Story length and submitting

[mulehead61]

I've noticed several comments on stories indicate if it goes too long to break it up into chapters otherwise readers will lose interest. I understand that and I have a question - I searched on the forum and couldn't find this issue.

I have a story ready for submission. It is 17 pages long in Word. I usually copy and paste when I submit and does anyone know how many pages this would be once submitted? Should I break in down into chapters? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[TxRad]

I've noticed several comments on stories indicate if it goes too long to break it up into chapters otherwise readers will lose interest. I understand that and I have a question - I searched on the forum and couldn't find this issue.

I have a story ready for submission. It is 17 pages long in Word. I usually copy and paste when I submit and does anyone know how many pages this would be once submitted? Should I break in down into chapters? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

It will be a little shy of 3 Lit pages. 6 word pages with a 1.25" margin on all four sides. This is the same margin Lit uses. Single spaced of course.

Three pages is not long. Well, not for me anyway.

 

[Darkniciad]

Three Lit pages isn't that bad. Breaking that down into chapters is actually pushing the boundaries of chapters that are too short, pushing the buttons of a whole 'nother group of complainers *laugh*

Until you get up to four Lit pages, you should be fine with a single submission.

 

[Weird Harold]

I've noticed several comments on stories indicate if it goes too long to break it up into chapters otherwise readers will lose interest. I understand that and I have a question - I searched on the forum and couldn't find this issue.

I have a story ready for submission. It is 17 pages long in Word. I usually copy and paste when I submit and does anyone know how many pages this would be once submitted? Should I break in down into chapters? Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Lit breaks stories into web-pages according to the character count as modified by the nearest paragraph breaks and the remnant that would be orphaned. Consequently it is fairly difficult to predict Lit-page breaks in Word by the character count.

However, it is fairly easy to approximate a lit-page break by checking your word count. Lit pages average 3,767 words plus or minus about 500 words; divide the word count reported by word by 3,500 and you'll come fairly close to the lit-page count.

 

[mulehead61]

Thanks all. I did check the word count and it comes out to a little over three pages - not near enough for chapters. I'll submit it as one piece and see what happens.

 

[DG Hear]

Thanks all. I did check the word count and it comes out to a little over three pages - not near enough for chapters. I'll submit it as one piece and see what happens.

You do realize you can have more than one chapter in one submission. Of course that's if the story calls for it. If a story is entered into a contest it must only be one submission now. So multiple chapters are not uncommon. Good luck on your submission. Hope it does well.
DG

 

[slyc_willie]

Thanks all. I did check the word count and it comes out to a little over three pages - not near enough for chapters. I'll submit it as one piece and see what happens.

Three pages isn't too much to expect a reader to sit through. Hell, some of my best pieces are eight or more Lit pages. They still get hits and votes. If the story's good enough, most readers will stay involved.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I consider any story under four pages to be short. But I think I am in the minority on that one

Hello, and welcome to the AH.