My Style of Writing (Word limit Rule is LEGIT) · 8:29pm Jul 29th, 2018
My experiment is complete, and the results are still the same, but now I have every right to do things the way I do them more than ever... (This is intended as a TAKE THAT to my haters, and an eye-opener for non-haters)
People have been complaining to me about the way I use WORD LIMIT: (and Frankly I'm sick of if) It's not a real rule from the site's but it's MY PERSONAL RULE when Portraying TV as fanfiction
when I write my Starfleet fics, I don't like to portray them as reading a book, but more like watching the ACTUAL THINGS ITSELF ON TV. What that means is, even though you are READING a story, you still have imagine as if you were WATCHING it on TV.
This means of course, that the chapter/episodes have a word limit to how long they should be to equal the correct timing of a normal episode, and I've done things many times before in spare time. I took WHOLE EPISODES from TV shows I watch and written them exactly as they were in story style to help determine their word limits and length.
Just now, I took Sisterhooves Social, and wrote out the ENTIRE EPISODE in fanfic style, exactly as it practically was..
Sisterhooves Social is (according to Dailymotion) 22 minutes long, borrowing a few seconds. Then again, intro and end credits don't actually count, so that's one minute off... 21 minutes of actual episode time.
and what do you know, the total word count is nearly 4700 words.
So I wasn't really wrong after all...
to portray a 22 minute ep or so, the episode must be at least 4000 but not over 6000 words. If I exceed 6000 words by a vast majority (7000 or higher) then the ep will be cut in half and posted as a two-parter episode. If however I cannot cut the ep in half, then SHAVE IT DOWN... get rid of some f the paragraphs that aren't really needed and summarize others to wither it down a little. If I STILL can't, then the next episode is to be a tad shorter in words than the last one to maintain the order of balance.
And don't even think about giving me that old "I can read that many words faster, in 15 minutes Big Deal. Like I told you before, you need to think of it as if you were WATCHING it on TV. You may be able to READ a story at different speeds, but you can't really WATCH IT at a different speed. If it was on TV it'd still be 22 minutes or so long (Using a playback speed changer doesn't count)
And here's another bit of force I can add to my argument: Deviantart. Many of my fics also get posted there, but I discovered that their uploading capacity has a limit on it as well. If you try to load a text document that is over 10,000 words long, it'll go "ERROR" and be unable to load it up, and you can't try loading it paragraphs at a time, I tried that..
I was loading DARKNESS OF DIMENSIONS on DA as well. and some of the chapters as you see are QUITE SIZABLE. One of them was soo big (More than 11,500 words) and I couldn't shave anything off no matter what I did. so... I had to split that chapter in half "Chapter 4 part 1... and Chapter 4 Part 2)
The DA loading manager can't handle documents that big! I even tried loading it paragraph at a time, and it didn't help. the loader automatically deleted all my test and replace it all with a simple "1" that was it.
So, again... my word limit rule is LEGIT, and have more PROOF and REASON to keep it up now than ever.
If you can't edit the story to fit a supposed 22 minute timeframe, then you shouldn't be writing it to appear like a show in the first place. Because writing an episode doesn't work like that. Do you realize how much a script can get edited? And if you can't shave for time or split it, you make the next chapter shorter for the sake of balance. That is a direct contradiction to your claim to making a story like a show. Because with a show script, you can't have an episode run a little longer and have the next episode shorter to balance it out.
4915596
Except this isn't a script, it's a FANFIC/STORY, and it's supposed to be the length of 22 minutes OR SO (Why can't you people READ?)
some eps are 22 minute long... some a little longer... some are shorter... that doesn't change MY rules for MY world.
My decision is final.
4915607
That's the point I'm trying to make. The timing/editing applies to a script format, not a story format. Granted, you do give yourself a 2000 word margin of error. My point is that a fanfic/story isn't supposed to be limited to a timeframe like that.
But your style works for you and I have nothing against it. 4000 to 6000 words per chapter is a reasonable length in my opinion. Maybe a little long for my taste, but that's never affected the quality of a story for me.
4915712
Like I said... check that link I gave you, and then PM me back...