How long is a piece of string?
There used to be a limit of 20KB (about 8 pages) on the size of story parts posted on the LCFic mailing list, because AOL would convert longer messages into attachments, which were much more difficult for its users to open. Since many authors post to the fic list and the MB in parallel, story parts on the MB tended to stick to the same limit. Fortunately that problem seems to have disappeared, and readers tend to prefer somewhat longer chunks, especially for long stories. Story parts are normally somewhere between about 6 and 15 pages long (15 – 40 KB), but they can be shorter or longer depending on the natural breaks in the story, and its length and pace. The readers may grumble if they think a part is too short; however, short parts have the advantage of drawing more readers, since it’s easier to fit a few minutes of reading into a busy day. Shorter stories up to about 15 – 20 pages (40 – 50 KB) can be posted in a single part, but authors often split them, especially if there’s a cli
