Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

For my own writing, the AWLL/AWLL2 series is 26.8MB (around 4.5 million words) and is ongoing. It just made more sense to break it up into 13 (so far) books.

Even broken into 13 books, that comes out to 350,000 words per book. Given the average for most novels of 60,000 to 90,000 words, those are all incredibly long books! I've got to wonder just how much is bloatware (text which doesn't actively drive the story).

I've written some long books in my time, the longest being 38 chapters and consisting of 252,000 words. However, I finally reexamined my writing style, cutting it back substantially in order to get a handle on my verbosity (talking about made-up words). I'm now increasing my chapter sizes again, but they're nowhere near as long as they once were, and I've never come close to the totals you're talking about.

SOL readers prefer longer chapters (so they can read more on a weekly posting), but there's a point where such a tendency is counter productive.

I've got to wonder just how much is bloatware (text which doesn't actively drive the story).

You'll have to ask my readers. I've had a few people ask me to write more 'condensed' books over the past two years, but those are few and far between.

You'll have to ask my readers. I've had a few people ask me to write more 'condensed' books over the past two years, but those are few and far between.

That's why I was relating my own experiences with trying to constrain my tendency to pontificate. I found that, over time, it was limiting my stories, though it takes some time to master writing shorter stories (ex. I ended up cutting more character development than I'd planned, which I'm now addressing).

I found that, over time, it was limiting my stories, though it takes some time to master writing shorter stories (ex. I ended up cutting more character development than I'd planned, which I'm now addressing).

With a couple of hundred characters over the course of the 13 books (which span 1978-1989), even limited character development takes up a LOT of space. :-)

With a couple of hundred characters over the course of the 13 books (which span 1978-1989), even limited character development takes up a LOT of space. :-)

Tell me about it! What's more, you need to keep providing updates on all the characters not seen in some time, so no one ever really disappears from the story, other than the characters so unimportant that no one cares about.

I hope your frequent mentions of air crashes are foreshadowing the means of the evil Stephanie's demise. And it would be great if Kara could use her chemistry expertise to create an antidote to the thirty point IQ drop women have after sleeping with Steve. Make that fifty points in the case of Jessica, whose initial selling point was being smarter than Steve and able to outmatch him in conversation.

The best sub-plot in the current book is Carla but you're making us wait a very long time for the resolution. Is Steve a chimera?

AJ

I hope your frequent mentions of air crashes are foreshadowing the means of the evil Stephanie's demise. And it would be great if Kara could use her chemistry expertise to create an antidote to the thirty point IQ drop women have after sleeping with Steve. Make that fifty points in the case of Jessica, whose initial selling point was being smarter than Steve and able to outmatch him in conversation.

The best sub-plot in the current book is Carla but you're making us wait a very long time for the resolution. Is Steve a chimera?

'Evil Stephanie'? Deeply flawed, yes. Evil? I don't see it. But there is a lot of her story to tell...and more will be revealed. As always, we only see what Steve sees, and we only see things from his perspective...

Individual genres always have individual size restrictions. In each case, though, the 'phenomenal' authors are given much greater latitude than the newbies trying to break into the field. (Battlefield Earth is an exception, as he marketed the book himself, building his own market for the book at a time when that hadn't been done before.)

Book lengths are always cost related, though it also deals with what readers will accept. Paper cost isn't the only limitation. Romance used to be one of the shorter book sizes, though it grown over time (probably helped by romantic sci-fi and historical romances), so these are hardly hard and fast rules.

I'm not saying that exceptions exist, I was just pointing out, that if each of your 13 books is over 1M words, you may want to examine how you're telling stories as it's largely symptomatic of a larger problem. However, it took many, many books before I decided to review my own writing styles, so my comments are a simple suggestion, not a condemnation.

I rather doubt that the traditional publishers have any idea what readers will accept in terms of novel length.

Whenever I first attempt writing in a new genre, I research the field to determine what readers expect. Story size and story type are two of those elements. You can go over those limits, but as always, you do so at your own risk. If most books are shorter than normal (other genres), then it's probably more a matter of individual taste (such as mysteries being short who-done-it reads rather than extensive psychological journeys into the bad guy's minds).

Again, I'm not saying you should write what you want, only that writing that many stories which are so far off the normal distribution might be a warning sign (i.e. it's an indication the story isn't determining the story length).

While past successes help justify repeating trends, it also makes reaching new readers more difficult (but not impossible).

Sorry, I don't buy it. that "normal" distribution is an artificial construct created by the traditional publishers.

And the super-huge ongoing series is an artificial construct created by SOL based almost exclusively on weekly downloads (roughly only a chapter or two at a time). Translating those types of stories into something you could sell or market to someone else, would prove extremely difficult. I realize that few of us are interested in profiting from what we write, but you also need to be aware that we're a niche market, one which pays diddly, so you can't expect to take your local fame for writing 1 to 13 megaword stories and parlay it into anything else than a local SOL phenomenon.

