Story Length

[Series 6]

Sorry if this has been covered in previous postings. What is your preference for the length of a story on Literotica? I notice that the longer stories (5 or more pages) seem to do the best in the Literotica competitions. I tend to prefer the shorter stories of 1-3 pages in length. Probably a result of the short attention span society we live in today.

It seems like the shorter stories seldom win in the contests. What are your thoughts?

 

[Weird Harold]

Sorry if this has been covered in previous postings. What is your preference for the length of a story on Literotica? I notice that the longer stories (5 or more pages) seem to do the best in the Literotica competitions. I tend to prefer the shorter stories of 1-3 pages in length. Probably a result of the short attention span society we live in today.

It seems like the shorter stories seldom win in the contests. What are your thoughts?

There is usually more story to a longer piece and that might explain why they do better than shorter pieces in contests.

Outside of contests,the preference seems to be 3500-7000 words -- one full Lit page to two full Lit pages, or at least one full page but not longer than two.

Of course, it all depends on how well a story is written, a well written story will hold a reader through inumerable pages and leave them wanting more when it ends..

 

[beatrice_dreams]

Sorry if this has been covered in previous postings. What is your preference for the length of a story on Literotica? I notice that the longer stories (5 or more pages) seem to do the best in the Literotica competitions. I tend to prefer the shorter stories of 1-3 pages in length. Probably a result of the short attention span society we live in today.

It seems like the shorter stories seldom win in the contests. What are your thoughts?

I made the seriously rookie mistake of breaking the first part of my story into 3 smaller chapters and loading them at once. It was sort of like putting people on a drip-feed, as on top of the fact that they weren't even nearly a full Lit-page long, they only got a new chapter one day at a time!

People were pretty kind regardless, but I now know...if there ain't at least a 'page 2' at the bottom, they feel a bit cheated (and I don't blame them)!

 

[avidreader_01]

There is usually more story to a longer piece and that might explain why they do better than shorter pieces in contests.

Outside of contests,the preference seems to be 3500-7000 words -- one full Lit page to two full Lit pages, or at least one full page but not longer than two.

Of course, it all depends on how well a story is written, a well written story will hold a reader through inumerable pages and leave them wanting more when it ends..

so true. I've read some stories on here that are 20+ pages, it all depends on the author... then again I had to read them in stages so making 2-3 chapters out of those pages wouldn't have hurt, but it really just depends on the reader. Some ppl actually like having their stories posted in one sitting.

competitions-- if you can write a story in 1-2 lit pages & have the story feel 'finished' @ the end, then bravo, (I'm kinda long-winded so I couldn't do that) otherwise you're going to have to add more b/c readers get mad when the story doesn't feel like its the end

 

[ILmonamour]

story length

I honestly don't care what the length is. So long as the story flow, the author comes across as confident in their writing and continues until the conclusion. I have found that one page is quite short, but if that page is filled with memorable actions...I'm hooked. Easy. But if not, well then I'm lost and am off to search for another story to read.

 

[sr71plt]

In the mainstream, because of the "new" attention span dynamics, competition short stories usually run between 3,000 and 3,500 words (with "flash" fiction stories much shorter than that).

Unfortunately, "longer" doesn't that often mean "more story." It more commonly just means "more words."

 

[roomfor1more]

Sorry if this has been covered in previous postings. What is your preference for the length of a story on Literotica? I notice that the longer stories (5 or more pages) seem to do the best in the Literotica competitions. I tend to prefer the shorter stories of 1-3 pages in length. Probably a result of the short attention span society we live in today.

It seems like the shorter stories seldom win in the contests. What are your thoughts?

From my experience, I find somewhere between 2,000 - 2,500 words makes a page on Literotica. This means a five page story is somewhere between 10,000 - 12,500 words or roughly 25 pages - 30 pages typed. As a reader on Literotica, I am not wanting to read a 25 page + story and I prefer for a story to be no more than 3 pages.

