How long is too long?

[LizVegas79]

Fourteen inches - a bruised cervix can hurt for over a week!

 

[SimonDoom]

I respect the artistic integrity of Hypoxia's advice, but I don't entirely agree with it. Or perhaps more accurately, I think it's a bit too vague to guide an author here.

If all you care about is your own artistic integrity and your own personal satisfaction with your story, and if you are indifferent to its reception on this site, then "do your own thing" is the best advice.

But that doesn't describe most authors here, I think. Most authors have multiple goals, including the satisfaction of their own personal artistic goals AND connecting with an audience that will enjoy their stories.

If you are one of these authors (like me), it makes sense to be mindful of the peculiarities of this site. A few thoughts on that score:

1. 18,000 words is not long. 36,000 words (9 Lit pages) is not that long. It's longer than some people want. But chances are if you break your 36,000 word story into three chapters you'll lose more people by chapter-to-chapter attrition than you will from people who choose not to read your standalone story because they think it's too long. The data backs this up. There are plenty of really long stories that have tremendous numbers of views. Look at Burntredstone's stories, for example. Lovecraft. Or Tefler (Tefler somehow manages to break his stories into chapters -- 112 so far -- but they're really long. I don't know how it's possible).

2. If your story is done, don't break it up unless there's a good reason.

3. Always, always be mindful of categories. If you break a story into chapters, you'll piss off readers if one of the chapters doesn't give them what they want when they read a chapter from that category. If you've got a three-chapter Exhibitionism story, make sure each chapter has a satisfying episode of exhibitionism. If you publish a chapter in which everybody keeps their clothes on you're going to lose your readers.

4. If you assign different chapters to different categories, assume you will lose readers. Because reader groups are picky here and readers of one category may not touch stories in another category.

5. It's best, if you can, to pick the most applicable category to your entire story and publish the whole thing as a single story in that category.

6. None of this applies, of course, to a really long story you're not done with and you're impatient to start publishing. Go ahead and publish chapter by chapter. But expect to lose many readers if you want to long between the publication of chapters.

7. Take all advice with big heaping spoonfuls of salt. Including mine.

 

[ElectricBlue]

8. And watch out for penguins.

 

[SimonDoom]

8. And watch out for penguins.

That really should be rule number 1, right? Because if you're not watching the penguins you're doing erotica all wrong.

I'm thinking of something to the tune of that Elvis Costello song . . .

He's watching the p-penguins
They're so cute
Watching the p-penguins
In their fine-feathered tuxedo suits

 

[Infamousin]

Fourteen inches - a bruised cervix can hurt for over a week!

Yeah, def don't got that. lol

I respect the artistic integrity of Hypoxia's advice, but I don't entirely agree with it. Or perhaps more accurately, I think it's a bit too vague to guide an author here.

If all you care about is your own artistic integrity and your own personal satisfaction with your story, and if you are indifferent to its reception on this site, then "do your own thing" is the best advice.

But that doesn't describe most authors here, I think. Most authors have multiple goals, including the satisfaction of their own personal artistic goals AND connecting with an audience that will enjoy their stories.

If you are one of these authors (like me), it makes sense to be mindful of the peculiarities of this site. A few thoughts on that score:

1. 18,000 words is not long. 36,000 words (9 Lit pages) is not that long. It's longer than some people want. But chances are if you break your 36,000 word story into three chapters you'll lose more people by chapter-to-chapter attrition than you will from people who choose not to read your standalone story because they think it's too long. The data backs this up. There are plenty of really long stories that have tremendous numbers of views. Look at Burntredstone's stories, for example. Lovecraft. Or Tefler (Tefler somehow manages to break his stories into chapters -- 112 so far -- but they're really long. I don't know how it's possible).

2. If your story is done, don't break it up unless there's a good reason.

3. Always, always be mindful of categories. If you break a story into chapters, you'll piss off readers if one of the chapters doesn't give them what they want when they read a chapter from that category. If you've got a three-chapter Exhibitionism story, make sure each chapter has a satisfying episode of exhibitionism. If you publish a chapter in which everybody keeps their clothes on you're going to lose your readers.

4. If you assign different chapters to different categories, assume you will lose readers. Because reader groups are picky here and readers of one category may not touch stories in another category.

5. It's best, if you can, to pick the most applicable category to your entire story and publish the whole thing as a single story in that category.

6. None of this applies, of course, to a really long story you're not done with and you're impatient to start publishing. Go ahead and publish chapter by chapter. But expect to lose many readers if you want to long between the publication of chapters.

7. Take all advice with big heaping spoonfuls of salt. Including mine.

I think it will roughly be 36,000 words. It is not done and won't be done until I have it reviewed multiple times.

I will not be splitting it up into different categories. It will have the potential to spawn a universe of people, or go back into the past. But, the main story I have told will remain complete in the incest category. For future little expansions in the world I could take additional characters and do my own thing with them.

