Oct
5th
2015
Chapter Three is looking big · 6:02pm Oct 5th, 2015
Huh....
Fallout Letters to Celestia WordCount
Currently released chapters:
Foreword + Prologue/Intro + Chapter One + Chapter two
= 29,942 words total.
Currently unfinished Chapter Three = 20,360
... My latest chapter is well over half the size of all the others combined. Looks like it'll be a big chapter. XD
59 pages and counting!!
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AlmanacP · 288 views
· Story: Fallout Equestria: Letters to Celestia
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#falloutequestria
#fallout equestria
#letters to celestia
#letterstocelestia
#fallout
Hi! It looks like it's going to be a fun one, but you might want to split it into 2 chapter if its hitting 20+. While nice long chapters are wonderful, sometimes it'll detract from the overall thing you're trying to convey. At least that's the feel I get from seeing other stories and their comments or from my friends in college for actual author stuff. While you want it enough to convey what you're trying to do, you don't want it to where that's all the reader see's.
Like Project Horizons. Really long story and AMAZING! but even for me (and trust me I love long well planned detailed stories) it is a challenge to read something that just keeps going.
My first official chapter for Equestrian Wasteland: Zodiac Ruins is about 6,700 words. Long enough to get what I hope will convey my feelings and thoughts to the reader but not overall long and exhausting to make it tiring to the individual.
Sorry about the long post!
I look forward to reading it no matter what you do!
3445079 while I agree with you for the most part, the fallout equestria stories are not like most others. If you check the original fallout equestria, most often kkat's chapters can range anywhere between 15k -30k word count per chapter, VERY RARELY ever going below 10k. This is because of the nature and style of these adventures. Usual books can pass over several days quickly in a chapter due to not much actioon happing, not wanting to bore the reader with every twist and turn of the journey, simply because most books don't have enough content to stay interesting. But the wasteland in the fallout games and the fallout equestria book, is so teaming with prevalent dangers that a day without anything happening worth speaking about just...doesn't happen. Thats how the original book is so long yet doesn't actually span that long a length of time for the characters. Because kkat barely ever missed a day. Now when this goes overboard, as it did with Project Horizons, you are right, the point of the chapter and journey can be lost along the way, but the long chapters actually serve a PURPOSE.
Because almost every instant, minute and hour is detailed in the book, and almost every single day, character development happens SLOWLY. because to develop psychological prospects takes WEEKS not hours or minutes, so with the heavy amount of detail, you get a lot of the same personality wearing thin, only broken up by situational events to keep the reader interested. This is important. the characters can only develop later on in later chapters, it cannot happen too quickly or its unrealistic, and yet, readers still need to find them interesting. So how do you keep the audience?
Effort Investment.
Effort Investment is where you make the reader expel enough effort into something that they feel they must continue it on anyway. Any self respecting reader WILL read to the end of the chapter, and if thats a long chapter, then they've stuck with the characters, seen some of the mysteries, followed this adventure, and been with the character long enough in one chapter that they are invested in the character and situation, even if they arent too fond of the characters or situations. Project Horizons has seen this effect in SWARMS. the amount of people that openly admit they DID NOT LIKE horizons after less than halfway through the book, STILL read it to the end because they'd read so much they were invested now, they might as well read the whole thing or they cant form a clear picture of it in their head, bad or good. It's a writing manipulation technique, much like how and artist will place things in a particular way in a picture to draw the eye and invest the viewer into particular details, this manipulates the audience into reading the story regardless of the length or even their personal view of the story. It gives the writer enough time and leeway with their audience that they can crank out these kinds of chapters and hope that the readers are invested enough that they form a positive view of the story as it goes along (or negative as the case may be with project horizons with a large portion of the fans).
This is especially valuable in my book right now. My main character is a talker, but my secondary main character barely talks at all. I have a filly that hates my main character so barely talks to him, another stallion that hates my main character and barely talks to him, all for legitimate and interesting reasons, but because of this a lot of the situations forms a lack of dialogue, and therefore makes character development and interaction much more tricky to get invested into than most other stories. So I need to make people invested into my story, I need them to stick with it, I need them to stay long enough for their characters to develop, relationships to truly form, and mysteries to unravel and the story to unfold in an interesting light. My main character is not a stable pony. he is not innocent and then corrupted. we do not have this internal battle within him against the horrors of the wasteland because its something that he's grown up with. all we have, is him, and his development due to those around him, and how they can change him into a better pony. which takes time. and I need my audience to give my story that time, so if I have to use 'Effort Investment' to secure that time, it's a technique I'm willing to employ. :)
3445284
Wow... I can only hope that I'll be able to manage this at all. I'm only on the Technical second chapter of the story. Though it is the first one with the main character. I keep thinking that the longer I go the less people will want to read it, so I always cap out usually between 3-7 thousand words. I'm only beginning but with the advice you've given me I can't wait to actually do that!
The actual second Chapter I was debating ending again with about the same as the first but now I can only hope I do half so well as you are! Thank you very much for giving me this advice!