to work it out. I think my longer (30k plus words) works seem to put some readers off. But those who read them seem to rate them highly. I just experimented with splitting a 20k word work into chapters. More views, but the people who stay to the end tails off.

Hard to know really.

Em

RE highly rated: Crappy writers tend to write sub 3K word stories. (Note that I am not saying sub 3K word stories all suck.) There are exceptions, but 30K word stories tend to be well written by talented people, even if I hate the story. I've waded through some bumblingfool stories 50K+. LOVED a few and hated one. The one I hated was still very well written.

Poorly written 'I was walking along and my wife fell on a forty-inch long black dick and I started to cum!' stories tend to be 3k words or less.

I have a couple of long ones where I am doing the part/ subchapter division thing to give people places to take a break and easily find their way back.

 

[alohadave]

It's entirely possible that GRRM finished Winds of Winter a decade ago, but no one noticed because he published it in Letters and Transcripts.

Now I'm imaging that every time he says he's working on the book that he posts it to some obscure website under an alt as fan fiction.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

RE highly rated: Crappy writers tend to write sub 3K word stories. (Note that I am not saying sub 3K word stories all suck.) There are exceptions, but 30K word stories tend to be well written by talented people, even if I hate the story. I've waded through some bumblingfool stories 50K+. LOVED a few and hated one. The one I hated was still very well written.

Poorly written 'I was walking along and my wife fell on a forty-inch long black dick and I started to cum!' stories tend to be 3k words or less.

I have a couple of long ones where I am doing the part/ subchapter division thing to give people places to take a break and easily find their way back.

Glad you called out that not all <3K stories suck.
It is a totally different skill set to write short stories versus epic fiction and doing both will only help your skill set.

Tostoy is best known for War and Peace(587,287 words), but his short stories are brilliant.
If you're looking for something outside our little ecosystem, I'd suggest picking up an anthology.

 

[Tomh1966]

Glad you called out that not all <3K stories suck.
It is a totally different skill set to write short stories versus epic fiction and doing both will only help your skill set.

Tostoy is best known for War and Peace(587,287 words), but his short stories are brilliant.
If you're looking for something outside our little ecosystem, I'd suggest picking up an anthology.

I would never say that all 3K stories suck and I have read many good ones. I was just pointing out that most poorly written 'wife falls on a dick' stories are very short.

 

[StillStunned]

I would never say that all 3K stories suck and I have read many good ones. I was just pointing out that most poorly written 'wife falls on a dick' stories are very short.

Well, of course. No need for all that boring backstory and character stuff. Just get right to the action.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I would never say that all 3K stories suck and I have read many good ones. I was just pointing out that most poorly written 'wife falls on a dick' stories are very short.

Yup. Lack of imagination does lead to brevity, but eloquence often suffers the same fate.

 

[Gamblnluck]

The heading pretty much says it all. What's your preference? Not just writing, but also reading.

Personally, I prefer longer formats as it allows me to get completely enmeshed in the story. Also, writing short chapter based stuff is honestly quite difficult for me.
I guess I just don't think that way. The few I've tried, I find that each chapter needs to be a complete story in and of itself or I'm not satisfied with it.

Reading short chapter based stuff, unless I come across a completed series, is a challenge, too. I find I have to go back and re-read earlier chapters to get back into the story, and something that does more harm than good as I get bored with something I've already read.

I tend to agree. I personally hate to read short one page chapters. Generally, you don't even get the setting and it ends. Then by the time the next chapter is posted, you have to go back and read the first. Even if they are posted a day or 2 apart. I tell those authors to combine their chapters.
I find a very long story equally daunting and sometimes it was broken up into chapters of appropriate length. For me that is easier with an online media. I don't have a page to dogear or slip in a bookmark.
One of my stories is 36 chapters long.

 

[ronde]

The heading pretty much says it all. What's your preference? Not just writing, but also reading.

Personally, I prefer longer formats as it allows me to get completely enmeshed in the story. Also, writing short chapter based stuff is honestly quite difficult for me.
I guess I just don't think that way. The few I've tried, I find that each chapter needs to be a complete story in and of itself or I'm not satisfied with it.

Reading short chapter based stuff, unless I come across a completed series, is a challenge, too. I find I have to go back and re-read earlier chapters to get back into the story, and something that does more harm than good as I get bored with something I've already read.

I'm torn between the formats as well. I have a couple stories that are about 60k words and will be around 20 pages on Literotica if published in full. I also have them broken into chapters and I'm debating with myself about how to publish them. I don't seem to have trouble keeping readers engaged with my normal story length of between 3k and 16k words, but I'm not sure about anything much longer.

When I wrote both long stories, I wrote the complete story as a series of "scenes" which then became possible chapters. Each "scene" has a plot that fits the overall plot of the story and each scene has an ending as well as a "hook" to hopefully coax the reader into reading the next chapter. One is without erotic content, but the other has a sex scene within each chapter. There's also a short "recap" of the prior chapter to help the reader remember the characters and what's happened before.

I also have several stories that are more "serials" than individual chapters, like most TV shows. I follow the same format for those, but I leave out the recap and do more on character introduction of the repeating characters.

 

[Gamblnluck]

So I’m sort of halfway between there, I suppose. All of my stories have the same main character, so it’s one overall series, but there are sub-series within them (one of which is finished, another I still have a few installments to write). But I try to make each one stand on its own, recapping the important information for the reader.

One problem with that is you as the author see the progression of the story. A new reader will have to look for where to start. sifting by submission dates is a pain. With a couple of chapters etc, not a problem but as you go on, later action will appear in the middle.
ex. "John's Addiction- day at the spa" will appear before "John's addiction-hooked on sex".

 

[Gamblnluck]

When I wrote both long stories, I wrote the complete story as a series of "scenes" which then became possible chapters. Each "scene" has a plot that fits the overall plot of the story and each scene has an ending as well as a "hook" to hopefully coax the reader into reading the next chapter. One is without erotic content, but the other has a sex scene within each chapter. There's also a short "recap" of the prior chapter to help the reader remember the characters and what's happened before.

My advice would be to number the chapters and eliminate the recaps. I hate to read recaps in a story I am currently engaged in. It wastes time and space and is something a later reader will skim over. Sometimes a reminder can be entered into the dialog if it is crucial to the plot. "Remember when my Mom beat your ass for talking back to her when she gave you an order? I thought you learned your lesson not to....."

 

[Rob_Royale]

As a writer, I don't have a preference. I have both styles in my biography. The scope of the story decides the format.
As a reader, I will read either, but the story would have to be really good for me to devote time to Chapter 2 and onward.