Ideal Story Length

[Theylo_Bleu]

Fewer views, but generally good scores.

The length can scare people away, but the ones that finish will tend to like it and vote high.

end of the day, who are we writing it for, sort of thing

 

[EmilyMiller]

proof is in the pudding folks! What is that? 70 words?

Also, a reply from the famous Emily Miller. I feel like I'm talking to a celebrity ;p

I’m just Emmy from the block .

Em

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

I’m just Emmy from the block .

Em

I think you're the first author I read on here, so, that's probably where that comes from.

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

My personal favorite range is 10-20k words in either a stand alone story or individual chapters when reading.

As for writing, 750-63.3k words is my range. The story will dictate the length needed to tell it. Listen to the story.

I love this

 

[EmilyMiller]

I think you're the first author I read on here, so, that's probably where that comes from.

Aw! That’s so sweet

Em

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

The best advice I have been given....

The story dictates the length....

If you cut it short to supposedly fit some non existent rule. You destroy the essence of the tale you are trying to tell.
If you pad it out, then again you lose it in a maze of superfluous words.
I have written chaptered stories. 750n word stories.
I tend to waffle, so my stories are usually longer. Upwards of 40,000 words.
The ideal length is..... Whatever it takes to tell your story....
There is no magic number.

Cagivagurl

"lose it in a maze of superfluous words." - well said. I also struggle with waffles sometimes...

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

If uou think 5k is good, then stick with it. There'll be detractors as with anything. To some, it's short, when it's really about near average chapter length.

I presume it's somewhat average. But it sounds like average could be in the double digit thousands. wild.

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

Write the story you want to write and ignore the word count until you are happy with what you have written.

Then ignore it again other then to marvel at how many keystrokes it took to complete your masterpiece.

Dune was 800+ pages and it was brilliant. Atlas Shrugged was about the same length and it was shit.

There are going to be good and bad long stories and good and bad short stories. Just aim to write good stories and hopefully the length will take care of itself.

Right, quality over quantity is for sure a part of it. If you can do great things in fewer words, why not do that then

 

[Cagivagurl]

"lose it in a maze of superfluous words." - well said. I also struggle with waffles sometimes...

I should have added...
A story is a life force. Within the bounds of that narrative, you are trying to convey a story. Living inside that story are a group of characters who are undergoing an adventure, a journey and you wind your words around their development. You try to instill emotion, insights both clear and hidden. Raise hope, embrace sorrow.
You let the plot unwind, roll through the countryside in an attempt to drag readers in.
It doesn't matter how long it takes.
If it's a well told story, then the readers will stay till the end regardless of length.
By trying to live by some ridiculous magic number of words. You run the risk of condensing and losing the essence of what lies within.
Let it evolve, don't be niggardly with the prose. Let it all flow.
Tell your tale...
To hell with the numbers.

Cagivagurl

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I presume it's somewhat average. But it sounds like average could be in the double digit thousands. wild.

I didn't mean average for lit, and I said chapter. Double digit thousand chapters is the dumb shit fan fic writers like to do.

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

I didn't mean average for lit, and I said chapter. Double digit thousand chapters is the dumb shit fan fic writers like to do.

well said

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

I should have added...
A story is a life force. Within the bounds of that narrative, you are trying to convey a story. Living inside that story are a group of characters who are undergoing an adventure, a journey and you wind your words around their development. You try to instill emotion, insights both clear and hidden. Raise hope, embrace sorrow.
You let the plot unwind, roll through the countryside in an attempt to drag readers in.
It doesn't matter how long it takes.
If it's a well told story, then the readers will stay till the end regardless of length.
By trying to live by some ridiculous magic number of words. You run the risk of condensing and losing the essence of what lies within.
Let it evolve, don't be niggardly with the prose. Let it all flow.
Tell your tale...
To hell with the numbers.

Cagivagurl

Appreciate the real real, storytellers unite for the real work.

 

[GlennJenko]

Echoing some of the others, but it really does depend. Not just on category, but also on what type of story it is, how much you want to focus on sex itself, etc.

For example, a story about say, a one-night stand where two people just meet in a bar and then go fuck will require less setup and emotion/tension than a romance with two people meeting and then slowly falling for each other, or a story about a seduction that may take a little while to be completed.

As for how long it takes to get to the sexy times, again that really depends. I'm fairly new to writing erotica and only have one (almost fully) completed WIP, which is about probably going to end up around 23,500 words. Almost 1/3 of that is the sex, but there's a lot of buildup as it's a seduction tale

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

Echoing some of the others, but it really does depend. Not just on category, but also on what type of story it is, how much you want to focus on sex itself, etc.

For example, a story about say, a one-night stand where two people just meet in a bar and then go fuck will require less setup and emotion/tension than a romance with two people meeting and then slowly falling for each other, or a story about a seduction that may take a little while to be completed.

As for how long it takes to get to the sexy times, again that really depends. I'm fairly new to writing erotica and only have one (almost fully) completed WIP, which is about probably going to end up around 23,500 words. Almost 1/3 of that is the sex, but there's a lot of buildup as it's a seduction tale

Really well put. I like that depending idea. I definitely like world building and storytelling, so there's going to be preamble and (hopefully) useful filler. Before any main event.

