Short stories vs longer ones

[fuckmehardandsoft]

Rather than a full word count, I've found my most natural length for a story on here to be "1k words of character work + a stroker", and the sex part just plays out as long as it plays out, usually coming to a total of 2.5k-5k words.

And then some of my stories are chapters, and some are standalone.

I think the main reason is that that's what I like to read the most on here, although I've also been pulled into a few novels that are more like the erotic version of what I would choose at the library.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Define "story."

Everything I've hit Publish on here has been between 4K and 16K words, except for a 750 word exercise, a WIWAW essay, and something I published as "Part 3.5" because I realized that Part 3 needed a better ending. I have a WIP that will probably be a little over 20K words by the time it's done.

But most of my writing here has been in series, and I'm not sure it makes sense to count those. The first could have been published as a 100K word novel without too many edits, but I enjoyed writing and publishing it by the seat of my pants. The second is already longer and still ongoing.

 

[SugarStorm]

I guess I'll just have to accept my fate.

We all must bear our burdens.

Looking forward to reading it

 

[SkyBubble]

I write it till it's finished. Sometimes that's 30 pages (Word pages, not Lit pages), sometimes it's barely 750 words.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

I've liked to target at least 5k words. When I look over some of the shorter things I have posted (not counting the 750 word stories), I often feel dissatisfied. I can't help but think that I rushed through them and could have spent more time fleshing them out.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I keep trying to write short ones but it usually doesn't happen.

 

[norafares]

I like to sit with my characters and know them on an intimate level. My recent projects exceed 100k per book, though I don't post them here. I'm the queen of slow burn, lol.

 

[Hampshiregirl]

If you add together the words in a series (e.g. chapters 1 to 4 combined), my Lit stories are in a range of 3k to 20k, with the median figure being around 5k words.

Any shorter, and I find there isn't enough room to understand characters. Too long, and I think I just get bored with myself. If you knew me, you wouldn't be surprised at that.

HG xx

 

[MillieDynamite]

I love my 750-word "Why'd It Have to be Snakes?" story. As it turns out, that was more of a brainstorm for me. But I'm having issues with the novella based on that brainstorm. It's now 7 chapters and 27,000 (approximately) long, the ending isn't there yet. And while it's inspired by Snakes, the actual scene from the first tale isn't in the novella in the same way. I've written two revisions, but I still haven't got the ending nailed.