Question About Chapter Length

[Nerys Dax]

I am sorry if this is mentioned somewhere else, but I searched a long time and couldn't find it.

I have a question concerning how long the chapters can be when you want to post them on AFF.

I tried uploading a chapter today and it only posted half of it (wordcount around 9000). Now, I have edited it by splitting the chapter in half, but the strangest thing is that I can't seem to split the chapter at a more convenient point (it was automatically done in the middle of a dialogue).

And since I rather avoid this in the future I'd like to know if you can tell me what the maximum wordcount is per chapter, so I can edit the text in advance.

Thanks for your time.

[DemonGoddess]

Both the techs who would answer this for you are currently at work. Check back later today, and you should have an answer then.

[Nerys Dax]

OK, thanks. And I'll see it when it gets posted.

[Guest Knorg]

On a similar note, out of idle curiousity, is there any minimum chapter length in the rules anywhere?

I mean deducting things like disclaimer from the total.

[xax]

I've been able to successfully post chapters with around 10k words. I know the database can handle far longer chapters than that-- it should be able to accept 50k word chapters, even, although I don't know if the server has been ever tested to that degree.

Most likely, it's an error with the text sanitization code. Check in your author panel (edit the chapter in question) to see if the chapter is still 'broken' at the same point it is when you view it on the site. If it isn't, please post the area where it breaks here. If it is, uh, post here and I'll think about it more.

The only other think I can think of offhand that could cause a problem like that is if you're using a slow (like dial-up) or high-latency (like satellite) internet connection, and the data transfer is timing out or being aborted midway through.

oh yeah, p.s. Knorg: I don't think there are any rules about minimum length, although personally I think if you're posting, say, 15 100-word drabbles you should probably group them together if you can. But I don't think mods are going to step in and force you to do so.

[Nerys Dax]

Hi,

Thanks for replying to my question. The strangest thing was that in the edit chapter section the text appeared normal and the entire chapter was visible there. But when I went on to check how the chapter was posted on the site, I noticed that a substantial part was missing. So I don't know if it can still be the connection under those circumstances (even though I live in the Netherlands, so we're most likely looking at a satellite connection here).

At least now I know it is not the word count, so I don't have to take that into account with future chapters.

I'll try reposting it again. And I'll let you know how it went.

Thanks once more.

Nerys

Edited January 16, 2008 by Nerys Dax

[DemonGoddess]

Knorg,

As far as I know there is no minimum length for chapters. I'm fairly sure this is to allow for things like drabbles to be posted if the author wants to, as those are generally 100 words or less.

[Guest Knorg]

Thanks for sating my curiousity. Even a drabble is beyond my current writing abilities, but I just got curious...

[DemonGoddess]

Thanks for sating my curiousity. Even a drabble is beyond my current writing abilities, but I just got curious...

HAH! I've got you beat I think....I am SO not a creative writer. ANYTHING creative writing is beyond my abilility.

[Nerys Dax]

OK, just to let you all know... it worked. I got my chapter posted as a whole just a few minutes ago. I tried to redo it last night, but it wouldn't work then. So maybe that time out, you suggested, had something to do with it... or the amount of traffic on the net... or my own clumsiness (which is the most likely; LOL)?

Anyway, thanks for responding so quickly to my question.

[Guest Jaxxy]

Thanks for sating my curiousity. Even a drabble is beyond my current writing abilities, but I just got curious...

Policy-wise, there's no limit on how short or long a Story can be, just as there's no limit on how anything else it can be (aside from a very few things that might lean enough towards being illegal in the US that it could be a danger to us).

Never know when someone's idea of literature will turn out to be the word "Arby's" or something. Stifling that wouldn't be allowing for Freedom of Expression, and that'd be icky.

So glad that uploading problem's making sense to you now, Nerys Dax!

[shinigamiinochi]

yeah, when i read about this problem, I got very confused because I posted a fic that's 80,000 words long and I've never had any sort of problem with it. I'm glad that you got your problem sorted out. I know that if that happened to me, I'd be very upset.

[Guest Totally4Ryo]

Funny, but I just encountered that problem tonight. First time in all the time I've been posting fics. I thought it might have been length -- my chapters run an average of 18 - 25 pages each and I was posting ch 18 to one of my fics. But apparently from what I read here, that's not it. At first I thought it might have been because I used a special character for a word that was used often in this chapter (when I went to the edit chapter page, I did see the full chapter, but that word had strange characters in the middle of it, and not the character I used). I went back and changed it to a spelling without using the special character and tried again. And again. And again. I deleted the chapter and reposted. Again. And again. I closed down everything and rebooted the computer to try again. No luck still. So here I am. I'm on DSL and it doesn't take long for the update to go through. Still, it doesn't go very far past my usual disclaimer/credits I use at the beginning of each chapter. Actually it cuts off toward the end of that. This chapter is around 23 pages long. So 22 3/4 of the page is cut off when uploaded, but it's all there when I go to edit chapter.

I'm going to try one more time. If I'm successful, I'll post back here. If not, I hope there's a resolution for this. Thanks!

[Guest Totally4Ryo]

Problem solved!!! Apparently it didn't like the symbol " <3 " I had in my intro. Funny, 'cause I swear I used it before. Anyway, took it out and chapter up.