Short or Long Stories?

[Fervid]

It seems to me this question leads straight to the question of motivation. If you are interested in getting high ratings or the many readers and followers they produce, you're better off with long, multi-chapter stories, as any cruise of a Hall of Fame will tell you. (The multi-chapter halo effect will only increase if, as I believe has been suggested, whole stories are going to be rated based on their highest-rated chapter for Hall of Fame purposes. It's like having endless mulligans in golf.)

I write only shorter stories, without chapters. My longest is six pages. (I just don't have the time or drive, or maybe the imagination, to write more.) They are all rated 4.7 or better, but only a couple get into the top ten of a Hall of Fame (and then they promptly get bombed). So my experience is, if you want readers, write long. (If you're just writing for yourself, why post? )

 

[TryAnything]

Long!

I can't imagine being able to write a story of less than 100,000 words.

I usually start with some vague idea of what I want the story to be about, then it just grows itself as I write. I never know what's going to trip me onto a new tangent, a new development in a story. When I run out of ideas, I try to end the story (my weakness). I'm usually so done with it that the endings often seem rushed, sort of just to get it over with.

 

[KeithD]

I can't imagine being able to write a story of less than 100,000 words.

Anything at that length doesn't classify as a story. It's at the upper reaches of novel.

 

[Payne_Hall]

I can't imagine being able to write a story of less than 100,000 words.

That’s longer than the Hobbit, mate, and over 30 lit pages.

 

[TryAnything]

That’s longer than the Hobbit, mate, and over 30 lit pages.

Wow! Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think that I'd see me and JRR Tolkien in the same sentence when talking about writing. You're talking about one of my main literary heroes. Just trying to imagine a XXX Hobbit/Lord of the Rings now.

 

[PennameWombat]

Wow! Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think that I'd see me and JRR Tolkien in the same sentence when talking about writing. You're talking about one of my main literary heroes. Just trying to imagine a XXX Hobbit/Lord of the Rings now.

There’s plenty of LotR slash fiction out there... A Frodo, Sam and Sméagol three-way? An Aragorn and Boromir quickie? It’s out there...

One I recall posited that Sauron had captured Frodo and Sam and taken the ring, won the war. Gandalf had been taken prisoner at the Black Gate (the others had all been killed) and it opened with him sitting in his cell and Sauron showing up (he’d taken human form now) and tossing Frodo’s head onto Gandalf’s lap. Sam had been ‘freed’ into the care of a pack of orcs...

Saruman had become a ‘butler’ to Sauron (more or less). The general plot seemed to be that Gandalf and Saruman were somehow going to overthrow Sauron but I checked out at the second gang-rape scene of Gandalf by a dozen orcs...

Much more pleasant is the lovely Misty Mundae’s The Lord of the G-Strings: The Femaleship of the String. Maybe closer to what you have in mind

 

[FifthEstate]

For a first time read, I like 3 Lit pages (around 10k words). That typically is long enough as a stand alone story that I can get my arms around without having to commit deeply to something I don’t know if I’m going to like. If it’s a multi chapter story that I’m writing, I always try to keep chapter one to that type of length to hopefully attract the quick jacks and the long story lovers. The subsequent chapters can be longer, but I strive to keep them between 3 & 7 pages.