#length: 200K Words

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

The worst thing about reading fanfiction is you can't brag about all the books you've read because of the mortifying ordeal of someone else knowing you're reading fanfiction

#i just finished a 200k word fic #that's the length of a mid size novel #will i be telling anyone? no #except y'all i guess

[icyfox17]

your stepmom WRITES fics? WOAH, RESPECT TO HER, THATS ICONIC

I FORGOT TO RESPONDTOTHISSSOLONGAGOWHOOPS

She DOES she's literally the coolest person ever Eileen omfg I love her

She's been on ao3 for so long...... She knows it better than I do HELP

#foxieasks #eileen tag #she recently showed me how to filter fics via like the search bar on the homepage rather than the small side panel search thingy #if that makes sense i am horrible at explaining things rn #but yeha U CAN SEARCH VIA WORD COUNT?? LIKE AS IN INSERT A SPECIFC LENGTH OF FIC THAT U WANT #like 2-5k LIKEEE #This is perfect for me (->likes reading fics from the 60-200k range) #but yeah omfg if u read buddie fics theres a chance youve read her fic and that is Wild to think about HELP 😭😭😭

[altraviolet]

The Echo Garden

Chapter 37: "The Thrum"

Chapter length: 7246 words

Total fic length: 229,555 words

If anyone's curious, the fic is now 607 pages long in my free word doc. hrrrrghhhh holy moly

Enjoy! 〰️🌌〰️

Note: Fic is rated T as of posting date (Jan 16, 2023), but the rating will eventually go up. If you stumble on this link some time in the future, please keep that in mind.

#the echo garden #maccadam #I like when the fic length is a cool #number of words #hope 200k+ words of slow burn #have prepared you for an Adult Joke™️ #we're easing into it lol

[lifeofpatterns]

My fanfic brain: "How is that possible, shouldn't real books be longer...?"

#I read 200k+ fanfics all the time #how can real books be like 70k #this is fucking with my brain #fanfics #fanfic length #ao3 #word count instead of page count #who needs page counts

[jennycalendar]

how many chapters is like ur goal for what you make?

iiiii don't really have a goal in mind! i really think whatever amount of chapters the story is completed in will be fine by me.

#asks #also i feel like we have moved well past ''long fic'' by now bc it's almost 200k words #so i am more than satisfied with its length! #(am actually a lil concerned that its length will b prohibitive to prospective new readers. help)

[spekktors]

lengthy slow burn readers and writers I've gotta know: what even happens in the story after a slow burn goes over a certain length

#babbling #anything from 50-150k is an amount that i think counts as slow burn without going so long I'd begin to wonder what's going on in there #when i say a certain length im talkin like 200k+ #I am curious though. the slow burn* story I'm writing rn is currently about 20k and a little under halfway done #and i feel like I'm being quite indulgent with it too since it's just personal writing** I'll probably never share with anyone #i spent 1000 words describing making soup and elaborating on the history of kitchenware #but when it's past the 200k mark what's happening? #is it B-plots? is it character study interludes? is it lovingly developing the platonic relationships as well as the romantic ones? #or is it romance-foreward and the burn is Genuinely That Slow #if that's the case power to you. but I alas don't have the patience #footnotes: #*i dont know if it legally counts as a slow burn if you have gay sex in the second chapter #the developing relationship and admitting their romantic feelings to themselves and getting together part is slow tho #**it's the elaborate backstory of two characters that exist in my dnd homebrew world #that my players won't meet until over the halfway point in the campaign #if at all depending on their choices #but they exist in the world as characters who are relevant to a significant NPCs backstory #and i couldn't get them out of my head. so here i am

[kozzax]

ok reading meat 14. maybe tomorrow i can finish meat and get halfway through candy yknow once my serious actual midterm is over. at the rate i read that's not too unreasonable. then i can spend tuesday reading the other half of candy and then hs2 AND THEN I CAN SEE MY BOY AGAIN.

#me vibing #the lengths i will go to to see sollux captor. are immense #around 200k words of content? done. no questions asked. done in a heartbeat show me my boy.

