One Story or Several??

[clownprince2008]

This is a pretty simple question. I'm writing a story at the moment at is 10,000 and growing. Now normally for some unfathomable reason after I break 7000 I consider splitting it up into two chapters.

My question is simply is, if you have a 10000 word story which works very well as one longish chapter, should I keep it as it is?

or

Split it up into three 3000 word chapters, each of which is well capable of sustaining the story and not really interrupting the flow. I say this because there are very clear breaks in the story with sections going under the lable "The next day" etc.


Overall it's a small issue but one worth asking about. And yes I'm well aware it's mainly up to personal preference but I just want an opinion on the matter.

 

[ole_grouch_1124]

For me, personally, I think I would rather see it split up into 3 chapters. I don't know why, I just prefer it that way.

 

[Guest]

This is a pretty simple question. I'm writing a story at the moment at is 10,000 and growing. Now normally for some unfathomable reason after I break 7000 I consider splitting it up into two chapters.

My question is simply is, if you have a 10000 word story which works very well as one longish chapter, should I keep it as it is?

or

Split it up into three 3000 word chapters, each of which is well capable of sustaining the story and not really interrupting the flow. I say this because there are very clear breaks in the story with sections going under the lable "The next day" etc.


Overall it's a small issue but one worth asking about. And yes I'm well aware it's mainly up to personal preference but I just want an opinion on the matter.

Okay, I have one at the same length and asked myself the same question. Here's what I came to decide.

I kept it all one story. I had one clean break, but I felt that it interrupted character flow and development. When I worked out the math it only came out to be a little over 2 LIT pages so it wasn't a big deal.

At one point I considered breaking it up and wondered what I would do for a cliffhanger to make the WANT to come back. I couldn't think of anything that didn't seem 'forced', so in the interest of good story telling I decided to keep it as one story.

If each piece can stand on their own and each piece has a logical conclusion with at least one minor issue clearly resolved, then I say break it up and make a series out of it. If there is no resolution other than the conclusion of a time period then I say keep it as one story.

Hope that helps.

~Paul

 

[jomar]

Plenty of people read in the novels and novellas category but on Lit I pass on stories that run more than three Lit pages (~7500 words to a Lit page) because it's more of hit and run here for me. So I suggest breaking the story into chapters and submitting it as a series. You can always add an author's note at the beginning to let the reader know something they might need to know before reading (e.g., transitional chapter, no sex, might not make too much sense without reading previous chapters, recap, etc).

 

[3113]

I'm with Jomar. Try to keep stories/chapters to about 3 Lit pages (give or take). When I was reading a lot of stories here, I found that 3 lit pages were a comfortable length for a story or chapter. Stories that broke up into chapters after just 1 Lit page seemed a little silly as I was willing to read on and there was no need for that kind of break.

So if the "novel" goes on, beak it up into chapters when and if it goes over 3 to 3 and 1/2 Lit pages. Like if it's getting to be 5 lit pages, which would be about 40,000 words. Then you break it up into, say Chapter 1 with 2 Lit pages and Chapter 2 with 3 Lit pages.

Right now, at 10,000, you're fine.

 

[DeeZire]

Wasn't a recent LIT contest winner 4 or 5 pages? Regardless, I'm a fan of the 3 page approach. Beyond that, they scare me off. I only read the contest story at 5 pages because I wanted to see what that particular story had going for it that won over the readers.

 

[Guest]

I'm with Jomar. Try to keep stories/chapters to about 3 Lit pages (give or take). When I was reading a lot of stories here, I found that 3 lit pages were a comfortable length for a story or chapter. Stories that broke up into chapters after just 1 Lit page seemed a little silly as I was willing to read on and there was no need for that kind of break.

So if the "novel" goes on, beak it up into chapters when and if it goes over 3 to 3 and 1/2 Lit pages. Like if it's getting to be 5 lit pages, which would be about 40,000 words. Then you break it up into, say Chapter 1 with 2 Lit pages and Chapter 2 with 3 Lit pages.

Right now, at 10,000, you're fine.

Okay, but I posted on another thread where an author said they had like 13,000 words over twenty-eight pages.

On a word processor (I'm assuming because they wanted an editor), that's a lot of white space (most likely dialogue). How do you determine that there are 'x' number of words on a lit page for something like that?

Not criticizing but I am getting ready to submit my second story and I think it is only going to come out to two LIT pages at 11K words. To figure that out, I had to re-size my margins to match LIT's and then make a SWAG out of it.

(SWAG: Simplified Wild Assed Guess)

Is there a maximum number of lines that I can use as a reference instead?

 

[3113]

Wasn't a recent LIT contest winner 4 or 5 pages?

I won 2nd place in the Valentine's Day contest a few years back with 4 pages. I'm not saying to never write up a 4-5 page story, just that most readers do look at how many Lit pages they have to go, and sometimes if it's 5 pages it might make them change their mind; they may want to read it, but they just don't have the time (they're on their lunch break or only have so much time before work/before dinner)--where as 3 pages is usually "Sure. Why not?"

Okay, but I posted on another thread where an author said they had like 13,000 words over twenty-eight pages. On a word processor (I'm assuming because they wanted an editor), that's a lot of white space (most likely dialogue). How do you determine that there are 'x' number of words on a lit page for something like that?

Well...

(1) As Jomar pointed out it's about 7500 words per lit page. So they had about 3 and 1/2 Lit pages. Word number can help you estimate.

(2) Obviously, page length will vary, as you say, given white space. But Lit lets you "preview" your work--how it will look once it's posted. So before you hit "submit" always hit preview and take a look at it. You can see exactly how many Lit pages you've got before you post and make changes to them before you post if you like.

 

[Guest]

I won 2nd place in the Valentine's Day contest a few years back with 4 pages. I'm not saying to never write up a 4-5 page story, just that most readers do look at how many Lit pages they have to go, and sometimes if it's 5 pages it might make them change their mind; they may want to read it, but they just don't have the time (they're on their lunch break or only have so much time before work/before dinner)--where as 3 pages is usually "Sure. Why not?"


Well...

(1) As Jomar pointed out it's about 7500 words per lit page. So they had about 3 and 1/2 Lit pages. Word number can help you estimate.

(2) Obviously, page length will vary, as you say, given white space. But Lit lets you "preview" your work--how it will look once it's posted. So before you hit "submit" always hit preview and take a look at it. You can see exactly how many Lit pages you've got before you post and make changes to them before you post if you like.

That's probably my problem then, I'm submitting as .doc and uploading because keep botching HTML tags and such for formatting.

 

[3113]

That's probably my problem then, I'm submitting as .doc and uploading because keep botching HTML tags and such for formatting.

Dude! I understand. The HTML tags are a bitch.