I'm all in for long fics. For chaptered fics, I like readings ones that are at least 100k long. The longest one I've read was around 500k I think?
Anyway, it all comes down to the storyline and the writing skills. If I like it, nothing can stop me from reading it. If I don't like it (and it's boring or horrible), it's dropped.
The argument that people stray away from a story because of too much words is ridiculous. Why are you even reading if you don't take into account that the on-going story you started had 34 chapters and may have over 100 to be completed?
Besides, people are reading books to get hooked, to read something written well. And when a story with over 100K words does, that reader won't even mind and ignore that fact to start reading and sate their curiosity and interest of the plot.
I understand it when people sway because of too long chapters though, like over 10k. That's too much to read all at once, if we take into account how thr users here are reading stories bit by bit. Personally I find it better to have more chapters with 2k - 6k words than less chapters with over 10k. ~
If the word count is too low - usually, you can't tell a story properly with so little words. Honestly, I love high word counts xD I'm a big writer myself, especially in NaNoWriMo - last year I wrote 120,100 words in 30 days, and the year before that I wrote 150,001 words exactly in 30 days. So honestly, as long as the word count isn't too low, I'm chill! I once read a Harry Potter fanfiction (this was quite a time ago now tho) that was like 600,000 words long. It took a few days xD
I have read a story with almost 400k words before, if the story has me hooked no figure can scare me away. Sometimes (rather often I fear) I am looking for shorter stories though, especially when I don't have that much time, and some longer stories have ended up in my bookmarks for quite a while now so yes, it does have an influence. Anything over 50k tends to be a commitment whereas anything under 15k is still a oneshot. If the story really interests me, I am miraculously feeling awake AND I have time, I'd prefer higher word counts, but well, normally I'd be looking for stories with max 50k unless the description really catches my interest.
If the foreword and description is intriguing and the language is nice, then there is no word count that can keep me away. Although it might take me forever to actually read the entire story.
If foreword, description or language is a little lacking and doesn't capture me immediately, then I would probably refuse to start on a story longer than 15k. If these things don't catch me or turn me off already before I begin, I wouldn't start a long story.
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