How many lines is a long enough episode

Creator's Corner Directing Help & Tips
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Hiiii I just wanted to how many lines of coding do y’all think is enough (I put spaces btw) I don’t want short episodes many people don’t like episodes (including myself) so how many do y’all recommend for a minimum?

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Excluding choices and with spaces, I wouldn’t go below 2500 lines, but that’s personal preference. :woman_shrugging:

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Thanks x

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Np! :blush:

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I usually stop myself at 4k lines or 8-10 minutes

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I personally write without spaces (only before a new scene change) and I figured that ending my episodes between 1,500-2,500 (excluding intros and outros) gives the best amount of time.
It’s better to play through your episode and time how long it takes, as line amount is affected by how basic or advanced your directing is, overlay usage, spaces, etc and will be different for everyone, if that makes sense!

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Thanks x

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Thanks! x

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All of my stories are different but I write around 1,000-1,500 lately and I’m good with it.

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Thx

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As you can see, everyone is different! I think it matters more how long the episode is in minutes.

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Yeah, I agree. Especially if you have Character Customization script templates inside of the script. They take up a whole lot of space! It is annoying for me to scroll through that when looking at my script! LOL :joy:

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hi :blob_hearts:
i usually do about 400-500 lines excluding intros and outros
that takes about 5 mins

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Honestly I’m too sure!
But if you’re writing with spaces I would recommend 3000 lines or more.

I am writing my first story and I may have gone a bit overboard! I wrote 6000 lines and I’m still not done! :sweat_smile:

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Excluding the character customization templates, it’s good to have about 2000-2500 lines of coding, however, that’s not an accurate way to measure the length of your story. I use advanced directing and a whole lot of overlays in my story, so the number of lines is like 5000, even tho the episode’s not too long.

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I usually have around 1000-2000 lines. My story is considered to be too short tho

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Lol yeah, that annoys me so badly :joy: I give props to the authors who have CC for multiple characters in every single episode because…uh… NO THANKS :woozy_face::joy::heart:

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I think it definitely depends on how much branching, CC, advanced directing, spaces, etc, you have in your script.

If you have CC, that’s already like 2k lines.
If you have a M/F MC, your script will be double length.
If you put a space after every line, that’s double length again.
If you have tons of branching, that’s going to take up a lot of script because readers will only be reading 1 branch, but you’ll be coding many.
If you have tons of overlays, that also takes up a lot of space.

So I think it depends on those things, but it’s better to measure an episode in minutes. Most people prefer 10-15 minute episode, but it varies a lot (I like 20-30 minute episodes). :two_hearts:

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thanks, this was really helpful

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