Poll: Fic size indicator preferences

[trascendenza]

I have a problem, I really do. Is there anyone else in the world who thinks about this stuff as much as I do? Probably not.

Anyway. Basically, this a poll to find out what method of fic size labeling people prefer, and why. A few of these questions are totally repeats of the Absurdly Detailed Fanfiction Header Information Poll (which, ohmygod

Comments

[trascendenza]

Oh, yeah. I just didn't want to make another radio button question saying "what is your least preferred method?" because I thought it would be apparent from process of elimination. So those two questions aren't meant to be related. *smacks forehead*

[trascendenza]

Not at all. The way I set it that makes perfect sense. I really think I need someone to beta my polls before I post them, haha.

[trascendenza]

Yeah, I think file size would work fine if people were only measuring with Notepad or some such, but otherwise I find it pretty confusing.

I use word count ranges on my del.icio.us because I can't seem to find any agreed-upon definitions of categories. I've read at least three different essays that had three different definitions of where the short story/novella cutoff was. My head started hurting trying to sort it out. >.

[trascendenza]

I like that method. I think I need to put wordcount somewhere in my description field or title somewhere, too. Oh, the endless hours I could spend organizing my del.icio.us. *g*

[saavikam77]

Assorted thoughts

[trascendenza]

Well, there are a lot of folks who've tried to define the exact wordcount ranges of what the different categories mean--but those folks usually don't agree. *g* At least in the essays/rants I've come across. And I totally agree about drabble--if I see the word drabble, I expect 100 words, 200 for a double drabble, etc.

I agree that using a combination of category + wordcount can be helpful for those who have no concept of wordcount. It's also nice for tagging, because maybe someone wants to click and bring up all the fic that's under/over a certain length.

I really, really appreciate when authors put word counts on their WIPs. I mean, yeah, I know that I'm getting in for something long when I sit down to read a WIP, *but* I still like to know when I start how much time to plan for. Esp. on LJ, where comments on the page totally mess with the 'scrollbar as length indicator' method.

*scrubs off two cents and sticks in pocket* Shiny. XD

[nevadafighter]

I don't use any of these methods at all - in fact, it wasn't until I started trying to actively post stories on LJ (around last summer, heh) that I realized some people include this information. I always post my stories in their complete form to my website, and state how many chapters are in the story. That's the closest I come to categorizing the length of my stories, and that's all I ever look for when trying to determine the length of a story. (In all honesty, the only thing I really look for is whether or not a story is complete. I only read WIPs if I already know the author 1] can write worth a hill of beans and 2] that s/he'll ACTUALLY return to the story at hand OR 3] I'm so desperate for fic in said genre that I'll read whatever and deal with the emo drama of incompleteness later

[trascendenza]

I've thought a lot about the novels with no headers vs. internet fic postings with humongous headers thing, and the main conclusion I've come to is that when someone is shopping in a bookstore, they're looking for a book. Whereas specifically on LJ, people can and *do* group together a lot of disparate journals/feeds/comms/digests onto their friendspage (I pity the poor souls that haven't yet figured out filtering), and it's sort of become this competition for space. Everything is so fast-paced on LJ--once it's been pushed off people's friendspages, it tends to be forgotten. I know in my case that I became much more selective with my reading, not out of desire, but necessity--headers do some of the pre-sorting work for me, which is nice (but don't even get me started on headers that have too much information, oh God, how I hate them). And when it comes to posting in comms (especially ones that have high traffic), I think it's mainly a matter of sorting through all the different authors and trying to figure out what sounds the most

[nevadafighter]

I think a lot of my opinions probably stem from the fact that I don't post or read by LJ fic standards. I tend to hang out on fansites rather than LJ, where the only size indication is the number of chapters, so I approach LJ with the same attitude. When I *am* on LJ, I participate in some of the tiniest fandoms here so there never is the problem of competition.

[trascendenza]

I think most of my opinions stem from the fact that 95% of my experiences with fandom have been on LJ. And the same with my experience with RPGs--I haven't tried out a single RPG on LJ because I find the whole idea strange, since I'm so used to having them through e-mail or on Yahoo! Groups.

Being so accustomed to LJ makes me frustrated with fansites. Especially the ones that have white text on a black background. I always want to hit "?style=mine" and then get irritated when I can't. *g* I feel so spoiled. And I think, in a way, the catering culture that springs up around readership on LJ does spoil readers--since I have so many writers on my flist I've been able to become a lot pickier with my reading than I initially was. Anyway, I just started rambling again, so probably best for me to quit while I'm ahead. I have to start teaching my brain that answering comments before bed=bad. :P

[lydiabell]

What the heck does "one-shot" mean, is what I want to know. Does it just mean a story that isn't divided into chapters/isn't part of a series? Because I've read 30,000 word stories that would be one-shots by that definition, but I don't think that's what people mean.

::is confused::

Numbers plz!

[nevadafighter]

Does it just mean a story that isn't divided into chapters/isn't part of a series?

Yep, that's exactly what it means. It's not supposed to be a size indicator so much as a warning to readers that any cries for more story shall fall upon deaf ears.