When is a Chapter too long?

[Gukahn]

A Question that comes to mind while editing the next Entry. Which is Long, very long.(cause I love showing off lewd stuff *cough*)  I'm now on 142 panels and still need to make a few more for the Chapter Ending.

So, simple Question, when do you think a Chapter is too long? ?

[t.ara]

As soon you do artwork, you for best ignore any sort of rules. If you need more lines, then take the space for your work.

IF you can bind your readers to your story, this is not important.

[Tirloque]

1 hour ago, Gukahn said:

A Question that comes to mind while editing the next Entry. Which is Long, very long.(cause I love showing off lewd stuff *cough*)  I'm now on 142 panels and still need to make a few more for the Chapter Ending.

So, simple Question, when do you think a Chapter is too long? ?

I would say it's too long when readers start finding it too long.

Which means :

• If you've made your readers used to a certain length, it might be better not to to overly vary from that.
• So long as you can keep your readers entertained, they won't resent too much from the entertainment varying in length.

So

— If you're Jon Favreau, you do know how to vary and renew entertainment (let's take The Mandalorian and the Book of Boba Fett for example), so it doesn't really matter if some episodes are longer than other provided one isn't off the charts  (people expect 35'+ to 60' episodes). Because your vision/story objectives are clear, and you know how to keep the audience entertained in between.

— If you need to write walls of dialogues in order to get from one point to another, keep relying on the very same entertainment type, and don't really know where you're going... then it's probably detrimental to get even longer than you usually do. 

 

As for 3D storytellers, elaborated entries commonly vary from 50 to 200 images each, depending on the style and vision.

[Gukahn]

1 hour ago, t.ara said:

As soon you do artwork, you for best ignore any sort of rules. If you need more lines, then take the space for your work.

IF you can bind your readers to your story, this is not important.

 

6 minutes ago, Tirloque said:

 

As for 3D storytellers, elaborated entries commonly vary from 50 to 200 images each, depending on the style and vision.

 

Thank you Both, that's reasurring. The People who I know reading my Entrys regularly are quite used to long Chapters already. So making one longer for the sake of Fanservice might not be a Bad thing to do. (that and I don't want to double Post 2 Parters just because my Index Finger couldn't stop making screenshots.. ?)

 

[Dovahblood12]

This is actually a very good question - and is something I myself have been wondering about.

 

In my understanding, so long as you manage to keep the reader invested and don't have to go into too much dialogue explaining things (like what was said before) I would say it doesn't matter. 

 

I myself tried to keep my chapters short but I have been wondering if to extend them more. So the good advice above is very helpful!  ?

[Miauzi]

I ask myself this question too... and I'm still pretty "green behind the ears" when it comes to writing stories.

At 61 and with a "German" biography, I belong to a generation that grew up reading novels.

In addition, I only got access to "picture stories" ala comics or manga when I was an adult.

On the one hand, I admire the artists who are able to tell wonderful stories with just pictures (and very short texts).

On the other hand, it was immediately clear to me - that this would not be my means of expression ... I grew up with "text" ... the "images" for it were always created in my head.

Personally, if I find something "too long"... it has to do with a loss of attention.

Well - in the first 4 decades of my life I could read something for 4-5 hours at a time ... I forgot my environment and my personal needs such as eating or "peeing".

Today - after 3 burnouts, of course, I no longer have this stamina ... but when something absolutely "captivates" me ... it can never be too long.

---

Ultimately, in my opinion, this question cannot be answered unequivocally ... because we also live in a society for which three SMS texts in a row represent an overload of concentration.

For example, if I look at documentaries on natural sciences and compare today's with those of 30 years ago... this artificial over-dramatization is very striking... as if the potential viewer had to be "waked up" from "deep sleep" almost every 3 minutes .

When I was visiting a friend in Barcelona 20 years ago - who had moved there after a few years in Chile - with his wife who was from there - I saw a "Telenovela" with both of them one evening, which is popular in Chile. Every few minutes a sequence of melodies played before a scene... my friend enlightened me:

The Chilean TV audience has the TV on almost all day ... as background sound. These tunes are designed to grab attention for 2-3 minutes - so viewers don't miss the important scenes with story progression.

I just thought -> oh my god

and a few years later this scheme found its way into the German "Telenovelas".

---

So do you write for yourself... or for the audience?

?

[Nevadathehighelf]

(I know this is old, but I'm gunna respond anyway.)

 

The burning, burning question.

I wrestle with that question all the time when I'm writing.

 

I always tell myself, don't make the chapter too long, but then I wind up making another chapter, that I find I could've just took and added to the previous one.  

