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New Catagory

That’s not really the meaning of short stories. There is no ISO definition. But it’s maybe 3 - 10,000 words. Pre-novella. Or at least something like that.

Micro stories?

Emily
 
Stories under 750 words? What, the regular 750-word stories are too time-consuming? 😁

I mean, they are mostly crap as it is, but I guess a category for stories that fit on one napkin or one sheet of toilet paper makes sense. They would have a clear purpose, after all.
 
Just grabbed this from selfpublishing.org

  • Novel – at least 40,000 words, with the standard commercial length being around 80,000, though many novels are much longer
  • Novella – 17,5000-40,000 words
  • Novelette – 7,500-17,500 words
  • Short story– under 7,500 words
  • Flash fiction (also sometimes called microfiction, sudden fiction, very short story, and discussed in my previous post here) – up to 1000 words (sometimes up to 500 in the UK)
  • Vignette – “something that can be written on a vine leaf”, either prose or poetry (longer definition here at Vine Leaves Literary Journal, published by ALLI author member Jessica Bell)
  • Small stone – a tiny observational piece of prose or poetry (defined by ALLi author Satya Robyn on this blog here)
 
There are problems with creating categories like that one, including cannibalizing other categories and making things more confusing for readers, since, as the site currently exists, a story can only go in one category.

Think about it. You have three 1000 word stories, one involving incest, one anal, and another BDSM. Why would one put them all in the 1000 word story category as opposed to putting them in subject matter categories? Where are they more likely to be found by the readers who want to read them? I'm not sure there is much of a readership that wants to read stories spanning many different subject categories just because they are short.
 
DoctorSmith8 said:
It would be nice if Literotica added a category of "Short Stories". (Under 750 words)
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Traditionally, "short stories" go up to 20,000 words. The era of stories that length getting published is past, though. It's more like 5,000 words now.

But under 750 words as a category would be a dust bowl here. Literotica doesn't accept works under 750 words.
 
SimonDoom said:
There are problems with creating categories like that one, including cannibalizing other categories and making things more confusing for readers, since, as the site currently exists, a story can only go in one category.

Think about it. You have three 1000 word stories, one involving incest, one anal, and another BDSM. Why would one put them all in the 1000 word story category as opposed to putting them in subject matter categories? Where are they more likely to be found by the readers who want to read them? I'm not sure there is much of a readership that wants to read stories spanning many different subject categories just because they are short.
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Good point. I would love to see sub, or secondary categories. To be able to select Trans/CD and then Romance would give a very different vibe that Trans/CD and BDSM
 
The categories here are all kink-based and any new categories should be added on this axis. The categories are really for reader searching and readers search based on kink. I've even thought at times that Novels/Novellas shouldn't be a category as it divides stories along a second axis, but then I also understand that in N/N the stories often span several kinks and don't always focus on one as a main. Furthermore N/N stories main focus is usually plot and characters which separates them from the kink-centric shorts, so I can see how the N/N category does work.

Creating an uber-short category would be counter productive though, as it would be nearly impossible to create such a succinct vignette that focused on something that wasn't a specific kink. There's just not enough room for anything elaborate plot and character wise so it would have to center on a kink (or something non-erotic) and would easily just fit into one of the established categories.

If you have a 200 word vignette, just alter the formatting and submit it as a free verse poem. It worked for Bukowski.

I do think that there should be much more categories and more specific categories, or at least break the existing categories into sub-categories. LW could be divided into Sharing/Swinging, Cuckolding, Infidelity, BurntheBitch, etc ... Incest could be sub-divided into Mom/Son, Bro/Sis, Step/InLaw, ExtendedFam, etc ... BDSM could be divided into Dungeons/Punishment, Restraints, Servitude, etc ... This would make it much easier for authors to place their stories where they can be found by the right audience and reduce the political downvoting.

I also can't understand for the life of me why the site doesn't just list the word count right next to the title and description on the author's submissions page. How many times does one click on a story and then see "oh shit, 42k words, I don't have time for this today" ? This would reduce false hits and stupid easy to code it.
 
"Perfectly average length, according to an article I read online, and besides, it's how you use it" stories.
 
pink_silk_glove said:
The categories here are all kink-based and any new categories should be added on this axis. The categories are really for reader searching and readers search based on kink. I've even thought at times that Novels/Novellas shouldn't be a category as it divides stories along a second axis, but then I also understand that in N/N the stories often span several kinks and don't always focus on one as a main. Furthermore N/N stories main focus is usually plot and characters which separates them from the kink-centric shorts, so I can see how the N/N category does work.
Click to expand...

I agree. I don't see a reader need for such a category, and that's what matters.