Even assuming the story is phenomenal! (generally a stretch, at best), most readers have jobs/families/responsibilities and prefer something they can read over a couple of days before returning to their lives, rather than never-ending stories they can return to a couple times every single week for years at a stretch.

Again, I'm not knocking your ability to tell that kind of story. I'm only highlighting that it's not a skill you can transfer anywhere else.

Note: Switch, I'm curious, have you encountered these megaword word stories on any other story site, and do they form anything other than a local feature, or am I completely missing something?

On top of that, e-books at least partially break the connection between story length and publishing costs.

Except, the ebook market has yet to prove it has much lasting potential. Despite initial promising results, over the past several years, traditionally published books have vastly oversold ebooks. Thus the 'no-size restrictions need apply' model has consistently underperformed the 'let's keep printing costs to a minimum' model. That says a lot, especially since the cheaper, heavily packed stories undersell the well-written/edited 'novel' sized print books.

That's not to say that there's no future for ebooks, or for the humongous stories on SOL, but they remain in the majority of the reading public and remain 'not ready for prime-time'. Thus declaring that 'the old rules no longer apply' is a bit short sighted. Readers continue to prefer the old style of writing. Generally, a well-edited story, revised to eliminate unnecessary details, will perform better than a 'no-holds bared' story which includes every thought the author initially threw at it.

Again, I'm not picking on any particular author, or their writing choices, but such humongous stories remain a minority for very good reasons, and shorter, more concise books continue to outperform their larger, cheaper brethren.

One thing I have to admit, though, the fact each story has a distinct beginning, end and story arch speaks for the effort put into it. Too often, the never-ending serial tends to keep rolling, regardless of the story.

As to the never ending stories, that is exactly the model that TV drama series follow. The last I checked, they are quite popular.

Tell me, just how long do those drama series continue for? Eventually, they all run out of steam and get shut down, just as most stories run out of steam and readers become exhausted reading them. They key is keeping them intense, yet knowing when to call it quits and cut your losses.

but I have yet to find a single saga length e-book.

What size are you looking for, as regards to word count?

Science fiction and fantasy are the genres with the highest average word count. And most of the Paranormal romance I've read is around that same length.

Again, that's largely because they take longer because they're building complete universes, trying to make them sensible and common-sensicle.

You also get more epic stories in those genres.

If you invest 30,000 words building a universe, you want to get something out of it, so you tend to invest more time into developing the world you've already built.

Romances are easier. Couple meets, they fall in love, they argue, then resolve their differences. Simple, neat and complete. When you have to explain how the physics work and how artificial intelligence operates, it take more time.

I started looking at the work counts for Kindle books on Amazon, because I bought one priced at 5.99 that sounded good from the blurb but after downloading it onto my Kindle it turned out to be a stand alone short story under 2K words.

Sorry, I'm not going to knowingly pay money for a story that short.

I agree with you about paying that out for such a short story. Although the bulk of my work is in the novel length of 40,000 to 60,000 words I do have some on the 100,000 to 275,000 word length. I sell through Lulu for a number of reason I won't go into here, but the majority of my e-books (e-pubs) all sell for $5.95 each and the majority of the print versions are $9.95 each. The few exception are the longer items with multiple stories like the anthologies, and some I have for free as e-pubs and print costs for the paperback version. This is because I settled on a price point for a novel regardless of size. The other thing I do is include the number of words in the synopsis of the story on the lulu website, so potential readers KNOW how long it is before they buy.

With the short stories and novellas I group them together to have over 40,000 words in a publication or I make it a freebie. Thus the 273,000 word Finding Home is at $5.95 for the e-pub, the same as my 50,000 word novels.

Maybe you need to look further afield than Amazon. Mind you, all my completed works (except 1) are available free on SoL as well. And that exception will be posted when I finish revising it.

There are a number of indignant reviews on Amazon where readers felt the ebook was broken off without any conclusion, presumably to induce the purchase of the next volume. I am assuming some of these are intentional cliffhangers, but others are just an artifact of breaking a million-word saga into novel-length ebooks.

That's why it's always essential to consider each book as a whole, complete with their own story arcs, conflicts and resolutions and themes (what each book conveys which the others in the series don't). That helps you break them at sensible and satisfying points. As far as cliffhangers are concerned, you generally don't need them between books, as even though the book's particular conflict is resolved, the more expansive series conflict remains, and reminding readers of the challenges the character faces going forward is generally enough to drive the story. Ending a story with a cliffhanger is admitting you don't think the story is strong enough to keep the reader hooked. By working with bigger themes, you can step away from blatant cliffhangers.

