Story Length

[txdwv]

I have sdeen some long stories but most are one or two screens long. Are there guidelines on story length? I have a couple but one especially is sort of long.

 

[LadyCibelle]

I have sdeen some long stories but most are one or two screens long. Are there guidelines on story length? I have a couple but one especially is sort of long.

The most important guideline you have to remember is that your story must be at least 750 words long. One Lit page usually amount to 9-10 Word pages. So if your story is very long, say more than 40 pages and you don't want to "bore" the readers with long Lit pages I'd recommend that you post it in chapters, that way you won't have too many pages all at once.

 

[brightlyiburn]

The most important guideline you have to remember is that your story must be at least 750 words long. One Lit page usually amount to 9-10 Word pages. So if your story is very long, say more than 40 pages and you don't want to "bore" the readers with long Lit pages I'd recommend that you post it in chapters, that way you won't have too many pages all at once.

I think it's actually about 12 word pages, double spaced. Let's see...fifty Word pages divided by four Lit pages is...12.5? My math is rather spotty...

 

[Captain Midnight]

Lit pages and Word pages

It depends on what you do. If I select the entire Lit page and copy it, margins and all, and then paste it into a Word document, it usually comes out to 8-plus pages. If you didn't use their margins (which are pretty big), it would probably be somewhat less.

Your math was fine.

 

[snooper]

Length

It's easier to use words, as MSWord page sizes depend on paper size, margins, paragraphing and font size. There are about 3,000 words on a Lit page.

As to the correct length for a story - that's easy.

When a story is finished it has exactly the right number of words in it. If it hasn't got the right words in it, it is not finished. To put it another way - there is no right and wrong length - there are just stories of different lengths.

 

[Weird Harold]

Technical Details

It's easier to use words, as MSWord page sizes depend on paper size, margins, paragraphing and font size. There are about 3,000 words on a Lit page.

Actually the last time I did a random sampling of Lit pages, the average was 3,727 +/- about 500 words by MS Word 97's word count function.

The page breaks ar actually determined by a character count -- roughly 14KB characters (printable and non-printable) backed up to the last paragraph break.

However, MS Word's character count isn't an accurate predictor because MS Word doesn't strip out "white space" as Lit's page formatting script does and the default settings for MS Word puts double spaces between sentences automatically.

I use 3,500 words as an estimate for guaging how "long" a story will be on Lit, but don't let the size of Lit's pages determine how I write the story -- except for the rare case where a story is one paragraph or one sentence too long to fit neatly into an even number of Lit pages.

 

[bearlee]

Actually the last time I did a random sampling of Lit pages, the average was 3,727 +/- about 500 words by MS Word 97's word count function.

The page breaks ar actually determined by a character count -- roughly 14KB characters (printable and non-printable) backed up to the last paragraph break.

However, MS Word's character count isn't an accurate predictor because MS Word doesn't strip out "white space" as Lit's page formatting script does and the default settings for MS Word puts double spaces between sentences automatically.

I use 3,500 words as an estimate for guaging how "long" a story will be on Lit, but don't let the size of Lit's pages determine how I write the story -- except for the rare case where a story is one paragraph or one sentence too long to fit neatly into an even number of Lit pages.

Damn, this hurts my head Too bad Sandman doesn't have his 77 or whatever Lit page story up anymore-let's see, that would be 286,979 words give or take 38,500

 

[Guest]

I copied a sampling of 50 FULL pages from stories from all Lit categories and ran some numbers via WORD 2002 and then did some statistics:

3682 = Avg. Words per Lit Story Page........................ ........ (Std. Dev = 141, 3.8% of the mean)
16189 = Avg. Characters excluding spaces per Lit Story Page... (Std. Dev = 373, 2.3% of the mean)
19823 = Avg. Characters with spaces per Lit Story Page........... (Std. Dev = 434, 2.2% of the mean)

So if your favorite Word processor can count your story's: total words, or total characters excluding spaces, or total characters including spaces, take that number and divide by the appropriate factor above.

