writing short chapters

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

I read your story. It was very good, especially for a first effort. That's exactly the kind of story I would suggest as a model for a first story here. It's got a good setup with uncertainty and internal conflict, an erotically charged atmosphere, and a good buildup to an enjoyable sex scene with a twist, all in under three Lit pages.

It's still weird to me when people say they actually read it, haha. But thank you, I'm really glad you liked it. Part of the reason for the size was because of the deadline. I only returned to this site two weeks before the contest ended, so I had to write and edit the story in that period. At first I had more scenes planned that ended up being scrapped because of the time constraints, but in the end I think that might have benefited the story.

Despite what I wrote in my previous post, after working on the outline a bit it looks like my Summer Lovin' story is going to be significantly longer. Oh well, I'll also have a lot more time to write it, so it should be okay.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's still weird to me when people say they actually read it, haha. But thank you, I'm really glad you liked it. Part of the reason for the size was because of the deadline. I only returned to this site two weeks before the contest ended, so I had to write and edit the story in that period. At first I had more scenes planned that ended up being scrapped because of the time constraints, but in the end I think that might have benefited the story.

Despite what I wrote in my previous post, after working on the outline a bit it looks like my Summer Lovin' story is going to be significantly longer. Oh well, I'll also have a lot more time to write it, so it should be okay.

The weird moment for me as a new writer here was when I got back feedback from people telling me my story made them orgasm. It was flattering, but in such a weird, weird way.

That, and when people wrote to me that my Loving Wives story was "cuckshit", that I should "eat a condom", and "What the hell's wrong with you?"

 

[ElectricBlue]

The weird moment for me as a new writer here was when I got back feedback from people telling me my story made them orgasm. It was flattering, but in such a weird, weird way.

They're my favourite comments - all the different ways they express it:

Oh My!
Original, fabulous and VERY effective. My response is considerable!

Loved "The Artists Studio". The build up was very erotic. I was wet the whole time I was reading this story. Thank you!

Fuck me long, love me hard.
Omigosh! Exquisite. I needed this. Again

You’ve made this woman very happy tonight

Still Tingling...
What a beautiful read. I felt it in my toes. Only way it could be any sexier is if someone read it to me... Mmmm.

My God, so beautiful a fantasy, so erotic, is her lover real? Step by step, being led deeper and softly into paridice. Thank you, and thank your Creator for bestowing on you the Gift of your art.


Most of those were anon, which is why I'd never turn them off. The last one made me smile - the number of times I've written, "If there was a heaven, but I don't believe in that." There's hope for a heathen yet .

 

[bushyTrail]

I've written a short novel about hucows and, since I've been stung before by stories that never reached a conclusion here, I started publishing chapters only when it was finished. Since I want to review each of them as I do so, on average I have posted once every 5 days or so in Fetish.
I'm a bit of a math buff, so I analyzed a little my stats to check your theories. What I noticed is the following:
1) with each passing day the amount of voters per chapter increases roughly of the same amount (in a plot voters vs days, the data is placed on a straight line), no matter which chapter it is.
2) the viewership, on the other hand, decreases exponentially (not figuratively, mathematically: the plot viewership vs days fits quite well with exp), which is consistent with a model for which, at each chapter, there is a constant probability that the reader stops there. (like nuclear decay, if you will) In my case 5%.

Don't know if it helps. It probably depends a lot on the category: the only chapter that ended up in BDSM is an outlier in both plots, because that category has a bigger viewership.

 

[HectorBidon]

Scenario 1: published in one shot, with 100K views
Scenario 2: published in 10 separate 5K word releases, the first chapter getting say 80K views and then the final chapter getting 20K views

What does this mean? What does this tell us? Does it mean that Scenario 1 is superior because it received 100K views? How do we have any certainty that the reader read past chapter 1 or 2 or 3? Past the first paragraph? How do you know that as the story progresses, you don't have similar or even identical attrition rate per chapter to Scenario 2?

You're undoubtedly right that not all the 100K Scenario 1 viewers read to the end. Which approach brings in the greatest number of overall eyeballs? Impossible to predict with any degree of precision. Every author tries to game this out this type of thing to some extent. Here is a thread that discusses ways to foster your reader base:

There are innumerable factors that affect the stats that a story gets, and what influences one stat won't necessarily influence another. Some rough observations I've made from my experience: . . .