In looking for e-books that aren't copies of a dead-tree book from a regular publisher, I find a lot of short stories and novellas trying to sell at paperback novel prices, but I have yet to find a single saga length e-book.

Perhaps there is little market for such books, but it's equally likely that there is a market that is going unfilled.

I've got to admit, I fit into that sub-category. Although I don't sell a lot of copies, my fans appreciate my longer, more detailed stories. They especially appreciate that I write 'adult fiction' that isn't dumbed down so no one gets lost. Although I draw limits (I keep my chapter counts down to around 20some, and chapter lengths under 10,000 (at a max.), I still prefer longer stories.

I'm not suggesting that a multi-megaword story would be marketable.

The Wheel of Time Series would fit the megaword description, and that's printed by a major publisher - but it's also split into about ten books, despite being one huge story. So there is a minor market out there.

The Wheel of Time Series would fit the megaword description, and that's printed by a major publisher - but it's also split into about ten books, despite being one huge story. So there is a minor market out there.

I wasn't complaining about series, as each book is treated as a separate entity (i.e. each book has it's own story arch, even though the overall story continues between each new book). Instead, I was suggesting that, when each of your stories is over 1,000,000 words, you may want to consider revising your story to make it more easily digestible. Besides, each book is typically spaced a few years apart, giving readers time to anticipate more.

I also wasn't saying you can't publish long books, only that if each book is that long, it might be a warning sign.

However, I suspect I've been ranting about the same issue for way too long, so I'll quit. I suspect everyone gets my point, whether they accept my premise or not.

On a side note, I eventually decided that publishing smaller books would help me sell more books, though that premise proved false. The shorter books have (mostly) gotten better reviews, but they don't always sell better, and the scores have dropped over time. Readers like to get lost in their books, so there's always a magic line between not-enough and too much detail in a story.

I was suggesting that, when each of your stories is over 1,000,000 words, you may want to consider revising your story to make it more easily digestible. Besides, each book is typically spaced a few years apart, giving readers time to anticipate more.

A couple of years back I was helping with a major revision of Deja Vu Ascendancy to help get it ready to be printed. There were very major cuts to the story from what's posted here. The bulk of the technical and maths stuff was pulled and stuck into a separate book for those wanting the tech data, and a few sub-plots were pulled because they didn't really progress the main story enough to leave them in. What was left was being split into four or five books, I can't remember which. We were working on the third book when things had to stop due to work at his end, then my system got taken by the gestapo, and I don't have his email now. But the reworked story was much better flowing and a nicer read than the original. Heck, I couldn't tell where the non-technical cuts were made just by reading the story. - Thus it fits what you're saying about a long story may need a good looking at.

Thus it fits what you're saying about a long story may need a good looking at.

That's why I keep emphasizing the need to revise once once has a full first draft, though that leaves those posting by the chapter in the lurch. But once you know where the story is going, you have a better feel for which story elements belong and which don't add much to the overall story and you can purge the subplots to make the story more focused. If nothing else, it would help those who post by chapter (posting as they write them) to do the revision after they finish the story, so the end product will be easier to read and result in higher scores in the long run (less sections which drag on, or which don't flow from one scene to the next).

Sure they could release a 1,400 page book. But to have it FIT within a particular form factor, or even come remotely close to it. They may have to change to paper stock they're using, or use a more advanced binding method, so on and so forth. All of which are likely to increase costs. Those increased costs would then be passed on to the customer, who may be unwilling to pay it. So thus publishers are less inclined to take risks on uncertain titles.

Even with ebooks, which are theoretically 'free' to include as much test/graphics as you want, you end up paying a LOT more having a 450,000 word saga professionally edited than you would a simple 60,000 to 90,000 word novel. Not only that, but the time investment often doesn't justify the reduced income.

On the other hand, we used to have an SOL author who specialized in publishing 10,000 word books on Amazon (a novel is considered anything over 60,000, while a novellete is around 30,000). At only 10,000 words, he claimed to earn $100,000 a year from Amazon (almost impossible for most of us writing 150,000 word books), but 10,000 words is little more than a short story, at best.

To make $100K that way, he's either tricking people into paying novel prices for a standalone short story or he's selling 200K copies.

It's easy to crank out hundreds of books of only 10,000 words each. If each is priced at between $0.99 to $1.99, no one is investing much. What's more, since he's being paid by Amazon (from Prime subscription reads, as opposed to being paid directly by the reader), it got around the incredibly low payscale Amazon Prime offers. Essentially, the only ones making money off Amazon Prime are authors writing those short stories. Most major authors (and traditional publishers) won't even consider submitting works to Amazon Prime.

Personally, I wouldn't pay $1.99 for less than 50K words.

