How Much is Too Much? (Patreon)
Content
Or rather, how long is too long for a chapter?
As the current chapter (Interlude 2) approaches 20k words--about the quarter of the average length of a full novel--I have to ask if, perhaps, I'm overdoing it a bit?
The genre is one that lends itself to excess--all those loving descriptions of clothes, the repetition of adjectives to highlight the sense of humiliation or shame, scenes of dressing up or makeup, etc--but still... when does it tip over from "titillating" to "too much"?
King argues in "On Writing" that an important early lesson he learned as a writer was from some early, brutal feedback that taught him "2nd draft = 1st draft - 10%" and I suspect he's absolutely spot on. He insists his success rate with publishes improved dramatically after he took the formula on board.
And yet there's so much more I want to squeeze into the chapter: a second round of therapy; an encounter in the hospital bar; an important encounter with an enemy--written in the 3rd person perspective enable by the interlude chapter. All of which would bring the chapter up to an easy 25k words, at least.
Skimming through the stuff on FM, there seems a definite bias towards shorter works (even if part of a much longer whole). At a glance, it -seems- (I could be wrong here) that 5k word posts get a lot more attention than 10-20kword pieces. It's not surprising--personally, I'm not a huge fan of reading off the screen, and if I'm looking at stuff on FM, I'm probably going to pick shorter pieces as well.
And so: should I be looking to seriously trim back the writing, taking it easier on the heavy prose and descriptive flourishes? At the very least, should I look at breaking down/posting this stuff in more digestible chunks? What are people's view on this?
(I suppose, from a Patreon point of view, small and more frequent is a better model for maintaining a steady output, rather than weeks of almost nothing followed by quarter-novel length deluges.)
Any thoughts or preferences?