sunday chattle (saturday chortle)

[sunsetmondays]

 Because I'm probs not gonna get much salad time tomorrow because friend is staying for a couple of days so early suny chattle again, peoples.

This sunday chat we have playoncon - otherwise known as Rob vines, pause is a dirt ditcher, and deadbones had pikachu down his pants. Don't even ask. Guude is getting further down the line of mindcrackers for the UHC monument, building Seth and Vechs. People are starting to wonder if rob will be invinted online to do a video for his staue building, considering his status.

I don't have too much to talk about this week, but my hardrive has been replaced so yay typey typey laptop. Deadbones is cute. Etho is cute. Everyone is cute. Be sure to apricate twice daily.

In terms of salad, what do you guys think is a reasonable fic length and why? Fics tend to be really short these days so I wanna see what you guys think.

A short one, I know, but oh well. My best friend is coming up from several hours away to stay a couple of nights woooI

Comments

[damnreddit]

This has nothing to do with fics, but I've just done some upgrades on my computer and I can now play current-version, non-shapshot Minecraft at 56 fucking frames per second. I think I'm gonna cry.

Sunset, can you re-add me to the Salad whitelist, please? I don't know that I'll play a ton, but at least I can! RainOnTheRiver is my IGN. And I'll need the address again too. Thanks.

[sunsetmondays]

Sure thing, though when 1.8 comes out we're doing a map reset so don't get too settled in the current map. You should still be whitelisted and the current IP is salad.fluctis.com:26065 and we're using 1.7.5.

[damnreddit]

If I'm in 1.7.10 will I not be able to connect? It's either that or I'm not whitelisted, I can connect to other servers.

[sunsetmondays]

It's in 1.7.5. I believe you can't connect on 1.7.10. Your best bet is to switch to 1.7.5.

[justicetom]

Sunset, did you forget to mention that Rawb and Deadbones were sleeping together or whatever that was? :P A reasonable fic length depends on what it is.
If it's many, many chapters, around 1000 words would be nice, per chapter. A oneshot? 500 words+ maybe? Up to around 5 chapters? Close to 750 words per chapter, maybe. :P

[kappa77]

I feel like 1000 words is the min. for something of mine to be posted, since I do a lot of tumblr writing memes/prompts. If I get a good one and it's less than 1000, I'd probably post it here with a couple of other good ones.

But yeah, around 800-1000 words for anything seems like a reasonable length.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I agree with you. Depending on what I'm posting, it might be anywhere between 900 words and 1600 words for my chapters.

[(Anonymous)]

And of course, I'm not logged in.

- Kerl126.

[silvercheers]

Freaking Rawb, man. He's gotten me to use over 100MB of data on his darn vines. I still need to catch up on them, because I've not got much data left! So I don't have any particularly fun stuff to talk about concerning PlayOnCon. :<

Dreamwidth is weird for fic length. On AO3 and ffn it's not uncommon to see one-shots longer than 5k words, but here most seem to be limited to less than 4k (outside a few exceptions). Chapter fics usually see more than 2k or 3k words per chapter, but again it's pretty rare to see chapters of that length here. I'm guessing that it's partially the formatting of Dreamwidth. The font size here is quite large and the sides of the screen are taken up by the sidebar (contrast with AO3's large font size and uncluttered sides and ffn's small font size). I think it's also due to people following the leader. I don't think we've ever had a high population of long posts here (we might have had a higher ratio in the beginning, because we simply didn't have a lot), so we've been following that trend. Maybe we're at a bit of a valley right now because we just got a ton of new writers? I don't really know what a proper length should be. There are lots of different forms of all sizes, dinky things like drabbles and longer things like single chaptered plots.

[fireredlily]

I honestly don't write according to a specific length... but I don't call any fics done and post them unless it's got a clearly established beginning, middle and end. And my chapter fic certainly didn't have a specific word minimum for each chapter, but I made sure that each chapter covered at least one important plot point.

So, I don't actually set a word count for myself (mainly because I use TextEdit to write, and it doesn't have a word count feature), but I know a lot of my stuff ends up around 400-500 words at minimum for one-shots, with some of them having as many as 2000 or so words. It really just depends on the subject and how long it takes for the fic to feel fully fleshed out.

I do feel that DW formatting is a factor also, because I've trimmed down oneshots because the page looked like it was running too long due to the larger font size.

[oliviathecf]

i've always hated length requirements. i tend to be pretty brief when it comes to writing, so i don't really do the whole 1k or more thing. i don't think there really is a reasonable length.

i know i've written things that are 1k+ but i've also written things that are three sentences long. not to mention all of the drabbles i've written.

[sunsetmondays]

I'm just gonna put my 2 cents in on the length issue because it's something I get pedantic about.

I tend to base my numbers on a mix between what I feel is a comfortable reading length with enough content to be worth the time reading plus standards ffrom mainstream fiction.

Oneshots I don't mind a shorted length, but unless you're posting more than one per post, anything less than 700 is a no go for me. As for what other saladers post, I won't read anything less than 500 and I won't really pay more than a passing glance unless it's above 700. If the passing glance grabs my attention I'll read it properly, but I haven't seen something good enough to do that in a long time. As for max, I don't really worry about that so much, but 3000 would be my upper limit as then the attention span starts running short.

But I tend not to worry so much about the one shots. It's the chapter fics that annoy me.

200 words is not an aceptable chapter lenght if there is only one chapter in the post especially so if you're posting chapters like once every two days or more. ll you do is spam up the salad and annoy people like how hard is it to wait a couple of days and post something 1000 words long once a week instead of those stupid 200 word s day things. On the sfp it especially gets annoying because it's like ugh is this tiny excuse for a chapter even worth my time putting it on there.

