Hey , I’m sure I seen this topic before but I can’t find it . was wondering if there is a rough max length of a one shot story / contest entry , and I’m thinking more approvers rather than readers at this stage. What I currently have is around 18000/18500 words . My instinct is to submit as one story rather than a series
The first half is more build up but I don’t really wanna cut out parts, also my experiences with series , is the first chapter tends to be as good as it gets before getting less and less engagement with each chapter . Though that probably more a reflection on my stories lol . Also aware that the length could put people off anyway and harm engagement . So first the things first is to check it’s not too long to even get through and go from there
From what I understand it’s almost impossible to judge how a given story will perform. But we do know that stories longer than about 7k tend to get fewer viewers, and that the sweet spot for lot of people tends to be around 4-6k words.
That said, breaking a story up and scheduling the publish dates a week or so apart is likely to get the first chapter in front of more people - because it will be on the front page more than once. Since we now have a high tempo of release for stories (yay! Everyone is writing more! More smut!) it does mean that new dtories have a shorter time on the very front page than they used to (a little less yay). Releasing several chapters of an already-complete story over the course of a few days or seeks is likely to maximize its readership.
I’ve definitely felt the way that stories lose traction as chapters go by. But I’ve also felt the way that really long stories can harm reader engagement. I’ve had success placing in contests with a 16,000 and 13,000 word story, but I think that was partly due to having really effective hooks and titles. A recent 3-part story by Nu and the Nus placed in the CAMP(ING) contest. Its three chapters added up to about 18,000 words. This data might help you?