[jessepinwheel]

while the story I'm writing gets longer and longer, let's ask:

this question is asking how long a story needs to be to discourage you from reading, e.g., you wouldn't start it unless someone recommends it to you, or it's so long that you would never reread it

because of the lengths involved, this is going to refer less to individual novels and more to full book series, very long fics, and web novels/web serials

#poll

[snek-panini]

It's been a month since Binderary ended but I've still got books to share! This is @worse0mens's (hi!) wonderful Good Omens series, The Blossom Realm, which starts with Omens of Another Kind. This is very much a longtime favorite of mine, an AU with a really compelling combo of worldbuilding and characterization. This is a believable grand romance that's also a court drama and a fairy tale, and it's really long (the full series is about 220k words) so it will keep you reading for a long time. This is one of the fics I learned bookbinding for, and it was the first really long fic that I typeset (and redid once I learned more about typesetting). It's been a long road but it was so worth it.

More photos under the cut!

Couple of photos of the spines. The series doesn't divide easily, with one very long work, one medium-length one, and several shorter pieces. The main story is nearly 200k on its own, the longest single volume I've ever made (about 500 pages), and I was worried about it getting too unwieldy, so I put all the other works into their own volume of about 100 pages. They make a disparate set but I love them. The cover is done in skiver green faux leather from Hollander's; I've never worked with this brand before but I loved it, and one sheet was big enough to do both books. The titles are done in cricut brand gold foil htv. There were some issues with that, as I'd bought a multi-pack with a few different colors and only found out after applying the front cover graphics on both books that one, I didn't have enough to do the backs and spines; two, that the gold in that pack is a totally different color than the gold they sell on its own; and three, that no one in my area stocked it anymore and I had to order it from Europe. Here's what the back looks like:

It's the same graphic as the front but without the title in the center, and it's one of the fanciest backs I've ever done and it took forever to weed all those little cutouts. The graphic was free to use on rawpixel. The font I used on the spines and front is a basic Microsoft font called Harrington that worked incredibly well on the cricut, even at small sizes; a lot of basic fonts are too thin, especially fancy ones, so this was a delightful surprise.

Photo of the top, with ribbon bookmark and handmade double core endbands. The endbands didn't come out as well as I'd have liked; they're a little uneven and the color changes aren't that evenly spaced. Double core ones are harder than I expected and I need more practice. The endpapers are chocolate silk moire, and I chose them because there's a very important massive tree in the fic and I thought they looked like wood grain. I did a little experimenting with the shorter volume that's visible around the edges of the endpaper. I wanted gilded edges but the longer book had to be rounded, and I thought I'd try paint instead of foil since I don't know how to foil a curved edge. But I did my experiments on the smaller volume and I couldn't get good coverage, so the edge had to be trimmed off. The watered-down paint had leaked into the edge of the silk moire too far for me to trim, so it's still there. But it's kind of pretty, so I'm going to call it an aesthetic choice.

The title pages are the same, with free graphics from rawpixel. I got lucky and found a similar set of roses that I used for the chapter headers:

These had to be positioned by hand for each chapter so they'd fit around the text properly. It was a pain but they look so pretty. The final photo contains a story spoiler, so proceed with caution if you don't want that:

The scene break image in both volumes is this tiny snake. This was one of the first aesthetic choices I made for the books. A lot of the plot is centered around a prophecy about a monster snake that everyone thinks will destroy the kingdom, and of course in the manner of Good Omens fic it's a wildly inaccurate misinterpretation and not a threat at all. I wanted something like this because the snake is not only non-threatening but it's been here the entire time and there was never any reason to freak out about it. It was surprisingly difficult to find a snake image that was both simple enough to still be clear at this size and also didn't look dangerous or like a cartoon character. I looked at so many snakes before I found this one, it's ridiculous.

And that's it! I hope the author likes it (and remembers me since I asked to do this almost a year ago). There are three more binderary posts forthcoming, though I don't know how long it'll take me to get to them. It was a busy month.

#bookbinding #fanbinding #snek makes books #good omens #fic rec #everyone look at my books they are so pretty #and then go read the fic it's so good omg

[aftgficrec]

Hi! Thank you so much for your work. I'm looking for long finished fics, it can be canon or not AND I'm also looking for fics focused on Kevin and Neil friendship

Recs with Kevin and Neil friendship will follow in a separate post.

