Question I know has been answered

[Ldy_Sea]

How long is a lit page? I usually don't worry, I just write to the climax then move on the he next sex scene, until the story ends.

Now I need to make sure a story is at least 4 pages. I tried to search but never hit on the correct keywords to find an asnwer. So forgive the redundant question. But how many words/lies is the typical lit page.

TIA

 

[Handley_Page]

How long is a lit page? I usually don't worry, I just write to the climax then move on the he next sex scene, until the story ends.

Now I need to make sure a story is at least 4 pages. I tried to search but never hit on the correct keywords to find an asnwer. So forgive the redundant question. But how many words/lies is the typical lit page.

TIA

About 3000 words

 

[JKendallDane]

I think the general answer is it hovers in the 3,600 to 4,000 word range. Most people seem to use 3,750 per page as a guideline.

 

[JKendallDane]

About 3000 words

I won't argue with that since I guesstimate page breaks for my own stories at 3,500 - 7,000 - 10,000 - 14,000 etc.

 

[Ldy_Sea]

Thanks for those answers.

I'm wondering if the difference in the number of words is because lit counts the number of lines whether or not there is text or a hard return.

Lower word counts would mean more breaks for dialogue/paragraphs etc...

Higher word counts mean fewer breaks.

Has that ever been discussed?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Thanks for those answers.

I'm wondering if the difference in the number of words is because lit counts the number of lines whether or not there is text or a hard return.

Lower word counts would mean more breaks for dialogue/paragraphs etc...

Higher word counts mean fewer breaks.

Has that ever been discussed?

From previous discussions here, I seem to recall that it's based on number of characters.

 

[JKendallDane]

Thanks for those answers.

I'm wondering if the difference in the number of words is because lit counts the number of lines whether or not there is text or a hard return.

Lower word counts would mean more breaks for dialogue/paragraphs etc...

Higher word counts mean fewer breaks.

Has that ever been discussed?

I just did a quick word count on a chapter from one of my series where I knew the dialog was extra heavy in half of it. It ended up being right at two full Lit pages, so I c&p'd each actual one back into a new Open Office doc and did a word count on each one.

Page 1 had what I would call "a typical mix" of dialog used. Word count was 3,698 with 19,869 characters, and took up 5 full pages of Open Office.

Page 2 was very dialog heavy (as in 50 to 60 percent of the page). Word and character count were both substantially lower at 3,050 and 16,967 respectively...but page count in Open Office exploded to 8-1/2 pages. I would presume something similar occurs on Lit with prevalency of hard breaks.

I'm not sure how that actually translates to Lit or if it answers your questions at all, but that's the results of my little unscientific test.

 

[Ldy_Sea]

I just did a quick word count on a chapter from one of my series where I knew the dialog was extra heavy in half of it. It ended up being right at two full Lit pages, so I c&p'd each actual one back into a new Open Office doc and did a word count on each one.

Page 1 had what I would call "a typical mix" of dialog used. Word count was 3,698 with 19,869 characters, and took up 5 full pages of Open Office.

Page 2 was very dialog heavy (as in 50 to 60 percent of the page). Word and character count were both substantially lower at 3,050 and 16,967 respectively...but page count in Open Office exploded to 8-1/2 pages. I would presume something similar occurs on Lit with prevalency of hard breaks.

I'm not sure how that actually translates to Lit or if it answers your questions at all, but that's the results of my little unscientific test.

THat does indicate to me it's not word or character counts, but the number of lines in the story that determine the page breaks. But it does tell me to shoot for between 12K and 16K words to hit a four page story which translates to a minimum of 25 pages in open office.

Thank you all.

 

[sr71plt]

3,750 words has stayed a good ballpark average for my stories.

 

[Sammael Bard]

I write in the default 110% magnification with 12 size font on MS Word. Then, 10 MS word pages converts to one Lit Page. I use this criteria when I guess the number of Lit Pages that are going to be there (which is accurate, BTW).

Word count won't be THAT accurate if you tend to use short paragraphs interspersed with lots of spaces. It varies from person to person.

The number of characters along with spaces should give an accurate answer.

 

[Privates1stClass]

Number of characters on a Lit page

How long is a lit page?

As JKendallDane pointed out, a Lit page is right at 20,000 characters, give or take.

Over a period of a couple years, I've cut a page out of different stories to determine the answer to your question. Some stories had heavy dialogue; others had straight text, and they are almost always about 20,000 characters, plus or minus 50.

Hope this helps.

 

[49greg]

Yup, I count on 3500 to 3700 words in my word processor to make up a lit page, as many other posters mention. And yes, the amount of conversation with blank lines makes a difference. I use the copy and paste method to post my story, then click on the preview button to do a final proofread. That shows just how many pages the story is. Lately that has become important as I have started to show how many pages the story is at the beginning in my intro notes.

I often have to go back and change a word or comma or three before I do a final submit. There's nothing to say you can't completely back out to do major changes in your word processor if you haven't got enough pages.

I have no idea what happens in the submission process when you post the story as a file. Do you get a preview page? Can you go back and edit.

