# In One Big Lump of Divided? How Do You Upload Your Stories?



## ElectricBlue1989 (Sep 8, 2012)

_(Didn't find a thread about something like this. Just to be clear, I do know how to upload stuff on FA. The second question on the title is there to complement the first one)_

I have this story that's been on my dA account for awhile. It's divided in 9 parts. On the original _Word_ document, the page count goes to 24, about 115Kb.

I'm not sure if I should take advantage of FA's easier uploading capabilities and just add the thing whole. Of course, this also means risking that_ everyone_ that opens the damn thing gets CRUSHED by the wall of text. 
I know that the max is 10 megabytes, but let's ignore that.

So I ask, what's your strategy? Divide in easier, digestible bits, or throw caution to the wind and give the whole thing in one fell swoop?

What factors do you take into account for this decision? Size? Structure? Wall of Text syndrome? The amount of puny letters?*** Etc.

How long does it have to be before you go: "It's too much, better split it"?


And, of course, What do you recommend?


***The stuff that's written that isn't download-only gets tiresome to read due to the size. I feel that the letters are too small. I haven't really toyed with my account settings, so I don't know if this can be set-up differently. I certainly haven't found it.


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## Poetigress (Sep 13, 2012)

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Generally, I think it's better to post to FA as plain text because it doesn't add another step for the reader, but yeah, longer works can make for tedious reading with FA's font size (no, there's no way to change that in the settings, unfortunately). 

Something novella or novel length is definitely best broken up into multiple parts/chapters, but 24 pages is kind of borderline. If it's already divided into 9 parts, though, and that division works well for the story, then it might be best to go ahead and upload it here as 9 parts, too, keeping shortish attention spans in mind. 

Shorter stories tend to work best uploaded all at once. I've tried uploading a couple of my longer stories in multiple parts, but one disadvantage of that seems to be favoriting, of all things -- do people fave the first part? The last part? All of them? -- and I didn't find that there was a huge difference in the number of reads/comments between the stories posted all at once and the stories broken up into 3 parts (except that the middle installments got fewer comments/faves).

My advice would be to compromise -- upload the 9 parts as plain text for instant reading, but also offer a Word document (and/or PDF) of the entire thing if some would rather read it all at once, or in a better interface than FA's.


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## fwbrown61 (Sep 29, 2012)

Quickly. to add to Poetigress: Text file submission is convenient, and ideal for short work and poetry. Reader finishes reading before eyeballs fall out. 

 Thing is, FA takes a text file as-is. So if there's no blank line between paras, and if line length isn't kept to about half the screen width, a long text is deadly. 3,500-4,000 words: That's about max page size, I've found.

 And not as a text file but copied into the Comment box. Opinion: Think it looks better (and forces shorter line length). More work, though.

Tip: Use the hard space (ASCII char #160) for para first line indents. It works, where multiple plain spaces or tabs don't; FA eats 'em.

FB.


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