Now to get nerdy. 🤓 In a previous ask for longer andreil fics, we linked the official AO3 tutorial for honing searches to find what you’re looking for. The key for finding long complete fics is a combination of word count and completion status. 

“Complete Works Only” must be selected and the “Word Count” must be written as numerals with no commas. 

So, for complete aftg fics that are more than 200k words: 

Search AO3 for All For The Game - Nora Sakavic

Click Works

Go to the Sort and Filter menu on the right side of the screen

Look for the More Options header near the bottom

Click the arrow by Completion Status

Select Complete Works Only

Click the arrow by Word Count 

Enter 2000000 in the From field

Click Sort and Filter

Current yield: 19 complete aftg fics over 200k words

For complete aftg fics that are between 100k and 200k words:

Repeat steps 1-7

Enter 100000 in the From field

Enter 200000 in the To field

Click Sort and Filter

Current yield: 54 complete aftg fics between 100k-200k words

Etcetera, etcetera. The real fun begins when you select the pairings and types of stories you want to read! Below you will find some specific long complete previous asks, and a handful of previously featured fics. -A

previous asks

long complete parental andreil here 

long complete Raven!Neil here

long complete kandreil here (more of these sorted by length on ao3 here)

long complete post canon fics here

long andreil fics here (all completed)

staff top long post canon fics here

staff fave longer fics here and here

long fics for a return to fandom here (many are completed)

fluff

‘Pinch of Salt.’ here (51k)

canon universe

‘Dead Girl Walking’ (217k) here

‘A Falling Star’ series 245k here (updated)

dark/angsty

‘Armies’ 300k, ‘The Nameless Monster’ 118k, ‘I Spy a Broken Heart’ 205k (completed), ‘what it takes to survive’ 100k here 

‘Not Damsels, not Knights’ 93k here

‘Joseph’ series 119k here

‘Red Rabbits’ series 729k here

action/adventure/fantasy/scifi

‘The Foxhole Force’ 245k (completed), ‘In Reel and Rout’ 91k here 

‘Of Smoke & Bone’ 200k (completed) here 

‘The Wonders I've Seen’ 158k, ‘if you get lost (you can always be found)’ 68k, ‘F.O.X.E.S. Division’ 270k here

‘The Odds Are Never In Our Favor’ 258k here

[olderthannetfic]

This may sound really stupid, but I've been reading your asks for a long time and I would like your input.

Even after many many years of using Ao3 I have problems understanding how to use the "word count" tags because the numbers mean litteraly nothing to me. My first fanfiction site used "number of chapter" tags and when I started to use Ao3 I tought they were a better system of sorting.

Now I can see why the word count may be useful (I've seen obscenely long one-chapter stories on Ao3), but I still think sorting by chapter number is easier to use and understand, mostly because I prefer long fics and only read one-shot if I am in a "one-shot mood" and that doesn't happend often.

What do you think? And do you have some suggestion on how to use the word count tags or I just have to feel it?

--

I don't find chapter count useful on AO3 because so many people have chapters of less than 500 words. I mean... it might be useful to be able to screen out people who write chapters that short, but aside from that, their massively inflated chapter counts tell me nothing about the length or meatiness of the work.

People routinely post 50k works with section breaks that function like chapter breaks to AO3. That chapter count also means nothing.

Most people don't tag for work count on AO3. The automatic calculation can be helpful for a general sense of what kind of bucket a thing falls into.

<10k - short story

30k - novella

60k - concise novel

200k - bloated epic

--

How on earth can you know the length without looking at the length?

Sure, on some older, smaller sites, people wrote in a more consistent style where X chapters was usually Y words, but that just isn't true on AO3. Only wordcount—the wordcount automatically generated by AO3—has any hope of telling you how long a work is.

[charlottan]

starting a book tag game ^-^

Favorite books: Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany, Sisters of Dorley by Alyson Greaves, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, House of Leaves, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, anything by Kurt Vonnegut

Favorite authors: Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, William S Burroughs, Hunter S Thompson, Alyson Greaves

Favorite genres: Postmodernism, beat generation, road stories, horror, forcefem

Book(s) you're currently reading: Sisters of Dorley by Alyson Greaves, Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, Pet Sematary by Stephen King, Post Office by Charles Bukowski, I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes, End of Watch by Stephen King, and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts are all in my rotation right now, especially I Am Pilgrim. It's a shitty little thriller that I picked up just to get a feel for the genre after enjoying Billy Summers by Stephen King!

