Chapter/Short Story Length Preferences?

[Eeveelution]

Everyone has a sort of preference when it comes to story or chapter length. How many minutes would you be willing to spend reading a single chapter or short story? I know you can't exactly measure the length of a story or chapter, since there's no universal measurement for that kind of thing, but still, I'd like to know your limits. I think it would help a lot of writers to know how long a reader would be willing to read their work, to help with length and all that, especially online.

Personally, I don't like reading stories online that have chapters that take me more than 10 minutes to read. I once read a story with a chapter that took me 15 minutes to read, and that part drove me nuts. Before you say anything, I'm actually a pretty fast reader. At school, I can start reading a book during third period Study Hall and finish by the end of the day. (Of course, this may have to do with me reading below my age group, but I find that most books aimed at high school students are either too serious or too light.) Anyways, what are your length preferences?

 

[Phoenixsong]

However long it takes for the intended point to get across. I won't stop reading something because it's too long or too short; I only stop reading if it sucks. If it's communicating effectively and paced properly then it's worth sitting through a long chapter or what have you. I can always just stop and come back to it later if I can't sit still for that long atm.

 

[nothing to see here]

I guess it depends on the story and the person writing it. Some people can write short chapters/stories that still turn out good (and if they try making something longer, it drags on forever or just doesn't get finished), while other people have to make long chapters to get everything in (and if they try to go shorter on purpose, it usually ends up feeling rushed, or feeling like it's missing something.) I guess there might be people out there who can write short or long and still turn out good, but it'd still depend on how the story itself goes.

Most of the fanfiction I remember reading (that I actually liked) leans more toward the long-chapters side, but I don't really have much of a preference either way... decent fanfiction is so hard to find that if I found something I could actually stand reading past the first few paragraphs, I wouldn't really care much about how long each chapter is.

 

[surskitty]

I prefer long chapters (or, better yet, no chapters) but mainly I want coherent divisions. I don't like pressing buttons to get to the next chapter, but I can cope.

If I'm following a story, I mainly want to see updates quickly. A lot of the fics I stalk religiously, I'm happy with another sentence periodically.

 

[OrangeAipom]

I was borrowing someone's manga, and she told me to hurry up. This irritated me.

I used to read quickly but not remember anything. So now I read more slowly.

I don't know how long it takes me to read a chapter. You don't have to take serious books seriously when you read them, by the way.