I've been posting stories for over 10 years on a different site. I'm in the process of moving my stories to this one.
In my experience, there is no such thing as an ideal length. Some people like the slow build-up and the character development, other people want the sex to start in the 2nd sentence.
It all depends on the mood the reader is in. Are they extremely horny and just looking for something to help them reach orgasm, or do they wanted get deeply involved in the character's back story and know the protaginists great aunts cousins horse's name.
Remember this is your art, your creative outlet. Don't let people tell you the right way at the wrong way to do it to. No one told Michelangleo, Motzart, or Shakespear how to prctice their craft.
In all honesty, my stories are never what I think they'll be. I wrote one that was supposed to be 1500-2000 words 3 characters with two getting it on. It turned into a 4 part series (so far) involving 9 characters copulating in differnt groups. Nowhere clise to finished. One chapter is 9200 words.
The muse is fickle.
4000 sound just about perfect to me. Anything above 6000 might cost you a few readers. The limit here is 10,000, and I think anything above 8000-9000 is gonna look rather daunting to readers.
Good luck! The mods here (the people who verify the stories) are really helpful.
I agree with Verbal. 4K wordcount is a very inviting (and not too intimidating) length for a story on a site like this. Anything over 6K and you're going to have to present a really compelling story-line to keep the readers' attention. Readers' attention span seems to be growing shorter all the time. Flash stories are growing in popularity, either because no one has time to commit to long stories, or they get bored more easily than they used to.
4000 is a good length, but the key to getting people to read to the end, I think, is paragraph length.
Writing quality explicit material for over eight one-hundredths of a century.
"If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while." - Tom Lehrer
"There is no such thing as good luck or bad luck; only adequate or inadequate preparation for a statistical universe." - Robert Heinlein
The question got me curious, so I went back and looked at the "data". I've published 42 stories. The average number of words is 2728. The longest was 7392, and the shortest was 979. If you throw those two out, then the average is 2656. The funny thing is that until I went back and looked at the numbers, I would have sworn that the average word count would have been much higher.
Writing quality explicit material for over eight one-hundredths of a century.
"If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while." - Tom Lehrer
"There is no such thing as good luck or bad luck; only adequate or inadequate preparation for a statistical universe." - Robert Heinlein
Thanks, all, for the input. My story is now published so I guess the verdict on the length (and content, of course) will be delivered by the comments and ratings...
With this one I enjoyed setting the scene, but any continuations could perhaps cut to the chase more rapidly.
Let me know if you end up reading the story, as it's my first I'm interested in feedback so I can improve next time.
I read both kinds, country and western... no seriously, flash or war and peace novels, if it hits on my favorite topics i'll read it, some people are put off by longer stories I've noticed in comment sections ( well not here, other places ) mostly because people are mean.
The most optimal number is 1000 characters.
