Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Longest Fic You've Ever Written?

I'm currently working on the Lois & Lex story that some of you may be aware of, and I have been for about a week or so now. I just realized how much I've written, completely effortlessly. I haven't had writer's block at all while doing this story. In fact, I've had to write scenes separately because they came to me at a point when I was nowhere near ready, and I've had to write parts using my phone, while on the bus, because they just keep flowing out of me! I couldn't believe that I looked down and was on page 76 (excluding the extra parts I've written separately).

I'm pretty sure this is the longest story I've written so far, so I'm curious what the longest story everyone else has written was. Did you hit any major blocks? Was it easy? hard? What did you find challenging? Rewarding? etc...

Congratulations on making it to 76 pages! That's quite an accomplishment. I look forward to reading it, unless it's that one you've promised us where Lois LIKES being Mrs. Luthor. I might have trouble reading something like that.

Well, you know the longest L&C story I've ever written Missing Lois. On last count it was: 485,386 Words, 1756 pages, double spaced, but that was before I started editing it for the Archive. (I don't think I added to deleted much page wise, though).

I started writing it in October of 2010, while waiting for the new episodes of Bones to show up on the Netflix instant list. I finished it about May 2011 (I'd have to check the boards for the exact date). During that time I stopped watching TV, stopped reading, stopped doing anything social and just wrote any free moment I had. I carried a notebook (paper) and pen with me wherever I went. And if I had a few minutes, instead of playing on a cell phone or reading, I would write a word, or line or page (this works really well, if you're waiting for your kids during swimming lessons, piano lessons, waiting for them after school, or visiting your parents. I never knew how much time I spent in the waiting place!) and then type / edit at night while everyone was asleep. I would think about where I wanted the characters to go as I lay down to bed and my mind would work on it in my dreams. Needless to say, I became a bit obsessed.

I don't know if it was the longest thing I've ever written (as I have written a couple of unpublished novels - at least 2 completed), but it might be. My problem isn't making a story lengthy, but keeping it short. I always want to say too much, delve deeper into motivation and solutions. I don't like to leave things hanging. I probably could have made Missing Lois longer, but I ran out of creative energy about the time the story became darker. Light and fluffy is more fun to write.

I still zone out during social activities (like dinner) as I think about my characters and what I want them to do next. I don't know, I'm just one of those people who has always been okay with silence and being alone. I once had a job with an hour commute (once a week) and wrote a musical. You repeat the words (like song lyrics) enough while you're driving you don't need a pencil and paper to write it down until you get where you're going. I don't understand people who don't know what do when they're alone with their mind. I kind of pity them.

But then -- as you all know -- I'm a little disturbed.

UPDATE 2/01/12 - Just sent Missing Lois to the Archive for GE. It clocked in at 503,818 Words, 1298 pages, 3615KB (Single spaced, except the extra carriage return between paragraphs, WORD 2003 format). I'm going back into hiding again.

Congrats on your fic! That's a lot of writing!

I'll have to get back to you on my longest fic. I suspect it's Soul Desire, but I'll have to edit it for the archive and put it into one massive file first before I can be sure.

But the longest thing that I have written so far is my original fantasy novel. It is currently 134 pages in Microsoft Word. That's with Times New Roman, 12 pt font, single spaced, and 69,567 words. And I'm only about 85% done with it.

Have I hit roadblocks? Absolutely! I've been working on this novel one and off for years now. I started it around 2002 or 2003 I suppose, when I was in college. Then I dropped it for a long time. Then I was really, really into writing it about a year or year and a half ago. I was belting out chapters like there was no tomorrow. Now I've ground to a halt on that and hoped back on the fanfic wagon.

I would honestly never pour as much work into a fanfic though. I like to keep those shorter, since there is no chance of me ever making money off of them. An original novel, however, does have a sliver of a chance of getting published one day. I'd rather spend my time either writing one long novel, or many shorter fanfics. I just don't have the attention span to write epic fanfics.

V: I'm exactly the same! You're like my identity twin! lol I *prefer* to be in my tiny bedroom with my headphones on (no music playing most of the time).