Thanks again Simon

8. And watch out for penguins.

...I am totally going to sneak a penguin in the story now. Going to have to figure that one out haha. But, I am doing it.

 

[Hypoxia]

My hopefully-not-too-vague point was that LIT lacks a length formula for success. We have various ROTs (Rules Of Thumb) about who authors think does or doesn't read 1- or 3- or 9-page stories. One analysis showed that 11 pages gave the best returns.

But another point: LIT authors are paid only in brownie points (views, votes, faves, comments) and thus are working for self-satisfaction. We write what we want because we want to. If brownie points satisfy, fine -- pander to readers, no problem.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

And if I add the unpublished partly finished stuff, make that about four times as much. I probably write about three or four times as much as ever sees the light of Literotica. I have quite a few huge partly finished stories that I parked for one reason or another.

My New Years Resolution for 2019 is focus focus and focus. I planned out all my writing for 2019 month by month. And already I am deviating from the plan. But I changed the plan, so I'm good

A change in plan in the middle of a plan, is always good. Most of the time.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

My hopefully-not-too-vague point was that LIT lacks a length formula for success. We have various ROTs (Rules Of Thumb) about who authors think does or doesn't read 1- or 3- or 9-page stories. One analysis showed that 11 pages gave the best returns.

But another point: LIT authors are paid only in brownie points (views, votes, faves, comments) and thus are working for self-satisfaction. We write what we want because we want to. If brownie points satisfy, fine -- pander to readers, no problem.

I don't pander to readers at all. I get many a suggestion how a multi-part story should go. Guess what? It never does go that way, ever.

Actually, that might not be true... in it whole. I do write I/T, only because I know there is a big following. So I might be looking for a pat on the back from the I/T crowd, but not really. I write what I want to write about, not what they want to read.

I write a lot of LW stories, but I don't pander to readers. I write what I want and hopefully poke some of them with a sharp stick. I usually do. I know by the comments I get.

 

[Infamousin]

My hopefully-not-too-vague point was that LIT lacks a length formula for success. We have various ROTs (Rules Of Thumb) about who authors think does or doesn't read 1- or 3- or 9-page stories. One analysis showed that 11 pages gave the best returns.

But another point: LIT authors are paid only in brownie points (views, votes, faves, comments) and thus are working for self-satisfaction. We write what we want because we want to. If brownie points satisfy, fine -- pander to readers, no problem.

And that is exactly what I am going to do with this encouragement!

I don't pander to readers at all. I get many a suggestion how a multi-part story should go. Guess what? It never does go that way, ever.

Actually, that might not be true... in it whole. I do write I/T, only because I know there is a big following. So I might be looking for a pat on the back from the I/T crowd, but not really. I write what I want to write about, not what they want to read.

I write a lot of LW stories, but I don't pander to readers. I write what I want and hopefully poke some of them with a sharp stick. I usually do. I know by the comments I get.

Hahaha, terrific advice from everyone. I definitely have a direction that I want to go in clarified by everything I got here.

 

[FEELINGLUCKYPUNK]

My efforts are now so wordy I hadda in honor of our most prolific author. change my account nic to LUCIFER LOVEHANDLES our most blabberlicious author.

 

[ttvttp]

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=257531&page=submissions

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=2967464&page=submissions


These are the two examples with really long works and really long chapters.

 

[TxRad]

My efforts are now so wordy I hadda in honor of our most prolific author. change my account nic to LUCIFER LOVEHANDLES our most blabberlicious author.

And the name of the last thing you wrote was?

Inquiring minds and all that.

 

[SimonDoom]

My hopefully-not-too-vague point was that LIT lacks a length formula for success. We have various ROTs (Rules Of Thumb) about who authors think does or doesn't read 1- or 3- or 9-page stories. One analysis showed that 11 pages gave the best returns.

But another point: LIT authors are paid only in brownie points (views, votes, faves, comments) and thus are working for self-satisfaction. We write what we want because we want to. If brownie points satisfy, fine -- pander to readers, no problem.

I mostly agree with you. But I think there is a difference between wanting to connect with readers and wanting to pander to them.

I don't think one should pander to readers in terms of the content of one's story.

At the same time, I think it makes perfect to make decisions on things like story title, tags, tagline, category, and the splitting or nonsplitting of one's story into chapters with an eye toward what will get the most eyeballs on one's story. That's why I take a pragmatic approach on those issues, and I think it makes sense to focus on the data, or brownie points, if you will. There's a lot of data on these issues available at this site if one wants to pay attention to it.

 

[KeithD]

Just about anything you write to Literotica will connect with a large number of readers.

 

[SimonDoom]

Just about anything you write to Literotica will connect with a large number of readers.

Yes. It's a huge audience. It's a matter of degree. You can make choices that will affect how many readers you connect with, without changing a word in the story itself.