That was something else he did, which I felt queasy about. He's offer the first such book in a series for free, then up the price of each sequel (since they were all one incomplete book) for $0.99 or $1.99. However, that wasn't honest, as no one actually purchased his books. Instead, people would read them for free on Amazon Prime, who'd then pay the author $.74 regardless of how long the book was. Thus they'd pay the same if it was 2,000 words or 1,000,000.

Personally, I wouldn't pay $1.99 for less than 50K words.

For the benefit of foreigners like myself in making comparisons, how much does a typical US tabloid newspaper cost?

AJ

My point was in relation to how much entertainment you might get from a tabloid compared to a 50 Kword novel. However, the price of US tabloids is so cheap that it could be argued either way. Personally I feel that $1.99 isn't excessive for an author you can trust to have written a good story, but for an unknown quantity it's equivocal.

AJ

I mean 'entertainment' in the sense of non-earning use of time. Even the trashiest UK tabloids make a reasonable stab at presenting the latest news in an easily digestible form.

AJ

There are only two options where detailed information is needed. One give the details in the story itself. Two give an information link that can be referenced by the reader.

In traditional publishing (or if you publish a print book) links mean nothing, so you can't rely on links to define something. Too often, readers will download a story and read it offline. In those cases, the links are meaningless as well. Links aren't reliable. You're a damn author, if you can't express yourself in words, then find another job! If your current techniques aren't working, then try a few more. Chances are, you just haven't discovered the correct

Another name for a link is reference material. The reference can be checked in many ways: old method,libraries and encyclopedias. new methods, web search engines(phrases) also web page addresses can also work sometimes.

As men (and women) of letters, we need to deal with words, rather than the newer alternate media. While we can add links, we should never rely on them. Thus, reference material should be provided as it's always been done, in a story's appendix (a separate chapter, as I do with my extensive cast lists).

In short, you can't count on someone having internet access while reading your story and hitting something they don't understand. While I appreciate having the links, I'd prefer having both (links to other information on the web as well as written explanations in the author's own words).

Otherwise, it sounds like the author is too lazy to explain themselves. :(

In short, you can't count on someone having internet access while reading your story

I would assume that since they are reading my story, they accessed it via the internet. Although they may have downloaded it to a device that doesn't have internet access.

Otherwise, it sounds like the author is too lazy to explain themselves.

I would have to agree, assuming of course the writer saw the potential for a problem and provided a link to something that might be misinterpreted, rather than specifically explaining what he meant.

I would have to agree, assuming of course the writer saw the potential for a problem and provided a link to something that might be misinterpreted, rather than specifically explaining what he meant.

I was thinking more of posting a link to a floor plan to a cottage, rather than describing how the characters perceive it (and thus losing the personal feel such details typically provide). Too often (though definitely not always), it can be a short-cut to finishing the necessary details to a story.

The best bet, is to explain the layout (from the character's perspective) but also provide the layout, in case anyone is confused where things lay. (It's easier to check a layout if you forget where something was six chapters later, than it is to go back, find the correct chapter, and read all the details a second time to find one specific reference.)

While we can add links, we should never rely on them.

Now I give a description and a link where they can find more information, if they're interested. With the maps I include in the stories there's a low res one on SoL (due to SoL limits) and a link to a high resolution copy - which may be going due to changes at DropBox.

and a link to a high resolution copy - which may be going due to changes at DropBox.

Yeah, I'm pissed about the changes (abandoning the "Public" folder) at Dropbox. Their 'official' explanation is that 'we provide other alternatives to corroborating with your teammates'. However, the "public" folder was NEVER about communicating with your teammates, it was for sharing with the public (hence the name). Now, you can't share anything unless the person create an account on dropbox, and you grant them access to a specific fold. Seems pretty lame to me.

Yeah, I'm pissed about the changes (abandoning the "Public" folder) at Dropbox.

I just created a new folder on DropBox, copied the folders and files from my Public Folder across, created an 'Anyone with the link can view' link for it and tested it works the same as the Public Folder. Now I need to remember to check it after the Public Folder closes, and if it still works to make sure all get the new link.

I am skipping a lot of those scenes if I re-read a story and in some cases have started to skip the authors entirely.

That I don't object to. I include sex scenes to advance the characters, and/or to advance the plot, but if you already understand what's happening, then skipping over necessary details is immaterial. It's when someone skips over an entire chapter because of a personal squick, and then accuses you of writing a bad story because it doesn't make sense without it, that I have a problem.

If you object to sex in stories, then please, don't download listed as containing sex! That's the easiest solution for everyone. But don't then bitch about it if you encounter it, because you were warned before you ever opened the first page of the story.

A lot of authors fall into the trap of repeating things verbatim when their main character(s) meet another person or group. After a "Telling them how we got here/what we are doing" they can then get on with the story IMHO.

