Canderous and Cade's Crazy Cantina: a shiny new fanfiction social thread!

It's like a PG-13 sex shop. No porn but you can get very, very tacky greeting cards, Adult themed board games, offensive T-Shirts, and personal "Massage" wands--you know for massaging your neck. LOL!

 

And fuzzy handcuffs and assorted leather products to, ah... liven up the decor.

Interestingly, when I lived in El Paso, the Spencer's stores were mildly censored. The level of scandalous pretty much stopped at the section of bachelorette party accessories.

 

Spencer's is a shop that I've only seen in malls. They carry a bunch of novelty items, many 'adult'. Things that would appeal to kids are usually (at least at the one I saw in the malls back in St. Louis) in the back of the store, which I find really appalling. Their selection is of questionable taste, as Jedi_Lover pointed out. It may be only in certain regions, however, because I don't think Spencer's stores are around where I live now (SW Ohio).

 

That's so odd- any stores I've seen always have the more kid-friendly stuff at the front (assorted cartoon/video game clothes, backpacks, random accessories) with anything too 'adult' all the way in the back.
When I was a kid, I always just wanted to go play with the lava lamps and laser light stuff.
There are certainly stores in other parts of Ohio but maybe SW enjoys a Spencer's vacuum lol.

 

LOL, Yeah, they had some great Star Trek and Star Wars novelty items.

Perhaps it was only at that particular mall in St. Louis. I remember they shut it down for awhile... maybe people complained about how they put that stuff up front. IIRC, when they opened back up, they had less of the adult stuff, and it was in the back. It was around then that I moved to Ohio.

 

Holy crap, this fic is kicking my ass. I'm revising last year's NaNo. I just got to chapter 8, and according to my outline there'll be over 40 chapters. I'm already at 50,000 words now so it'll probably end up being well over 200,000 words. I've never written something that long before. Is that too long to be one story? Has anyone written/posted something that long before?

 

Yes, the nasal spray is a live vaccine but it's so mild that it can't survive anywhere in your body except your nose. So if you breath it into your lungs it will die before it does anything... you can't get the flu from it either. The vaccine can have the same side effects as the shot, but again are mild and not the flu.
Honestly, I never even think about the mist because I've never actually seen it or known anyone who has gotten it.

The Spencers I grew up with went a little more than PG-13 in the back, though not too far past that since it was in a mall in WV. When I was young you could always find some nerdy stuff in there and I always had fun but the last time I was there is most mostly about drinking and drugs.

Iverna - I can't say I have... I think the longest thing I've ever posted was just over 20,000 words. I've written more than that for an original fic, but usually with fanfic my muse doesn't think of things that are that long.

 

I posted something late 2011-early 2012 that was ~180k but it was divided up into two parts (not evenly, about 50k and 130k). Is that an option for you? Mine had a natural climactic break for a logical division.

 

My main concern is that readers might get bored with it if it's so long. I do want to have it all written before I start posting, so there won't be months of waiting between posts, but still. It seems like a long time to hold people's attention.

I'm not sure if I can break it up. I'll see if I can, though. Might be a good idea.

 

I would think a regularly updated long fic would better hold attention than a sporadically updated shorter fic. I can be really into something but lose interest if it has been too long between updates and I start forgetting the details.

 

I wouldn't worry. If you keep the story interesting for your readers, they'll always be back, no matter the length of the story.

 

Yep. I've seen quite a few over on fanfiction.net. [Link Removed] comes to mind which is a whopping 308k words at 55 chapters.

Mav Edit: I just pointed out on the previous page that discussing specific fics -your own or someone elses- is not allowed in the social thread, as is pointed out in the first post.

 

On the topic of epic-length fics:

The it's a loooong story thread
The it's a loooong story thread v2.0

Both are locked, but there's plenty of good advice (and commiseration ) to be found.

 

I have posted long fics - one being 308.723 words and 132 chapters long - and one in three parts covering the time from the clone wars to LOTF. My current fic will be not that long but it is a Nano one being over 50.000 words
You can keep your readers interested with cliffies at the end of a chapter

 

As the person who wrote 365,000 in one story, I say anything over 400,000 is too long. Long live the stories that will never end.

 

I haven't written anything over 100K words, but if a story is good I will read a 300K word story.

 

My longest was a Supernatural 'fic, at 148k words. Wish I could write that much in my novel series, but they're averaging around 60k words.

 

If the story maintains excitement, suspense, or even just curiosity at what will happen, I'll keep reading it, no matter how long it is. But I have not personally written a behemoth like that, though. Most of my stuff is much shorter. I think the better question to ask yourself is not how many words is too much, but how important the scenes or descriptors you have are to the story (or not). If they were to make a movie of your fic, how much of it would be cut by the screenwriter as superfluous to the plot? That may help you decide on how long the story becomes.

 

This is great advice in general, I think. I'll definitely keep it in mind. I wrote the beginning of this during NaNo so I'm sure there are a few filler scenes that can go or be a lot shorter!

I'm feeling a bit better about the length now. As long as readers won't get fed up with the length, I'm all good. I like writing, so the longer the better, for me. Good point about cliffies, too, earlybird-obi-wan! I'm pretty sure I can work in a few... *grins*

 

The longest my stuff has gotten was about 25,000 words, roughly, give or take a few dozen words. But, if I can read a novel, I can read your giant-sized epic. If the story is interesting and the prose isn't impenetrable, then you're fine.

 

Yeah, as long as it isn't 300K words in one paragraph.

 

With no punctuation.

 

A fic reader's nightmare!

 

I'm wearing red lipstick! *gasp* I'm wearing make-up!! I can hardly believe it myself. My co-workers and I are going out tonight, for dinner and a movie and since I rarely go out, I thought why not dig out all the make-up stuff I still have. Quite a lot actually. Maybe something interesting will happen tonight and it'll give me something to write about.

 

Have fun!

Me? I have decided to do my favorite Saturday night things: write on my laptop, wear my comfiest sweats, and watch The Incredible Dr. Pol on National Geographic Wild. Meanwhile, the husband is having his evening watching football while playing games on his Vita... and our dog is migrating from one nest to the other, keeping close tabs on us both.

Happy.