![]() I’ve discovered that many readers in M/M want all conflict to be resolved at the end of a book, even if there’s a followup planned. Even if that’s not the author’s intent at all. But break up that same story in 20,000-word chunks and it begins to feel like an attempt to milk the market. If each installation of a series is novel-length, fine. Pricing ebooks is tricky anyway, but generally readers don’t want to feel like they’re being strung along with crumbs of a story to inflate the price of the series. Unfortunately, there are considerations that go far beyond format. We can create works that are just as long or short as they need to be. Because more and more of us are consuming our fiction on e-readers these days, we’re no longer bound to the size constraints inherent in traditional paper publishing. I think that having a single, focused mini-crisis and resolution happen in 15-20,000 words, while maintaining a longer series crisis until the last story, feels exactly right. For me, unfolding a story in a series of novelettes is absolutely the perfect way to go. While chunking is a short-term memory phenomenon, conceptually I chunk my stories in 15,000-word increments. ![]() (And have you ever had anyone giving you a phone number pause for breath at the wrong part of it, like after the first five digits? Talk about confusing!) Recalling a random seven-digit number might be difficult, but when we add a dash after the first three digits, it becomes easier. “Chunking” information is a method we use to recall things. ![]()
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