Hey everyone,

My roommate just asked me "how long is the longest fanfic you've ever read?" I wasn't very sure about it, but I guessed it was probably Wendy Richards' "Faux Pas."

I then decided to go search through the archive to see if I've ever read anything longer than that. I noticed that there's no way to sort the files on the archive by file size.

So I figured I'd go to Ol' Reliable: aka, the fans here on the mb's.

So here's the question: What's the longest completed/archived Lois & Clark fanfic out there?? Basically, what's the longest one you've ever read? I figure by starting there, we'll get a good survey of the longest stories ever written.

I'm gonna take a wild stab and say:

"Masques" - at 1,546Kb by Labrat

But I'm not sure.

Perhaps with "Long Strange Trip" running a close second at 1,376Kb.

From what I've heard, Masques is the longest.

Hi,

The Long Road Home by Erin Klingler
2,479 KB

MAF

There is, but it's a little time consuming at the moment. If you download the Excel version of the raw data for the future database here on the Archive to your pc, you should then be able to sort the data by the kb column and have the stories arranged by length.

LabRat (who was sure Masques had been beaten by this point...go figure. You mean no one's been idioti...er enthusiastic enough to write anything longer yet? Shame on you! )

Ask... Five longest stories according to the Excel sheet.

1,546 Masques Doc Klein's Labrat
1,376 Long, Strange Trip L
1,282 The Long Road Home Erin Klingler
1,002 Caped Fear Doc Klein's Labrat
832 Faux Pas Wendy Richards

Wow thanks guys for the quick response. To a rather silly question.

By the way - Does anyone mind explaining to me how to sort the raw data as mentioned? (I just haven't used Excel in ages.) Also, I'm working on a Mac. (Okay now I'm off topic, sorry guys!)

Thanks!

Are you using Microsoft Office/Excel, AppleWorks, OpenOffice or something else? I can tell you MS Excel off the top of my head, but I'd have to wait until tonight to tell you AppleWorks. It should be semi-similar.

First thing to do, if you're sorting by size, is to remove Kb from all of the files. Excel is easy: highlight the column, go to Edit -> Replace, type Kb into the first box and leave the second blank, and click Replace All. Voila, all you have left are numbers. Then select everything. All of the data. You can select the header at the top if you want, but it won't make a difference. Then go to Data -> Sort. Choose the column (should be Column D or FILESIZE). Select Descending to make the numbers go from high to low. Click OK, and voila! Everything's sorted.

As far as the record for the longest fanfic, I think The Longest Roads: The Roads They Walked Alone by Raconteur will be the longest when it's finally finished (probably just in time for the 2012 Kerths). And I've read all the way through Masques twice, and both times I found it compelling all the way through. The story never lagged, never seemed to be showing characters just because it was their time to appear. And I loved the way LabRat brought in the clone Lois and did a masterful job of making her a real, individual human being. If you haven't read it, it's definitely worth the time investment.

By the bye, if you pull Masques into Microsoft Word, change the font to Times New Roman 12-point, and painstakingly go through the whole thing and take out the hard carriage returns, it's 567 pages long with 276,550 words.

Not counting the introduction/acknowledgements/disclaimers at the beginning.

Terry, thank you for the wonderful compliment! It's quite made my night. I'm delighted that you enjoyed Masques. And in particular, thank you for your comments about Eve. As you probably already know, part of my original motivation for writing Masques was that I'd always seen the clone as more a victim of Lex than his ally and I wanted to make her a sympathetic character if I could.

LabRat

Okay, fine...I will put Masques on my reading list... (I always thought the clone needed a break too. Don't know how I avoided knowing about that aspect for so long.)

Though I will be using TNR 10 with four columns and maxing out the margins. That gets me....(my, does find and replace take a long time)[gasp] 227 pages!

I can do it? Um,I can do it.

James

The last update for this Excel file was July 2007.

Any updates soon?

James

Oh, it's been updated since then - I think it's the counter that's lagging. Not sure when, but definitely towards the end of 2007.

But, beyond that, it'll be next updated when I get the free time to do it.

LabRat

You can do it, James!! It's a must-read, although I haven't read it more than once for some reason. I stayed up all night to watch my dog after his surgery a few years ago, and Masques kept me occupied til 8am!

JD

Actually, that one is finished and on the archive as of May 2007. It's the third installment that Rac is still working on.

Sorry, Labby, it has. By The Longest Road: The Roads They Walked Alone. And since it's been on the archive since May, I'm not quite sure why its statistics didn't show up for Karen in the Excel spreadsheet, because it is 1810KB according to the Archive.

The new "longest fic ever"...

Kathy

Oh, that's easy. Because this is a very old thread. Karen's post (and mine for that matter) was 2006 and Rac's story was submitted in March 2007.

Jen - thank you!

LabRat

Hadn't even noticed the dates on some of the earlier posts in the threads! Sorry about that. It all makes perfect sense now...

Kathy

LOL - easy enough to miss when an old thread is suddenly resurrected. Been caught that way a time or two myself!