"Write your own story, the best you can" is probably the best advice to follow.

Because the more good stories you post the greater the reader base you'll attract. .

 

[SimonDoom]

Still not convinced this is the case. Let's say you have a 50K word story:

Scenario 1: published in one shot, with 100K views
Scenario 2: published in 10 separate 5K word releases, the first chapter getting say 80K views and then the final chapter getting 20K views

What does this mean? What does this tell us? Does it mean that Scenario 1 is superior because it received 100K views? How do we have any certainty that the reader read past chapter 1 or 2 or 3? Past the first paragraph? How do you know that as the story progresses, you don't have similar or even identical attrition rate per chapter to Scenario 2?

There's a lot of assumptions to have to be made to draw any conclusions.

One way of investigating this is to look at view:vote ratios, where the data is available, and comparing the view:vote ratios of very short stories with very long stories.

I've written 24 stories ranging from about 5000 words to about 28,000 words. My average view:vote ratio is 90:1, more or less. There is a rough, though not exact, correlation between the length of the story and the view:vote ratio. The longer the story, the bigger ratio. That tells me that the longer the story is, the less likely readers are to stay to the end and vote.

Let's pick a 100K word story. Chloe Tzang's White Wedding fits the bill. It was published recently and currently has about 30,000 views and 109 votes. That's a about a 275:1 ratio. However, Chloe on the Nude Day thread said she had 175 votes at one point and many were swept. So that gives you a view:vote ratio of 171:1.

I find that surprising, but what it indicates to me is that reader attrition over the course of a very long standalone story is not as great as you might expect -- assuming that the vote total represents generally the floor of the number of complete reads.

As for chapter stories, it stands to reason that as the story progresses the view:vote ratio should shrink. The idea is that the readers of later chapters will contain a higher percentage of readers of previous chapters who like the story and are inclined to finish it.

And this is true, but it's not AS true as you might think. In my 8 chapter series, the view:vote ratio for chapter 1 is 100:1, while the v:v ratio for chapter 8 is 82:1. In my 3 chapter series, the v:v ratio went from 122:1 to 105:1. That surprises me. It tells me that the ratio of views to votes over a series doesn't change as much as you'd expect, which in turn indicates that declining view numbers, from chapter to chapter, DO provide at least somewhat helpful information about how much total reads are declining as the story progresses.

My conclusion is that you will get some reader attrition over the course of a long story, but somewhat greater attrition by publishing your story in many chapters over time. But the data is too inexact for me to say for sure. There might be factors I'm overlooking.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Longer stories may also get more views because readers don't finish it all in one sitting. If they log on to continue reading it, then that will mean additional views before they reach the end and vote.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My conclusion is that you will get some reader attrition over the course of a long story, but somewhat greater attrition by publishing your story in many chapters over time. But the data is too inexact for me to say for sure. There might be factors I'm overlooking.

But there's no way of knowing the attrition over a longer, single story. I don't think the available single story data can ever tell us the drop-out rate, whereas for a chaptered story you can at least see the attrition.

I agree that the third chapter gives you a pretty reliable "true reads" number for a multi-chapter thing, because (with my multi-chapter pieces at least) there's not much difference between the third chapter views and the last chapter views (irrespective of score or the voting ratio). But I wouldn't extrapolate the same drop-out rate to a stand-alone story of equal length.

For me, this remains a permanent, "we simply don't know how many readers finish a stand-alone story." Unless Lit gives us a "last page read" indicator, I don't think we can ever know.

 

[Abbigale]

I guess it comes down to the format of this place, which is the context in which stories are going to get read.

I would post stories in one completed ka-thump on FA, 20k - 80k words, and they would get a lot of views, but not as many 'Favorites'. When I discovered that serialization tended to be more popular, I tried that, breaking a story up into ~5k word chunks. The views went down, and the favorites went down, except for the final chapter, which was usually the XXX chapter. Then the views and Favs were commensurate with if I had just posted the whole dang story.

When I switched to Patreon, people wanted serials to appear in their inboxes every couple weeks. That seemed, to me, to be where online fiction was going. No-one cared when I dropped a post-apocalyptic fantasy sexytimes epic, if you have to slog through all this PLOT and CHARACTERIZATION and ACTION to get to someone boning. My attempts at Amazon e-books didn't go so hot, either.