I ran into that in my "Catalyst" series. Because the protagonist had to explain to each person what he did to them and what they needed to know about their condition, a LOT got repeated. I kept trying to change it up, but after dozens of times, it's hard to find new ways of phrasing it.

The other thing I take issue with is when the stories in a series are pretty much about the same thing.

That's why, each book should be divided by theme. By picking out what that book is supposed to convey, that the others in the series don't, you remind yourself that you're writing a completely different book, with a different moral to tell. That comes in the pre-planning, rather than the writing stage.

I ran into that in my "Catalyst" series. Because the protagonist had to explain to each person what he did to them and what they needed to know about their condition, a LOT got repeated. I kept trying to change it up, but after dozens of times, it's hard to find new ways of phrasing it.

I try to avoid that sort of thing by giving a good explanation the first time, and then cut it back to something like - He spent five minutes explaining his background before moving on to ask, " ....... - - it saves boring the reader and cuts down on the number of keys I have to type.

I try to avoid that sort of thing by giving a good explanation the first time, and then cut it back to something like - He spent five minutes explaining his background before moving on to ask, " ....... - - it saves boring the reader and cuts down on the number of keys I have to type.

I finally figured that out (around the 6th book in the series). Some of us are slower learners than others. :)

I finally figured that out (around the 6th book in the series). Some of us are slower learners than others. :)

Also, there are times when I want the character to give a simple summary instead of the whole story, so it's appropriate to give it once as well, then refer to it as a the simple or brief summary.

Leaving out the detailed sex one could say that Arlene and Jeff contains a lot of bloatware as well, however well it is written. No doubt someone somewhere will find bloatware in every story

That's one reason why, over the years, I started shying away from sex scenes. No matter how you write them, someone is always dissatisfied. My sex scenes are often the ones to provoke the most feedback and positive upvotes, yet there's always a (small) contingent of people who moan, or worse, skip entire chapters, only to bemoan the story makes no sense after they've done so. Rather than deal with them, I've taken to avoiding sex scenes except where it's absolutely necessary to the plot.

If something depends upon someone's mood at the moment they read the story, relying on it as a story element seems more problematic than beneficial to the story.

In the end, certain readers will always complain, based on their own criteria. However, I don't think the current discussion focuses on whether there too much sex, or too little romance, or too few asides. Instead it's geared towards how BIG is too large for a book, in its entirely, to be. 1M+ words is, in my opinion, well above that limit. There's no physical way you couple publish that in book form unless you broke it into multiple volumes, so that should be a warning sign if I've ever heard one.

6,800,000 characters

Don't know about you DS, but I doubt I'm capable of keeping that many characters straight in a story and character development must be really difficult in only 1,536 words. :)

Almost as many characters as in one of Crumbly's novels.

Ha-ha. Sorry, but my record, in my six-book "Catalyst" series, was slightly over 100. Since then, I've scaled it back (a bit!).

One aspect of story I think is not being looked at closely enough is: The essential aspect of making the story size fit the story being written. I sometimes think the genre story sizes are more driven by the amount of story in the story being told.

Good point. In my case, that's why I repackaged my "Catalyst" series, in order to make the story flow better by making each separate book more tightly focused on a single central conflict.

On a side note, it seems we might move this discussion of story size to a new thread concerning the value of revisions to make stories more focused (pro and con).

If you mean Kindle Unlimited, I believe the new model is to pay authors by the page read, not by "book". It was changed a while ago, possibly in reaction to authors publishing 40-page "books".

You're right (it's been a while since I've discussed the topic: Kindle Unlimited is directly tied to making your books available to Kindle Prime users).

While the change was intended to curtail the obvious abuses, authors like the one being discussed (publishing multiple 10,000 word 'books' continue to be the only authors I've personally spoken with who are making a 'living' (six figure incomes) from publishing on Amazon. For most authors, those who only publishing one book every couple years, or even a couple books a year, the payout doesn't justify the book giveaway program (which was designed to promote sales of Amazon goods by making shipping free).

Note: I've only tried Amazon Prime once, and my income wasn't even worth mentioning. Essentially, a couple people read the entire book, and I received less than a single buck. I don't think I'll try it again.

He may be making a living, but unless you've seen the royalty checks, don't be so quick to buy the "six figure income" claim.

He was pretty insistent that the authors here take him seriously, so it's possibly he was bullshitting us, but if so, I'd think even less of him than I already do (as far as I can tell, he was never much of an author).

Could it be he was including the numbers after the decimal point?

He was mostly angry that all of us on the forum couldn't figure out that we were employing a failing strategy, and couldn't understand why we didn't all copy his 'successful' business model (publishing 10,000 word porno novels).

We kept telling him, that's not how we write, and he'd respond "then just cut your humongous books into little pieces you can give away to attract interest in the rest of the story".

