Word length and chapters
- Thread starter Bodie
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tenyari
Naked Fool
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Do chapters at logical break points.
Consider pacing and such.
I wouldn't be woried about story length.
One thing I found out, the people at this site won't post more than one chapter a day of your story.
I submitted three chapters one day, and they staged them out like that. Which was annoying to say the least.
So if you want to get it all out there at once, but also want it in chapters, you may have to put it all in one document and hope they fail to see your chapter breaks...
There's a lot of useful general writing material in the FAQs section of http://www.asstr.org , but I don't recall seeing anything on chapters and size.
Consider how long it will take to read... how long does it take you to read it back to yourself?
If it seems to take toolong a time, break it up. Otherwise don't.
There's no hard science to this. It's really a feeling issue.
When I write, I break chapters up by events and general situation or time.
One story might use chapters to show stages in a character, another might put a chapter into each day of a story where the time plays a critical role.
Consider pacing and such.
I wouldn't be woried about story length.
One thing I found out, the people at this site won't post more than one chapter a day of your story.
I submitted three chapters one day, and they staged them out like that. Which was annoying to say the least.
So if you want to get it all out there at once, but also want it in chapters, you may have to put it all in one document and hope they fail to see your chapter breaks...
There's a lot of useful general writing material in the FAQs section of http://www.asstr.org , but I don't recall seeing anything on chapters and size.
Consider how long it will take to read... how long does it take you to read it back to yourself?
If it seems to take toolong a time, break it up. Otherwise don't.
There's no hard science to this. It's really a feeling issue.
When I write, I break chapters up by events and general situation or time.
One story might use chapters to show stages in a character, another might put a chapter into each day of a story where the time plays a critical role.
Weird Harold
Opinionated Old Fart
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Bodie said:
You're correct that there is no one answer to whether to use chapters, serialize (ie post in pieces), or submit as single story.
Some general comments:
Use chapter breaks where the story takes a natural break -- this remains true whether you plan to serialize the submission or not.
One "Lit Page" is about 3500-4000 words -- 25-26K including the "overhead" of HTML coding. I've found that the top rated stories are often two or three "Lit Pages." I seldom read stories online, but when I do, two "Lit Pages" is about all that I'll invest the online time for -- most stories, and anything longer than two Lit Pages gets saved to disk for later reading offline.
If you serialize the story use the logical break points in the story and, as tenyari warned, be prepared for Laurel to post one episode a day -- you can request longer intervals if you wish but Laurel won't fill page one of the new stories list with multiple chapters of one story so one day is the minimum interval.
There is no upper limit to story length -- or at least I've not seen it reached yet. There is character limit on cut and paste submissions that is around 64Kb but that is a limit of the text box in HTML and the size of your clipboard buffer. It is not a limit imposed by Literotica. Submitting via a text file doesn't have that limit.
Just my opinion, but 12,000 words is well within reason for a single submission -- being about 3-3.5 Lit Pages -- and forcing it into chapters or serializing it artificially would be counter-productive in holding reader interest.
Route66Girl
Really Experienced
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I was prepared to reply at length, Bodie, but Weird Harold said it all (as usual) 
I agree 100%. In my first post at Lit, I asked some similar questions, and recieved the same answer from WH. I'm very glad I followed his advice.
By the way, welcome to the Lit boards!
-R66G
I agree 100%. In my first post at Lit, I asked some similar questions, and recieved the same answer from WH. I'm very glad I followed his advice.
By the way, welcome to the Lit boards!
-R66G
karmadog
Now I'm a drink behind.
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Don't break it up.
I echo Weird Harold on this, but I'd like to add that I never read stories titled 'Such and Such: Chapter 1'.
In addition to the fact that they the ones that I've read were terrible, they rarely have an ending. Really they rarely have any structure. They're usually just sex scenes loosely linked by a character name.
Of course, there are almost certainly exceptions, but I think a lot of readers feel the same way I do.
BTW, 12,000 words is not really all that long. Most of the time, a published short story will fall between six and twenty thousand.
I echo Weird Harold on this, but I'd like to add that I never read stories titled 'Such and Such: Chapter 1'.
In addition to the fact that they the ones that I've read were terrible, they rarely have an ending. Really they rarely have any structure. They're usually just sex scenes loosely linked by a character name.
Of course, there are almost certainly exceptions, but I think a lot of readers feel the same way I do.
