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As far as I know there is not a limit, at least not a low or mid range one. However, if you do have transition points as you mentioned, I expect those would make good chapter breaks.

On the practical side, I’d suggest against super long chapters too. I’ve tried that on my potter fanfic years ago, reorganized/rewrote thinking it was a “good thing” with my highest being like 107k… nope! Not only did I lose some details in that consolidation, I also lost focus to the chapter too. Small details/scenes were now one/two sentences in basically a wall of text. (Which it became as FFN.net somehow seemingly lost all my carriage returns, so it was one big “blob”; and a fast re-insert of them is how I uncovered FFN’s new 65k max per chapter limit.) I’m still pulling that 107k old chapter apart right now with my “rewrite” … though I’ve now got at least 121 in its place, which is probably close to 1M words itself as I now hover around the 6-7k words per chapter average, and if the chapter nears the 10kword mark, I seek to break it up. Even in my Jefferey episodic story, I’ll effectively do “part 1” and “part 2”.

The technical limit would be a @manta2g or @DemonGoddess type of question, and it’d be in bytes, not words. I know we’ve had some of the annual halloween/holiday round-robin submissions where it’s 50k max for the rules, but that’s more of a reader tolerance limit IMO. In comparison, AO3 limits it to 500k characters, and FFN limits your documents to 5MB (and will stop adding to the word count at 65k words).

Fanfiction *is* a spot to experiment with writing, so try it out, and see if it works!

Another idea, maybe this is what you’re going for. First chapter is a scene of that party (or whatever it is), with your last lines being “This is their stories.” And your next chapter be like “A year before that party, the awkward Name was sitting in the library.” Making it abundantly clear to the (typical) reader what you’re up to here, because as you noted, readers generally expect chronological (or near chronological) order.

It’s still backstory if it’s “for context.” Maybe better done as separate oneshots, or an episodic serial? Out-of-order is going to confuse the reader IMO, (and in my case, myself too.) This is especially true if there’s something where a character dies, and now you’re talking if they’re alive. Another slight exception here is when I’m doing multiple POVs, so I want to cover character “A” in a dedicated chapter, and “B” in the next (but, the events should be sufficiently disassociated/separate for that to make sense). To me, the strong “out-of-order” means there’s a structural issue to the story, maybe you’re starting in the wrong spot/incident? Hope I’m making sense here.

If you’re a time-traveling story… SURE! Outside of that, you’ll probably confuse the readers if it’s extensive. (Aside from short flashbacks, or a brief start near the climax along with “two years earlier...”) This confusion is the main reason I broke up my first story I posted here, I was trying to cram in backstory into chapters as well, and came to realize I basically had multiple stories instead. (Which, while I’ve yet to really write that first story, I’ve been busy on the others.)

I’ve been writing probably the longest chapter I’ve written so far. It’s up into 40 pages and over 20k words. So I’m worried that I have a chapter that’s too long for the archive and I should break the chapter up into smaller chapters. There’s a bunch of breaks I could put in but I am curious if I should. Suggestions?

Well my story is not getting that close at the moment. Right now it’s about 25k words for this chapter and probably won’t top 30k words at most based on where I’m at in the story structure. But it’s the same story I was asking about regarding “Character driven non-linear” stories. Because it’s all one character’s journey, it feels right to create the story in a single chapter. I’m noticing though that I could probably break it up into about 10 pages a chapter. It’s going to make the story have a lot more. Almost every 10-15 pages there’s a transition of sorts into something new. That wasn’t necessarily intentional on my part but it seems to have worked out that way.

That makes a certain amount of sense. Especially the moderators reactions. This is definitely not that. The story is each chapter represents for the most part a single night experience. A bunch of stuff happens in that one night so I’m writing it as a single chapter. I thought it would be a much shorter chapter but I’m having too much fun with the story. I’m on the last part of the evening but it’s looking like at least 45 pages long if not closer to 50. Which is why I asked.

I think most of the very long “chapters” in the archive are actually entire multi-chapter stories posted on AFF after another site changed its policies regarding certain types of content (think Hentai Foundry and FFN here). The posters uploaded entire stories as one chapter, and moderators who had to review the new postings for ToS issues were heard to whimper in the corners.

Yeah, that’s where I’m leaning especially as it got much longer. I couldn’t really do that with my gangbang series one shots. At least not the individual chapters. Do you know how long some of the longest chapters are? I’m just trying to get a sense of how this one compares.

I have seen some extremely long chapters in the archive. I don’t know if we do have a size limit, though. However, and there’s always a however with me lately, my personal recommendation is to break it up. It’s not possible to bookmark where you are in a chapter, and that’s an awful lot to read at one sitting for many people. But that might just be my personal taste speaking, and other people might love the idea of a novella length chapter.

