Word MAXimum? Chapters? (new author)

[sillypanda]

Hello everyone!

I am a long time fan of Literotica, and recently decided to try submitting works for the first time.

I read the submission FAQs but was left with a few questions, so if anyone can add some insight, I'd be very grateful!

1. I saw the minimum word count, but is there a MAXIMUM word count?

2. Is there a way to predict how many pages your story will be?

I ask because I am wondering if it would be best to split my story into chapters. It is over 3,000 words, and I don't know how that compares lengthwise. (And please, gentlemen, don't take that as an insult - it's not the length of the story that counts, it's how you use it! )

Any info you can offer would be greatly appreciated! Thank you and have a great day everyone!

 

[oggbashan]

3,000 words is fairly short for a Literotica story and will be perhaps just over a page.

30,000? That might need breaking up into chapters but could be submitted as one story.

300,000? That's a novel. It would need chapters and probably should be submitted as chapters.

Og

 

[sillypanda]

Thank you so much Og! I really appreciate the (lightning fast!) response!

For some reason I was worried about being too wordy, so I actually left out a whole chunk that I wanted to include. I'm THRILLED that I can go back and add it in without it being too long.

Thank you again sir!

 

[Weird Harold]

300,000? That's a novel. It would need chapters and probably should be submitted as chapters.

When testing the original script-based submissions system, I successfully submitted over 500,000 words through copy & paste to the submission form's text box.

There's never been any upper limitation submissions by text, RTF, or Word DOC files -- the only practical limitation has been your e-mail provider's limit on file attachment size. There is an upper limit on the C&P to the text box, but I have no idea what that limit is -- it is clearly higher than the capacity of my clipboard when I was trying to break it.

 

[Carnevil9]

I find that 3900 words of my writing fills one Lit-Page pretty consistently. I imagine this figure varies from author to author, based on your style of writing. But your own constant will probably be somewhere in that ball park.

As for best length of story, it depends on the readers. Some only want short (2 pages tops), others like to sink their teeth into something meatier (10 pages and up). Personally, I won't start a long story unless I've already read something else by the author and know that they are worth the effort.

Good luck, and welcome aboard!.........Carney

 

[Weird Harold]

I find that 3900 words of my writing fills one Lit-Page pretty consistently.

The average word count/Lit page I came up with by sampling page one of 100 multi-page stories was 3,767 +/- about 400 words. That was some years ago, but Lit's format hasn't changed much in the meantime.

The actual determinant is a character-count -- including non-printing characters like formatting code -- of roughly 14KB, rounded to the nearest paragraph break for "orphan control."

 

[sr71plt]

I suggest it's best to think in terms of what can comfortably read in a single sitting (the original definition of what a short story is) and cut appropriately if you want to maximize readers. My Lit. pages average 3750 words. I try not to go over two Lit. pages (although sometimes I do) in a single Lit. story or chapter Lit. page--so 7,500 words.

Publishing in the United States eyeballs a chapter at 5,000 words, if that's any help.

Also, if it helps, most "full length" (not Flash) fiction short story contest maximum wordage requirements are 3,000-3,500 words now. Attention span changes in the United States have brought the desired lengths for publishing down, as have the requirements for the few remaining magazines that publish fiction. (When Readers Digest became one of the sole survivors, it brought the desired max lengths down dramatically).

 

[sillypanda]

Wow, thank you everyone for the help and info!

I didn't realize (until I tried submitting, of course) that when you go to submit, they give you a preview with the number of pages, so that was a tremendous help.

While I worried it was too long, my first story ended up clocking in just over 3,800 words and was just over a page.

Glad to know that, should I submit again, it can be a bit longer and still fit within a few pages!

May I ask, please, does anyone have an opinion on backstory? I kept this one short, but in the future I'd like to spend more time on the characters and buildup. Is it okay to go, say, half a page with nothing sexual happening, or do readers lose interest and give up?

Thank you all again for the feedback, and for being so welcoming! I was quite nervous to step onto a new forum for the first time, but you've all been wonderful - thank you very much!

 

[Weird Harold]

Glad to know that, should I submit again, it can be a bit longer and still fit within a few pages!