Therefore:

(Your story's Word Count) / (3682) = Estimated Lit Story Pages

(Your story's Total Characters excluding spaces) / (16189) = Estimated Lit Story Pages

(Your story's Total Characters including spaces) / (19823) = Estimated Lit Story Pages

Or, do them all (if your word processor has the capability), and take an average that will give you a good guess as to the number of pages you can expect your story to be when finally posted.



I also ran some numbers in the word processor, using single-spaced, 12 point font, 8-1/2" x 11" pages, and on average, there are about seven (7) word-processed pages per Lit Story Page, but this is less accurate than the calculations above.

 

[Halo_n_horns]

I have six chapters of one of my stories posted as one submission. I think it comes out to about 15 or 16 pages on Lit. I've gotten feedback saying that it's too long and I should resubmit it in chapters, but the thing is that in chapters the story would probably get thrown all over the Lit categories because of the contents of different pages.

Also, that particular story is NOT light reading anyway. So in the end I really don't give a shit if people are scared away by the length. Since originally submitting the story I've added two more chapters individually. Now the story line is spread out into two categories because one of the chapters contains no erotica. The number of hits have dwindled considerably for that chapter.

So what I'm trying to say, be true to yourself and how you want to submit something, so long as it meets the minimum word requirements, fuck what others think.

 

[Weird Harold]

I copied a sampling of 50 FULL pages from stories from all Lit categories and ran some numbers via WORD 2002 and then did some statistics:

3682 = Avg. Words per Lit Story Page....

The scripts must have been changed slightly since I did my original check of 100 full pages several years ago, but your numbers are still very similar to what I came up with. (I did use a Min/Max to get the +/- 500 figure instead of STD Dev)

3,500 words is still a close approximation that's easier to remember than trying to remember where the exact number is.

 

[Guest]

The scripts must have been changed slightly since I did my original check of 100 full pages several years ago, but your numbers are still very similar to what I came up with. (I did use a Min/Max to get the +/- 500 figure instead of STD Dev)

3,500 words is still a close approximation that's easier to remember than trying to remember where the exact number is.

____

And I use 20,000 characters per Lit page as my approximation, so I don't have to look your or my numbers, either.


In any event, it's probably a good idea to run these tests from time to time, WH.

 

[SweetSurrendered1]

I copied a sampling of 50 FULL pages from stories from all Lit categories and ran some numbers via WORD 2002 and then did some statistics:

3682 = Avg. Words per Lit Story Page........................ ........ (Std. Dev = 141, 3.8% of the mean)
16189 = Avg. Characters excluding spaces per Lit Story Page... (Std. Dev = 373, 2.3% of the mean)
19823 = Avg. Characters with spaces per Lit Story Page........... (Std. Dev = 434, 2.2% of the mean)

So if your favorite Word processor can count your story's: total words, or total characters excluding spaces, or total characters including spaces, take that number and divide by the appropriate factor above.

Therefore:

(Your story's Word Count) / (3682) = Estimated Lit Story Pages

(Your story's Total Characters excluding spaces) / (16189) = Estimated Lit Story Pages

(Your story's Total Characters including spaces) / (19823) = Estimated Lit Story Pages

Or, do them all (if your word processor has the capability), and take an average that will give you a good guess as to the number of pages you can expect your story to be when finally posted.



I also ran some numbers in the word processor, using single-spaced, 12 point font, 8-1/2" x 11" pages, and on average, there are about seven (7) word-processed pages per Lit Story Page, but this is less accurate than the calculations above.

Have any of you guys thought about becoming an engineer or something similar? My head hurts just reading all those numbers... LOL. I'm impressed (and just a little envious LOL)!

 

[elsol]

Have any of you guys thought about becoming an engineer or something similar? My head hurts just reading all those numbers... LOL. I'm impressed (and just a little envious LOL)!

Someone is either taking a statistics or took one in the past

Believe me, you start counting EVERYTHING and take any excuse to run statistics.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[snooper]

... As to the correct length for a story - that's easy.

When a story is finished it has exactly the right number of words in it. If it hasn't got the right words in it, it is not finished. To put it another way - there is no right and wrong length - there are just stories of different lengths.

This is the important point I was trying to make, not the number cruinching one!