But there was a real positive response to regular serialized installments. I had thought that would continue here, but I guess this place has it's own patterns and habits, which is pretty cool.

OK! I'll finish Cinnamon's story (if it even has an ending, I genuinely don't know... practically writing a biography here!), get it polished, and then look at posting it in larger, more satisfying chunks.

 

[rikimaru4]

For me, this remains a permanent, "we simply don't know how many readers finish a stand-alone story." Unless Lit gives us a "last page read" indicator, I don't think we can ever know.

Wrong. It's obvious now. Number of real views can be derived from (TotalViews * NumChapters * AvgChapterAttritionRate - (TotalViews * (1/AvgReaderMultiClickRate)))

Naturally, this is prone to rounding errors and we need Laurel/Ruben to implement per-Lit-page stat captures for number of views, duration of time, and rating.

So... when can we expect to see that put in place..?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Wrong. It's obvious now. Number of real views can be derived from (TotalViews * NumChapters * AvgChapterAttritionRate - (TotalViews * (1/)))

Naturally, this is prone to rounding errors and we need Laurel/Ruben to implement per-Lit-page stat captures for number of views, duration of time, and rating.

So... when can we expect to see that put in place..?

Where does AvgReaderMultiClickRate come from?

That's not a data set that I can see.

It also tells you nothing about a stand-alone story. You're still making guesses on incomplete data, which is all any of us do.

 

[bushyTrail]

Also, are we sure that Literotica does not count the visits by a web crawler (automated program that scouts pages for search engines)? This is a detail that has always bothered me...

 

[SimonDoom]

Also, are we sure that Literotica does not count the visits by a web crawler (automated program that scouts pages for search engines)? This is a detail that has always bothered me...

It may. I know to a certainty that views can be manufactured with bots or some other artificial means. I had a story that was getting about 100 views per day and one day it got 10000.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I had a story that was getting about 100 views per day and one day it got 10000.

That was the day the Antarctic got good reception for the wi-fi .

Or, as my auto-correct is trying to tell me, winter-fi...

 

[Voboy]

It may. I know to a certainty that views can be manufactured with bots or some other artificial means. I had a story that was getting about 100 views per day and one day it got 10000.

Oh, sorry. That was me.

I was having wifi issues that day. Good story, though.

 

[yukonnights]

Where does AvgReaderMultiClickRate come from?

That's not a data set that I can see.

It also tells you nothing about a stand-alone story. You're still making guesses on incomplete data, which is all any of us do.

I took it that big grinning face meant this is a joke

 

[SimonDoom]

I took it that big grinning face meant this is a joke

Yeah, I thought that was kind of obvious too. Now it's EB's turn to acknowledge failing to get the joke (having knocked me for the same a few days ago).

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yeah, I thought that was kind of obvious too. Now it's EB's turn to acknowledge failing to get the joke (having knocked me for the same a few days ago).

Problem was, IF that data was available, it might have been an almost useable formula...

That stupid attempt at a defence no good? Damn.

EB retires to his corner, where Suzy mopped his brow.

"Oh, hi, Suzy. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I saw Simon has been swapping notes with his Canuck friend, so I figured you needed moral support."

"That's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed."

"They don't call me sweet cheeks for nothing." Suzy winked .

 

[SamScribble]

I doff my cap to all you girls and boys who follow the stats. <doff> <doff>

 

[yukonnights]

Problem was, IF that data was available, it might have been an almost useable formula...

That stupid attempt at a defence no good? Damn.

EB retires to his corner, where Suzy mopped his brow.

"Oh, hi, Suzy. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I saw Simon has been swapping notes with his Canuck friend, so I figured you needed moral support."

"That's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed."

"They don't call me sweet cheeks for nothing." Suzy winked .

Hey now, don't get me mixed up in a gunfight on a dusty street...that's between you and quick draw Doom I was just trying to steer you back on course with my usual gentle hand on the wheel Probably now it'll be me that Mr. doom is gunning for

Yukon asks himself, "How did I get brought into this?"

Mrs Yukon replies, "I've told you a hundred times if I've told you once—hang out with killers and you'll probably be the one to get shot down...we best just mosey back up to the cabin and let all this blow over. You know I don't like you hanging out on that nasty porn thing with all them others."

