What is Too long for a story

playful Kitten26

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I have been working on a new story and it kinda got away from me. I Let the story build it's self from the ground up. When I started it I didn't even know what it was going to be about.

Now I am almost done and it is pushing 20 pages or more. I know that once it is posted it on Lit it won't be that long but it will still be over three pages.

Is that too long to hold a reader from start to finish?
 
The perfect sized story is like a woman's skirt. Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting.

If you can hold the reader's attention for that long, then it's short enough.

I would suggest that you wait a week, then go through and cut stuff out before you post it. Of course, you should do that with everything. It makes things better.
 
KillerMuffin said:
The perfect sized story is like a woman's skirt. Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting.

What a great quote! Funny how that applies to...so many things. (The perfect sized _________ is like a woman's skirt...)

;)
- Judo
 
Kitten,
I struggle with this also. I have just finished my first draft of a new story and it is just over 10,000 words. My last was over 7,000. I am determined to make myself write one of 2,000 words or less just as a matter of discipline.

Not that voting concerns me, but I have a really low read/vote ratio, and I assume it is because people start but don't finish my stories. That said, I don't know the answer to your question, but I am curious about what others may think.

Sure
 
how long is it?

Ditto to what Killer said.

As long as it is interesting then it can be as long as it likes.

Mine range from 3,000 to 55,000.
 
Wonderful quote, KM! I love it ... but in those terms, I must be a floor-length skirt made of something see-through.

For me, every story wants to be a novel and every novel wants to be a trilogy. I enjoy the process of writing so much that it's easy to get carried away. The hardest thing for me is holding to a word limit when I write something with an eye toward submitting it. 5,000 words? I'm just getting warmed up!

For example -- a recent thread in Story Ideas about angels and demons prompted me to dust off an old notion I'd had for an angel visiting Hell and getting captured and ravished by a devil. It turned into a 21,000 word smutfest (Infernal, look for it in the Novels & Novellas category). It was just so interesting seeing how twisted I could get that I kept on going ;)

I agree with the advice about letting the story sit for a while before going back to do any revisions. Whenever I finish a project, I set it aside (a day or two for short stories, a month for novels). When I go back for the second look, I'm ready to look at it with a more clinical eye.

Sabledrake
 
There really isn't a 'too long' limit for stories here at Lit. If it's more than three webpages, then it probably belongs in the 'Novels and Novellas' section.
 
That is my mistake... I have only long skirts

When I first started writing, everything was short, 1 to 2 pages. Then I began adding more about the characters who were having sex, and the story got bigger. And then, I realized that these two people don't live in a vacuum, and added more characters. So, when I start a story, I usually write from 2 to 10 pages first sitting, and it goes from there.

To date, my biggest story, and not online because I need to finish it (and you will gasp in a moment and say what the f**k!) It is 212 pages in Word... and if I ended it now, would take at least 5 more pages... at least!

And now, if I try a short story, people complain because my characters are one dimensional! Good luck, and I guess all my stories belong in the novel section!

mlyn :rose:
 
If it's a good build up, you might want to consider dividing them up into sections and submit them one a week.

I don't know, just thinking.
 
What's too long? What's too short?
It all depends.
My shortest story was under 100 words. My longest has
passed 100,000 words and isn't finished yet.
Whatever the story needs, whatever the readers want.
 
Uther_Pendragon said:
What's too long? What's too short?
It all depends.
My shortest story was under 100 words. My longest has
passed 100,000 words and isn't finished yet.
Whatever the story needs, whatever the readers want.
Oh, yes. My first story has ended up at 350,000 words and is sold on another board as five separate novels. It didn't start that way, but what I wanted to put in ended up there.
If you want a short short-story (non-erotic I grant you) try, and I quote:
The last man on Earth sat in a room. Something knocked at the door ...
 
Short Story

I check the bottom of the web page. If it says 1 2 3 4 I ususally don't bother with it I'm afraid.
I don't print out stories, and personally, 3,000 words is my limit for attention span and lack of eye-strain with my computer monitor.

I read pretty fast, about one (printed) page per minute. That's around 5-10 minutes per single literotica screenful.
 
a story is as long as it is meant to be for it to be told.

i too cannot keep my attention span long enough to read 5 webpages of story.

having said that, i began reading a story in the novel section the other day, i will be going back to finish it. boy it was good.
 
I tend to be wordy! So far I have had few complaints. I try to keep it within reason. If it gets too long then break it up into parts.

My Very Personal Maid was almost a novelette. I broke it down into 6 parts, and never had any complaints.

If your work is really well written, and you capture your audience, they will love it and want more.

Ever read a L - O - N - G book written by a really good author?
You can't put it down, but you don't want it to end - no matter how long it is.

Write well and let the words fall where they may.

Some authors seem to be paid by the word and that is BAD in some instances.
 
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