My preference for a story being no more than 3 pages has nothing to do with short attention span and I find most stories, unless superbly written (see rivertown_rat, "Training Tina, Days 14"), does not keep my attention for more than 3 pages. At least from my experience, stories that are around 5 pages tend to have information that could be cut out in order to make the story flow better and sentences rewritten. This means from my experience, I tend to prefer shorter stories because in many cases authors tend to get to the point in their story thereby holding my attention. Also, it means the longer the story the more work the author has to put into editing it in order to ensure that the story holds the reader's attention and provides the right information thereby avoiding rambling in the story.

 

[sr71plt]

About 3,750 words makes a page on Literotica.

 

[estragon]

Indeed this topic has been discussed many times here. Opinions differ, but seem to coalesce around the 2-3 Lit pages mark for most writers. Then again, a true Grandmaster, Sir_Nathan, wrote a 37-pager that is a classic (Culture_Shock), an utter page-turner; I stayed up until 5 a.m. and couldn't stop reading. But unless you are in that league, stick to 2-3 pages.

 

[DG Hear]

I have written stories of various lengths. I usually figure if I would be going more than 3 Lit pages that I would make it a chapter story and submit it in separate chapters. (except in contests) My last story (Was He Guilty?) I posted in five chapters. The story was over 25000 words.

I got knocked for not posting it all at once but I find most readers don't want to read that much in one sitting. So again, it depends on the readers, they are not all the same. I don't read many but shy away from long stories (6 or 7 pages) and believe it or not, I'm not big on chapter stories that I don't know when they will end.

If I'm posting a story in individual chapters, I try and let the reader know in advance how many chapters and I do my best to post them daily. It seems to work for me.
With respect
DG Hear

 

[JustaNiceGuyUK]

I was surprised to find this topic on here as I was just about to ask the same question as regards length.
I have just put the finishing touches to my largest story yet and it really bothered me that it looked huge and uploading it as one peice might put some people off.
Seperating it each "chapter" is running to 5 to 6 pages over ms word which I would feel more comfortable posting.
I was going to post each chapter all at once but I kind of like the drip feed idea, a part every couple of days.
Usually if I read a story here I prefer the quickies 2 - 3 pages and I'm a happy man though when I go for a biggie do prefer then split.

 

[JimmyHartley]

There is no real set number of words, just if I feel that the story was too long or short for what it contained, I feel a bit ripped off.
Sometimes less is more people.

 

[Weird Harold]

Seperating it each "chapter" is running to 5 to 6 pages over ms word which I would feel more comfortable posting.

Using MSWord pages as a guide is useless unless you have the systen locked into a single format. Using the Word Count function gives a much better estimation of how many Lit pages your story will run.

The actual average is 3,767 +/- 400 words per Lit page. 3,500 or 3750 are easier numbers to manipulate and will keep you within the margin of error and keep you independent of Word's formatting issues.

 

[DG Hear]

Using MSWord pages as a guide is useless unless you have the systen locked into a single format. Using the Word Count function gives a much better estimation of how many Lit pages your story will run.

The actual average is 3,767 +/- 400 words per Lit page. 3,500 or 3750 are easier numbers to manipulate and will keep you within the margin of error and keep you independent of Word's formatting issues.

Thanks Harold. I feel this is really helpul. Nothing worse than submitting a story and find out one paragraph is on the second page. LOL
It Happens!
DG

 

[Darkniciad]

Thanks Harold. I feel this is really helpul. Nothing worse than submitting a story and find out one paragraph is on the second page. LOL
It Happens!
DG

Knowing the wordcount won't really help with that. The way Lit processes the text, you might have to make adjustments far in excess of how much you want to move from one page to the other.

I had one line cross over a page once, and I had to remove not only the author's note, but also combine four paragraphs down into two before that damn line ever fell on the previous page.

 

[Weird Harold]

Thanks Harold. I feel this is really helpul. Nothing worse than submitting a story and find out one paragraph is on the second page. LOL
It Happens!
DG

Unfortunately, that information won't help all that much with orphan paragraphs unless you shoot for the low end of +/- 400. The algorithm that divides pages is actually based on character count abd includes "invisible" or non-printing characters and orphan control that allows for some amount of overage in the character count plus a routine for avoiding breaks in the middle of a sentence that can account for an over-count or under-count.

Lit's goal is a 25 Kb page delivered to the reader with roughly 10 Kb of advertising overhead included, but they'll settle for a mere 24 Kb.