Needless to say, he didn't have many converts, and few of us earn any money on our Indie publishings. :(

As an aside, there was a footnote in the news a few months ago that someone named John Lock (sp?) was the first to sell a million books on Amazon.

No, I'd never heard of him either.

AJ

named John Lock (sp?) was the first to sell a million books on Amazon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke_(author)

never heard of him or any of his books or his publisher, but a little research finds:

http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2014/11/telemachus-press-reviewed.html

so he pays a few thousand for a promotional service for his books, it seems. Try as I might, I can't find anything to say how many words are in his books. The closest I get is they seem to be around 250 pages of a kindle, does anyone know how many words you get on a kindle page?

Correction - I believe they claimed John Locke (thanks) was the first self-published author to sell a million.

AJ

was the first self-published author

since he was paying thousands to a promotional company to push his book, I'm not sure you should call him a self-publisher because he went through a publishing house he pays to push the book.

Although quality also has a pricing point all its own as well.

Try arguing that while drinking your next Starbucks Venti Cappuccino, or when you purchase your yearly smartphone upgrade!

You know the ones you think are the best writing you've this month but are asides or digressions and do nothing for the story itself.

Don't assume that all digressions or asides don't advance the plot, as they sometimes reflect details of the character's personality, foretell future events or provide red herrings (to feed all the story porpoises we have).

However, in the majority of cases, you're correct. :(

We can have 10k words of garbage, or 100k of garbage or 1000k of garbage. Still garbage. How about we make all garbage writing 10k and all the great works of lit 1000k.

No dispute about the garbage being garbage. However, the point about the word counts is when someone charges $6.00 for a 10,000 word short story of poor quality when others charge $6.00 for 50,000 words of better quality. The short story isn't worth the same as the full novel, but it's hard to tell what size a story is unless it's in a printed book you're looking at or has a word count attached.

Kill all your little darlings that don't advance your characters or plot.

I know that's one of the aphorisms quoted by creative writing authorities, but another one is 'Write the story you want to read'. If the author wants to read 'their darlings', what's to say other readers wouldn't like them too?

It's probably the case (like Biblical sayings), that for every piece of writing advice, there's another which contradicts it.

AJ

Kill all your little darlings that don't advance your characters or plot.

Oddly enough, I've never come across this advice like this. However, I have come across the advice of Kill most of your little darlings by using alternatives. That was expanded to mean you need to look for where you use a lot of your favourite words to see if you've been excessive with them. If so, replace them.

It's following this advice for looking for excessive your of little darling words I started revising a lot of my stories to reduce the number of times I use the words and or as by replacing them with other words to mean the same thing in that context. It's amazing how many times I made the replacement and found the paragraph much more free flowing to read.

typo edit

I suspect Lincoln didn't generate much income from his stories ;)

AJ

I suspect Lincoln didn't generate much income from his stories

It might be argued, he was potentially shot over it (it was lying on the floor of Ford's theater).

Some of us are beer drinkers

think of it this way.

You go into a bar, sit down and order a beer. The bartender serves you a 12 oz mug of beer from the brand X tap and charges you $3.00.

Someone sits down next to you and orders a beer. The bartender serves him a 24 oz mug of beer from the brand X tap and charges him $3.00.

Are you going to feel cheated.

Writers tell stories using words. Putting those words together takes time and effort. When a writer sells their story, they expect to receive more return for higher word count stories.

At least if you keep drinking 24 ounces of beer.

At least, as 24 ounces of beer, the quality of the 10,000 word and the 100,000 word book seem pretty similar (none of them make a lick of sense).

But there's more to editing than simply cutting words. You've got to cut the chaff from the wheat, and that doesn't always fall in the descriptions, prose or asides. Sometimes it fits within the story, sometimes it gives insights, and sometimes the fat is in the story itself. Learning to separate it is the nature of learning to become a better writer.

But there's more to editing than simply cutting words. You've got to cut the chaff from the wheat, and that doesn't always fall in the descriptions, prose or asides. Sometimes it fits within the story, sometimes it gives insights, and sometimes the fat is in the story itself. Learning to separate it is the nature of learning to become a better writer.

I totally agree with you on this.

One thing to watch out for when you start cutting the chaff and the wheat out, you can get people sending you emails what you post isn't a story but a story outline or draft - the hard part is knowing how much of the chaff needs to be left in to make the wheat look good.

I don't feel cheated at all. You get what you pay for or what the market will bear.

so you walk into a bar and order a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and pay the going prince for a 24 oz bottle, and the guy hands you a 3oz bottle, you have no issues with that. Is that it? Because that's what started the discussion about word count.

Yes, quality matters, but if you actually want me to pay for it, length will matter at least as much as quality in determining how much I would be willing to pay.

