Long story versus Multi-Part. Which is Best

[jjsharshaw]

I find myself writing longer stories (which may or may not be a good thing) but I am enjoying what I'm doing. I guess I'm developing the "Bob Ross-put-a-happy-little-tree-here-and-oh-maybe another-one-there-and-how-about-a-happy-little-cloud-too" school of writing. Watching Bob Ross paint was very relaxing, perhaps therapeutic, may he rest in peace.

But I digress.

My question is this: should I post a story in-toto, no matter what the length, or should I break it into pieces so that the resultant post is never more than two web pages long?

I posted my first multi-part story recently, "Transference" (here's the link for the first of four parts)

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=110537

I've received excellent voting on 3 of the 4 parts but I've noticed that the views, by the time the final part was posted were roughly 1/6th of the views of the 1st part.

Should I have posted it in its entirety and faced a potential lower voting total (because of an "apparently" weak 2d part) but had more overall views or was breaking it up the right thing to do, damn the voting and the views?

What says the editorial board?

Thanks

Jubal JS Harshaw,
a nom de plume et guerre

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Hi jjsharshaw,

I am not exactly positive but I think the question actualy belongs on a different board. You may recieve more response.

To be brief, I will read a long story if it is good and enjoy it more from finish to end.
Seldom will I start to read a story that has several parts unless it has been completed. I like to read the end, and too often the end is never posted, or the posted sections do not match.
If you are in it for the multiple views and fast votes smaller sections seem to work. If you are in it for quality, post it as a long story. Many people do look for this, It just takes longer as they do not read 5 long stories in a day.

Just what I think, because that is my likes. Consider what works best for you while at war with you feather.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I just glanced at your story, but I think I may have found part of your problem, and your analogy with the Bob Ross school of add-a-tree-wherever style of painting is pretty much on the money.

In short, you have too many one-sentence paragraphs. Excerpt:
--------------------------
She was tall and lean.

She had medium long blond hair styled in a pageboy that framed a classically oval, beautiful face.

After 14 years of marriage and two children everything that was supposed to be firm and toned was still that way - with the help of a gym and a personal trainer three times a week.

Her husband was a successful contractor and they lived well in a large house in a gated suburban community.

She was active in their church, taught Sunday school, lead a women's Bible study and volunteered for several charities.

Everyone liked Kara; Kara was nice to everyone, which was unusual for a woman in her position.

And she never saw it coming.
--------------------------------
This isn't writing, it's listing. All these statements are describing her; they should make up one paragraph. You take 7 paragraphs to say what should be said in one.

The result of writing like this is going to appear to be a very long story in terms of space, but probably an average-sized story (2-3 pages) by word count. I would estimate that better paragraph construction would reduce the apparant length of the story considerably and may eliminate this problem entirely.

If it doesn't, then you have to make an authorial judgment as to whether the story makes more sense as one single story or as a series of chapters. Usually, if the story naturally falls into a series of episodes, that is, a series of dramas within the story, each with its own climax, then you're justified in cutting it into chapters. If the story has only one real climax, then you're better off keeping it as one long story. No one wants to read a chapter that has no dramatic payoff, but only serves to set up the climax way over in chapter 4 or 5.

But I would really look at your writing with an eye for what you can cut out to make it shorter. Over-writing is a common disease, simply because we automatically feel that the best way to fix a story is by adding to it when, more often than not, the opposite is the case. Writing is as much a matter of what you leave out as it is what you put in. Everything you add to a story more or less dilutes the central plot, and everything you remove serves to make what's left more important.

I'm being pretty general here, because I haven't read the whole story, but that Bob Ross analogy is all too familiar. I've never seen his show (I have seen some of his books though), but I know the disease. More isn't always better.

---dr.M.

 

[jjsharshaw]

I just glanced at your story, but I think I may have found part of your problem, and your analogy with the Bob Ross school of add-a-tree-wherever style of painting is pretty much on the money.

****

In short, you have too many one-sentence paragraphs. Excerpt:
This isn't writing, it's listing. All these statements are describing her; they should make up one paragraph. You take 7 paragraphs to say what should be said in one.

