  Short Stories
This week: Story Lengths Edited by: Jay's debut novel is out now!  
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This issue:
Story Lengths
How long IS a short story, really? There is actually a correct answer -- but it varies!
Do you know how to distinguish Microfiction from Flash, a short story from a novelette? And what is a novella, anyway? |
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So, I recently canvassed the readers of the WdC Newsfeed, looking for a few topics which I hadn't seen in recent Short Story newsletters to cover, since I am squarely in novel-brain, and probably will be for the foreseeable future when this draft is completed.
One of the ones which came up, which is equal parts simple and complex  is story length.
A lot of authors, old and new alike, don't have a complete idea as to what actually constitutes the length of a short story, or how to differentiate. There are no hard and fast rules for this, but one place to look for some good guidelines are some of the professional publishing awards categories. Since I'm focused on speculative fiction, that's where the bulk of my experience rests, but as I understand it there are similar standards across different genres.
First out of the gate: Microfiction! I've done another newsletter purely on that topic previously: "Under the Microfiction-Scope" but there are a few different things in this category: Twitter-length fiction, at 140 characters or less; Drabbles (100 words exactly) and other short forms such as short-shorts (300 words or less, on average).
Short Stories: I would class flash fiction and what we classically think of as a short story in the same pile, with the distinction that most publishers who take flash will have a specific desired length in their requirements-- for example, "500 to 1500 words." I usually think of a story under 1,000 words as flash, as a rule, but some places will take up to 2,000 words as a flash story, meaning that even a standard-sized entry for the Official contests here on Writing.Com qualify as flash.
Short stories, depending on the publisher, cap cap out around 7,500 words, though some publishers (not many!) might go up to 15,000 words, with most places wanting shorter (in part because it's more economical for them!) Usually length preferences will be specified by the publication, but as a rule of thumb, once you start to be over 12,000 words, the story is definitely verging into longer works territory.
Novelettes and novellas: Some places use these terms interchangeably, but in general, a novelette for most awards-nomination purposes, is anything in the 7,500 to 17,500 range. Above that, and up to 40,000 words, what you have on your hands is a novella. And above that?
Well, that's when you've got a novel, according to Wikipedia. (And many people colloquially accept "50k or higher" as a standard novel length-- and from there, a bunch of genre and target audience concerns come into play for "most common" novel lengths.  )
Now-- there are very few hard and fast rules for these precisely, but since it's a common question (I got it multiple times!) I thought I'd set out with this in mind, and talk about some of the forms that I find most challenging in future issues.
Until next month,
Take care and Write on!
~jay
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Great places to play with different lengths of fiction! Some of them are closed for the moment, but add them to your favorites so you'll know when they update!
Picks for this issue:
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I'm still canvassing for more of your questions to answer while I'm finishing this novel, so please, drop me a line if there's a burning question that you'd like me to address in a future issue!
~jay |
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Short Stories: July 20, 2016 Issue [#7762]
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