 

[Sammael Bard]

I have no idea what happens in the submission process when you post the story as a file. Do you get a preview page? Can you go back and edit.

Depends on the format in which you have submitted your work. The Literotica servers can show an instant view of how your story would look like if you've copy-pasted your story as it is into the space or in simpler text formats like .txt

You can edit your story by clicking "Make Changes" button below, but your story will be pushed down the list of newer stories that are waiting approval.


I usually submit in .rtf or Word Document, which means that the Lit Servers have to convert the file so I can't preview my work before submitting it. I have to revise that thoroughly before submission.

 

[Chris7sw]

More statistics for you!

Over 46 submitted stories I’ve totalled 541,295 words which have occupied 750 MS pages using Ariel 11 point text. Bear in mind that the count obviously includes part pages……
And that works out at 722 words per MS page and an average of 15.6 MS pages per story.

Therefore, depending on the length of your story, it’ll take up the following Literotica space:
7,000 words – 1.9 Literotica pages
8,000 – 2.2
9,000 – 2.4
10,000 – 2.7
11,000 – 3.0
12,000 – 3.2
13,000 – 3.5
14,000 – 3.8
15,000 – 4.1
16,000 – 4.3
17,000 – 4.6
18,000 – 4.9

And here's another way to look at it.
It seems that I get an average of 3,700 words per Literotica page, (consistent with other’s views) so your story (assuming you use the same font, etc) will take up the following space:
3,700 words – 1 Literotica page
7,400 – 2 pages
11,100 – 3 pages
14,800 – 4 pages
18,500 – 5 pages
22,200 – 6 pages
25,900 – 7 pages
29,600 – 8 pages
33,300 – 9 pages
37,000 – 10 pages

My average story length is 11,278 words so that’s a little over 3 Literotica pages long. Therefore, based on these figures, your stories need to be over 15,000 words or about 21 MS pages in length to fill 4 Literotica pages.

Hope that gives you another guide for your stories - or confuses you completely!
Good luck!

........I have started to show how many pages the story is at the beginning in my intro notes......

Very sensible. Readers often seem to winge if the story exceeds a couple of pages - good to warn them before they start to read. Attention spans are very short.....!

 

[JKendallDane]

Yup, I count on 3500 to 3700 words in my word processor to make up a lit page, as many other posters mention. And yes, the amount of conversation with blank lines makes a difference. I use the copy and paste method to post my story, then click on the preview button to do a final proofread. That shows just how many pages the story is. Lately that has become important as I have started to show how many pages the story is at the beginning in my intro notes.

Don't always trust the Lit preview 100% as to page breaks.

I had an, untypical for me, extra short chapter in one series where the preview showed it as one page. When it went live however, it was two pages...and with nothing on the second save a single, nine short words, sentence! Caught some minor grief in the comments for it even. LOL

 

[Ldy_Sea]

Don't always trust the Lit preview 100% as to page breaks.

I had an, untypical for me, extra short chapter in one series where the preview showed it as one page. When it went live however, it was two pages...and with nothing on the second save a single, nine short words, sentence! Caught some minor grief in the comments for it even. LOL

I saw one story that went to a second page over a period. I have seen several stories with just a sentence or two on the last page. It is a bit annoying but not the authors fault, it's the way the site is set up.

 

[JKendallDane]

I saw one story that went to a second page over a period. I have seen several stories with just a sentence or two on the last page. It is a bit annoying but not the authors fault, it's the way the site is set up.

The period thing would freak me out! LOL

With mine, I just apologized and very jokingly explained it away in a follow-up comment by blaming it half on my being ten words too verbose, and the other half on Kitty Mama's occasionally funky system.

(you do know i luvZya, doncha laurel? )

 

[Weird Harold]

About 3000 words

Many moons ago, when Lit first converted to the current script based conversions, I C&Pd 100 pages and checked the word an character counts:

A typical Lit Page is 3,767 words +/- about 400 words.

A Lit page break is calculated on a character count, but with orphan controls and non-printing characters (like HTML tags) I was never able to determine what the base character count is for sure: it is in the 14,000 to 15,000 character range, including spaces but not including leading or trailing spaces.

I use 3,500 words, although 3,750 is closer to accurate, because I suck at mental math and 3,500 is easier to manage.

As expressed by Laurel at the time, Lit's goal is to keep each page between 24Kb and 25Kb, including overhead for ad placements of about 10Kb.

 

[Ldy_Sea]

Many moons ago, when Lit first converted to the current script based conversions, I C&Pd 100 pages and checked the word an character counts:

A typical Lit Page is 3,767 words +/- about 400 words.

A Lit page break is calculated on a character count, but with orphan controls and non-printing characters (like HTML tags) I was never able to determine what the base character count is for sure: it is in the 14,000 to 15,000 character range, including spaces but not including leading or trailing spaces.

I use 3,500 words, although 3,750 is closer to accurate, because I suck at mental math and 3,500 is easier to manage.

As expressed by Laurel at the time, Lit's goal is to keep each page between 24Kb and 25Kb, including overhead for ad placements of about 10Kb.

A very nice and detailed answer. A bit more technical than I understand. But 3750 is what I will use.