Yet, if you buy from a traditional publisher, a small book of literature, or a novellette (do they even make those anymore?) will cost, roughly, the same as a large sci-fi epic: $24.99. Aside from the bargin bin, I don't see many price differentials at B&N (or maybe I just haven't looked at that many books lately).

Price equity per word seems to be something only Indie authors champion. After all, aside from paper costs, the majority of a book's cost lies in marketing (hopefully).

Nope, what started the kerfuffle was that only length mattered.

What started the kerfuffle was a fellow bitching about someone promoting a book as a novel, charging for it as a novel, and then selling a short story. I don't like excessive wordage bloat, but I don't like someone promoting a short story as a novel, either.

Sometimes urine comes out, sometimes a more entertaining product.

If the user screams when the urine comes out, then you've got a Very entertaining product!

sometimes a more entertaining product

Shit may be entertaining to some, but I'm not into scat. :)

If you write a story then ruthlessly prune it according to someone else's idea of what constitutes bloat, is it really still your story?

AJ

Can anybody offer any advice here?

The best advice I can give is to make the story as long as it takes to tell what you want in the story.

Most of my stories are in the typical novel range of 40,000 to 50,000 words. I write the chapters based on what is happening in the chapter, then after I finish the story I cut it up into section of about 8,000 words (adjusted to suit ends of chapters), and post them in chunks of that size.

Frankly, I started out trying to match my story length to what was common for the romance novels that my wife enjoyed. That worked out to be around 30,000 words. In other words, 10-12 chapters of 3,000 words or so each.

30,000 is considered a novellete (by the mainstream publishers). A novel, depending upon the genre, can range anywhere from 50,000 to 90,000 (average) or above. I can see readers bitching about 30,000. Romance is (was, since they're now much longer) about the shortest length of all genres, so it's not a decent measurement.

For me, I try to aim for 60K to 120K, in about 20 chapters. Since I generally write sci-fi, I can get away with longer than most (all that world building).

In your case, instead of adding more 'fluff', I'd suggest adding complexity to the stories to make them longer, say multiple story conflicts or additional subplots to keep the readers guessing longer.

@Ernest

Most of my stories are in the typical novel range of 40,000 to 50,000 words.

Except, those are not, and have never been, typical of a novel. Novels are typically 50,000 (for the old style romance to 100,000 (for sci-fi). At this point, I wouldn't suggest you change the size of your stories, but don't try to pass it off as typical. At 40,000, you're talking a long novellete!

At 40,000, you're talking a long novellete!

NaNoWriMo use 50,000 words as their basis because the research they did showed it to be a typical length well into the novel range. Also, when you look at wikipedia you see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count

which has the SF&FWA listing a novel at anything over 40,00 words with novella 17,500 to 40,000. In the past I've seen other author websites listing novels as anything over 40,000 words, and some publishers listing 50,000 to 75,000 words as typical novel lengths. I've also seen some publishers listing a maximum size of novels as 100,000 words re the equivalent of two novels together in their words.

if you want to go back to the Victorian era novels where they spend 1,000 words describing a simple hairstyle, they often listed 100,000 words as a novel length, but wasted so much wordage on excessive flowery descriptions.

As I said before, I write the story to the length the story takes to write, I try not to short it, and I try not to bloat it out. It just turns out my most common story lengths are in the >40,000 to

30,000 is considered a novellete (by the mainstream publishers).

Don't you mean novella? A novellette is between a short story and a novella, typically under 20,000 words.

I've seen 35,000 word dead-tree books described as 'short novel' in reviews. Novels seem to be shrinking as well as growing fatter.

AJ

Don't you mean novella? A novellette is between a short story and a novella, typically under 20,000 words.

Duh (hits self on head). I realized my mistake after going to bed last night. Novellas are typically (historically) defined as 30,000 to 50,000 words.

@Ernest

In the past I've seen other author websites listing novels as anything over 40,000 words, and some publishers listing 50,000 to 75,000 words as typical novel lengths. I've also seen some publishers listing a maximum size of novels as 100,000 words re the equivalent of two novels together in their words.

It all depends on the individual publisher, and which genres they publish. I'm talking about the mainstream, big-name publishers spanning the last 50 years, rather than an exotic, specialty publisher. Again, we're talking ballpark here, and some will go under while others will go way over, often depending on the popularity of the author rather than any other criteria. I was responding to Aubie, asking whether readers might be offended by the length of his stories. Based on historic trends and the comments posted here, I'd say yeah, some likely will be. However, I'd guess most readers already know what to expect from Aubie and Ernest by now, so I doubt they'll be surprised by anything. Though you've got to admit, Ernest, your combining chapters to reach the magical posting side of 8,000 words is a tacit public admission that readers are concerned with reading size, even if you keep your total book lengths relatively short.

