At 12:08 PM 2/4/97 -0500, you wrote:

	Someone gave some valid comments about my fics, that they may be a
little too short.... In his words, they read like "Reader's Digest"
pieces. I'd like to disagree, but I do see he does have a point. "Life and
Manhood" as well as "Waking" were rather short.... (Of course, I _am_
still building a continuation fic based on those...though it is on hold
right now.) Anyway--is this guy right? Do my stories seem to jump too
quickly to a conclusion? Should I pull the plots out a little longer?
(Io5CaD is not among those I'm talking about, though. And VN isn't really
plot oriented anyways, so that doesn't really count either.) Any thoughts?

Hah! Now there is a nice thing to say to an author who I know has labored
intensely on his fics.  In my own opinion, the length of a fic is not an
important component of the resulting fic's quality.  Rather, it is the
quality of the plot, no matter how large or small, that entices me to read
on.  I would be simply more satisfied to read a three to four page fic with
a great plot instead of wading through a huge fic with a meandering plot
designed to maximize it's length.

In short, just write as much as you feel like writing.  If you design a
long story, then write it long.  If you have a nice and great idea for a
short story, do not go out of your way to inflate the story a bit.  It will
detract from the final quality of your work.

Well in general, I have been reading your fics, and they are fine for the
length.  And as you have said, you are going to write followups.
Therefore, you can contend that you actually haven't finished your fic yet.
^_-  Heh, minor technicality.

Your stories have a rather nice flow to them, and they do not really jump
to conclusions and pull nasty tricks to bring about a conclusion.  Well,
then again, in my fics, I've been known to rush things like crazy...  Well,
that's besides the point. ^_^

That's all I got to say...

Michael Chen
aka. Zenki
mailto:michael.h.chen@yale.edu
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~mhc8
http://net173-126.student.yale.edu/zenki