Books on your to read list: Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Ham on Rye, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, Lord of the Rings

Books you loved as a child: Magic Treehouse, Percy Jackson, Charlie Bone, Captain Underpants, Warriors, A to Z Mysteries. realizing i was incredibly into book serieses rather than one off books wow

Preferred book length: considering about 100k-120k as an average length book i think i really like when a book is longer than 200k words. really give me a whole big world to explore, yknow.

Books you couldn't finish: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami is like the only book in recent memory that ive had to just stop reading. the way he writes characters thoughts is so stilted and unnatural sounding i just hated it. which sucks because i really loved the story a whole lot, especially with the cult storyline.

Fiction or nonfiction: in general i heart fiction but i also really like reading books like the electric acid kool acid test, suspected hippie in transit, on the road, and queer and junky by william burroughs. books about real life people's Adventures

Buy, borrow from library, or read online: Unfortunately i am a buycel i love the feeling of reading a physical book but i take too long to read books to borrow them from a library

Author you've read the most of, but DON'T recommend: Stephen King (has read 40+ of his books, which as an aside is insane to think about)

Favorite book character: Eliot Rosewater from funny kurt vonnegut!!!!!! or piranesi from piranesi. im a big fan of the dreamish lover type characters

If you at some point stopped reading but then started again, what book/books got you into reading again: i read a lot in elementary school but then read barely any in middle school and freshman year of high school and what finally got me back into reading was stephen king :)

tagging ANYONE WHO WANTS TO!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE! and please tag me in the post :)

#tag game

[youknowitslove]

my perception of fanfic lengths is so funny to me because a 50k word fic that took me a week to read will be remembered as if it was 200k but a 150k word fic that i read in a night feels like 20k to me

#fanfic #fan fiction #swanqueen #supercorp #those tragic little gay women #gay #lgbtq #ouat #evil queen #thasmin #doctor who #lesbian #once upon a time #i love her #anyways #words

[fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic]

Good Omens Fic Rec: What We Make of It (Shotgun Wedding)

The important thing, Crowley tells himself -- the most important thing -- is Adam, his brilliant, creative, empathetic nephew. Being fourteen's hard enough; the kid didn't ask to deal with the weight of the world on top of it. And if taking care of Adam means Crowley has to tough it out at a job he can’t stand, so be it. And if Crowley's job means that Adam’s charming English teacher is NOT a romantic possibility, well, that's just how things go. But the occasional drink with Aziraphale proves hard to resist. They frequent the same pub, so who can object to them saying hello? Briefly sharing a table? Perhaps a little conversation? The painful knowledge that it can’t be anything more -- not without somebody getting fired or sued or both -- well, that can't be helped. Until Crowley stumbles onto a terribly reckless idea...

Length: 213,340 words

AO3 Rating: Explicit / Spice Level 🔥🔥

Best for: Safe in Public, Human AU, Slow Burn, Pick-Me-Up

Triggers: None

Read it here, fic by charlottemadison

*Minor Spoilers* I was so certain that I had already posted about this one! When I saw I hadn't, well, that just warranted a reread didn't it! This is a very famous fic, so I wouldn't be surprised if you've already read this. But if you haven't, or maybe didn't know if it was worth committing to the length, I'm here to tell you its very much worth your time.

Not only is this an excellent parent story, it's also a fake marriage story! Crowley is a single parent to his nephew Adam who strikes up a friendship with Adam's English teacher Mr. Fell. The problem? The company Crowley works for has a strict rule against dating anyone in the School Industry. You know, it's a tiny bit dramatic, but also one of the cleverer ideas to justify writing a forbidden relationship. Does this happen in real life? I don't know, but the way this is written I fully believe it could! Either way, there's a loophole they can exploit so they can be together, and all it takes is a quick, "I do."

Ugh their relationship is so wonderful here. It's very mature and healthy, the kind of relationships we want to read about because they are just so safe. They're able to talk through their issues and feelings and know they're always going to be supported. The love they have is so heartwarming it’s sickening. A lot is told through letters and text messages, which I personally loved. These are different characters from canon, they've both been changed by their human lives and surroundings, but this story just understands who they are deep down. They're not shallow characterizations.