Indeed, and I’m curious to know how people react.

I’m hopeful that I can make it work. Although I’m still relatively new to the fandom, in terms of writing for the fandom. Been a fan of the series since the beginning. So I’m trying to navigate exactly what people like and don’t like. But I’ve read a bunch of stories here on AFF and I think my story is fairly consistent with some of the other stuff in the same fandom. It’s definitely really smutty though in terms of what happens.

Yeah, possibly it’s going to be an issue. But I think I can make it work. I’m making somewhat clear I think. I have for instance in the description “Then we went to work here”. So in the next chapter when they aren’t working there yet, I think it will be clear. Though I can’t be sure.

Getting the readers onboard with minimal confusion is always the trick here. As you’re doing character A/B/C/D treatment, I’d still recommend making it as chronological in order as possible, with dates and some transition for wherever it’s not. Star Trek usually did it with “stardate...” that became meaningless, and outside of a main character coming/going, a lot of those episodes you couldn’t be pressed on what the actual in-universe order *is*. My potter fanfic has the POV thing, so it’s doing slight shifts as I cover the Hogwarts crowd in one chapter, and Harry/Ron/Hermione on the next; simply because it offers better focus.

There is still an element of corruption in there.

45001 We’ll reach infinity in no time!

“Episodic serial” not sure if it’s exactly the right word. For example, my Jeff story, which started off as backstory to explain the swimming instructor to the main protagonist, has generally become a series of “episodes”. So aside from episode one, which is the “inciting incident” to put Jeff into his general living situation, the rest chronicle his development over time with a series of snapshots. An episode shows the danger that’s generally pressing inward. Another shows some danger he can bring to himself (hypothermia). On occasion, two or more parters with a mini-ark when it gets a bit more involved. There *is* an example on AO3 that I’m aware of, called “The Breeding Ground”, which (according to the summary) is an anthology of Harry Potter sleeping around, with each of the 2,000 chapters featuring a different woman/lady (there’s crossovers to a myriad of other fandoms). (It’s a tad over 3M words...) So, if you’re aiming for the smut circle … you could scatter a common theme at the start of each chapter (a group conversation, part of an orgy) with the BOLD words of “A year earlier...” I mean, once the audience is used to the format, it might work.

I’d do both.

Well, I think within the context for the story, this isn’t the first time it would’ve happened. So they probably planned for it to be reinforced enough. Initially when I was thinking of it this was more in the sense of a dance rather than a sex act. Though the difference might not be all that much.

Hi, Deadman and all. How big and how strong is the table. If the table is big enough and strong enough to support two adult women performing a sex act without breaking, or if you want the table’s failure to be a feature of your story, then they use the table. Otherwise, they use the floor in front of the booth. While some furniture in some strip clubs is heavily reinforced, most of it is the exact same furniture you would buy to furnish a Denny’s or a Waffle House. So, the girls will likely be using the floor unless you mention in passing that the table was up to it, or that the ladies started on the table and ended up on the floor. Cheers!

Hi, Deadman and all. Deadman, you’re making sense in how you describe the story structure you want to follow. Now, writing it “good enough” to persuade a reader to read past Chapter Two will be a hell of a challenge. Many people prefer the stories they read to mostly move in a linear manner. If your writing is good enough, you might be able to persuade them to keep reading a non-linear story. But, the “betting money” is that they will quickly abandon your work mostly unread. Of course, if your smut is “smutty enough,” they’ll read it for a wank-o-thon, and won’t give two shits about the plot or anything else. Just my two cents worth. Good luck.

Well it does get muddier. More than Mindcontrol Notbrainwashed.

Right now, my main focus is on writing the next chapter of “The Business of Pleasure.” It's probably going to be the longest chapter in the story because so much happens in it. There's a fair amount left to write, but I think the writing will go relatively fast because I have a fairly clear vision of what will happen in the chapter.

Chapter 6 of “The Business of Pleasure” is posted! Chapter 6: Household Affairs In other news, chapter 4 of “Band Together” has gone off to beta, and I hope to send off chapter 5 of “Rewire” by next weekend.

It doesn't sound like a problem to me. In my experience, people care about the consistency of characters, more than anything else. As long as you retain the consistency of your characters, there should be few, if any, objections about the path they follow and it's outcome. Of course, people would have a problem with a path or ending, that seems out of line with what is considered reasonable for the world in which your story takes place. But that really goes without saying, usually. So, if the ending is one that you believe your characters would naturally arrive at, then that ending should be fine.