 

[rikimaru4]

Yeah, I thought that was kind of obvious too. Now it's EB's turn to acknowledge failing to get the joke (having knocked me for the same a few days ago).

Happy I could help. muahahaha

 

[SimonDoom]

Happy I could help. muahahaha

You sure did. I got a little frisson of pleasure seeing him whiff on that one.

On a serious note, I'm not enough of a mathematician to know how to do this but I keep thinking that with the data we have we should be able to come up with some kind of reasonable estimate regarding reads.

For instance, it seems reasonable to me that the read:vote ratio wouldn't necessarily be different for chapter v. standalone stories, or for early chapters v. late ones. I can't think of a reason why it would be different.

So to the extent there are differences in view:vote ratios, most of that difference should be accounted for in a drop in the view:read ratio.

An interesting thing to note about view:vote ratios is that they do not fall over the course of a multi-chapter story at the same rate as the diminution in views.

Plus, if we control for the length of the story/chapter, doesn't it make sense that the view:read ratio should be the same for a chapter 1 as for a standalone story? Presumably fewer people will view a chapter than a standalone story, but once they click on it I see no reason why the view:read ratio should be different.

What this suggests is that if we can use view:vote data for multi-chapter stories over time to make inferences about view:read ratios about first chapters, I think we can make inferences about view:read ratios for standalone stories.

Is that wrong?

 

[ElectricBlue]

You sure did. I got a little frisson of pleasure seeing him whiff on that one.

Lol. I'm sure you did, you and the Canuck, both .

What this suggests is that if we can use view:vote data for multi-chapter stories over time to make inferences about view:read ratios about first chapters, I think we can make inferences about view:read ratios for standalone stories.

If you take the two-tier drop-off that seems to be typical for third chapters and factor that into a stand-alone story I'd tend to agree with you. I think we agreed using another data model that complete reads for a multi-chapter piece is in the order of 20 - 25% of the first chapter views. I reckon that probably holds true for stand-alone stories.

In terms of my own reading habits (noting that I don't read huge amounts here), I reckon I will finish about one in five stories, so based on a data set of one, there's the 20% again. I'm a fan of the pareto principle because I see it so often, especially in data sets involving large numbers of people all focussed on the same task - which Lit certainly is - so I generally apply the 80/20 rule.

It would be nice, though, if the site could give us a "pages read" indicator of some sort.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

You sure did. I got a little frisson of pleasure seeing him whiff on that one.

On a serious note, I'm not enough of a mathematician to know how to do this but I keep thinking that with the data we have we should be able to come up with some kind of reasonable estimate regarding reads.

For instance, it seems reasonable to me that the read:vote ratio wouldn't necessarily be different for chapter v. standalone stories, or for early chapters v. late ones. I can't think of a reason why it would be different.

So to the extent there are differences in view:vote ratios, most of that difference should be accounted for in a drop in the view:read ratio.

An interesting thing to note about view:vote ratios is that they do not fall over the course of a multi-chapter story at the same rate as the diminution in views.

Plus, if we control for the length of the story/chapter, doesn't it make sense that the view:read ratio should be the same for a chapter 1 as for a standalone story? Presumably fewer people will view a chapter than a standalone story, but once they click on it I see no reason why the view:read ratio should be different.

What this suggests is that if we can use view:vote data for multi-chapter stories over time to make inferences about view:read ratios about first chapters, I think we can make inferences about view:read ratios for standalone stories.

Is that wrong?

The problem is how to determine that view:vote ratio? In my case, it ranges from a low of 26 to a high of 390, with an average of 168. I'm sure other writers are no different.

Sadly, one should never assume anything more than a 2% mortgage.

 

[SimonDoom]

The problem is how to determine that view:vote ratio? In my case, it ranges from a low of 26 to a high of 390, with an average of 168. I'm sure other writers are no different.

Sadly, one should never assume anything more than a 2% mortgage.

You have to aggregate data. My ratios are more compressed than yours. They range from 52:1 to 180:1, but the mean is 91:1, and that appears not to be far off from what others experience. If the overall mean is within 80:1 and 120:1, it's close enough to allow you to do some very rough number crunching.