Optimum Chapter Length?

[nylonpunkie]

Suggestions?

I have become a little unsure about what length to make chapters.
Sometimes a story will suggest a natural break but for ones that don’t, I have seen comments that say that not enough happened in the chapter and it was too short.
“Should’ve been one story!” one comment shouted at me after a few chapters.
Also, though, I’ve seen comments that a story went on for too long.
Does anyone have a feeling for a ‘correct’ chapter length?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Suggestions?

I have become a little unsure about what length to make chapters.
Sometimes a story will suggest a natural break but for ones that don’t, I have seen comments that say that not enough happened in the chapter and it was too short.
“Should’ve been one story!” one comment shouted at me after a few chapters.
Also, though, I’ve seen comments that a story went on for too long.
Does anyone have a feeling for a ‘correct’ chapter length?

There have been a few threads about this, and the general response seems to be "how long is a piece of string?" but when I'm writing a series, I usually end up with chapters of about 10k words.

 

[KeithD]

In book publishing before the e-book revolution, the optimum was considered to be 5,000 words (on the average) per chapter. I don't know of any claim of what it should be in the electronic era.

 

[MellowJoe]

Personally, I like reading chapters that are 3 or 4 pages in length.

If it's longer than 10 pages, I may skip it intending to read it later, but later sometimes doesn't come.

 

[SimonDoom]

There's actually a lot of data available about this. 8Letters has published a few threads on it.

If you have a long story that you are going to publish in chapters, then make each chapter around 10,000 words or more. They will get higher scores and more views and votes that way.

 

[TadOverdon]

Lately my chapters have been between 4,000 and 7,000 words. I don't know about optimal.

 

[Agiel]

My personal preference when reading a series is for chapter lengths of around 6k to 10k words or 2/3 Lit pages. With that in mind that’s the length I go for when writing chapters. Plus publishing a chapter every few days which means having the story finished before you submit the first chapter.

Once you get into the 11k words and above you are reaching the realms of stand alone stories. You have to keep the attention of the reader with chapters because they won’t begin reading, put it down and come back to it later. They want to read the chapter in one sitting. Or, at least, that’s what I’m looking for as a reader.

 

[KeithD]

So, once again, the real answer is that there's no agreed optimal chapter length at Literotica, only preference opinions.

 

[NotWise]

I googled the same question a few years ago, and my favorite answer was "long enough to tell the story."

 

[KeithD]

I googled the same question a few years ago, and my favorite answer was "long enough to tell the story."

Yes, I just had that thought, or a similar one--to a point that will propel the reader into the next chapter.

I think this is yet another nonsense stat search.

 

[SimonDoom]

So, once again, the real answer is that there's no agreed optimal chapter length at Literotica, only preference opinions.

This is true UNLESS you make a priority of maximizing the reader response at Literotica. You don't have to want that. There's no right or wrong here. But if you want to maximize positive reader response at Literotica, then yes, story length is an issue. 1-page chapters (under 3750 words) do significantly worse on average than 3-page stories (stories over 11,000 words).

My attitude is, if you've got a long story anyway, then why not break it apart and publish it in longer chapters rather than really short ones? It's not an artistic decision. The story is the same, either way. But one strategy is likely to get a better response than the other strategy.

 

[KeithD]

This is true UNLESS you make a priority of maximizing the reader response at Literotica. You don't have to want that. There's no right or wrong here. But if you want to maximize positive reader response at Literotica, then yes, story length is an issue. 1-page chapters (under 3750 words) do significantly worse on average than 3-page stories (stories over 11,000 words).

My attitude is, if you've got a long story anyway, then why not break it apart and publish it in longer chapters rather than really short ones? It's not an artistic decision. The story is the same, either way. But one strategy is likely to get a better response than the other strategy.

Well, sure if you want to set that sort of priority on your writing. There's no reason why those who don't can't express their opinion as much as those who do. You yourself elsewhere tonight claim that different strokes for different folks is fine and can be expressed as long as they aren't given as demands. Practice what you preach. Just give your opinion without lecturing me about mine. I just don't have time to give those being needy about Literotica scores with their writing and who try to shoehorn stats to "prove" what they can't.

 

[SimonDoom]

Well, sure if you want to set that sort of priority on your writing. There's no reason why those who don't can't express their opinion as much as those who do. You yourself elsewhere tonight claim that different strokes for different folks is fine and can be expressed as long as they aren't given as demands. Practice what you preach. Just give your opinion without lecturing me about mine. I just don't have time to give those being needy about Literotica scores with their writing and who try to shoehorn stats to "prove" what they can't.

I'm not lecturing you at all. You miss the point.

You are perfectly free to have whatever priorities you want to have as an author at Literotica, and I respect that.

But people keep asking these kinds of questions, and I think they want answers beyond just "do what you want." Some authors want to know how to get more reader responses. And there's data that informs one how to do that. That's the point of my response. I think that's fairly clear.

