Poll: Short Stories Good or Bad?

[Vixen-XXX]

Thank you for your vote...

 

[Lauren Hynde]

'The good ones transport you, the great ones change you, and the bad ones--well, at least they are short.'
       -- Francis Ford Coppola

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

??????
Some short stories are good; lots are bad.
"Short story" is a generally-understood term in discussing
fiction in the English language. I suspect, though, that
you mean something different. Do you mean a "short short,"
which is usually defined as a story with fewer than 500
words? Do you mean something like a "flash," which is
variously defined, but is somewhere around that length?
Do you mean under the minimum enforced -- although not
enforced very strictly -- by Laurel?
I enjoy these, but they often turn into vignettes rather
than actual stories.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Well, just think about it.

Whatever Vixen meant, short stories are always a good thing. If a story of any length is well written, it will be good no matter what. Statistically, most stories are bad, and that being the case, the shorter the better. At least it's not too big a waste of time (the readers' and the author's).

A bad short story is always much better than a bad novel.

 

[damppanties]

The first thing I do when I open up a story to read is scroll down to see the number of Lit pages it goes to. Anything more than two and the first 4-5 paragraphs have to be really attention grabbing if you don't want the back-click generator in my brain to snap on. On the other hand, I will read through an average one page story anyway. Doesn't feel like too much work.

Yes, I'm lazy.

 

[whispering_surrender]

'The good ones transport you, the great ones change you, and the bad ones--well, at least they are short.'
       -- Francis Ford Coppola

I'm a sucker for quotes, and I've always loved that one. *smiles*

Whisper

 

[oggbashan]

Define your terms

What is short?

For a story - not anything else.

For me, anything under 100,000 words is a short story.

350,000 to 500,000 words is a novel.

Almost every story on Literotica is a short story.

If the story is badly written, misspelt and full of obvious grammatical mistakes even 750 words is too long.

A series of novels that you love can be too short even if there are 15 books in the series.

I write short stories. Even the 50k words and 12 chapters of my NaNoWriMo entry is a short story.

The Worst Chain Story Ever Chap 01 is too long.

Og

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Define your terms

Originally posted by oggbashan The Worst Chain Story Ever Chap 01 is too long.

Dear Venerable Og,
I thought TWCSEC01 was a work of art. Too bad there was never a chapter 02.
MG
Ps. Just as a point of reference, about how many words would a big, fat 900 page novel have?

 

[oggbashan]

Re: Re: Define your terms

Dear Venerable Og,
I thought TWCSEC01 was a work of art. Too bad there was never a chapter 02.
MG
Ps. Just as a point of reference, about how many words would a big, fat 900 page novel have?

TWSCEC01 was the first chapter of a chain story. As it chain story on Lit chap 02 should have a different author or I'd have written it months ago. Perhaps the DG consortium could do it?

900 page novel? Depends on the printer but I think 750,000 words. Anyone else any ideas of the appropriate length? (for the book!)

Og

 

[MathGirl]

Re: Re: Re: Define your terms

Originally posted by oggbashan TWSCEC01 was the first chapter of a chain story. As it chain story on Lit chap 02 should have a different author or I'd have written it months ago. Perhaps the DG consortium could do it?

Dear Venerable Og,
As I remember, TWCSEC02 was to be written by a certain person who has never done so. I won't embarrass the Swede by mentioning any names.
MG
Ps. Thank you for the information.

 

[OldnotDead]

'The good ones transport you, the great ones change you, and the bad ones--well, at least they are short.'
       -- Francis Ford Coppola

Certainly explains my vote. Thanks, Lauren.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The most scathing literary review ever was delivered by one Ambrose Bierce. His only comment was something along the lines of "The major problem with this book is that there is too much distance between the covers"

Short stories are great because if you find you don't like the author's style, premise, handling of the characters of what have you you haven't wasted much time discovering that. For writers it's great because you can just write it and don't have to worry about filling in space to pad it up to some arbitrary length of words or pages.

-Colly