The result of writing like this is going to appear to be a very long story in terms of space, but probably an average-sized story (2-3 pages) by word count. I would estimate that better paragraph construction would reduce the apparant length of the story considerably and may eliminate this problem entirely.

---dr.M.

Thank you for your insights, doc. You are of course correct in your dissection - were we discussing a book or a magazine article. However, we are discussing a different media that has its own form. And a differently "trained" audience.

There is no paragraph structure nor, in my style of writing for radio, syntax or punctuation. The listener's ear must translate what it hears. Similarly, on a scrolling web page, the reader's hand and eyes work differently in assimilating information.

Paragraphs must be shorter, sometimes verbs must be sacrificed and comma's and semi-colon's used differently than cited in the AP's Rules of Style.

Were I to remove the space between your two quoted paragraphs above (beginning with "In short" and ending in "problem entirely"), making one block, unless I was deeply enthralled in the subject matter or I knew you and enjoyed your work I would tend to simply skip over the content and likely ignore it entirely. The block is too long for my sight and attention. So I list as you have pointed out. And I am comfortable using the technique in this media.

So your comments now pose another question in my mind - whether to "underwrite" and block paragraphs according to paper media rules of style to have a shorter story for the sake of style or whether to say "screw it" and follow the evolving rules of this media. Hell, even make up rules as I go. (You did fail to point out the most glaring of my paper medium mistakes with the piece you excerpted: describing the woman at all through narration rather than through dialogue - assuming it was even NECESSARY to describe her to move the story forward in the first place.)

I do appreciate your comments on each part having a climax versus working to one in a far off part. This was the clarification of thought I was looking for when I presented my original question.

My apologies if I posted in the wrong board. My thanks to A7inchPhildo's input.

And while Bob Ross, may he rest in peace, does take a lot of abuse from the lords of style, it is an inescapable fact that even in death, Mr. Ross has quite a following and even from the grave can still raise money for PBS by his painting and writing. <smile>

While more isn't always better it has seemed to work well for Vonnegut, Heinlein and Thompson (Hunter S.) and, as I have to continue to point out to a literary friend in London, sometimes it's just fun to break the rules and annoy people while pleasing a few readers.

Thanks!

- Jubal JS Harshaw

 

[jjsharshaw]

There is no paragraph structure nor, in my style of writing for radio, syntax or punctuation. The listener's ear must translate what it hears. Similarly, on a scrolling web page, the reader's hand and eyes work differently in assimilating information.

Paragraphs must be shorter, sometimes verbs must be sacrificed and comma's and semi-colon's used differently than cited in the AP's Rules of Style.

Um, just to clear about the reader's hand and eyes work differently on a scrolling web page, many people call it many different things but I was NOT referring to getting off whilst reading. Rather I was referring to what I call "60 cycle fatigue"; looking at a computer monitor for so long during surfing tends to be more visually and mentally fatiguing than reading a page in a book that isn't moving at 60 frames per second.

JJSH

 

[Singularity]

Slicing Up Long Stories

I find that I can't write anything that is shorter than about 3-4 (or more) Lit pages. I think most readers' tolerance for story length is right about there, or maybe (pushing it) to 5-6 Lit pages.

Beyond that, and the time and discipline to read to the end, unless you are on the edge of your seat with one hand tightly gripping the Object of Your Desire fades fast.

I presently have a story that is about 100 MS Word pages, (or about 15-20 Lit pages) that I am going to unleash on the world. I plan to divide it up into at least 3-5 chapters, so as to not tire out the readers.

Part of what makes this work for me, but perhaps not for others, is that I tend to write "episodic" stories that don't suffer much from being separated into distinct chapters that are posted at a reasonable interval.

A tightly-packed story with an intricate plot would not do as well, perhaps, when divided up.


S.

 

[HawaiiBill]

There are no rules ... that I can find.

What says the editorial board?

Unless I'm missing something important, there isn't one. But as a long-time editor and writer on many publications, what's really missing is a clear editorial direction from the publishers. I think that's commendable, by the way.