 

[KeithD]

The cyclic "discussion" of what readers want gets awfully tiresome (in addition to being naïve). My immediate (and studied) response to that always is that the one asking isn't really ready to be a writer yet (the same response to those starting off asking what/how they should write a story) and maybe another hobby would be more satisfying (and would mercifully cut down on the glop of "stuff" thrown up in the air for readers to wade through).

 

[Oblimo]

Just about anything you write to Literotica will connect with a large number of readers.

Yet the stories with the most number of clicks inerrantly continue to be single-chapter subsmissions with “Mom” in the title. That has to mean something.

 

[KeithD]

Yet the stories with the most number of clicks inerrantly continue to be single-chapter subsmissions with “Mom” in the title. That has to mean something.

It should be meaningless to a writer who wants to write anything but incest. I'm not sure you're getting the point. Writing isn't a case of the one with the most readers for free reads wins an enchilada and no other writers do.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Yet the stories with the most number of clicks inerrantly continue to be single-chapter subsmissions with “Mom” in the title. That has to mean something.

Incest might be the single biggest category, but it's what, fifteen per cent of the total story count? Something like that, if memory serves. So it means not much at all to anyone who doesn't write in that category - which is the majority of writers, if you do the maths.

 

[ttvttp]

Yet the stories with the most number of clicks inerrantly continue to be single-chapter subsmissions with “Mom” in the title. That has to mean something.

So Freud was right all along?

 

[Hypoxia]

So Freud was right all along?

About cocaine, sure. His psycho-theology, not so much. At least he was no Scientologist.

How long is "too long"? That depends on one's attention span. I can go about four paragraphs at a time now. "Too long" is when boredom sets in.

 

[KeithD]

"Too long" is when boredom sets in.

That was my initial thought too, but boredom had already set in on this recurring question.

 

[Oblimo]

It should be meaningless to a writer who wants to write anything but incest. I'm not sure you're getting the point. Writing isn't a case of the one with the most readers for free reads wins an enchilada and no other writers do.

Agreed about writing what you want to write. It’s just interesting that such a clear trend exists on Lit, especially since, as electricblue666 points out, incest stories are in the minority in terms of story count. I wonder if it actually means anything, or is just an artifact of the website’s history. Sounds like you’ve heard this question asked a zillion times, however, and that the discussion leads nowhere.

You’re an established smutmonger, though, Keith. Have companies/publishers you’ve worked with in the past tried to sway you with marketing data? Did it ever lead to a positive experience?

 

[KeithD]

Agreed about writing what you want to write. It’s just interesting that such a clear trend exists on Lit, especially since, as electricblue666 points out, incest stories are in the minority in terms of story count. I wonder if it actually means anything, or is just an artifact of the website’s history. Sounds like you’ve heard this question asked a zillion times, however, and that the discussion leads nowhere.

You’re an established smutmonger, though, Keith. Have companies/publishers you’ve worked with in the past tried to sway you with marketing data? Did it ever lead to a positive experience?

I'm not sure what you're getting at with "incest stories are in the minority in terms of story count." Incest is in solid second place here in story count, behind Erotic Couplings, which is sort of the "if nothing else fits" category. The popularity of Incest on Literotica is no secret for me. It's run long and deep at Literotica. This is where writers and users know they can come to indulge in it. That doesn't mean it's a wide practice in real life.

No, companies/publishers haven't tried to sway me in any way with marketing data on what I've written either in the mainstream or erotica. I'm not a big ticket author in either venue. I've worked in publishing houses, though, and let marketing data dictate the works I went after or encouraged authors to write (and in my government news agency job, the need for intelligence on government policy priorities dictated what was researched and written).

I don't see what relevance that has for writing for a free-use, no pay Web site, though. And I repeat, there are a boat load of readers here for just about anything you write--surely enough to make you feel the writing and sharing was worthwhile. There's really no reason to become obsessed with what readers (whoever that is) want unless you are here to be competitive on pecking order (for no particular reason other than pure false vanity) rather than here to share stories you like to write. I don't have any energy or interest to give to those here to be more popular than someone else or to have better ratings than someone else.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm not sure what you're getting at with "incest stories are in the minority in terms of story count." Incest is in solid second place here in story count, behind Erotic Couplings, which is sort of the "if nothing else fits" category. The popularity of Incest on Literotica is no secret for me. It's run long and deep at Literotica. This is where writers and users know they can come to indulge in it. That doesn't mean it's a wide practice in real life.

As of now, there are 417,000 stories on Lit. Of those, 44,000 are Incest & Taboo = 11%. So, yes, Incest is the second biggest single category (after Erotic Couplings) but Incest does not dominate the story list. Simple maths says 89% of stories here aren't Incest.

Somebody else would have to interrogate the reader numbers, but 11% does not correlate to "most popular" in terms of story content - that's the simple point being made.

I see no evidence for the claim made higher up that "Mom" gets the most clicks. Nine out of ten stories most likely don't feature mom or sis at all - but as I say, these are story numbers, not reader numbers. I don't know how you'd get data on that, so it's all a guess.

As you say, write it, and there will be readers.