Size Matters - how many Lit pages is too many?

[Writer61]

One of the contributing factors to much of the confusion on Lit between chapters of a story and a series is the fact that the site treats them the same way.

Exactly.

I like to use the word 'episodes' to reference to the components of a serial series.

 

[yowser]

You've gotten some thoughtful advice, and not directly to your question but still about length, I'll offer this (perhaps unwelcome) observation:

Make it shorter.

Regardless of the long/broken up business, pare the thing down. Maybe one in twenty stories here (and I include my own) would not benefit by having a lot of litter left on the cutting room floor.

Does this sentence/paragraph/description/digression add to the story? Advance the plot? Contribute to a character's understanding? Ditch it (or distill it down to a divine essence.)

You'll likely have a tighter tale, a better work of art, and happier readers.

 

[aiyia]

Same as dick size...

9

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Make it shorter.

The immediately:

Same as dick size...

You're into small penis humiliation?

--Annie

 

[Writer61]

Same as dick size...

9

Centimetres?

 

[RejectReality]

Serialized is the proper word to use in the context I used it. Doesn't matter whether you're talking about a series or a serial. There isn't a word serieized or seriesized or whatever for good reason. Just look at those abominations.

 

[aiyia]

Centimetres?

If the shoe fits...

 

[TheWritingGroup]

If the shoe fits...

... someone on Literotica will fuck it.

 

[aiyia]

... someone on Literotica will fuck it.

Or fill it with champagne and drink deeply of the new year

 

[Agent0069]

As a reader, if a story is interesting and has more than just pornographic value - I’ll read it, and I won’t care about the page size.

As a writer, I write the story, then proofread it a couple times, then run it through spell checker part by part, then read parts backwards, then upload it to drafts and read again, then read it while it’s in pending state… (And once it gets published - I read it one last time, just to immediately notice a few typos and grammar mistakes I can no longer fix)

And as such, I prefer to keep them under 10-12k words, just so that my proofreading wouldn’t take too much time, but then again - that’s just me.

 

[redgarters]

I don't know if this helps, but nowadays I write my stories as one story and publish like that. My (limited) experience is that people will rather nope out because of some kink element they don't like rather than length. But that might be just the LS readership. I don't know anything about I/T. The stories I did write as chapters once upon a time, in EC and E/V did good at first but views, votes and comments dwindled on chapter 2 and 3. I think if you want to publish serialised it makes more sense to structure the story like that from the start than to split it after the fact.

 

[Britva415]

I'd just trust the readers to self-select. They're going to anyway, so, be transparent with them.

Some of them don't want more than about 3 Lit pages. And they know it. You aren't going to trick entice them into following your publishing schedule by publishing a 22-part novel in 3-page chapters.

Other readers know they're looking for more than a short, superficial stroker or vignette. They're willing to read a dozen or more, maybe many more, Lit pages. And they know it. With regard to this audience, there is no advantage and there are possibly disadvantages to publishing an already-complete work in fragments. Especially if it is not at all clear that the piece is finished or that there's a plan to finish it. You're likely to lose some of them by not showing all your work on the piece at once.

Speaking for myself, if I were going to write a story start-to-finish, and complete it before submitting for publishing, I wouldn't split it up no matter how long it was.

Same with my approach to writing the complete series or a novel and publishing as I go, before it's totally finished: Whether it were chapters or episodes, I wouldn't contrive to make each installment adhere to some formulaic length. I'd write it until done, and publish it in one submission, no matter how long.

Part of the reason why I wouldn't is because I have no confidence whatsoever that trying to optimize published lengths is going to "succeed" (whatever that even means), regarding the reader engagement or reaction. I'd rather reach those who want to read the way I naturally publish, instead of me putting extra toil in to bastardize the work in order to try to reach more people - including ones who won't appreciate the inauthenticity of my strategic publishing arrangement.

Another part of the reason why I wouldn't is because if the piece can't speak for itself, without all the contrivances and ass-kissing, then it isn't good enough in the first place, and perfuming that pig isn't anything I'd be motivated to do. Another audience I don't care about reaching are ones who won't appreciate the story on its own based on length in the first place.

And yet another part of the reason is that I'm satisfied with whatever audience reads my unadulterated, authentic effort, no matter how few and no matter how they vote.

And really the most important part of the reason is that I don't take it personally if I get low scores or if lots of readers skip or don't even find my piece. In this particular regard (submission length), that has more to do with them than it has to do with me.

 

[old_prof]

I’m about to run a kind of experiment about this, but not well enough controlled to determine anything. I have two short novels, roughly 60k each, that I hope to publish in the next 45 days or so.

One’s a sci-fi novel that I intend on breaking into four chunks of roughly 15k each. The other is a mostly lesbian story about two women and their changing relationship. That one’s for pink orchid and will be published in n&n as a single release. I think the second one is a better story, but it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in reception

 

[Writer61]

I’m about to run a kind of experiment about this, but not well enough controlled to determine anything. I have two short novels, roughly 60k each, that I hope to publish in the next 45 days or so.

One’s a sci-fi novel that I intend on breaking into four chunks of roughly 15k each. The other is a mostly lesbian story about two women and their changing relationship. That one’s for pink orchid and will be published in n&n as a single release. I think the second one is a better story, but it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in reception

Let us know what, if anything, you conclude.

 

[old_prof]

Let us know what, if anything, you conclude.

I'll post something here a few weeks after the second one is up.

 

[Ianus4]

In addition to the page numbers in a chapter, I recommend using plenty of tags for longer stories. Readers are unlikely to start reading a long story if there are no story tags or if the tags are too common.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Just wondering if anyone has some thoughts on what I ought to consider (I know, sight unseen, it's a tough question to ponder).

I'm currently leaning to just saying screw it, 15 Lit-pages, it is.

15 LIT pages is nowhere near excessive. I have one at 52 LIT pages and a few more in the 30 pages and it really doesn't affect the views. If readers like it, they'll read it. For me, 15 pages would likely be a chapter and I have a few like that too.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

how many Lit pages is too many?

3.

If I click into a story and see it's more than three pages, I back out without even starting to read.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I usually won't read anything encroaching ten pages, unless it's really good.

 

[RocketGrunt]

15 LIT pages is nowhere near excessive. I have one at 52 LIT pages and a few more in the 30 pages and it really doesn't affect the views. If readers like it, they'll read it. For me, 15 pages would likely be a chapter and I have a few like that too.

If you put everything in one big file, the views won't be affected whether it's too long or not.
A person who clicks on it and goes "Holy shit, this is 52 lit pages!" and then backs out with an "I ain't reading all that, I'm happy for you though, or sorry that happened." is still counted as a view. A person who reads 4 pages of it and then loads it up again later to read four more pages, and so on will ultimately be counted as 13 views, even though they only read it once.

52 pages is over 180 thousand words, and I think it's fair to say that people are not normally reading that in one sitting.
The TL;DR nature of very long Literotica posts doesn't make the view count lower, but it does genuinely mean that a lot of people won't be finishing your story. I mean, a lot of your stuff is split into chapters of like 2 pages, which is possibly a bit far in the other direction, but 52 pages in one lump is just obviously TL;DR and I would back out of a story immediately if I saw that.

 

[ruddygore]

My preferred length for reading is around five to eight lit pages. Enough for some plot but not a huge time investment. I do read chaptered stories and the hard part for the authors seem to be where to put the chapter breaks. They need to be at a place tat doesn't interrupt the action but wants you coming back for more.

I will read longer stories but pretty much only from writers where I've read some of their other stuff first.