InvidiaRed

This is one of those questions that plague writers everywhere. Readers struggle with it as well.

There is a school of thought that chapters work at anywhere from 3-5k words per chapter. Any longer, and it’s hard to find a stopping point, since most readers don’t have the luxury of reading a book through in one sitting. Any shorter, and you hit the same problem people have with flash fiction in general: how do you convey sufficient information to hold the reader’s attention and make them want to read the next chapter?

Personally, I like 4-5k words per chapter. That’s my comfort level as a writer. As a reader, as long as you hold my attention, I’ll keep reading. I’ve stayed up half the night to finish a particularly engrossing book.  

As the faatus who assembled that 100k+ chapter way earlier, I thought it a point of pride at the the time when I had consolidated a whole bunch of smaller chapters into that mega chapter during a rewrite.  However, with a lot more experience under my belt, I’ve since realized it’s “a wall of text”, and it sort of trivializes any particular scene in the chapter when it’s as about long as JKR’s entire third book (not to mention there was *no* separation between scenes so it was all kinda “squashed” together).  An additional drawback to those writing 100k+ chapters on FF.net is that its word counter caps the per-chapter count to 65k for the story’s total word count.

I never used to really think about it, but when I re-did a couple of my old stories I did split them into chapters rather than large massive oneshots. Seemed easier to read!

I think @GeorgeGlass has the right of it.

The only other thing I can think of, and I will admit it does annoy me, is when people put a word or phrase in quotations as a form of emphasis:
He seemed to think he was always going to be “the big man on campus” despite being the lowest producer on the team.

And there’s the quote within conversation, which should be marked by ‘ ‘ rather than “ “ :
“So, he said the me, ‘I won’t eat that rubbish.’ Can you imagine the cheek?”

Is your editor Herr Starr?(edit - deleted link as no preview per forum rules but Google something like Herr Starr improper use of inverted commas to see an overreaction! )

Edit 2 – Found an imur link with preview! (NSFW due to languague, two pages from comic Preacher with discussion of inverted commas!)

https://imgur.com/gallery/4lhta/comment/273222999?nc=1

*dies laughing* 

There’s that famous old list of important Evil Overlord tips too:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList

xD I was already using that list as a reference. xD

Maybe I’m being too harsh on myself.

Sometimes people say I’m too harsh on myself. Then they read one of my stories and say I’m not harsh enough.

Saw this a while back, and absolutely love it.  It’s proof that you can make feathered dinosaurs menacing, so long as you use the right presentation.

I think it’s often pretty fascinating.  I also enjoy the fact that art snobs hate it. lol

I’ve played with a few Midjourney and others. Its hardly the death of art as people proclaim. There is something eerie about AI creating uncanny valley so well. its almost dreamlike.

TBH, I’m a bit skeptical to the claims in the video – feels like something I’d see in a game/film trailer.  However, assuming these claims are true, it would be revolutionary (undecided if it’s good or bad).  It’d either fuel mad scientists dreams or relieve woman of the perils of pregnancy/childbirth.  Imagine if it could handle later-stage embryos; transplantation in lieu of abortions.  Or, if you raise ‘em brain dead, you could clone yourself; or cannibalize it for spare parts.  Oh, the possibilities… both in real life and for stories

Oh @Desiderius PriceI so adore you sometimes.

Yeah, I’m heavily skeptical but I also know people also didn’t think the internet wasn’t going to be a thing. Yet, here we are lol.

The first step of creation is by making the world accept the concept.

Happy birthday, IR!

Happy birthday, Invidia. Hope it’s a good one. 

Belated happy birthday wishes!!    

Congratulations, always good to see that hit counter go up!

Glorfindel would have required as you said a vast cinematic universe of LOTR of multiple movies. Since he’s the only elf to essentialy be upgraded to maia after slaying a balrog no less.

I can see why peter jackson had to cut certain things, the one I’m grateful for is no tom bombadil.

That said the movies are light years of this bad abomination. I’d call it fanfiction but fans actually love the world.

Brandywine to Bree could easily have been a movie – think they could’ve made Tom Bombadil a good tale.  Ditto for Bree to Rivendell.  However, I suspect the actors might’ve objected to a 12 movie commitment (aside from the niceties of job security).

Also fun to consider the other roles the actors had.  Sam is also Mikey from the Goonies.  Bolomir is Ned Stark.  And Elrond...Elrond… had a tough time on my first viewing separating him from the Matrix

Omg halfway through the season and they finally did a decent scene! Its a miracle… I mean aside from hitting rock bottom and finding a basement beneath but hey whose counting?

🧙‍♀️ 👻

🪦🕸️

Lemme proofread… “12M words left” right? 

Hahaha.

No, 8k left since I essentially had to rewrite the entire novel almost from the ground up. So find another editor

getting nervous tho. What if everybody hates it? ugh..

How do you fellow writers deal with the nerves?

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How do you fellow writers deal with the nerves?

Close my eyes before I hit the post button.