donutsweeper | (no subject)

How do people write long fics?

Seriously, it is a skill I have never mastered and barely been able to comprehend. I love reading long fics (within reason), but writing them? I can't do it.

Recently the newest part of an AU series I like was posted. It was 110k words long, bringing the series (of 10 stories so far) up to 600k or so. 600,000 words. And, according to the author, the next part might be double the length of the last one.

Yes, the recent part could have been edited a lot and yes, it used some techniques that result in longer stories (multiple POVs that sometimes retell the same scene from different perspectives) but still... even if it had been cut to half that length, how the heck do people write stories that long?

I really, really wish that was something I could do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The longest thing I've ever written was about 14,000 words. I seem to have "natural lengths", where there's a group about the 1,000 mark, and then another bunch at 4,000, with little or nothing in between.

I'm currently betaing a 45,000 word one for my daughter, and I envy her immensely (pun entirely intended.)

14k is still really long! I think I managed over 10k four times, meanwhile I wrote over 200 drabbles.

Wow, betaing 45k. That's pretty amazing of you!