How long should a fic be?

Obviously the answer to that is 'As long as the story requires'.

But what length do you prefer reading? What length is too short to bother with and what is too long to even attempt?

I ask because it strikes me that fanfiction is a strange beast in this. On the one hand a lot of fanfiction is very short one-shots or abandoned after the first chapter (91% of all fanfiction according to Scryer is <20k words) and of completed fics 3/4 are < 5k words.

At the other end many fics are much longer than a normal novel. The longest fic I found on FFN was German and nearly 1.7M words.

The longest published work is close to 2M words but most publishers wont accept a first-time author's work if it's more than a mere 100k words long.

It seems to me that I spend a lot of time reading fics in the 100k - 300k range but I often start looking for some form of conclusion around the 100k mark.

For me any story less than 5k words or so wont be read unless it's an amusing one-shot or piss-take.

Then there's a kind of no-man's land where it's a bit too long to be a one-shot but not long enough to thoroughly explore its core ideas in the 5k-20k range.

If it's a bit more than 20k it's either a good start to a longer fic or a nice short story.

60k+ is a real story where characters can be fully developed and the plot can be given its due time.

200k is when I start skipping ahead chapters to make sure the time investment is worth it.

 

Before starting a story it is important to know how you're going to finish it. Once you've done that it really doesn't matter how long or short the story is. It is equally important to know when to end it.

 

I have enjoyed novellas like Equal and Opposite as well as epics like The Phoenix and the Serpent - so either side of the spectrum works for me. The length depends entirely on the story the author wants to tell - if the summary interests me, I'll read it.

 

I really depends on the quality of the story. If a story is over 300k words and isn't exceptional a few chapters in I'll put it down.

 

If the story is good, well written with an interesting concept. Then, the longer the better as long as the author can keep the quality above average.

I would prefer a good short story than a bad long one but would prefer a good long one than a short good one.

 

Exactly 282,609 words.

Honestly, all novel-length fanfiction is always too long. This is mostly because the writers are new, learning, and figuring out what works and what doesn't.

My Hero Trilogy was over 1,000,000 words by the time it was done. I could easily cut about 500k of those and make it an infinitely better tale.

My next proper effort, Wastelands, came in at that 282k above, and told a much better story with less superfluous crap.

These days, I tell even better stories - original works - at around 70k to 80k. That's my sweet spot. Not to say I won't head back up. My third Will Drake novel, due in May, will probably be about 95k.

 

Sorcerers Stone was 70k I believe. Most published works hover between 65-90k for a first novel. For a fic, 150k is long enough for a beginning writer to get in the habit of writing regularly and to improve.

 

Yeah, that's right.

I will say that, holistically, I can't think of a HP fanfic that's 300K+ and couldn't use some trimming.

Two fics that I like well enough, The Merging, and Delenda Est, are over 300K words, and one of the biggest problems with both of them is filler/bloat/pacing issues.

A Black Comedy, The Lie I've Lived, and Hogwarts Houses Divided, three of my all-time favorites, are all in the 200-250K word range. That's a good range to be in if you're telling a detailed, in-depth story in the Harry Potter universe.

Of course, like everyone else has said, a story should be as long as it needs to be to tell that story. The Strange Disappearance of Sally-Anne Perks is a brisk 36,000 words, and in no way would it be well-served with another 30K.

 

I guess 100K words is a pretty good length for the average story.

 

There are definitely stories which wouldn't fic in 300k words.

Sacrifices, for example: sure, it is kinda bloated at times, but it's 3 million words long and cutting it to 300k is a pipe dream. It could probably have been trimmed down to 2.2-2.5 million without losing any major plot points, and even further if you were willing to ditch integral story elements.

Prince of a Dark Kingdom is another epic, but in this case there's an argument that it's too short (at least, the first few years).

...I'm seeing a pattern here (seven-year fics).

Renegade Cause might not have fit in 300k either, to be fair, and whatever story Echoes of Power is telling, that's far larger as well.

 

Sorry, I should have clarified. I didn't mean that anything over 300K could be cut down to 300K, just that most I've seen are in need of some trimming. That's true of some 90K word stories, too, but it seems to be more of a trend in the doorstoppers.

 

"As long as the story requires" isn't always ends up being what is actually written. Some authors actually write way too much, like having a 300k story that could have and should have been written in 70k words. A lot of DLPers are actually guilty of this. Sometimes you just want people to get on with it. Sitrah Ahra is a good example of this - 360k words to cover the first two years... no offense intended obviously, but some lines need to be drawn.

I'm guilty of the opposite, I think. I sort of get in a hurry to get to the good parts of the fic, so they tend to be shorter than I would like. That being said, I try to keep chapters in between 4-5k words, which is about average for canon chapters. Sometimes when I see a 20k long chapter, I groan, because it's going to be a chore to actually get through it all. That's almost a third the entire length of Philospher's Stone for one chapter.

When I search for fic, I either set it between 40k and 60k. I'm not opposed to reading in progress fics, but they usually have to be far enough along and with enough development for me to actually be willing to invest a decent amount of time and effort into.

 

I don't read anything less than 100k, because reading is a thing I binge and I read fast.

250k - 500k is my ideal, anything more than that should have (but rarely does have) a good content/words ratio.

 

I usually don't care about the actual length of the fics, especially if it's complete.

If it's not, I look at the created date, last updated date and number of chapters posted in that time to decide. If I feel like the fic is going somewhere, I'll read it, if not, I'll skip it until I see more updates so I can decide.

That said, I'm more likely to re-read a 100k+ fic over one that is shorter, assuming they're of the same quality.

 

Yeah, "as long as it needs to be" pretty much covers it.

Now chapter length, on the other hand...
Unless you have a really good reason, I feel like a chapter should be at least 3000-3500 words, or else why bother? I've come to the decision over the years that, in amateur writing, short chapters tend to be a warning sign (though, with excessively short chapters, I think the summary and initial quality of writing probably will have tipped one off to trouble before the chapter length becomes an issue).

The 3k chapter thing, like most other guidelines, doesn't necessarily apply when one knows what they're doing and feels they should change things up to preserve or enhance the flow of the narrative.

Overly long chapters can be an issue, as well. In the end, though, just like story length, it comes down to what the author feels is enough to get things told in an interesting, compelling, entertaining, way, without too much fat or too little information.

 

I prefer longer fics because I'm happy to invest days worth of reading into getting through them. Same goes for series, really. I'm at my happiest when I have a new book in a series that is 5+ books long.

 

Each chapter should be this long: