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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.d
Subject: Re: {ASSD} Re: Story length preferences
From: Russell Hoisington <writing@thekeyboard.com>
References: <N62dnQDIx9FWT8venZ2dnUVZ_sidnZ2d@comcast.com> <N62dnQPIx9FsT8venZ2dnUVZ_sidnZ2d@comcast.com>
Organization: The Writers' Block
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 22:43:50 EDT
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 02:43:50 +0000
===================
A Strange Geek <astraYOURngegeek@comMINDcast.net> wrote in
news:N62dnQPIx9FsT8venZ2dnUVZ_sidnZ2d@comcast.com:
> A Strange Geek wrote:
>> Got a question for the other authors and readers of erotic
>> fiction. Have you seen a preference as to story length?
>>
>> What I mean is, does the length of the story seem to affect the
>> audience you get for the story? Do people tend to prefer short
>> stories over long ones or vice versa?
>>
>> I recented started posting my writings and began with some
>> shorter pieces that I already had finished. I have a good number
>> of other stories in the hopper that I am actively working on, but
>> most of them are much longer (one is at 25 chapters now and
>> another is at 41).
>>
>> So authors: have any of you posted really long pieces that got
>> decent feedback or do you seem to get responses only for short
>> ones?
>>
>> And readers: Are you okay with long stories, so long as there's
>> enough interesting things happening to carry the reader? Or do
>> you much prefer the short pieces?
>>
>
> Yeah, I'm an idiot. I forgot the curlies.
I'd make fun of you for doing that, but then I'd forget them in my
next post and catch heck for it. But I digress.
I get responses for almost everything I have out there, to include
some of my first works as well as my newest, and for everything from
"Hero" (a 298-word flash piece) to "Wynter & Jimmy"), the longest so
far at 116,365 (FTP site word count, website is slightly smaller on
"W&J"). I've had both positive and negative on almost everything of
mine.
Each appeals to a different group of people. Or, for some people
like me, each appeals depending on the mood I'm in at the moment. If
you write a short piece, people will say, "It should have been
longer. I'd rather have seen more detail about [fitb]." But Wizard
sent me a copy of a feedback message (anonymous, of course) from
someone who said of "The Trailer Park," "It was too long and
therefore boring." For him (or her, or it), length equalled boredom.
We thought maybe that was because you could fit only so much story
into a diminished intellectual capacity before it overflowed into the
basement. But that's an interesting topic for another time.
Some days I want to read something short, because I don't have much
time and want to read something complete in that limited timeframe.
Other days I want to read an involved story with complex characters
that I can get to know while cohabiting their skins and feel sad that
the story ended too soon.
If you're trying to determine whether you should write a long story
or a short one, the answer is to be like the guy who had the girl
point at his crotch and ask, "Who do you expect to please with that
little thing." Your response should be: "Me." As far as I'm
concerned the proper length for a story is however many words it
takes to tell it. You can add fat, you can cut out meat to reach an
"ideal" length. Neither one will make a good story any better;
rather, the opposite is more likely.
Write what you want. You'll find an audience. May be a large one
quickly, may be a much smaller one over time, particularly if it's
something of limited appeal like, oh, I dunno, nymphomaniac Eskimo
zombies who eat rancid dog feces while screwing men from Tierra del
Fuego who have a minimum of twelve-inch tallywhackers and wear
sandpaper condoms.
But if you want to please a particular size of audience quickly, then
check the archives for previous posts about favorite story codes and
such and let those be your guide.
--
Russ
Russell Hoisington
State of Confusion
---------
No problem is so great that it cannot be successfully ignored
through the rigorous application of dynamic apathy.
Stories at
http://www.asstr.org/~Hoisington (HTML)
http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/Hoisington (Text)
http://storiesonline.net