The seduction is the best part half the time.

What genre/category is your work to be in?

 

[GlennJenko]

The seduction is the best part half the time.

Agreed.

What genre/category is your work to be in?

It's a cheating wife story but it'll be in Interracial given it's a white woman/black man pairing.

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

Agreed.

It's a cheating wife story but it'll be in Interracial given it's a white woman/black man pairing.

Best wishes when It's done!

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm paraphrasing because it was several years ago, but the answer is "Stop writing when the story is finished." For me, that can be 5k words up to 60k.

This.

In my case, anything from 750 words to 104,000 words.

There is no "ideal story length", other than, long enough to tell the story being told.

 

[mirafrida]

10k - 25k is probably the length I like best personally (to read or write), though there's nothing set in stone about it.

Many readers will prefer it shorter than that, but for myself stories under 10k have tendency to feel slight.
(Strangely enough, I see that the longest story of mine that I think of as 'lightweight' is 9,700 words, and the shortest one I think of as 'meaty' runs 10,100...)

Go longer and my sense is that the investment will start to turn off readers. Also I value a sort of unity and focus to the story, which can be hard to sustain as it grows toward full novel length.

In some of my stuff the sex is back-loaded, but as a rule readers do not seem to appreciate this. No doubt there's an audience here for slow-burn, but it's a minority viewpoint for sure.

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

This.

In my case, anything from 750 words to 104,000 words.

There is no "ideal story length", other than, long enough to tell the story being told.

Do you have a distinction between a Story and a Chapter when you are feeling a completed story moment?

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

In some of my stuff the sex is back-loaded, but as a rule readers do not seem to appreciate this. No doubt there's an audience here for slow-burn, but it's a minority viewpoint for sure.

Wow - Its so funny to think that that's a minority viewpoint. In my brain, I want to earn it, to understand it, I'm interested in the world around the action, the tension, the tease, the buildup. Its fair that some want to see the big bang and the aftermath, but I wouldn't have considered it to be the minority... Interesting for sure.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Do you have a distinction between a Story and a Chapter when you are feeling a completed story moment?

A story might have chapters - the 104k novel has seventeen chapters, each of which told a self-contained sub-element of the story. Similarly, my series have parts or chapters (I use the terms interchangeably), but again, each sectIion resolves itself.

I also have standalone stories that are a single Lit submission. One is ten Lit pages (about 38k words) which has internal chapters, but I chose not to publish them separately - they'd have been too short.

I don't have hard and fast rules, it's whatever suits that particular story.

 

[intim8]

My ideal story length is a few hundred thousand words.

Obviously, that won't fly, except in a Series. (The one I have going now will total about 100K across 14 chapters when it's all up, and I have a longer sequel kind of planned).

But for standalone stories, or chapters of series, it depends on the story. I think every story has a natural length it wants to be, the length that will let it be told completely. Some are things that take time to develop, and some are essentially just a scene. I have some that just naturally want to be 3-5K, and some that want to be 15K+. Both kinds have done fairly well for me.

As a reader, there are times when I am in the mood for a quickie, and times when I want an epic. I really wish the length was included on the browsing pages.

 

[intim8]

It would be cool to see the foot traffic for longer submissions.

My first standalone story is about a year old, and came in at almost 19K. It has 30K views, though it was a contest entry, which always gets more views. Another contest entry at 12K words has 55K views. The first entry in my series is about 16K words and has 20K views after about a year. I had essentially zero followers when they were posted (and not many more now).

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

A story might have chapters - the 104k novel has seventeen chapters, each of which told a self-contained sub-element of the story. Similarly, my series have parts or chapters (I use the terms interchangeably), but again, each sectIion resolves itself.

I also have standalone stories that are a single Lit submission. One is ten Lit pages (about 38k words) which has internal chapters, but I chose not to publish them separately - they'd have been too short.

I don't have hard and fast rules, it's whatever suits that particular story.

i think that makes a lot of sense re: whether or not to break a longer piece up into chapters. and internal chapters is a great idea for that as well.

I sometimes feel like I choose a chapter's end to be a natural lull, but will do so over a BIG BANG finish. Then I feel like maybe I screwed over readers who are looking at the chapter as an indipendent read vs. following the series through. But I'm also still very new on the site so I don't know if I have (or ever will have) a strong base of readers who stick through my work regardless. Big shrug. TBD I reckon

 

[Theylo_Bleu]

My ideal story length is a few hundred thousand words.

Obviously, that won't fly, except in a Series. (The one I have going now will total about 100K across 14 chapters when it's all up, and I have a longer sequel kind of planned).

But for standalone stories, or chapters of series, it depends on the story. I think every story has a natural length it wants to be, the length that will let it be told completely. Some are things that take time to develop, and some are essentially just a scene. I have some that just naturally want to be 3-5K, and some that want to be 15K+. Both kinds have done fairly well for me.

As a reader, there are times when I am in the mood for a quickie, and times when I want an epic. I really wish the length was included on the browsing pages.

That last part, length included is definitely a wish I have too. Or ability to add that as a filter based on what you're looking for at the time. I know that stories say how many words they are but I haven't learned the ratio to site page length yet