I usually have to go back and change the chapter names of the prior chapter, to better reflect what I'm talking about in the new one when that happens.

 

You might not want to have a long chapter, but you don't want to end it prematurely either.

Otherwise your pacing will feel like nothing has changed or progressed. It'll look like this"

=================================================

 

Chapter 12

The Hunched-Back Midget

 

The lady lifted her head and stared with menacing eyes.

===

===

 

Chapter 13

The Jester Outside

 

 

None of us moved a muscle, as the midget got closer and closer...

=================================

 

 

 

So, you see the error? Both of these chapters are basically staring the same exact way they ended, to the point that the chapter might as well had just continued.

 

You want to end each chapter on the note that leads to the next segment, and you're better off having a 10 page chapter making sure that happens, then a rushed 4 page chapter that doesn't satisfy the progression of the plot.

 

I found that as the novels I write goes on, chapters tend to get longer; I just let it ride my brother, and don't fight it.

The book and the story will take off what it wants to, and give me back the rest.

Don't try to force it, know where you're going with each chapter, and if it needs to be shorter, let it be. If it needs to drag on a bit, let it be.

 

Just focus on the entire book's length as a whole, because if it's 300 pages, it really doesn't matter if you have 10 paged chapters or 2 paged ones.

And if it's just a 180 page long novella, it still wouldn't matter, because the book's length has already been determined.

Edited May 9, 2024 by Nevadathehighelf

[Tirloque]

On 5/9/2024 at 4:37 AM, Nevadathehighelf said:

So, you see the error? Both of these chapters are basically staring the same exact way they ended, to the point that the chapter might as well had just continued.

 

You want to end each chapter on the note that leads to the next segment, and you're better off having a 10 page chapter making sure that happens, then a rushed 4 page chapter that doesn't satisfy the progression of the plot.

 

I found that as the novels I write goes on, chapters tend to get longer; I just let it ride my brother, and don't fight it.

Old topic or not, those are good advices : author's vision first, then the practical considerations.

Now, that applies particularly well on full text stories. However, for illustrated stories/3D visual novels, specially those shared on the web, you also have to deal with the technical contingencies. The most notable of those, being servers load : each image/board requires to be loaded. So the longer the chapter (located on a single web page), the longer the loading. Which past a certain point  (>100 average images) become noticeable, ; and then problematic (> 150-200 images). And that supposing the images are compressed to be shared (implying JPG, with PNG you could get that problem > 30 images only).

 

One more aspect to take into account as a web author.

[Gukahn]

On 5/20/2024 at 10:49 PM, Tirloque said:

Old topic or not, those are good advices : author's vision first, then the practical considerations.

Now, that applies particularly well on full text stories. However, for illustrated stories/3D visual novels, specially those shared on the web, you also have to deal with the technical contingencies. The most notable of those, being servers load : each image/board requires to be loaded. So the longer the chapter (located on a single web page), the longer the loading. Which past a certain point  (>100 average images) become noticeable, ; and then problematic (> 150-200 images). And that supposing the images are compressed to be shared (implying JPG, with PNG you could get that problem > 30 images only).

 

One more aspect to take into account as a web author.

Thinks I figured out after a while are, that Ll shows pictures in a certain size if they  surpass a certain size, so reducing their size manually makes the filesize even smaller, (a lot.)

Which helps after upgrading specs and having even Jpg's over 1.1mb. With this method I can still upload my regular bigger chapters and have fast loading times, it also helps that Imgbox just works pretty good as a filehosting size.  I've asked a few times about the loading times my readers have and the one's who answered mostly never had big issues, mind you those were on entrys far surpassing 150 images 🤔 

 

What I am trying to say is, if we keep an eye out of our picture sizes in jpg form, reduce their general size to LL's standart which seems to be 1280x720 (or reduce them even further if we want to and it is visiually appealing, we can do pretty big entry's with the help of a file hosting site🤔 The question of "are they interesting enough" then becomes just something we have to take care of somehow 😈😏

Edited May 22, 2024 by Gukahn

[Tirloque]

6 hours ago, Gukahn said:

Thinks I figured out after a while are, that Ll shows pictures in a certain size if they  surpass a certain size, so reducing their size manually makes the filesize even smaller, (a lot.)

