Shinneth
Gonna be a tl;dr Master!
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2007
- Messages
- 1,241
- Reaction score
- 18
Just to forewarn you: This opening post is tl;dr-iffic. Does that surprise any of you?
Some months ago it was suggested that I make a topic that focuses solely on the matter of a fanfic's length. In true belated Shin fashion, I finally bring this to light like three months after said suggestion. I must be getting too bored.
Anyway, our topic here: story length - how important is it? How will it make or break your fic? Is it just a matter of people being too picky where they're insatiable and want more-more-more after a short chapter, or are they so ADD that seeing anything longer than five pages makes them consider your story waaaaaaaay too long to bother with regardless of the quality of the content?
I think we can all agree in almost any case it's better for a fanfic (be it a one-shot or single chapter) to be "too long" than "too short". The vast majority of badfics barely go beyond a few paragraphs, and that's in addition to the poor formatting, misspelling, improper grammar, crap characters, and unoriginal story. If a chapter's not long enough to fill at least one computer screen without scrolling down and it's not a drabble/sentence meme, chances are it's a piece of crap and needs to be rectified. Just like how Rome wasn't built in a day, no one can make a respectable, full-fledged story in less than a minute.
Feel free to share your views on the matter here, because I can really only offer my views from one POV: the field of "too long". Anyone who's taken a gander at Travels of the Trifecta! or most of my other stories knows that I sort of have a problem with keeping things succinct. Even when I merely post replies in forums here. For some reason I attack with walls of text more often than not, usually without meaning to.
Thing is, I actually get a bit miffed when I see perfectly fine stories get very little critique, and the critique is really nothing more than "this chapter is soooooo long" when said chapters aren't even a tenth the size of most of mine. Not only is the critique very hollow, but it just isn't true most of the time.
There are only two ways I believe a story can be considered "too long":
A) Too much flowery description on unimportant details. Honestly, unless it's a plot point/relevant to the current subject matter, I almost never see the point in going on any longer than two brief sentences about what a character is wearing. Some goes with background details - again - unless there's a plot point, present or future, to be had in taking the time to talk about it in narrative. In the eighth chapter of Trifecta, a lot of people thought I had quite a bit of "meaningless" details talked about thoroughly, but within a couple of chapters all of those details became highly relevant and important, and my readers recognized that. So flowery description isn't always a bad thing, but more often than not I see it being abused with no payoff to be had. And those adjectives can really start adding up on your word count. If the details are that important to you, I'd suggest drawing it out, throwing it on an image account somewhere and directing your readers thataways. Granted, that's assuming you've got the skills and the ability to scan. If not and you can't beg someone to do it for you, looking for reference images resembling the closest thing you're thinking about may be an alternative.
But in those situations, keep that stuff in the author's notes where they belong. And for the record, ALWAYS keep your author's notes (provided you have any you want to share) either right before the story or right after it. Any author worth their salt knows that adding author notes during the story is a major no-no. Your fanfic is not MST3K and never will be; attempting to make it so is equivalent to admitting that you, the author, are a hopeless poser. But again - author notes in concept are perfectly fine and I recommend it if your story is going to contain stuff that may leave your reader with questions you don't feel like answering over and over. I always keep mine right before the fic. Mind you, though, author notes will inadvertently add on to a story's length, which is probably another reason why it's best to keep them all in one place. Sifting through fourth-wall breaking one-liners make badfics feel even longer.
B) If a chapter is long and yet nothing really happens by the end that progresses the story or characters in any way, shape or form. This would be the fanfic equivalent of a "filler episode" - and honestly I haven't seen too many examples of these, but they do exist. Still, that's the only other way where I see complaining about something being "too long" would be legitimate.
I understand that readers have varying tastes and some might prefer shorter stories, but that's no excuse to accuse any author for having their story being "too long" if the story is not guilty of either of the above points. I like to think people who abhor longer stories just don't bother to read them. But most of all, if you like the story and the only "flaw" you can find about it is that's it's "too long" - then I don't quite understand that. If you're enjoying the fic, why would you want to be over and done with it so quickly? Usually when I enjoy anything, I'd like the ride to last as long as possible without it getting stale. Unless the story has the genuine two aforementioned flaws, why does it matter how long it is at all?
There are plenty of people out there who won't even give lengthy fics a chance solely due to that reason. What do you think about that kind of discrimination? Mind you, I've never actually gotten any real complaints from reviewers about my chapter lengths (many people make note of how long they are, but in a positive way), but I've seen many people who do, and wrongfully so.
If people were willing to have more patience to sit through lengthier stories, I believe more fics (and by extension, more authors) would get more recognition; both here and elsewhere across the 'net. It seems pretty obvious to me that the majority of readers prefer to have short chapters with frequent updating. I've always been the other way around - long chapters with roughly 2 months per update. It actually doesn't take me that long to write out a chapter - 90% of the gap is just me chillaxing before getting back to work. This is actually way better than how frequently I used to update (my most frequent updates used to be in the ballpark of every 6 months), but overall the thing I keep in mind is that the saying "quality over quantity" works both ways.
You don't need long chapters to make a good story, obviously. But having 100+ chapters simply because it's an easier task to write brief chapters over shorter periods of time between updates and the easiest way to maintain a strong readership doesn't mean that it's a superior method of writing, either.
Lastly, I really don't believe in blanket statements like "a chapter/one-shot needs to be <insert number here> words in order to be not too short and not too long". The extremes of wordiness do exist on each end of the spectrum, but you'd have to be outrageously bad to hit either one at any time.
