Unpopular Opinion

For Sale. Babies shoes. Never worn.

Sometimes is just as long as it needs to be. That line above is a complete story. And if you actually take it seriously and reflect on it, it could bring you to tears. Let stories be the length they need to be. As the immortal bard said, brevity is the soul of wit.

Where did you get the idea that there’s a standard length of a story?

Why can’t 3 minute shorts peacefully coexist with 3 hour movie epics and everything in between?

Fwiw, you get that sweet, sweet upvote for a solid post, even though I have no idea how popular or unpopular it is. It's not something I've seen discussed much at all. But you presented your opinion without any rage bait in it, and I dig the hell out of that.

However, I would argue that it's about execution, not duration. Just like short stories serve a different role than novels or novellas, multi-arc episodes have a different purpose than a single arc episode.

Sometimes, when you're writing, you get an idea. But it may not work as a long form piece. Very often, trying to stretch an idea into something long form ruins it.

When applied to an ongoing series (as opposed to a series where each episode stands alone to begin with), multi-arc episodes offer multiple benefits, but it has to be done well. Now, obviously, whether or not something is done well is subjective. So unless you have an example in mind, I'm going to stay generic.

The biggest benefit of sub plots and mini arcs is world building and character development. When you have mini arcs, they don't have to follow a seasonal arc. They can show vignettes of the rest of the world, or history, or the inner workings of a characters mind, or an outside view of usual characters.

Now, you still have to execute. If the pacing is off, or the writing doesn't flow right, or there's difficulty for the actor/s presenting something atypical, or any number of possibilities, individual mini arcs can flop, as can the entire episode.

But you absolutely can create a full story that will/would only take up 10 minutes of screen time. There's arguments to be made that any story can be fit into that, with the only question of how well it would translate. I don't really think the results of cutting LOTR into a ten minute story would ever work well, as an example of the flaws of attempting it.

Ensemble shows tend to be more forgiving of the multi-arc format, because most shows of that nature are always going to have scenes and segments that aren't the full cast to begin with. Something like Leverage is going to work better in that format than something like Sherlock. Leverage actually did several episodes with multiple arcs, to varying degrees of success.

So, I'd definitely disagree with the opinion as presented, with the exception where you state that it's basically impossible to add depth to the arcs. In that regard, I definitely agree, but I'd also argue that not every story needs depth. Some stories would suffer from depth.

Is this about wheel of time? Im not up to date on the show but in the books there gets to be a point where like a dozen different groups are doing things and the whole book is like 15 minutes long from different perspectives.

I feel like you're pertaining to a specific TV show. Which one is it?

While I agree running multiple stories in parallel can get problematic, it all still boils down to execution. 3 equally important stories might not work with a limited season, but a proper balance of storytelling and good execution of the intersection of the stories at the midway or climax of the season can still work.