BTW, 12,000 words is not really all that long. Most of the time, a published short story will fall between six and twenty thousand.
takingchances42
Multicellular Life Form
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Re: Re: Word length and chapters
I'll go with what the other posters have said, but wanted to add a couple of things. One of them is that I liked what Harold said about "natural breaks", specifically regarding the type stories posted here. You need to look at why the readers are here to read stories. For many reasons probably, but I'm guessing the most common reason is mastubatory fantasies. Speaking for myself, I would rather not hold out for 12,000 words. Maybe 2,000 to 6,000, but not 12,000 words. I would rather read three 4,000 word stories on three different "occasions". Chapter breaks are a good way to separate them. Just my preferences, I am sure some of the guys here have other reasons and preferences, and the women likely do prefer longer stories.
The other comment I would make is that I believe you said earlier that you are hoping to make it as a professional writer. Good for you! We all write for our own reasons, and no one reason is better than the others. But I doubt that I ever write a 12,000 word for Literotica (assuming I ever do get around to finishing even that second one.) My reasoning is that at 12,000 words, I would be one fifth to one tenth of the way there to having a full length novel. If I'm going to put that much time and effort into it, I want it to be for something more substantial than just "publishing" a story for personal satisfaction and the enjoyment of readers on Literotica. Maybe I'm selfish.
If you are thinking of using those same 12,000 words in a novel, or most of them -- then I would STRONGLY recommend that you do not post them to Literotica first. Yes, you will still have the copyright to them. But, you will need to inform both potential agents and potential publishers that the story in question has already been published on a free internet site. While there are always exceptions to the rule, my guess is that this will seriously reduce the chances of their even being willing to look at your manuscript, let along represent or publish you.
Just my opinions, and good luck with your writing.
Weird Harold said:
I'll go with what the other posters have said, but wanted to add a couple of things. One of them is that I liked what Harold said about "natural breaks", specifically regarding the type stories posted here. You need to look at why the readers are here to read stories. For many reasons probably, but I'm guessing the most common reason is mastubatory fantasies. Speaking for myself, I would rather not hold out for 12,000 words. Maybe 2,000 to 6,000, but not 12,000 words. I would rather read three 4,000 word stories on three different "occasions". Chapter breaks are a good way to separate them. Just my preferences, I am sure some of the guys here have other reasons and preferences, and the women likely do prefer longer stories.
The other comment I would make is that I believe you said earlier that you are hoping to make it as a professional writer. Good for you! We all write for our own reasons, and no one reason is better than the others. But I doubt that I ever write a 12,000 word for Literotica (assuming I ever do get around to finishing even that second one.) My reasoning is that at 12,000 words, I would be one fifth to one tenth of the way there to having a full length novel. If I'm going to put that much time and effort into it, I want it to be for something more substantial than just "publishing" a story for personal satisfaction and the enjoyment of readers on Literotica. Maybe I'm selfish.
If you are thinking of using those same 12,000 words in a novel, or most of them -- then I would STRONGLY recommend that you do not post them to Literotica first. Yes, you will still have the copyright to them. But, you will need to inform both potential agents and potential publishers that the story in question has already been published on a free internet site. While there are always exceptions to the rule, my guess is that this will seriously reduce the chances of their even being willing to look at your manuscript, let along represent or publish you.
Just my opinions, and good luck with your writing.
Weird Harold
Opinionated Old Fart
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Bodie said:
When the site first went to the scripts for posting stories I did a lot of copy, paste into MS Word and check Word Count to determine how it was determining the breaks for longer stories -- a full lit page averages 3,750 or so words plus or minus about 250 words. That's not the exact numbers but it's close enough for planning purposes.
Chapter Breaks = Setting parts of the story apart with chapter headings and or chapter titles with or without prologue and/or epilogue.
Serialization = posting the story in pieces -- like the Saturday Matinee movies of old. Each episode of a serial could conceivably contain more than one chapter. Many Golden Age Science Fiction and Fantasy novels started life as a serial story in a "pulp" magazine.
Think of the difference as being like a novel that is broken into chapters but published inone volume versus a trilogy which is three volumes containing one story published in three parts.
Uther_Pendragon
Really Really Experienced
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What your story requires.
|
I think that most long stories have natural break points.
OTOH, if your story doesn't, then don't break it into
chapters. I broke one story submitted to Lit into three
parts because I wanted to control the breaks. If you
submit it as one whole, though, the software will break it
apart after the last paragraph which will fit.
|
I think that most long stories have natural break points.