DC I can definitely understand not wanting to pour everything into a fic. Sometimes the ideas form in my head so fast and, like with this fic, I write so much that I'm jealous or some kind of emotion similar to that for my actual novels because the writing just isn't as smooth.

My longest fanfic appears to be Family Issues , a Buffy / Men in Black crossover I wrote over four months in 2003, about 65,000 words. I recall it as being pretty easy to write, mainly because I was relatively new to fanfic and still pretty excited by its possibilities.

But I've written several longer books, RPGs rather than fiction, and they are a LOT more work, especially since they are a money-making project and a lot depends on getting things right, so that I tend to second-guess and re-edit a lot.

I've written several fanfiction stories that are about 100 pages. Then I always seem to hit a wall. I would like to write a longer story, not for length itself, but in order to develop a better plot. I'm currently working on a story that has the potential to break this barrier but it's easy to become discouraged with so many plot threads to keep track of.

My longest fanfic ("That Old Clone of Mine") is only 22 pages long -- not even 10,000 words. I greatly admire fanfic authors who can write much longer pieces and keep them interesting enough to maintain the reader's interest throughout.

I think my years of scholarly writing have made it hard for me to write anything lengthy. In that writing, I strove for brevity, effective summarization, and the presentation of only the most salient ideas. I learned to excise anything in a scholarly paper that would only be added for 'colour.' I've been spending my time as a fanfic author learning to undo those habits. (Not to mention learning that sometimes breaking the rules is a good thing. As with sentence fragments. )

If we leave the realm of fanfic, I have written longer works. In addition to writing chapters for a few scholarly anthologies, I have co-edited a scholarly text on the relationships among signed languages, spoken languages, and gestures, and have co-authored a non-fiction book on job-searching in academia. (The latter has yet to see a publisher, but the former has seen print.)

Joy,
Lynn

My longest, unfinished fic is for the Harry Potter fandom - 164 pages (Verdana, 10 pt., single spaced) and counting, or maybe not counting, because I haven't expanded on it for years :p It's a sequel to another one that was 77 pages long.

My longest Archived L&C fic is 90 pages if cut-and-pasted in Word (177 Kb). I've also written and posted one that was 127 pages, but I never sent that to the Archive - it was a bit controversial, thought I may have to fix it, never actually reached a decision about it.

Apart from those, I usually write short/very short stories.

OTOH. 400K words by the time it was all said and done.

It came pretty effortlessly most of the time, but if I'd known what I was getting into, I wouldn't have started .

I managed to blather on for 252,000 words in a story in the "Smallville" fandom.

Okay, my longest fic is officially Soul Desire. It comes in at a staggering 134 Word pages (Calibri 11pt font, single spaced) and a whopping 63,145 words. It actually rivals my original novel. Had I known how long it was going to be, I think it would have scared me off!

Longest story? Stranger in our Midst. Calibri font point 11, 336 pages. I also became totally engrossed in the project and used my i-phone to 'talk out' key scenes. It is highly unlikely I will ever attempt such a feat again.

Hi MrsLuthor,

I haven't posted it as yet but my longest so far is Clark and Lois - The Lost Years - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 3 and it tops out at around 450 pages.

If I look at the entire set so far, and it really is one long story, Lois Lane - Mother of Utopia Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1 is about 32 pages, Lois Lane - Mother of Utopia, The early Years (A Christmas Story) Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1A tops out at about 24 pages, Borrowed Time - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 2 runs to 170 and so far I have about 150 pages in Clark and Lois - Despair to Hope - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 4 with several volumes in the planning stages. Looks like I'll be hitting a thousand pages before too long.

Doing it in bite sized chunks helps. Having a couple of very good beta readers also helps a lot. I don't know what I'd do without them.

You guys are a bunch of machines or something! lol

I think the lack of this is why it's so much easier to write! I don't feel like I'm going to ruin my life by making an error lol


Lynn, I've read a lot of your fics. I like the short ones for my bus ride home from school.

Which is this? I like controversy!

This seems to be the consensus! lol

Really? Why not?

I guess that would bring up the subject of people who write sequels and multi-story series'! I've written a few in a series, but I couldn't tell you how long they were without going and putting them all into one file, because I broke them up when I wrote them.