What say you all on this matter? Think my views are a load of bullcock? Dare you agree? Have anything you like to add on the subject? Advice? Whatev?
Some months ago it was suggested that I make a topic that focuses solely on the matter of a fanfic's length. In true belated Shin fashion, I finally bring this to light like three months after said suggestion. I must be getting too bored.
Anyway, our topic here: story length - how important is it? How will it make or break your fic? Is it just a matter of people being too picky where they're insatiable and want more-more-more after a short chapter, or are they so ADD that seeing anything longer than five pages makes them consider your story waaaaaaaay too long to bother with regardless of the quality of the content?
I think we can all agree in almost any case it's better for a fanfic (be it a one-shot or single chapter) to be "too long" than "too short". The vast majority of badfics barely go beyond a few paragraphs, and that's in addition to the poor formatting, misspelling, improper grammar, crap characters, and unoriginal story. If a chapter's not long enough to fill at least one computer screen without scrolling down and it's not a drabble/sentence meme, chances are it's a piece of crap and needs to be rectified. Just like how Rome wasn't built in a day, no one can make a respectable, full-fledged story in less than a minute.
Feel free to share your views on the matter here, because I can really only offer my views from one POV: the field of "too long". Anyone who's taken a gander at Travels of the Trifecta! or most of my other stories knows that I sort of have a problem with keeping things succinct. Even when I merely post replies in forums here. For some reason I attack with walls of text more often than not, usually without meaning to.
Thing is, I actually get a bit miffed when I see perfectly fine stories get very little critique, and the critique is really nothing more than "this chapter is soooooo long" when said chapters aren't even a tenth the size of most of mine. Not only is the critique very hollow, but it just isn't true most of the time.
There are only two ways I believe a story can be considered "too long":
A) Too much flowery description on unimportant details. Honestly, unless it's a plot point/relevant to the current subject matter, I almost never see the point in going on any longer than two brief sentences about what a character is wearing. Some goes with background details - again - unless there's a plot point, present or future, to be had in taking the time to talk about it in narrative. In the eighth chapter of Trifecta, a lot of people thought I had quite a bit of "meaningless" details talked about thoroughly, but within a couple of chapters all of those details became highly relevant and important, and my readers recognized that. So flowery description isn't always a bad thing, but more often than not I see it being abused with no payoff to be had. And those adjectives can really start adding up on your word count. If the details are that important to you, I'd suggest drawing it out, throwing it on an image account somewhere and directing your readers thataways. Granted, that's assuming you've got the skills and the ability to scan. If not and you can't beg someone to do it for you, looking for reference images resembling the closest thing you're thinking about may be an alternative.
But in those situations, keep that stuff in the author's notes where they belong. And for the record, ALWAYS keep your author's notes (provided you have any you want to share) either right before the story or right after it. Any author worth their salt knows that adding author notes during the story is a major no-no. Your fanfic is not MST3K and never will be; attempting to make it so is equivalent to admitting that you, the author, are a hopeless poser. But again - author notes in concept are perfectly fine and I recommend it if your story is going to contain stuff that may leave your reader with questions you don't feel like answering over and over. I always keep mine right before the fic. Mind you, though, author notes will inadvertently add on to a story's length, which is probably another reason why it's best to keep them all in one place. Sifting through fourth-wall breaking one-liners make badfics feel even longer.
B) If a chapter is long and yet nothing really happens by the end that progresses the story or characters in any way, shape or form. This would be the fanfic equivalent of a "filler episode" - and honestly I haven't seen too many examples of these, but they do exist. Still, that's the only other way where I see complaining about something being "too long" would be legitimate.
I understand that readers have varying tastes and some might prefer shorter stories, but that's no excuse to accuse any author for having their story being "too long" if the story is not guilty of either of the above points. I like to think people who abhor longer stories just don't bother to read them. But most of all, if you like the story and the only "flaw" you can find about it is that's it's "too long" - then I don't quite understand that. If you're enjoying the fic, why would you want to be over and done with it so quickly? Usually when I enjoy anything, I'd like the ride to last as long as possible without it getting stale. Unless the story has the genuine two aforementioned flaws, why does it matter how long it is at all?
There are plenty of people out there who won't even give lengthy fics a chance solely due to that reason. What do you think about that kind of discrimination? Mind you, I've never actually gotten any real complaints from reviewers about my chapter lengths (many people make note of how long they are, but in a positive way), but I've seen many people who do, and wrongfully so.
If people were willing to have more patience to sit through lengthier stories, I believe more fics (and by extension, more authors) would get more recognition; both here and elsewhere across the 'net. It seems pretty obvious to me that the majority of readers prefer to have short chapters with frequent updating. I've always been the other way around - long chapters with roughly 2 months per update. It actually doesn't take me that long to write out a chapter - 90% of the gap is just me chillaxing before getting back to work. This is actually way better than how frequently I used to update (my most frequent updates used to be in the ballpark of every 6 months), but overall the thing I keep in mind is that the saying "quality over quantity" works both ways.
You don't need long chapters to make a good story, obviously. But having 100+ chapters simply because it's an easier task to write brief chapters over shorter periods of time between updates and the easiest way to maintain a strong readership doesn't mean that it's a superior method of writing, either.
Lastly, I really don't believe in blanket statements like "a chapter/one-shot needs to be <insert number here> words in order to be not too short and not too long". The extremes of wordiness do exist on each end of the spectrum, but you'd have to be outrageously bad to hit either one at any time.
What say you all on this matter? Think my views are a load of bullcock? Dare you agree? Have anything you like to add on the subject? Advice? Whatev?
(I had been waiting, too :XD2
