Too long, didn't read? WHAT THE FUCK?

[themostepotente]

tl;dr

Okay -- this is just assinine.

Came across this on gmth's journal. And Gina, count me among those that had no fucking clue what the initials stood for either. *G*

Forget rude. There should be a Darwin Awards for stupid fucking fandom assholes.

Do you know how many stories I would have missed out on if I based my reading on length?

Fic is NOT a cock. Length does NOT matter.

I mean if something looks promising and you haven't the time, why wouldn't you just fucking bookmark?

If anything I'm more off-put by shorter fics, but Christ I read 'anything' that catches my eye.

Fuck, FIND me a 100,000 word Snack fic and I WILL BE ALL OVER THE MOTHERFUCKER!

So now I have to ask...

Is length (long or short) off-putting to a reader?

--P

ETA: Okay, I'm a dumbshit. I didn't read all the way down. Apparently it applies to comments not fics. But I'm with Gina, I wouldn't be surprised if someone didn't use this for fic either.

Comments

[starrysummer.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm rather the opposite of you. Length, to me, is a big thing. I like short fics, I like things to be concise and pack a punch. However, I always felt like there were more people who loved long, epic, plot-centric stories than people like me. While there have been some novel-length fics I've loved, I read everything on the computer and the physical reaction to staring so long at the screen turns me off the fic, even if it is rather compelling otherwise. I'm commitment-phobic when it comes to fics... I'd rather read a bunch of short ones than one long one.

However, I would never ever comment to a story saying "oh, no, didn't read this, it was way too long." I might say that if the author personally asked me if I'd read the fic, but other than that, that's definitely a rude thing to say. I mean, I wouldn't comment to say I didn't read something unless I had some serious, detailed concrit explaining what wasn't working for me about their fic. And even then, I'd consider doing it privately rather than posting a public comment.

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

I like short fics, I like things to be concise and pack a punch.

There is some truth to this. One of the shortest fics I ever wrote received the most comments. So it must have packed a punch :-)