Quote from LynnSM:

I think my years of scholarly writing have made it hard for me to write anything lengthy. In that writing, I strove for brevity, effective summarization, and the presentation of only the most salient ideas. I learned to excise anything in a scholarly paper that would only be added for 'colour.' I've been spending my time as a fanfic author learning to undo those habits. (Not to mention learning that sometimes breaking the rules is a good thing. As with sentence fragments. )
--------------------------------

Lynn, I can symphathise completely with you in this.
I spent thirty years in industry, mostly in Organic Chemistry and Entomology. Most of my writing was confined to recording observations in a research notebook. I had the same problems, having gone through the 'Berger' writing classes. I guess the hardest thing my beta readers had to do was teach me not to 'report' the story, but *tell* the story. Once I got past that hurdle then they taught me to let the actors tell the story. It is very much a learning, or should I say, re-learning process.

Hmm. No idea, as far as fanfics go. I suppose it's something in the "Superman Returns" fandom, but can't be sure which. Original novel ideas... there's one I started working on a few years back and I've gotten about halfway with 158 pages- and then I thought "wait- maybe I should rewrite it in *this* way" :rolleyes: And so that's about where that's stayed.

I have a couple of LnC fics that I'm working on that I'm sure will break the barrier for longest I've written. Currently though, I'm trying to write a full-length, original screenplay- which is *entirely* different, I tell you. The main problem seems to be keeping it at or around only 100-130 pages, since pages typically equate to minutes. That, and the fact that the writing style is very different than I'm used to. It's all very visual and not at all thought or character driven, which is what I'm most used to...

I completely see where you guys are coming from. My mother went to school for journalism, and as many ideas as she has and as creative as she is, she has the exact same complaints about writing nowadays.

I've written eight novels that I'm working on getting published at the moment, and some of them are quite long so I looked at what the average size of a book is. It's different for every genre, of course, but as mine are sci-fi/fantasy, the word count limit is 200,000 words, 250,000 if you're famous and know the book will sell despite its daunting size. Unfortunately, by the time I thought to look that up, I had already written three 300,000 word books, so now I have to work on cutting them down. My newer books, I've kept down to 180-185,000.

Of L&C stories, the longest is 'And Then There Was Light,' which is just under 143,000 words--244 Microsoft Word pages single-spaced.

Of course, as a reader first and then a writer, I think the most important thing is to follow the story--don't make a short story 250,000 words and don't try to fit a long story into 10,000 words because it's just making things hard on yourself!

I will say that if I had known at the start that my first books (all in a series) would be that long, I would have been too intimidated to start. Conversely, when I first started writing L&C fiction, I was petrified by the thought of writing something so short...until I realized just how easy it can be.

The longest complete story I've written is 480k words (934 single space pages).

I currently have a WIP that's 555k words and will probably grow by another 100k+ before it's done. It's way too big to keep in one file, so it beats me how many pages that is, though.

And yes both have been extremely hard for me to write. I'm a bit of a perfectionist with my writing, and on top of that, my major challenge is sticking to it when I'm bogged in the middle and it feels like I'll never get out. It's so easy to lose hope of ever finishing. For instance, I've been writing my current WIP for 18 months, and I know it'll be at least 10 more months before I'm finished at my current pace (based on my current outline). Another roadblock I often run into is when there's something that needs to be written for the sake of the story that I'd rather skip over to get to something more fun. It's very hard to force myself to write in those cases. I solve the problem by attacking it in tiny chunks. I make myself write for an hour here, an hour there, and eventually I get through it to the part I wanted to be writing.

It's difficult, but looking back on your journey when you're finished is beyond rewarding. Interacting with readers/fans as you make the journey is rewarding, too.

This is definitely something I've encountered a couple of times. I usually end up writing the part that I want and then writing the parts leading up to it after.


That's insane! Kudos on that one! Is it an LnC fic?

Nope I've been writing for Grey's Anatomy for the last 5 years or so, mostly MerDer fics. My longest L&C fic is a bit more reasonable at 101k words -- Waking A Miracle ;p