Which helps after upgrading specs and having even Jpg's over 1.1mb. With this method I can still upload my regular bigger chapters and have fast loading times, it also helps that Imgbox just works pretty good as a filehosting size.  I've asked a few times about the loading times my readers have and the one's who answered mostly never had big issues, mind you those were on entrys far surpassing 150 images 🤔 

 

What I am trying to say is, if we keep an eye out of our picture sizes in jpg form, reduce their general size to LL's standart which seems to be 1280x720 (or reduce them even further if we want to and it is visiually appealing, we can do pretty big entry's with the help of a file hosting site🤔 The question of "are they interesting enough" then becomes just something we have to take care of somehow 😈😏

Well actually 1280 x 720 is a rather moderate size, usually people who find their readers having loading issues have much larger image sizes (1920x1080 or more). And do use PNG rather than JPEGS, or have included some large animated GIFs to go with it.

 

But yeah, it's all a matter of global size, So if well compressed, the image count limit with 1280 x 720 should be well above 150 images indeed.

[Z3R0L!F3]

On 10/16/2022 at 7:39 AM, Gukahn said:

A Question that comes to mind while editing the next Entry. Which is Long, very long.(cause I love showing off lewd stuff *cough*)  I'm now on 142 panels and still need to make a few more for the Chapter Ending.

So, simple Question, when do you think a Chapter is too long? ?

I think the answer to your question is another question: have you accomplished your story goals for the chapter? If not, then it's not done.

If you get to the point where you have accomplished your story goals and it's significantly longer than your other chapters. I usually do written form, so I would measure in word count. I saw from your note that you measure in panels. Either way, you can go with percentages. If a chapter is, I dunno 50% longer than the average of the other chapters (and the other chapters are relatively comparable at ~75 panels), then can you break some of your chapter up? Are there two different story lines being advanced in the chapter?

 

If you're moving towards publication, it *might* be an issue with an editor... if you're doing it here on LL, we come to read smut and consume lewd content, so I don't think we're going to be picky. Just a guess, though.

[Gukahn]

6 minutes ago, Z3R0L!F3 said:

I think the answer to your question is another question: have you accomplished your story goals for the chapter? If not, then it's not done.

If you get to the point where you have accomplished your story goals and it's significantly longer than your other chapters. I usually do written form, so I would measure in word count. I saw from your note that you measure in panels. Either way, you can go with percentages. If a chapter is, I dunno 50% longer than the average of the other chapters (and the other chapters are relatively comparable at ~75 panels), then can you break some of your chapter up? Are there two different story lines being advanced in the chapter?

 

If you're moving towards publication, it *might* be an issue with an editor... if you're doing it here on LL, we come to read smut and consume lewd content, so I don't think we're going to be picky. Just a guess, though.

You are not wrong about it, but like  Tirloque rightfully said, it's also a matter of actual file size when it comes to visiual media like comics. So people who do their blogs with screenshots have to take that into account, the word count for people like me will be obvously way smaller than yours, so using the pannel number and the size of the pictures is more important for me ^^

 

[Z3R0L!F3]

10 minutes ago, Gukahn said:

You are not wrong about it, but like  Tirloque rightfully said, it's also a matter of actual file size when it comes to visiual media like comics. So people who do their blogs with screenshots have to take that into account, the word count for people like me will be obvously way smaller than yours, so using the pannel number and the size of the pictures is more important for me ^^

 

I must agree with you. I am also a word count-type and had not considered the filesize factor.

[Stanoth]

With my Fallout 4 story, I asked myself: "Can I make this chapter in 24 or 48 screenshots ?" I think it's a good way to pace the story. You go straight to the point and your details matter.
But each author has its own vision on how to make a LL story / webcomic (with its pros and cons).

So, to give an answer to this question: I think a chapter is too long when you can delete some shots and still understand what's going on. Adding too many plots is also a bad way to drag your chapter further. If as an author you lost yourself into details that aren't relevant for your narrative, you will lose your audience the same way.  

 

[Rodrigcl]

On 10/16/2022 at 1:39 PM, Gukahn said:

A Question that comes to mind while editing the next Entry. Which is Long, very long.(cause I love showing off lewd stuff *cough*)  I'm now on 142 panels and still need to make a few more for the Chapter Ending.

So, simple Question, when do you think a Chapter is too long? ?

Honestly, a chapter is “too long” only when the pacing starts to suffer, not when the panel count gets high. Plenty of creators drop 120–200+ panel chapters when the moment calls for it. If your 142 panels still feel like they’re driving the story, building tension, or delivering the mood you want, then it’s not too long at all - it’s just a big chapter. I have chapters that are short and others long.

If you can split it into two parts and both halves would still feel meaningful, then consider splitting. If not, keep it as one and let it be the monster chapter it wants to be.