Don't waste time on "fixing" posted stories -- people won't go back and re-read them and they won't show up on the new stories list to attract new readers. Take the lessons learned and apply them to a new story.

May I ask, please, does anyone have an opinion on backstory? I kept this one short, but in the future I'd like to spend more time on the characters and buildup. Is it okay to go, say, half a page with nothing sexual happening, or do readers lose interest and give up?

Use exactly as much backstory as your story requires, no more and no less.

Every story is different. Some stories can go on for pages without any sex at all, and others need hardcore sex from the first word. Just worry about telling your story and what works best for that story.

My personal preference is for more story than sex -- I can find thousands of stroke stories that concentrate on nothing but Barbie-does-Ken sex, but finding characters I can care about having sex is much harder.

 

[Bebeslut]

Don't waste time on "fixing" posted stories -- people won't go back and re-read them and they won't show up on the new stories list to attract new readers. Take the lessons learned and apply them to a new story.



Use exactly as much backstory as your story requires, no more and no less.

Every story is different. Some stories can go on for pages without any sex at all, and others need hardcore sex from the first word. Just worry about telling your story and what works best for that story.

My personal preference is for more story than sex -- I can find thousands of stroke stories that concentrate on nothing but Barbie-does-Ken sex, but finding characters I can care about having sex is much harder.

Ditto on the above.
My characters (members of a girl gang) have quite a bit of backstory, which sees print when it needs to. Backstory is as much an aide to the author as it is to the reader.
And every story IS different. As far as I'm concerned, each story has its own requirements; don't go following suggestions or rules if they don't seem to help your story. Post enough stories, and you may get feedback that it's best to ignore. One feedback I got was a formula for writing what I call the "average Lit story," the type of story that bores the hell out of me. (No one in AH, of course, writes such stories. Ahem.)

 

[sillypanda]

Don't waste time on "fixing" posted stories -- people won't go back and re-read them and they won't show up on the new stories list to attract new readers. Take the lessons learned and apply them to a new story.



Use exactly as much backstory as your story requires, no more and no less.

Every story is different. Some stories can go on for pages without any sex at all, and others need hardcore sex from the first word. Just worry about telling your story and what works best for that story.

My personal preference is for more story than sex -- I can find thousands of stroke stories that concentrate on nothing but Barbie-does-Ken sex, but finding characters I can care about having sex is much harder.

I'm sorry, I wasn't horribly clear there - when I said "should I decide to submit again," I meant submit a different, NEW work, not a revision of my old one. Ha - what kind of author am I if I can't even express myself clearly in a post? xD

And thank you for the advice - I tend to prefer the slow and steady character development myself (so that, like you said, you start to care about the characters), so I'm glad to know there are other people out there who might be willing to follow a story down a more winding path than A (meet) to B (sex).

Thanks again!

 

[Bebeslut]

I tend to prefer the slow and steady character development myself (so that, like you said, you start to care about the characters), so I'm glad to know there are other people out there who might be willing to follow a story down a more winding path than A (meet) to B (sex).
QUOTE]

Nothing wrong with that.

 

[sillypanda]

Ditto on the above.
My characters (members of a girl gang) have quite a bit of backstory, which sees print when it needs to. Backstory is as much an aide to the author as it is to the reader.
And every story IS different. As far as I'm concerned, each story has its own requirements; don't go following suggestions or rules if they don't seem to help your story. Post enough stories, and you may get feedback that it's best to ignore. One feedback I got was a formula for writing what I call the "average Lit story," the type of story that bores the hell out of me. (No one in AH, of course, writes such stories. Ahem.)

lol - thank you Bebe! ^^ And good for you for knowing what comments to ignore - that's one I'm still working on myself! xD Although, so far, I must say, the feedback I've gotten has been amazing - even the criticisms have been very well stated and usually right on point, as if readers pick up on things that I tossed about in my head as I wrote.

The HARDEST part of being a newly-public member of this site that I've suddenly joined after years as a spectator? Not having time to read everyone's stories! xD Frequently people will post about their works and I'll think "ooh, I want to read some of his/her stuff," but alas, not to be - at least, not until this weekend.

Thanks again!