The enormous offering in Literotica tosses up every possible variant of English usage. Somewhere up there, above this post, a reference is made to the AP Manual of Style, an ironclad -- with good reason -- collection of "Thou shalls" and "Thou shall nots."

At one time when we still had only 48 stars in the flag, I was an editor with United Press International and, if you want to sit still for it, I can tell you in detail all the good reasons for proper style. White and Strunk's Elements of Style can do it better.
The bottom line is respect for the reader. It's just that simple.

While writers are very quick to say "to hell with the rules, I'm an artist," not that many readers are ready to plod through ungrammatical, misspelled poorly punctuated copy that -- too often -- turns out to be drivel anyway. So "style" is merely a set of rules set by the publisher to make the read consistent from one writer to the next.

The Associated Press is so strict because they are a membership of virtually every newspaper and most broadcast newsrooms in the nation and, for that matter, the world. Their style book serves the world, in other words, and I'm so bold to suggest that as a writer in Literotica or for The New York Times, you would do well to follow it.

For the sake of your readers.

I'm a volunteer editor for Literotica. I do not impose any style on the writers I am asked to help. The reason for that is simple, Laurel and Manu haven't set a style. This is their web site, not mine, and that makes them the publishers.

What they have created on some very large computer somewhere is an enormous set of expression about sexual experience and fantasy. They make Kinsey look like the piker many think he was. As long as you make your hero and his or her playmates 18 or older and don't let them fuck the family pooch, you can write anything you want and most folks have.

I do put proper punctuation and grammar in my writers' work and I make recommendations about changes that make sense to me. But I tell them the changes are merely suggestions. I do not make any decisions about posting the stories. I've only had one writer seriously question that attitude and if I could have made sense of the accompanying note it might have made a good point. If you get my drift, there.

Let this web site be what it is, a wide-open posting place for people who have a full range of talent and capacity to thrill or bore their readers. The readers have good sense. If they don't like a story, they can and do go on to another story. If they don't like long stories, there are plenty of short ones there. And if they don't like multi-part stories, so be it, stay with the single shots.

We can't and shouldn't put straight-jackets on this copious offering of human communication on this most basic function, sex.

Good to see these subjects discussed and it's also good to see the proprietors of the joint letting us rant about a function that is totally in their control, as it should be!

Aloha from the middle of the Pacific Ocean

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Thank you for your insights, doc. You are of course correct in your dissection - were we discussing a book or a magazine article. However, we are discussing a different media that has its own form. And a differently "trained" audience.

My attitude is, that as long as you're aware of what you're doing and it's a conscious style choice on your part, then you should go with it and more power to you. That's how style evolves. I would therefore withdraw all my criticisms in that regard.

I happened to be looking over my stuff the other day. ("Happened to be." Right.) I have a novella up that I posted in one chunk as a novella, I also have a novella that was posted in chapter installments, one every couple of weeks or so. There is a difference in how the voting and viewing went.

The one-chunk novella has fewer views and a higher score than any of the chapters of the serialized work. I don't think the quality is that different between the two pieces, so I attribute this to the type of reader who's attracted to a single, long work as opposed to a serialized one. I think you get more serious and dedicated readers with the novella form. On the other hand, there are fewer of them.

It's too bad that 'novella' is a story category on Lit when it's obviously a form, not a subject, so that probably screws things up too.

Bottom line? Beats me. If you're like most people here, you probably thrive on reader feedback. It takes a lot of dedication to write a 20-30K word novella and hold it back till it's all finished and then not know how it'll be received. I'm working on another novella now, and I'm posting it in chapters. The feedback keeps me going.

---dr.M.

 

[Singularity]

Novellas and Such

I agree with Dr. M that Novellas is a format and not a genre or type like the other categories.

I write (so far) exclusively BDSM material, and even if it was very long, I would not put a BDSM story in Novellas. I want the BDSM readers to find it.

I think that Novellas should be an optional, SECOND category for a story. If I write a BDSM opus of a 20+ Lit pages, I would want it listed in BDSM and also in Novellas.

That seems to fit both the genre and format classifications.

I'll probably do it in chapters, though, like the Dr.


S.