LabRat

I'm currently writing a story (not for L&C) that's over 1000 pages in Microsoft Word, the text file was over 2MB last time I checked, and it is approaching 500,000 words. I think that's the longest fanfic (ever, in any fandom) I've ever seen (and I'm rather dumbfounded I've written it, tbh).

As far as L&C goes, I've read all of those top 5 length-wise listed by Karen, and I heartily recommend them! Wonderful reads. All of them!

Oh, good grief. I got sucked into not looking at the post dates, either. Sorry to beat a dead horse

Aria, you have a work in progress that's half a million words? Zowie! If James Michener were still alive he'd be insanely jealous.

Let us know where you post it when it's finally done. I'd like to be able to say that I read a half-million word story.

Oh, and you might check out the Original Fiction folder on these boards. It might suit your story. And we'd know where to find it.

I've been gone for awhile, so I'm really out of the loop here. TGND, which isn't on the archive yet (who on earth would want to GE it?) is 1.9 MB and I've still got the last 4th or so to look over "one last time" before I submit it...

`Toc

Yes, it's still a WIP. I've been working on it since April 07, and I have 2 more planned chapters to go. The home stretch is killing me! It's a Grey's Anatomy Meredith/Derek fanfic/epic/thing, plus it's rated mature, so I couldn't post it in the original fic forum, I don't think. Anyway, I've been posting it to my livejournal - http://ariaadagio.livejournal.com if you're still truly interested. It's called Lightning Strikes Twice.

Plus, it's fanfic. So it wouldn't fit in the Original Fiction folder, I'm afraid.

LabRat

Janet, you must get TGND onto the archive! I adore that story. I mean, I printed it. And it's loooooong. Does this mean I can't nom it for Best Overall this year?

PJ

Pam, I was thinking the exact same thing! Janet, I really hope you'll make TGND eligible, if you haven't already.

Caroline

Thanks, you guys! What do I have to do to make it eligible? Just post it on the archive?

) I got sidetracked with another short story that had been sitting around on my hard drive, but I'm almost ready to post that one.

Oh, and Pam - I'm very flattered to see the story quoted in your signature!

`Toc

To make it eligible for the '08 Kerths, I think you just need to email the K-Com at kcom07 @ lcficmbs.com.

If you upload it to the archive this year, it will automatically be eligible for next year's Kerths unless you do the above and ask the KCom to put it on this year's list instead.

Somebody please jump in and correct me if I'm wrong about this!

That's what I meant when I specified it as fanfic

Anyway, I haven't read the Kerth rules in a while, but my understanding of it was that it would just have to be posted anywhere on the Internet to be eligible for the Kerths. It's just that it's automatically listed as an eligible story when it's uploaded to the fanfic archive. ?

Lisa and Aria are absolutely right. Just mail K-Comm, Janet, and let them know you want it included in the eligibles list.

LabRat

Labby's Caped Fear has been pushed off the Top 5 List.

Congrats to ML for coming in #5 with There's No Place Like Home's upload to the archive.

1. 1,810 The Longest Road: The Roads They Walked Alone Rac
2. 1,546 Masques Doc Klein's Labrat
3. 1,376 Long, Strange Trip L
4. 1,282 The Long Road Home Erin Klingler
5. 1,229 There's No Place Like Home ML Thompson
6. 1,002 Caped Fear Doc Klein's Labrat



Carol

ML! Congrats on getting this on the Archive so fast.

And Janet, I had no idea The Girl Next Door was almost two Megs . I mean, this story has only 42 parts and I just kept reading and reading.

Michael

Yes, Janet - hurry up and do those edits, so we can get this one up on the Archive and Carol has to change her list again.

LabRat

Hey - I'm less than 200 pages of having to edit it again anyway .

Learning to Love should be in your inbox in the next couple of days. It's going to be close as to whether it passes Masques or not. Depends on the Author's/Foot Notes I think.

Carol

/whispers

Check your inbox, Labby.

Carol

Good thing you said, Carol. Thunderbird had dumped it into my junk folder.

LabRat

EEP!!!!

NO!!!!!

THAT IS *NOT* JUNK!!!!

I worked too blasted hard on it for it to be junk .

Carol

Awwwwww. Well, considering some of the stuff Thunderbird has dumped into my junk folder, it never did have any taste.

LabRat

Once again I'm wandering into this thread belatedly...

I'm running out of year, here, aren't I? The last time I mentioned I was working the story was at the beginning of the year. I'm down to just one stubborn section, though. And the story has actually made it to the GE stage. (Thanks, Tricia - I swear I haven't fallen off the earth, here, either. Hopefully I'll have the edits done soon.)

<if there was a graemlin for a missing/comatose/whatever muse, this is where I'd place it in this post>

What the muse won't cooperate on: Anybody got a good way to describe metal that isn't dull gray, but isn't super silvery-gray or shiny or what-have-you? Thesaurus isn't helping.

