How long is your story?

If it's not needed - don't include it. I'd rather have a story that spans over a day (and, indeed, have read such things) with a thick plot than a story that goes over year and is filled with nothing of value. It depends on the story, but what you are saying sounds completely fine if 2 to 3 days works, then 2 to 3 days works. I always find chapters that are split into specific times interesting - a bit like the old tellie show 24? It can be very effective, especially for something you're describing.

My own story...not sure yet. I am in the very early stages of planning. At this point I see it going no more than month (though it is a trilogy which may span up to a year), but that is subject to change. I've got to work out all the plot kinks first .

My WIP?

1st book had 4 weeks (lunar calender)
2nd was in 2 weeks (lunar calender, again)
3rd covered 2 years and two day. (lunar calender, again for the second time)

From the 1st to the 3rd: 18 years passed. (Yes that adds up. There was a 16 year skip between 2 and 3)

My prequel will cover over 600 years.


Don't try to time a novel, or scenes. It'll just clog thing up. Think as the scene progresses, if the sun would fall or rise. If a character wakes up in the morning and goes shopping, have him stop at noon. He see's a movie, chats with a friend and then has dinner. He watched a couple tv shows, reads a bit and goes to bed.
Don't try to focus down on timing. Just let it flow and keeps an eye on the sun.

Of course it's okay! Your book can take place over any amount of time you need it to. There are a ton of famous books that take place over the course of just 24 hours--ULYSSES for one, MRS. DALLOWAY, VOX (Nicholson Baker) and SNUFF (Chuck Palahniuk).

Aha! This list has a big huge ton of books that follow the couse of a single day. I didn't realize HOGFATHER was just one day! I love that book.

Just don't think that because it's a short amount of time you have to pad out the length of the manuscript. As jayne says, only write about the important things.

Mine covers 4 months.

But there is nothing wrong with a book that happens over a few days.
If you want to be a writer, I suggest you become more well read.

8 months.

I'm not sure exactly how long mine is going to cover but I imagine not much longer than a couple of months.

Mine is about one month. There are time jumps between the scenes so that you only read about 4 of the days. There rest are summarized.

12 hours.

(But this, um, hasn't been picked up yet, so I don't know if it necessarily works for people.)

I have a WIP short story that spans half an hour, another WIP short story that occurs in-story over a few hours but has backfill/memory sequences that collectively span several months, and a halfway-plotted short story WIP will span at most six weeks.

my current WIP takes place over about a week or so. Leave out the boring bits. if it's boring to write it might be boring to read. if it isn't important to the plot or characters it probably doesn't matter. I will usually just describe what happens in a quick few sentences like "she got dressed for bed and fell asleep quickly" as opposed to four paragraphs about get changing into PJs, laying down in bed, and describing how she slowly fell asleep. <-- just an example

one is around a week to a week and a half. I have yet to go through and do a timeline yet (I plan to during revision) but so far that's what I'm expecting!

3 years maybe 5. The series runs over 3 centuries though.

Roughly a week, although I only talk about four days of it, and it's just over 90k.

My current story covers a time span of 30 years (and more than 500 if you include the prologue).

About 10 days.

The main story of my current WIP novel spans 5 years, although it hardly feels like 5 years since I've tried to minimize the amount of "filler" moments (ones where I believe that they do not advance the story or characters).

Two years, although the first third of the novel covers only three days. Then there's time skip.

Most of the short stories in my collection cover anywhere from one week to three hours. But there's a flash piece that covers about 6 years and another flash piece that covers aeons.

My WIP-novel spans about a decade, but it's likely to be part of a series covering all the important bits of the (dragon) MC's 1000-year lifespan.

My WIP-novella all takes place in one night while the POV character is presumably bleeding to death, but spans about 3 months of chronology in a hallucinated setting.

One was ten years.

My current is between two and three months.

Like the people have said, the story comes first. So do whatever fits your story.

My WIP (the first novel in a series of five) covers about a month. I plan on making all the novels in the series cover a short time span like the first.

My WIP covers about four days. It's a coming of age fantasy story with a lot of moral conflict and quite a bit of action. Some people are preparing for the MC 's coming of age and others are trying to prevent it. The time span doesn't really matter in a story, it's the content that counts.

The one I'm editing into submission covers about a month total. Maybe three weeks. I haven't bothered with a timeline for it yet. The new one I'm working on is probably about four or five months. I haven't made it to the end yet so I'm not 100% sure on that.

15 years