@Awnlee

I've seen 35,000 word dead-tree books described as 'short novel' in reviews. Novels seem to be shrinking as well as growing fatter.

That's likely because novellas have long had a bad image problem as 'artsy' and pretentious, thus many publishers will likely group them under 'novels' simply to avoid pissing potential readers off.

Though you've got to admit, Ernest, your combining chapters to reach the magical posting side of 8,000 words is a tacit public admission that readers are concerned with reading size, even if you keep your total book lengths relatively short.

Actually, it's a clear admission that I get mightily pissed off with those writers who post a chapter every other day or every week that's only 200 to 1,200 words - which, in my personal view, isn't worth the trouble to link to for each post. I selected the size to aim at from the amount of words I like to read during a lunch break, and the like. In short, I set a rough minimum of what I like to read as a minimum in a sitting. I then make the rude assumption that others like that too, with the knowledge they can also stop part way and set it aside, while also knowing once it's all up they'll read whatever chunks they like.

As to story length I just checked my personal story status spreadsheet to see:

over 200,000 words = 3

100,000 - 200,00 words = 2

70,000 - 100,000 words = 5

40,000 - 70,000 words = 12

20,000 to 40,000 words = 15

under 20,00 words = 60

they total 3,021,135 words published

28 works in progress are 554,506 words

I keep the sheet to see word count and the date I last worked on it and where it was published when.

typo edit

You wright mostly science fiction, fantasy and paranormal type stories. average novel length in those genres are much higher than standard romance, around 110K words.

Aubie doesn't do as much world building as many of us, so I'd allow him to slide to the lower-end of the sci-fi spectrum, still around 95,000 words, though. Historical fiction also tends to have high word counts, spending the time set up historical periods (what everyone wore, what everyone was doing, what the ongoing conflicts of the time were), though historical fict. is less than sci-fi (for the most part).

Note: You can tell I spent a LOT of time in the library and online, compiling average word lengths once people started questioning the length of my stories. However, like Aubie and Ernest, I've recently started coming in on the low-side in word counts, ranging from 50K to 70K for my sci-fi stories.

Again, I agree with Ernest, you write the length the story demands, but we're talking 'typical' lengths, and if Aubie's readers are complaining, there might be a reason. Note: My recent shorter stories have scored lower than the rest of my stories, so readers seem to prefer the average to longer stories for each genre.

I don't think there can ever be a real fixed length that will apply to every story and/or chapter. Don't cut it shorter than needed and don't add extra words just to bring the chapter to a set size. Its the story that counts and will be hurt when the chapter does not fit the story and characters.

I seem to have conditioned myself to compose chapters so that they automatically run between 2,800 and 3,300 words. That is no longer a conscious effort—the chapters just seem to come out that length. Any other length turns into a real hassle.

As an experiment, I did write a few stories with 5,000-6,000 words, but those chapters took an exorbitant length of time. It just was not worth it. I would have given up writing if I had been forced to write that length of chapter.

As an experiment, I did write a few stories with 5,000-6,000 words, but those chapters took an exorbitant length of time. It just was not worth it. I would have given up writing if I had been forced to write that length of chapter.

When I started trying to write short, more direct stories, I switched to writing episodic chapters, where each chapter featured a specific episode in the story. When I realized I'd eliminated too much from the stories, and readers weren't getting as much detail into the character's lives and thinking as they preferred, I discovered that 'day-in-the-life' chapters worked best, where you follow the character around for the course of a day, capturing both the exciting episodes, but also the more reflective and personal ones between them and their families.

It's a different way of viewing the story, but it makes it easier to capture more without spoiling the story. However, as I've said, don't change just because someone else does something differently. We're simply discussing different strategies and techniques, so everyone can pick the one which best fits their styles. Though sometimes, it does help to change things up, just to keep your writing fresh and you growing as an artist.

In my opinion, your style is very concise and action-packed. If you wrote longer chapters, they'd come across as too busy.

On the other hand, some authors are very verbose, and I often skim past the 'rinse and repeats' and questionably relevant minutiae to get to the next scene where something actually happens, something that wouldn't be possible if they wrote short chapters.

AJ

Thank you to everybody who answered my question. I think that I will stay with the 3,000-word chapters and try to go for more chapters per story.

I chose 5,000 words per chapter, which seems about right. Sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. I have a 1260 word chapter since it was meant to be a letter. I also have a 7772 word chapter. But most are 5,000 - 5,200.

I am not a writer, except of reviews, so I have no special expertise other than being a reader of a lot of different stories for more than 65 years. Closing in on 70 years as I started when I was four or five.

You've been reading sex stories on SOL since you were four or five? Impressive. That almost deserves a story itself. (wink, wink)