As an author on Episode for nearly over a year, I often wonder why when faced with thought of having to read an episode longer than 15 minutes most people seem to cringe at the idea.
I often struggle with keeping my episodes short, as I feel it is very difficult to include a great amount of choices combined with an awesome climax and cliffhanger within only 10 minutes. I, for one, love the idea of being able to get more content out of one pass, but there are many who seem to find it annoying and frustrating to simply take a break and pick up where they left off in continuing to read the same episode.
When youâre a reviewer, long episodes suck I was reviewing like a 30 + min episode, stopped halfway to take a break and then the author updated so i had to read again In general, episodes dragging on too long tires me out
Lol, I love longer and short episodes, I dont mind them at all one bit. I like to keep my episode lets say minimum of both long and short depending on my directing, but i dont hate them at all besides if u stop reading a scene n u exit out of the app then u have to go back in and read it again it gets KINDA boring but i still read regardless.
The thing is reading that much content in one sitting can get exhausting, but I donât want to tap out and leave either because sometimes it resets. So if it gets that long, I might start tapping to get to the end and not make it past the first ep.
Itâs really your choice how long you want episodes to be - every reader has different likes and dislikes - but I wouldnât feel like you have to pack that much into one episode. Not every chapter has to end on a cliffhanger to be engaging and interesting, and for me, itâs actually more engaging if it doesnât. Too much excitement without variety, when you know to always expect the climatic ending⊠it can become monotonous in its own way if that makes sense.
Omg! I never even thought about that! It really must be exhausting if you have to review a story and itâs taking a long time to read through it! Especially if it might not be something that fits your taste or something that really isnât that interesting Thanks for the feedback!
I completely agree!!! I put out one story on Episode and the chapters were kind of long then I put out a new one and tried to make it shorter but at times itâs such a challenge! Especially cause I add some much advanced directing but I didnât know that when you exit out of a chapter it makes you restart Does it do that even when the author doesnât update?
It does make sense. I never once considered it like that! I have a lot to consider now lol especially since I recently published a story and are contemplating if I should revise it! Thank you so much!!
Stories can be tricky! Pacing too, especially if your planning style is pantser. It might help - if youâre more of a careful planner - to look at your story outline and see if you can figure out what feels like natural ending points. Or get people you trust to beta read. Because youâre spending a lot of time working on it yourself and are the author, it can be difficult to know what a new reader might think reading it for the first time.
I wouldnât necessarily say I HATE longer episodes, I just struggle to pay attention long enough to finish them. Even with stories Iâm thoroughly engrossed in, there comes a point where my attention begins to wane and I just canât focus back in. And since I donât want to hurt their retention in anyways, I tend to avoid stories with episodes longer than 20 minutes.
Iâm surprised you say that you struggle with keeping your episodes short, because I struggled with writing longer episodes for almost two years My experience is actually that there are readers who would say they are wasting their pass if your episode is less than 10 minutes.
I personally prefer shorter episodes, but I can enjoy longer ones too as long as the story is moving and I donât feel that certain scenes or dialogues were added only as fillers. And honestly, if a story seems boring, I will quit within three minutes, and I will never know how long it actually is. So basically, to me it depends on the content: if your story is engaging, I donât think anyone would complain they can read more.
However⊠I saw that someone read a story with 1-3 hour long episodes. Now that is long I would say Iâm fine if an episode is not longer than an average sitcom episode, so 20-25 minutes max
it was revenge. i Donât remember the authorâs name but it was about a undercover fbi that needed to revenge her husband because the mafiaâs boss âkilledâ hers husband so she needed to make the mafiaâs boss inlove with her
Lol I wouldnât have reread. That would have been it for me
I donât mind longer episodes (if theyâre paced well and interesting), but theyâre definitely a pain to reread. If Iâm reading a story with longer episodes, I tend to stay at least one episode behind so I never have to reread .
Itâs funny because usually I see people complaining that episodes are too short rather than too long but a really long episode could definitely get exhausting, especially if you feel like youâre just tapping away with no end in sight.
I fell you, as I also struggle to keep mine shorter than 15-20min, I really have time the chapter to make sureâŠ
I only realized that long episodes can be exhausting when I spent 45min reading an episode of another story
I think, in general the attention span for a format like episode is not that long. I often came across stories when I did reviews, where you could see that scenes were added or prolonged, only to make the episodes longer. This doesnât help to make your story better. In general, I take comments about episodes being too short as proof that I ended at the exact point, I should have. (Unless itâd be a 3 min one âŠ)
Important to me, as a reader, is that each scene either moves the plot forward or helps me get into the characters more. Then, it doesnât matter if itâs 8 or 18 minutes. All above doesnât fit the platform (in my opinion!). Then, there should be more work, put into the structure of the story to give a climax at the right point.
I was reviewing like a 30 + min episode, stopped halfway to take a break and then the author updated so i had to read again 
In general, episodes dragging on too long tires me out 
but I didnât know that when you exit out of a chapter it makes you restart 
Does it do that even when the author doesnât update?
That is exhausting! 
. So what type of stories do you normally read then?
Pacing too, especially if your planning style is pantser. It might help - if youâre more of a careful planner - to look at your story outline and see if you can figure out what feels like natural ending points. Or get people you trust to beta read. Because youâre spending a lot of time working on it yourself and are the author, it can be difficult to know what a new reader might think reading it for the first time.
Thatâs longer than a BBC miniseries episode. Crazy.
I would say Iâm fine if an episode is not longer than an average sitcom episode, so 20-25 minutes max
.