5k, 10k, 20k....

[kestrelsan]

A poll on some questions I've been tossing about lately on story length and reading habits--not so much from the angle of seeing what length of story gets more readers, but on how readers approach long vs. short stories and their respective status in fandom

Comments

[balefully]

It REALLY depends, for me. But I tend to be more upset when I read a long story that's crap and should be shorter than when I read a really, really amazing shorter story that I wish were longer.

As for the 20k versus 5k, I don't see how those two things could HAVE the same narrative and character development! The length would, by necessity, change those things.

[kestrelsan]

I'm the same way re long vs. short stories--and I'm much more likely to drop the longer story if I'm skimming too much, just based on the time investment involved.

As for the 20k versus 5k, I don't see how those two things could HAVE the same narrative and character development! The length would, by necessity, change those things.I think the length *could* change those things...but I think it's also possible to show a significant character shift or development with either a few words or a few pages. The question then is which has more impact/is more successful. But then I also agree that the reading experience of those two things is different, even just in terms of pacing, so maybe length does have a greater impact on how much character development one is able to do

[nestra]

But I also think there's a strong push to produce longer stories, and so what results may be so much filler.

I'm running out the door, but I have to say that I adore you. There are certainly plenty of great long stories, but there are also plenty that do not need to be that long.

[kestrelsan]

Back at you :). And I wonder if the status of wordcount length in fandom puts pressure on writers to up their wordcount regardless of whether the story needs it.

[fourfreedoms]

I only mind short stories if I feel like they ended because the author got lazy.

[kestrelsan]

Good point--and maybe that speaks to a writer not knowing the story they're telling, because I think some stories need to be longer to fulfill the premise they're starting with.

[oracne]

I like novel-length stories because I just like longer stories in general. GOOD longer stories are of course hard to find.

I think a little rambling is okay. I don't read fanfic for tight plotting, I read it for characterization.

[kestrelsan]

I read a lot more long stories than I used to, in part because of the popularity of big bang challenges and the flexibility of RPS in re narrative tropes. The characterization v. plot issue is interesting, because maybe it is impossible to have the same investment in a character in a shorter story than a longer one, just because of the amount of time spent reading a longer story. Like, maybe it's necessary to spend three hours with a character rather than 10 minutes to get the full effect and investment in the character.

But I do feel like with a lot of longer fanfic, those three hours don't give me any more insight into a character than a well-crafted 5k story could. That could be a craft issue, but I think that's my central question--do we have a lot of 5k stories in the clothing of 20+k stories? And does the pursuit of wordcount play a role in that?

[sophia_helix]

Hm. It's really, really hard to say, because in my current fandom (Office) it's rare to find a story much over 10k words, let alone 20k (my longest one was 19k and that's fairly unusual). I find myself skimming ones over 5k, sadly, but it's less about the story's quality and more about the fact that the status quo has just shortened my attention span. On the whole, I think that the stories I read are just about the right length, but I'll always vote for longer over shorter just because I haaaate the trend of stories being super-short. I don't necessarily miss novel-length stories (see above re: short attention span), but I'll at least take the intent over flashfic under 1k.

(PS: "k" still equates with "kilobytes" in my head, even after all these years, and when I wrote a 40k word story I still had to stick it into a text file and celebrate cracking 100 kilobytes, since I never did that back when we used kilobytes.)

[kestrelsan]

Good point re different fandoms--long stories abound in SPN/J2, and while I think those fandoms are well suited for longer stories, I'd still like to chop big chunks out of a lot of them *g*. But I agree on a parallel trend toward the super short, which I tend to think of as stories that have no real narrative core to them; they're just bits and pieces of longer things that exist in the writer's head.

(And god, yes on the k thing--it still throws me sometimes, though I've gotten better about thinking in wordcount rather than kilobytes. That's another interesting trend, though I think it makes sense in a LJ world.)

(Also, I'm a total Office fiend now! Not so much fannishly, just a fan of the show. And Season 2 was as awesome as you said it would be :).)

[sophia_helix]

Yeah, I've gotten the impression that in SPN and the Stargate fandoms there are a lot more long stories because the shows themselves have a lot of plot. I also remember reading long XF casefile stories somewhat infrequently just because it could be an overwhelming length for me, even though they were often really well-written. It probably says something about my tastes in fanfic that I usually haven't gotten into those super-plotty fandoms.

I've mostly managed to make the wordcount switch, especially since I moved over to writing in Word instead of Notepad (which only happened a couple of years ago), but when I see "K" I automatically jump there, which is why I always write "Length: 2,000" on my stories.

(I'm so glad you're enjoying the show! Season 2 is a thing of beauty and joy forever, and I can also understand why you wouldn't get terribly fannish about the show right now. The summer/fall after "Casino Night," though... ::goes off into nostalgic reverie for 2006:: Are you caught up?)

[kestrelsan]

I am caught up! I watched through season 3 online then caved and bought the S1-4 set :). It was hard enough to wait the week or so before S4 was available, so I can imagine what that summer/fall was like after 2 *g*.