 

[KeithD]

I'm not lecturing you at all. You miss the point.

You are perfectly free to have whatever priorities you want to have as an author at Literotica, and I respect that.

But people keep asking these kinds of questions, and I think they want answers beyond just "do what you want." Some authors want to know how to get more reader responses. And there's data that informs one how to do that. That's the point of my response. I think that's fairly clear.

Of course you're lecturing me, or you would just suck it up and let me express my opinion as you do.

 

[TxRad]

There is no optimal anything in writing. It is all wishful thinking and blind guesses.

Write the fucking story until it is finished and then post it.

A better use of your time.

 

[KeithD]

Right. Folks are trying to quantify a mode that is art, not mathematics. It celebrates what is expansive and innovative, not what can be reduced to a "best reward" stat (but can't).

 

[PennameWombat]

My ‘chaptered’ series here works out to 15,000-20,000 words per entry. No plans to change and not based on science, or statistics or whatever. Just that the story I’m telling seems to like increments about that length. Each ‘chapter’ has a beginning - middle - end, while pushing the broader story along. YMMV.

And, because I recently read this. I’ve listened to all nine audiobooks of “The Expanse.” One thing I noticed, their chapters were freakishly similar in length. I mean, we’re talking less than a minute difference in length. Then I happened across an old interview with Ty Franck (half of James SA Corey).
Interview - James SA Corey:

I’ve learned that chapter length is definitely something you should consider before you start writing. One of the things we learned is that three-thousand-word chapters is a fast pace that invites the reader to keep reading, because it seems like most people have the energy to read about four or five thousand words in one sitting. If you do three-thousand-word chapters, they read a chapter and a half, and most people aren’t going to be satisfied reading a chapter and a half, so we get email and tweets all the time from people saying, “I stayed up all night reading your book.” Well, there’s actually structural reasons why our books invite you to stay up all night reading them, some of which is in the chapter length.

They’re more successful at writing than I’ll ever be, but I’ve no plans to apply their metric to my writing here. Other places? Maybe, just food for thought.

 

[Dingo_Triplesix]

Seconding SimonDoom. It depends on your personal goals.

1) If you go for maximum reader numbers, around 10.000 words is a proven benchmark.

2) If you go for best rating, write longer stories. If you have 20.000 words + you filter out those readers who do not really, really like it, so the probability to get bad ratings is smaller. Additionally its easier to "overwhelm" the reader with the story, just by immersing him more deeply. But as many people avoid stories with more than 5 or 6 LIT pages, you loose reader numbers.

3) If you go for artistic reasons, just do as you like and as the story flows by itself.

 

[Lifestyle66]

My ‘chaptered’ series here works out to 15,000-20,000 words per entry.

That's the point I was going to make to the OP's question of optimum "chapter" length.

Is he asking about chapters as logical breaks in a story line? Or is he asking about how much to post in one part of a series on Literotica?

I've heard others here on Lit say the optimum posting length is about 17,000 words, for enough to engage the reader to like the characters.

In my own series, I've found what I considered logical breaks as chapters of 5,000 to 7,000 words (and posted as individual chapters) wasn't enough to engage the readers to look for the next chapters. Based on the ebb and flow of the reader views between chapters, mine would have been more consistently followed with the 17,000 to 20,000-word target, even if I combined three or four chapters for one post.

 

[JGittes]

I googled the same question a few years ago, and my favorite answer was "long enough to tell the story."

There is no optimal anything in writing. It is all wishful thinking and blind guesses.

Write the fucking story until it is finished and then post it.

A better use of your time.

I agree with both of these statements.

Literotica readers want well-developed characters doing interesting and entertaining things leading to an emotional, and usually erotic payoff. In short; a damn fine story, well told.

That the highest average score is found in three-Lit-page stories indicates only the length most Lit readers need to satisfy their good story requirements. It is very difficult to write a compelling 2k to 5k story, and while it might be terrific practice for an author to learn that skill, most here at Lit won't. I have though, read many highly scored stories of one or two Lit pages. The highest scoring stories on most of the top lists are in the 20k+ word range, so the best stories are longer, and also more difficult to carry off.

As far as views are concerned; the click on the story that increases the view count happens before a reader knows the story length. The ultimate score a story receives may be partly determined by its raw length, but the number of views cannot be based on length. I've seen comments on Chloe's stories that they voted 1* because it was too damned long and they would never read it. Go figure. The one top list based on most read is populated by stories that have been on Lit for a decade or more.

I've closely followed three contests during the past year. The number of initial views any story receives is a combination of the number of followers an author has and the story's category. When enough votes are cast to reveal a score, higher scores attract more views (continuing with followers and category). I've noticed one or two stories take off in views during the course of a contest that I can only attribute to some mystical combination of title and tagline (in addition to score). When contest winners are posted, I've noticed views for the winners frequently triple from the pre-announcement levels, so there's that too.

Anyway. It's the story, not the length.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Chapters or Parts?

