Question:

[Guest]

(I am asking this in a few boards to get a variety of people who may not always check out the Gen board. Forgive me if your reading this is a repeat!)

If there was a collection of stories, and each was sent in as one sumbission (instead of a novella), would it be bad if one (or all) of the stories were roughly only a page long? Would it be alright and still flow with the group of stories, or would it be a borrish waste of time to be so small?

I'm wishing to get several opinions on this question. I'm debating if I can submit some writings as is, or if I should thicken one story.

Thanks for your time.


~Tiggs

 

[cymbidia]

(Well, my answer is a repeat, too, Tiggs. ~s~ Sorta.)

One Lit page or one Word page?

One word page, that might be a little too short, really, in my opinion. It's difficult to get a story told in one Word page. The most common criticism i recieve from all my stories and poems combined is that the shortest one (almost two Word pages) is too short.

One Lit page = about three Word pages. That's a good length for a short story. (Most of my stories are one Lit page long so this could be construed as blatant self-interest.)


Updated answer: I thought that one one Lit page = about three Word pages but i needed a hard copy of my story "Pierced" and decided to pull it off Lit to check that theory.

"Pierced" has 4,081 words, excluding title, author name, and disclaimer.

"Pierced" is about 1.25 Lit pages long.

I have Microsoft Word 2000, v.9, and in there, it's almost exactly 7.5 pages in 10-pt Verdana font.

My hard copy, however, is 8.5 pages long.

Interesting, the differences.
Okay, interesting to me, anyway.

 

[Guest]

Heeeeeeey....

This is Deja Vu, kinda.

 

[Samuari]

The one consistent complaint that I get my stories get is that they are too short. I think 4000 words is as long as I've ever written, and MOAL, chapter 6 was just under 2000. I've been thinking that a contest for the best story in a thousand words or less might be fun.
The big thing is to be compleat. I've seen stories that were 4 or 5 lit pages long and a compleat waist of time, surprised that Laurel posted them. If the quality is there, Tiggs, go ahead and post them, I love a really good compact story.

 

[Weird Harold]

My response said about the same thing as Cymbidia did, but in the Editor's Forum.