amount of words for a story.

How many words is the ideal amount for you keep you interested in reading a story ?

Anything over 6000 seems a little intimidating. I think 3000 is an ideal length. Hard for me to hit, I'm too wordy, but that's the sweet spot.

100, but I'm prejudiced.

It's not the number of words, but what you do with them. The right 100 can tell the story of 1,000 words. In others, 10,000 can feel like 1,000 if they capture your attention from the get-go and hold it.

I think around 3 to 4000 is enough for most casual readers and seems to attract more readers. Chapters tend to shed readers with every publication as people get put off going back to the start. If I see a 8000 worder I need to be in the mood and have the time to even open it.

Depends on my mood. I might want something short, I might be ready to spend an hour or two reading one thing.

There's a poll on this subject.

I run out of gas at around 1500 words.

Is it important to have a picture for your story ?

Quote by colin123

Is it important to have a picture for your story ?

That's a bit off topic, but my understanding is that only stories with cover images get featured in the Popular Stories slider on the Stories page. But I have been debating this, too. Mine never make the slider on Lush anyhow for other reasons.

On the subject of the thread, as many words as it takes tends to be my attitude.

I've been updating my published stories with AI-generated covers, just to spruce them up a bit. It's resulted in more likes for my media, but not necessarily more views or likes for my stories.

As for story length, I think I answered this earlier, but with the exception of a few talented flash/micro authors, I don't trust anything under 2000 words. I'm aware that I'm in the minority on this, though.

I've been writing erotica for 20.+ years. Currently, I have 133 stories posted on [removed]. Every one far exceeds the 10k limit of Lush. I don't believe an author can complete character development, setting description and write extensive descriptions of sex scenes in under 10k. I'm currently working on a story involving a bridesmaid and a wedding quest. The current chapter deals with the woman giving her lover oral sex while driving. I believe this chapter will exceed 20k word count. The reason is because I write extensive descriptions including the setting inside the car how the street lights illuminate her face and his cock. Yes, I could write “she throated his cock” but that doesn't describe how much effort she made just to get his cock inside her throat. I want my reader to feel like they are in the back seat watching a highly erotic deep-throat blowjob. I know a quickie story of 3 or 4k has a place but the longer stories do too. Thanks for reading my rather lengthy post. J D Robbins.

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

-Lewis Carol

So when your limit is 10,000 words, does that include all characters and space. Thanks in advance for your response.

10,000 words is too long for me.

Quote by colin123

10,000 words is too long for me.

Start to lose interest.

? please leave some feedback.

Colin; we will have to agree to disagree on story length. I'm of the opinion that a story less than 2.5k don’t develop a storyline, develop characters, and wind up having a wham-bang description of the sex acts. I prefer describing the settings and sex as detailed and graphic as possible. Plus I enjoy a lot of dialogue between the characters. Different strokes for different folks.

Quote by JdRobbins

Colin; we will have to agree to disagree on story length. I'm of the opinion that a story less than 2.5k don’t develop a storyline, develop characters, and wind up having a wham-bang description of the sex acts. I prefer describing the settings and sex as detailed and graphic as possible. Plus I enjoy a lot of dialogue between the characters. Different strokes for different folks.

I have had 81 stories published, have many famous stories, am a member of the millionaires club and have several legendary stories. I think I may be doing something right 🙄

Quote by Ensorceled

Anything over 6000 seems a little intimidating. I think 3000 is an ideal length. Hard for me to hit, I'm too wordy, but that's the sweet spot.

😊

I’m with Ensorceled in thinking that around 3000 is usually a pretty optimal number of words. Fewer than that, and it’s hard to really develop a story and the protagonist’s point of view. Much more than that, and the number of views and Likes starts to drop - precipitously, after 5000 words or so.

I find this is true if my own reading habits. There are a great many excellent authors on this site, and new stories are landing in my queue nearly every day. If I have some 3000-word stories and some 7000-word stories in there - and I always do - guess which ones I’m going to read first! The result is a good number of longer stories, by authors I admire and respect, languishing in my queue for months - or years.

I will add that I’ve found this to be true from an author’s perspective and not just as a reader. My “Dick Job” story, for example, absolutely crackles with action, with not a boring paragraph, and it is my only submittal to have placed in the top ten of a competition. Yet despite that recognition, it has only received 3300 views and 32 votes. That places it in the bottom half of my stories for attention. Because at 9000 words, it is just too goddamned long to attract many eyeballs.

Quote by joe71

I will add that I’ve found this to be true from an author’s perspective and not just as a reader. My “Dick Job” story, for example, absolutely crackles with action, with not a boring paragraph, and it is my only submittal to have placed in the top ten of a competition. Yet despite that recognition, it has only received 3300 views and 32 votes. That places it in the bottom half of my stories for attention. Because at 9000 words, it is just too goddamned long to attract many eyeballs.

Love your stories, have to agree that 9000 words is a bit too long for me.

New story coming soon. It will be based on fact.

Quote by colin123

Love your stories, have to agree that 9000 words is a bit too long for me.

Thanks for that! I haven't done anything over 5000 words since that entry. Even in the last competition, which had a limit of 10k, I kept it to less than half that, and have had what appears to be success breaking what might be a single long story down into chapters under 2k.

When enough is enough, then no more. I have violated this rule several times, ending stories too soon, being the contrary sort.

Also, is it better to have a picture to go with your story or not ?

Yes, it helps immensely to have a picture. I just started doing that a few months ago, and even went back and edited some of the better/more popular of my past stories to include pics.

Although one pic is sufficient, I'm starting to do three pics for some of my stories. In addition to the official cover photo, which has to meet certain rules (no penetration, no erection, I think), I've also been creating an alternate, more explicit version that I post to my profile page when I publish the story. And more recently, noticing that some people have been posting "thank you" messages and pics to the profile walls of people who Like or comment on their stories, I've most recently been creating a third image and following that practice myself. I'm still pretty basic in my photo editing skills, but have learned a few things in the process.

For me it’s 1500-2000 words Not a fan of the multi-chapter stories unless it’s exceptional. Only one of those comes to mind.

Quote by joe71

I will add that I’ve found this to be true from an author’s perspective and not just as a reader. My “Dick Job” story, for example, absolutely crackles with action, with not a boring paragraph, and it is my only submittal to have placed in the top ten of a competition. Yet despite that recognition, it has only received 3300 views and 32 votes. That places it in the bottom half of my stories for attention. Because at 9000 words, it is just too goddamned long to attract many eyeballs.

Those are lazy folks, or got too much going in their lives.