I switched to parts because some of my "chapters" were very long and had Chapter headings in them. So I called different part Parts.

My Parts are usually about 10K, sometime a little shorter sometimes a little longer.

I have just finished putting together one of my sets of Parts into a complete Book - It had 8 parts and each was close to 40k. The complete Book is 130K.

So whose to say what the optimum "Chapter" length is? Not me.

Chapter noun...

a main division of a book, treatise, or the like, usually bearing a number or title.
a branch, usually restricted to a given locality, of a society, organization, fraternity, etc.:
the Connecticut chapter of the American Red Cross.
an important portion or division of anything:
The atomic bomb opened a new chapter in history.

 

[KeithD]

I agree with both of these statements.

Literotica readers want well-developed characters doing interesting and entertaining things leading to an emotional, and usually erotic payoff. In short; a damn fine story, well told.

Some do--probably not even most. It's fine to write for those who do, but it's wrong, I think, to believe and claim that's where the center of the Literotica readership is.

We constantly get comments that it's hard to find the "good stuff" among all the "dross" at Literotica. That, I think, points to the reality that most readers aren't, in fact, looking for, nor Lit. writers writing, "well-developed characters" and "a damn fine story." It's fine to write for a whole range of reader interest. I think it's wrong to think--and make assumptions--that this is the New Yorker.

 

[windar]

For me, the chapter length is dictated by the story. A significant break in the plot, jumping forward or backward in time or shifting POV, would likely cause me to begin a new chapter. Also, a great many of my stories are written with a co-author and we break chapters when we switch authors. I couldn't imagine not doing so.

As far as statistical correlations, one must be careful. Correlation is not causation. That stories of a particular average chapter length score better may simply indicate that certain popular writers write stories that have chapters that naturally break around that length.

But I would never let any statistical analysis trump the plot. I can't see going along and being in the middle of a scene and breaking to fulfill some metric that may or may not affect my score. But then I'm not one to pay much attention to scores, as you probably have heard...

 

[PennameWombat]

My ‘chaptered’ series here works out to 15,000-20,000 words per entry. No plans to change and not based on science, or statistics or whatever. Just that the story I’m telling seems to like increments about that length. Each ‘chapter’ has a beginning - middle - end, while pushing the broader story along. YMMV.

Chapters or Parts?

I switched to parts because some of my "chapters" were very long and had Chapter headings in them. So I called different part Parts.

My Parts are usually about 10K, sometime a little shorter sometimes a little longer.

I have just finished putting together one of my sets of Parts into a complete Book - It had 8 parts and each was close to 40k. The complete Book is 130K.

So whose to say what the optimum "Chapter" length is? Not me.
<snip>

Yeah, I’m quoting myself .

But to Zeb’s point. My “chapter” that I’m describing is a posted Literotica story that makes up an ongoing series of tightly connected stories that carry along an overarching plot line, while having within each subplots that complete within that chapter (e.g., Chronicle: Mel and Chris, ch. 05). These are 15,000-25,000 words each.

In my quoting Ty Franck, he was referring to the traditional chapter, a named or numbered section within a book (my ‘section’).

I was confused about terminology myself, as the use of “Ch. 05” was how I saw to set up a series here on Lit. But I was well familiar with the traditional use of chapter as a part of a book (which, if my series is essentially a book in progress, it makes some sense). So, for me, within each posted ‘Chapter’, I use the term “Section”, as named parts within each chapter. My Sections are variable in length, I’m nowhere near as doctrinaire as Franck, in making each ‘section’ essentially the same length.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yeah, I’m quoting myself .

But to Zeb’s point. My “chapter” that I’m describing is a posted Literotica story that makes up an ongoing series of tightly connected stories that carry along an overarching plot line, while having within each subplots that complete within that chapter (e.g., Chronicle: Mel and Chris, ch. 05). These are 15,000-25,000 words each.

In my quoting Ty Franck, he was referring to the traditional chapter, a named or numbered section within a book (my ‘section’).

I was confused about terminology myself, as the use of “Ch. 05” was how I saw to set up a series here on Lit. But I was well familiar with the traditional use of chapter as a part of a book (which, if my series is essentially a book in progress, it makes some sense). So, for me, within each posted ‘Chapter’, I use the term “Section”, as named parts within each chapter. My Sections are variable in length, I’m nowhere near as doctrinaire as Franck, in making each ‘section’ essentially the same length.

Interesting. Yet whatever you call them (Section, Chapter, etc.) they are really all the same, within the story. As for what they are called here on Lit, it really doesn't matter. Chapter, Section, Part, Episode, whatever the current name is for the next or previous part of the story.

Chapter = Ch.
Part = Pt.
Section = Se.
Episode = Ep.

These could all be used on Lit. except that the grouping of series code probably only looks for Ch. and Pt. right now. And I would bet if Laurel caught it she would change the Se and Ep to either Ch or Pt.