Why 15000 words?

[Vikar]

Hello Lovely Creators

I wanted to share this feeling of helplessness with you. May be you (who is currently reading it) might felt the same way before.

FYI, this is my first novel which I'm working on.

So, I never planned to write a novel (cuz it's not easy, duh) but a great story came to me and unfortunately, I picturized it like a movie.

It felt so exciting that it became my demon who chased me to put it into words. So, I started writing without caring of others.

Even though I know my few starting chapters were info dumps but I was satisfied cuz I at least gave proper detailing to that world and characters. But as I started to understand the way of writers, like -

• Stop narrating and make characters talk
• Keep up with the pace
• Readers will figure it out even with less detail
• Keep your vocabulary stacked

etc... etc...

I realized I was drifted away from the very reason I started this novel - To see it into proper words

And now this word limit of 15000 is really feels like a collar around neck.

You may not agree with me or may find me annoying for whining over some fictional novel, but please do share if you had this type of moments with your work.

[cherrystark]

15000 words?

Tapas as a character limit of 15000 per chapter, not a word count limit. I've had a series on Tapas that was over 160K words. I agree with your general tips but you have all the room to explore your story as you want with serialized fiction.

[Bella_Artz]

The character limit tends to piss me off as well. I work on writing platforms that don't have word limits and immediately left the ones that did. I don't know why Tapas does but I wanted to give it a try.

The series I'm writing now is also on going on two other platforms but when I try to copy and paste to tapas it's always a struggle trying to find where to cut off to paste to a new chapter.

I already gave myself a word limit (A maximum of 5k words). It still gets a bit irritating but I guess it's done to challenge creativity or what not. I like the platform and I enjoy the community so I bare with it.

[joannekwan]

The limit is there because the majority of Tapas users read on their phones.
It actually has an additional benefit in that you can make more episodes out of your chapters and update more frequently, which the algorithm likes.

[vapidink]

Yep, like Joanne said, it's because most people read on their phones when it comes to sites like Tapas. A 15k character limit may seem restrictive, but it's a decent length to read on a mobile device without tiring out your eyes. Besides, you can split your chapters into parts and update a few times a week.

I post on Wattpad too and try to stick to chapters of about 2k words just because it's a good length to read online, but sometimes I write longer chapters. When I post them on Tapas, I just split them up and it usually works out fine. It's not all that limiting because the story I'm telling is the same and readers don't mind because they know why chapters need to be split.

[Vikar]

I think I got conscious of readers and in the middle of trying to consider their perspective, I lost the essence of writing my novel.

You are right I should just write and spits the chapter into parts.

[Vikar]

You are right. Thanks and my applauses to your series with over 160k words. Some hard work there

[Vikar]

Actually, tapas community is great and all but like you said tapas cut off strictly at 15000 chr. which then pushed at us to creatively end our chapters.

It becomes quite a struggle when we write chapters without word count and try to put a cliff hanger at last

[Bella_Artz]

Exactly like I know where I want to stop already don't rush me lol

[Mallory]

It's because Tapas doesn't have a way to remember where the reader was in the middle of a chapter, only which chapter they were on (unlike an ebook on an ereader, which remembers the exact passage). Short chapters makes it easier to either finish a whole one before putting the phone down, or at least finding your place again.

My chapters are 12,000 words long because they're like a whole TV episode in terms of content. I just break them up into scenes of ~1000 words, wherever it makes the most sense.

[Vikar]

Then I suppose naming would also be done with numerical

Like - ice age (01), ice age (02), ice age (03)

[Mallory]

Yep. Both of my projects have the full chapter title on the VERY first entry into that chapter (e.g. "Chapter 1: A Visit to a Planet Where Humans and Robots Live In Perfect Harmony") and the rest are titled Chapter 1.1, Chapter 1.2, etc. If your chapter titles are short you can just do [Title] 1, [Title] 2, etc.

[Hoku_1]

After reading the replies I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't have trouble with this. I kind of like the restriction Tapas has of words because when I post a chapter I can type it up quickly. Every day I take out an hour and write my chapter like 800-1000 words. Since I update daily this restriction doesn't really matter. though I have had moments when I do parts of chapters I think it increases the reader's curiosity and makes them look forward to the other part of the chapter if you leave it on a cliffhanger obviously....I try my best to do that.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Apparently the concept for Tapas is for small works rather than huge novels, etc., that can be enjoyed when people haven't a lot of time to read. Hence the name, Tapas, which are small snack plates, basically. So, I guess the limits are the result of that original concept.

[Vikar]

I didn't know the concept behind tapas. ༼⁠⁰⁠o⁠⁰⁠；⁠༽

Sorry Tapas

[IndomitableX]

15,000 CHARACTERS in a chapter/episode is the limit, NOT 15,000 words.

[Mar_Sadeh]

This is a ridiculous and arbitrary restriction for Tapas to impose upon writers. It is the reader's responsibility to rest their eyes, not the author's, and books and phones can be put down at any time for any reason without requiring the reader to reread.

If we were discussing, for instance, a long video game cutscene where it was impossible to pause halfway through and return the next day at that halfway point, that would be one thing, but that is not the case.

[joannekwan]

Tapas is modeled after the Korean way of consuming comics and novels which is centered around mobile devices - so shorter but more frequent updates.

I honestly would hate to read a full book chapter in one go on my phone.

[IndigoShirtProd]

Never saw the issue with the character limit, mainly because with the book that I've written (and haven't published), I already wrote the chapter in parts. 1 part = 1 scene, all of which were under the character limit. An reading can be tedious, even if you enjoy it. Though I understand thr frustration because it can break thr pace of a scene, but there are work-arounds.

[vapidink]

Not really. Like Joanne just said above, they're modeling it after something, so I wouldn't call it an arbitrary number. Doesn't really seem like Tapas would choose something like this out of nowhere, meaning they have data that backs up their choice. Sure, readers can stop reading whenever, but shorter chapters mean more chapters and more frequent updates which ultimately helps writers. It also means a lot of people are doing their best to make their opening chapters more dynamic and attention grabbing to retain their audience, which isn't really a bad thing.

It may not be a writer's responsibility, but it is in our best interest to keep in mind who we're writing for and how that content is consumed. Especially if we're looking to build up an audience. Not sure about your point with the cutscene analogy since it's two very different types of media being consumed in different ways. I always see long un-skippable cutscenes as breaks, so, yeah.

Personally, I don't mind it because I will ultimately do what I want as a writer. I can put pressure on myself to make shorter chapters, or I can just leave it as is and split them, or there's always the choice of posting somewhere else. Whether we want to adapt to different platforms is ultimately our choice.