As for healthy chapter lengths, 700 again is my minimum for reading. But I recommend 1000 as a min for writing. 2500 is a good chapter length in my eyes and is often the average length in normal novels. 3500 would be an extra long chapter and around my max for writing chapters.

Did people not teach you that a very basic paragraph is normally 3 sentences long. If you can't write a paragraph more than 3 sentences long by the time you're old enough to do things like internet and salad then you really should go sit in on some primary school English classes (those who aren't native English speakers are an exception and go them for learning a foreign language).

Here's a good reference on sentence length: http://mooderino.tumblr.com/post/4438643624/this-sentence-has-five-words
Hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea about why I get so pedantic about sentence length. Chapter length is more of a personal thing but yeah.

[clashofdemonesense]

I usually try to get to over 1000 for any multiple chapter fic, but one-shots could stand to do only like 600 or 700 minimum. If I'm reading fics, I like to read longer one-shots because then I get the most enjoyment out of them.
So basically I'm, saying that most tics should be around or well above 1000 words.
Also, Rob and his amazing vines! I can't believe the stuff he's done. He's just making the most hilarious stuff.

[tsugrad]

I'd say 1000 words minimum for a chapter, or I probably won't read it (unless it's really good), just because I find anything shorter than 1000 to not make a ton of progress, or progress too fast. However, if you post a 500-word chapter/fic every 2 weeks as opposed to every day, I'm more likely to read it.
Oneshots I'd say need to be about 700, or I'd probably just make a post of a few of the oneshots together so it doesn't take up near as much space.
If you're posting a 500-word chapter/fic every single day, it gets really cluttered and starts to get annoying. Then again, I never post and read very little nowadays, so I'm not really allowed to say anything. Maybe the short chapters posted daily are really popular. They're just not my thing.

[apositi]

Reasonable fic length for me is upwards of 700 words, regardless whether it’s a one-shot or a chapter. Daily, short chapters I really have no problem with except for the fact that Dreamwidth doesn’t have the same kind of formatting that AO3 and FFN have. Without the ability to tie posts together to create a multi-chapter story, posting really short chapters daily spams the front page.

I try not to judge stories based on length, but really, the shorter the chapter, the harder the author has to work to leave an impression. However, it goes both ways. The longer the chapter, the more the author has to work to retain the attention of the reader. To me, if a thousand words can say as much as five thousand can, then why write the other four thousand?

Of course, an author doesn't have to write for the reader. That’s not what writing is about. Really, in summary, all I can say is that writing will always be difficult. Do your story justice, and it won’t matter how long your fic will be because your readers can see that you’ve brought your characters and their stories alive.

[shichahn]

I officially ship Rob and Deadbones so hard, please help! (And may write something - would it be acceptable to post here, if I do, as neither of them are in Mindcrack?)

I'm okay with fic of pretty much any length, as long as it's long enough to get the story across. While I love extensive multi-chaptered fics, I've started to shy away from reading them since the vast majority that I've seen never get finished, and I hate getting absorbed into a story only to never have it reach its conclusion. Plus, a nice one-shot of no more than several pages can be very satisfying given they don't take much investment for the reader and yet still can have a great payoff, and those tend to be the length I write as well. And then there are drabbles, which always leave me wanting more but can be a great way for an author to test out new ideas or to try and sketch out the essence of a scene as concisely as possible, which can be a useful challenge.

I guess my overall answer is that I'm not picky. I care far more about writing quality than length, but as both a reader and writer I tend to gravitate toward oneshots since for me they strike that perfect balance of time committment and interest and still give plenty to enjoy.

[silvercheers]

We looooove all the things, Rawbones (they should probably get a pairing name at some point) most definitely has a place here.

[shichahn]

Excellent! Not going to make any promises as I have limited time, but they're just too cute and definitely deserve a fic.

[ajrainbowz]

I dont have anything to say about the fic length thing. Ill read pretty much any length as long as the writing isnt shitty.

In other news, tumblr is talkin bout mindcrackers with tattoos, specifically Nebris. maybe we will se some fics bout that.

Also, Im being dragged off to Magic Mountain tomorrow afternoon, so I wont be around for a couple days.

[ex_writeitinsharpie308]

I think the length depends on the type. Songfics, for example, don't usually have too many words. One-shots are like oddballs, some are short, some aren't. Multi-chapter fics depend on the amount of action. A battle and peace after should probably not be in the chapter. So yeah.

I'm trying to appreciate twice daily!

[wrongtree]

Well... drat. Leave town for a week and a half and you miss everything, it seems. Sigh. Better get caught up!

But seriously, since I apparently missed the explosion that happened after what will probably be forever ingrained in Mindcrack lore, I would like to take this opportunity to say, "Holy crap. Why do I always miss the especially exciting things?"

And now on to the actual business of the Sunday Chat (or, in my case, a late 'hey, can I still say something on Wednesday?' attempt). First off, I'm glad to hear that your hard drive has been replaced, Sunset - hopefully you didn't have too much trouble with the replacement process. Either way, it's a major inconvenience and quite expensive, depending on what kind of computer it was.

As for fic length, I'd say a 1,000 word minimum is where I stand, though I have trouble really getting into anything less than 1,500 if it's a oneshot and at least 2,000 if it's a chaptered fic. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but I'd have to say it has something to do with my attention span. The longer something is, the more incentive I feel like I have to continue following along with the story. It also helps prevent me from getting lost.

Personally, I don't really have a maximum when it comes to single postings. As for a total project, I don't particularly like reading anything that adds up to more than around 150,000 words or so, but that's mostly because such things tend to drag on. Too much filler is never a good thing, in my books.