I do think that there should be much more categories and more specific categories, or at least break the existing categories into sub-categories. LW could be divided into Sharing/Swinging, Cuckolding, Infidelity, BurntheBitch, etc ... Incest could be sub-divided into Mom/Son, Bro/Sis, Step/InLaw, ExtendedFam, etc ... BDSM could be divided into Dungeons/Punishment, Restraints, Servitude, etc ... This would make it much easier for authors to place their stories where they can be found by the right audience and reduce the political downvoting.
Click to expand...

There's a big downside to having too many categories. It's too much to manage, and too much for the reader to navigate. I see no reason to break apart incest into different categories. I see no push for that. Many incest readers like to read different kinds of incest stories.

There's a good case to be made for adding a Bisexual category, since that readership currently is underserved. If Loving Wives could be separated into two categories, one pro-sex outside marriage and one anti-, I think that might be a good idea, although I don't know if it's practical, given the 25 years of stories currently in that category, and I don't think it's realistic to expect the Site to do it.

I also can't understand for the life of me why the site doesn't just list the word count right next to the title and description on the author's submissions page. How many times does one click on a story and then see "oh shit, 42k words, I don't have time for this today" ? This would reduce false hits and stupid easy to code it.
Click to expand...

This is an excellent idea, and it doesn't seem like it would be difficult to implement. I think it dovetails with reader preferences, because some readers don't want to read very long stories (I usually don't).
 
I've participated in the 750 word story challenge several times now, and while it's an interesting exercise, I've found in my limited experience with it that the only people who really enjoy them are other writers.

Readers in general here want something longer. Especially if they're looking to get off.

So I see a category for even shorter stories to be rather pointless, frankly.
 
Djmac1031 said:
I've participated in the 750 word story challenge several times now, and while it's an interesting exercise, I've found in my limited experience with it that the only people who really enjoy them are other writers.

Readers in general here want something longer. Especially if they're looking to get off.

So I see a category for even shorter stories to be rather pointless, frankly.
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Yeah in my more limited experience of 750, it’s authorial masturbation.

Emily
 
SimonDoom said:
There's a big downside to having too many categories. It's too much to manage, and too much for the reader to navigate. I see no reason to break apart incest into different categories. I see no push for that. Many incest readers like to read different kinds of incest stories.
Click to expand...

They could always just be sub-categories, and leave it up to the author to post in the main incest, or in a sub category like Mom/Son. And of course all old stories can be left as legacy in the main category.
 
ShelbyDawn57 said:
Just grabbed this from selfpublishing.org

  • Novel – at least 40,000 words, with the standard commercial length being around 80,000, though many novels are much longer
  • Novella – 17,5000-40,000 words
  • Novelette – 7,500-17,500 words
  • Short story– under 7,500 words
  • Flash fiction (also sometimes called microfiction, sudden fiction, very short story, and discussed in my previous post here) – up to 1000 words (sometimes up to 500 in the UK)
  • Vignette – “something that can be written on a vine leaf”, either prose or poetry (longer definition here at Vine Leaves Literary Journal, published by ALLI author member Jessica Bell)
  • Small stone – a tiny observational piece of prose or poetry (defined by ALLi author Satya Robyn on this blog here)
Click to expand...

Whenever I see the low bar of what a novel is, I think of some of the stories I’ve here and the fact I’m so close to putting it together and being novel length…. i need to dedicate some stories for such a thing…
 
As others have mentioned, I'd rather see greater functionality to see story length upfront.
 
Kelliezgirl said:
As others have mentioned, I'd rather see greater functionality to see story length upfront.
Click to expand...
Agree. It's such an obvious thing to do, and would remove the, "But I only like short stories," and, "I only like long ones," factor from that first click-in.
 
Lit is just the wrong venue for stories sub 1k words. A) Not allowed. B) Not in the majority of readers' wheelhouses. There are sites that have flash fiction and microfiction categories. They have them because there are enough authors and readers to support them.

Or, keep writing them until you have enough with a common theme to release them as an anthology of at least 750 words. Still not in most readers' wheelhouses, but you at least get access to Lit's huge reader base that way, so you'll catch a few. Probably at least as many as you would elsewhere, though it won't boost your profile much here. On a site that has dedicated categories for them, you'll get much more of a profile boost.
 
Djmac1031 said:
I've participated in the 750 word story challenge several times now, and while it's an interesting exercise, I've found in my limited experience with it that the only people who really enjoy them are other writers.

Readers in general here want something longer. Especially if they're looking to get off.

So I see a category for even shorter stories to be rather pointless, frankly.
Click to expand...
[Material prohibited per our forum guidelines.]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DoctorSmith8 said:
Here's an example...
"Oh No, Not Again"
Click to expand...
That's all fine and beaut, but you're actually subverting a Lit policy that: a) doesn't allow stories with less than 750 words - but does allow poetry less than that minimum; and b) doesn't allow "stories" in threads unless they are links to content that has been vetted by the editor and published. That's primarily to ensure compliance with the site's content policies.

Just because you want to publish micro-story stories here, doesn't mean you can.
 
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