OTOH, if your story doesn't, then don't break it into
chapters. I broke one story submitted to Lit into three
parts because I wanted to control the breaks. If you
submit it as one whole, though, the software will break it
apart after the last paragraph which will fit.
Madame Manga
Really Really Experienced
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- Aug 28, 2002
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Chapters a turnoff?
I'm surprised to hear that chapterized stories aren't popular. I prefer long stories to short ones myself. Apparently that isn't a widespread sentiment here.
If you mean that most stories posted as a series of chapters are nothing more than loose serials without a lot of connection between parts, then I see your point, but what about complete novels and novellas? Are people hating on those only because they are chapterized? I just posted a 76K word story in the novel/novella category. The seven chapters went up one a day, and each of them took up 3-5 pages, which is about the maximum I'd want in a single submission. IMO, it's too hard to find your place when you come back to a story if there are eight or ten pages or more. I get lost in a case like that, so I prefer medium-length chapters to huge single blocks.
Am I in the minority here so far as wanting to read and write longer works? I'm not knocking quick stroke stories or short humor pieces--I read plenty of those too! But my account on fanfiction.net shows many more hits on all chapters of my longer stories than on the short ones. Maybe I just suck at writing short. ;-)
Regards, MM
I'm surprised to hear that chapterized stories aren't popular. I prefer long stories to short ones myself. Apparently that isn't a widespread sentiment here.
If you mean that most stories posted as a series of chapters are nothing more than loose serials without a lot of connection between parts, then I see your point, but what about complete novels and novellas? Are people hating on those only because they are chapterized? I just posted a 76K word story in the novel/novella category. The seven chapters went up one a day, and each of them took up 3-5 pages, which is about the maximum I'd want in a single submission. IMO, it's too hard to find your place when you come back to a story if there are eight or ten pages or more. I get lost in a case like that, so I prefer medium-length chapters to huge single blocks.
Am I in the minority here so far as wanting to read and write longer works? I'm not knocking quick stroke stories or short humor pieces--I read plenty of those too! But my account on fanfiction.net shows many more hits on all chapters of my longer stories than on the short ones. Maybe I just suck at writing short. ;-)
Regards, MM
Weird Harold
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Re: Chapters a turnoff?
There is a history of people posting "Chapter One" and never posting a "chapter two" here that tends to predispose people to ignore all of the "chapter ones" -- at least until there are more chapters posted.
I, personally, hate a "chapter one" that ends, "if there is enough interest, I'll write chapter two."
Stories with a demonstrated intent to carry the story to conclusion generally develop a following, but that doesn't seem to happen until around chapter three gets posted. I don't think it hurts a story to be serialized a chapter at a time if it is well written and carries out the initial promise of following chapters.
Madame Manga said:
There is a history of people posting "Chapter One" and never posting a "chapter two" here that tends to predispose people to ignore all of the "chapter ones" -- at least until there are more chapters posted.
I, personally, hate a "chapter one" that ends, "if there is enough interest, I'll write chapter two."
Stories with a demonstrated intent to carry the story to conclusion generally develop a following, but that doesn't seem to happen until around chapter three gets posted. I don't think it hurts a story to be serialized a chapter at a time if it is well written and carries out the initial promise of following chapters.
Whispersecret
Clandestine Sex-pressionist
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Re: Re: Chapters a turnoff?
Exactly. That "if there's enough interest" thing is downright idiotic. That shows that a) they haven't thought the story through to a conclusion, and b) they probably want a response more than they are interested in finishing the story.
The serial thing is true too, MM. There's no real story arc. It's just a succession of scenes that involve the same character(s) in various sexual situations.
Also, many people think that a chapter should end as soon as the first sex scene is over. Or they write something like 500 words and call it a chapter. These are people who clearly don't read enough full length books to recognize what the word "chapter" means.
It's been my experience that there are plenty of people who want longer fare, but, like Harold said, have been burned too often by "novels" that peter out before they even get to the midpoint.
Weird Harold said:
Exactly. That "if there's enough interest" thing is downright idiotic. That shows that a) they haven't thought the story through to a conclusion, and b) they probably want a response more than they are interested in finishing the story.
The serial thing is true too, MM. There's no real story arc. It's just a succession of scenes that involve the same character(s) in various sexual situations.
Also, many people think that a chapter should end as soon as the first sex scene is over. Or they write something like 500 words and call it a chapter. These are people who clearly don't read enough full length books to recognize what the word "chapter" means.
It's been my experience that there are plenty of people who want longer fare, but, like Harold said, have been burned too often by "novels" that peter out before they even get to the midpoint.