'Toc

Pam, Caroline - I'll be very interested in hearing what you think once the story does finally make it to the archive - parts of it were pretty tweaked over the last - what, 2 years? Seems like it, anyway - since I finished posting it and went back to editing it.

burnished to a dull, gray gleam?

Burnished always makes me think of something that is not exactly shiny but still not dull either and gleam kind of gives me the same visual.

LabRat

Gunmetal gray, slate, lusterless, lackluster.

We have a new addition to the list:

1. 1,810 The Longest Road: The Roads They Walked Alone Rac
2. 1,546 Masques Doc Klein's Labrat
3. 1,376 Long, Strange Trip L
4. 1,282 The Long Road Home Erin Klingler
5. 1,229 There's No Place Like Home ML Thompson
6. 1,224 Further on Down the Road Terry Leatherwood

[Okay - so it's #6 on the list and not #5... Tis more than close enough for an honorable mention .]

Carol

One of mine is number six? Wow. Just think, if I'd only kept in all those deleted scenes...

Maybe someday I'll release a director's cut.

Or if you'd stuck the three of them together...

BTW, where is 'End of the Road'?!?!

Carol [who spent way too much time yesterday reading Terry-fic]

<breathes massive sigh of relief> I'm still number 5! I'm still number 5! I'm still number 5!

Hey! I just noticed something. Three of the longest six have the word "Road" in the title. Two have the word "Home"

Maybe if I'd titled my story "There's No Place Like The Road Home" it would have been number one.

ML

ML, you forgot long.

There's No Place Like The Longest Road Home, Except Maybe The Longer One That's Long.

:p

Missing Lois has made the grade.

8886 KB in Rich Text format
2298 KB in docx format (Word 2007)

485,386 Words

1756 pages, double spaced.

And that's before I've even started on the sequel.

/whispers/ Can someone pour some water over Michael's head? I think he passed out.

/whispers:
The official byte-count's equal to the total number of characters, including punctuation and spaces. In ye olden days, it was created by saving the entire thing as a plaintext-file and uploading it to the archive.

Michael

PS: Nope, not passed out. /me likes these short vignettes.

OK, I still think I'm there, Michael. Just by changing Ch. 1 to plain text, which is my shortest chapter, it came to 129KB, just 21KB more than docx KB. If I did that with each of my chapters... we'd end up with KBs somewhere between the Rich Text format and the docx format. Still nothing to sneeze at (unless someone is allergic to long stories).

It's also why I included word count and page count.

Yeah...

Just for now and since the stats' not current:

#1 is CarolM's On the Other Hand: 2,129k
At least, till Virginia's Missing Lois. I'm putting money down on 2,745k

For the technically minded...
The docx format is zipped. So, that's not good for measuring anything except relative size to other docx. RTF contains *way* too much verbose formatting information, so same thing. I'm going with rule of thumb: bytes = wordcount * 6

Michael

Hmm... OTOH may have been unseated huh?

It does have a sequel in UP and at least one more unwritten. It clocks in at just over 400K words and 1090 pages in plain text format [using the standard formatting for the archive - single spacing, extra hard return between paras]. UP is not nearly as long and the other sequel/companion pieces wouldn't have been either.

If you want an actual number, save it in txt format and see what that KB is...

/eyes hard drive and contemplates new epic /

Oooooooh...

/gets all drooly over epic authors slinging ever-longer epics at one another all to the and of their fans/

Michael

/snicker/ Don't count on it from me though .

Working on all original stuff at the moment and for the foreseeable future .

The results are in! Missing Lois is the longest fanfic on the Archive! (Just posted tonight! I'd include the link, but as LabRat suggests - it's best for an e-reader!) According to the Archives it's 3,000 words shy of 1/2 million , clocking in at 2757KB.

I win: The Biggest Lack of a Social Life Award!

So, if you didn't get a chance to read it on the boards (all approx. 9 months of it), it's now ready and waiting and weighing down the servers over on the Archive! Or if you'd like to read it again, now that my excellent, super fantastic General Editor -- Marcelle -- has smoothed out the bumps, and fixed all my characters' sighing , it's a better read than it was before. Or if you just need some light reading for the next month or so, this is the story for you! What I am saying? It's a bit heavier than most of my stuff - definitely a drama. It's my take on what S5, and probably a bit of S6, could have been. Enjoy.

As for me, I'm going to and get back on my latest epic, which I'm hoping ( ) won't beat out ML for this prize next year. (She writes as she puts the finishing touches on Part 52 for Betas.)

Good Lord, woman! Congrats!

Michael

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by VirginiaR:
<strong> As for me, I'm going to Me and my big fat mouth. <<Part 135 posted tonight. "Missing Lois" was only 109 Parts>> I'll be lucky if this monster (Wrong Clark) makes it to the Archives before 2015.

It looks like "Wrong Clark" is probably our longest fic now, although by how much we still don't know.

/whisper/ I just beta'd Chapter 140 and there are still many plot threads to be tied up.

Just to let you know, Chapter 140 is awesome.

Now I really am getting excited about 140. After betaing 139 I have been trying to not be too impatient for 140, but I think it is a loosing battle.