What to do with a medium length (6-7 Lit page) story?

[JamesSD]

I've been working on a piece for a while that currently clocks in at 33 MS word pages, 14,100 words, which the way I write is roughly 5 Lit Pages. I figure I'm about 3/4 of the way done, so when all is said and done I'll have 6+ total Lit Pages of story.

To me this is far too long to post as one story. I've got at least 3 major and 2 minor sex scenes, so splitting it up isn't a problem from that angle. I like to think of my genre as 'Literate Stroke" or "Stroke that has a story", a niche that I seem to do pretty well in.

I guess my problem is that based on the expected length, I'd be looking at 2 good sized "chapters" or 3 moderately sized ones. I'm morally opposed to having "Chapters" if there's only two of them, although I suppose I could just call them "Part 1" and "Part 2", which seems less negative to me.

I fully realize that it's tough to make general comments on story length and "it depends on the specific story" is always applicable. But I'm still curious what others do when it comes to posting stories that are too long to be digested in one sitting by most readers, but on the shorter side for a serial.

 

[DerelictionOfSanity]

Actually, some of my favorite Lit stories come in at around 6 pages. You could just submit as a single story.

 

[jomar]

It might depend on what your readers expect. I clicked on a few of your stories and most seem to be 1-2 pages. So you might think about breaking them up in those bite sized chunks. It seems like shorter chapters go down easier from some other threads I've seen. But others do well with long stories (e.g., DrkSide). I've written a 21k story that I've broken into 7 chapters, largely because it's written as a cliffhanger. Good luck with it.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I favor a "dust jacket note" right at the start, disclosing/informing the reader just what to expect. Here's how I did it in my long incest story:

Preface: The sex in this story begins on page three, in the section titled, "Mom's seduction," and the mother-daughter incest begins on page six, in the section titled, "The most forbidden fruit." Between these scenes is one called, "I'm going to fuck your daughter now . . ."

The first two-and-one-half pages are a fantasy of a different sort and contain no sex . . . (dust jacket description of story follows.)

I had one complaint about giving too much away, but with 95,000 views so far, apparently that hasn't been too off-putting.

 

[rgraham666]

I've never had any problem with my five and six page Lit stories.

Until I sold it my most viewed story here was also my longest.

 

[3113]

I've been working on a piece for a while that currently clocks in at 33 MS word pages, 14,100 words, which the way I write is roughly 5 Lit Pages.

When I write up in MS word, using Ariel 12pt and single space, I get about 10 MS word pages per 1 Lit page--which would put your story at about 4 Lit pages. Which is fine if that is the total length. I tend to think that if the story is going to go over 4-5 lit pages, then, yes, you should break it up, preferably into chapters no longer than 3-4 lit pages.

Going in the opposite direction, though, I have to mention that I'm not real fond of stories that cut off after only one Lit page, as if readers of erotica haven't that long an attention span and so a story has to cut off and have a "to-be-continued..." message after 1 Lit page

 

[Vermilion]

Alternatively post it it Novels and Novellas - then people will be expecting a long story...

 

[Frank Noir]

14000 words? Sheesh.

My "Lusting after Michiko" ended up at a mere 12000 words - and I divided that into six (count'em) parts!

Didn't realize there was a "Novels and Novellas" section until afterwards.