Who this story really gets right is Adam. I full on believe this is the best handling of Adam in any fanfic I've read for Good Omens. A majority of the plot revolves around him being narcoleptic and epileptic. It has tons of amazing things to say about health care, being chronically ill, and being a parent to a child with health issues. But outside of that it understands who Adam is. Someone who is brilliant, creative, a leader, manipulative, arrogant. And how those traits can be both positive and negative for him. He wants to change the world, but has some learning to do along the way. I loved him, and I love how much Crowley loves being a dad. He even remarks on it, that people don't expect men to love being parents. It's nice to read a story of such a devoted guardian.

A really excellent story, it deserves it's popularity! I would say this is largely safe for public. There are a couple explicit scenes tucked in but they are skippable and a small section of a large story. Which by the way, will fly by! This story does NOT feel like 200K words. If you haven't gotten around to this one, I highly suggest you do!

Read it here, fic by charlottemadison

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #fanfic rec #aziracrow #good omens fic rec #aziraphale x crowley #What We Make of It (Shotgun Wedding) #charlottemadison #extra long #two flames #fake relationship #marriage #parent #human au #teacher au #pick me up #safe in public #slow burn

[writingquestionsanswered]

Epic Novel with Historical Context

Anonymous asked: I'm working on a novel with one of its major themes being historical and transgenerational trauma. I have three main characters in the present day, who are suddenly faced with war. Their fates, natures, and reactions parallel those of their ancestors who lived under WWII, whilst the experiences of their WWII ancestors often mirror the personal, smaller scale backstories and traumas of my main characters. Now, my issue is, I could write this tale in two drastically differing manners. I could cut out the backstories and prolific details of the ancestors, but keep the parallels as the stories of unnamed/unrelated historical figures, making it a shorter, more symbolical tale. Or, I could go the "Victor Hugo direction" and keep everything, including the elaborate family tree of brilliant, vibrant characters that feel too real, and the arcs that go with it. The bigger issue is I don't want to make this into a series or spin-off. I could technically write a whole new book about them, but it would cut them off from their contexts. And I'm afraid if I just mention the characters and give them one or two characteristic scenes, the readers would wonder about the significance of these characters to the main story, which is close to none. Is there a compromise?

[Ask edited for length]

First, thanks for putting the highlights in bold. It did help me comprehend everything. ♥

As for which route you take, it really depends on your situation and intentions with this story. If you're just writing it for yourself and maybe to share with friends, I think you can definitely go the Victor Hugo route and have fun exploring the whole epic story.

If you plan to pursue traditional publishing, you'll have a difficult time finding an agent and/or publisher who are interested in an epic from a debut author. Bigger books are a bigger financial investment, which makes them a bigger risk, and readers are trending toward shorter books anyway. That said, the longer your book, the harder it will be to find a publisher. Right now, the sweet spot for debut authors is around 90k words. Yes, you can certainly go higher than that--and many do--but again, every 10k above that you go, the more you decrease your odds of finding a publisher. No matter what, you would want to try to stay under 150k words or so. Fantasy novels have been known to debut at 200k, but it's really rare and always a case where every single word is absolutely needed.

If you plan to self-publish, you have a little more leeway, but the higher your word count, the higher your base price will need to be. There are also limits on length through various POD publishers. E-books have size limits, but you'd be unlikely to come up against those even with a super epic length book. So... ultimately, if you're okay with self-publishing this book as an e-book only, the sky is the limit in terms of length. That doesn't mean people will buy it, though.

Ultimately, I do think finding a compromise is your best bet, and one way you could do that is by zeroing in on one or a few of the ancestors for the parallel rather than a whole family tree worth of people. If your three characters are closely related--a mom and two children; a grandmother, mother, and child; or three siblings--you could easily focus on just one ancestor belonging to all three of them. If the characters are less closely related or not related at all, you could probably do one ancestor for each of them. And if you want to delve more into the ancestor's stories to explore more of those family trees, you can do a companion novel which isn't a brand new book or a sequel/series, but something in the middle... almost like a spin-off TV show where it takes side characters from one show and gives them their own show.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[batsarebetterthanpeople]

#hyper specific poll