What is a short story?

[mack_the_knife]

The thread regarding his story growing out of control by Seacat has me wondering, what is a short story, or a novella, or a novel. How many words go into each? Is there a set rule? Is it just the feel of the story?

 

[SeaCat]

The thread regarding his story growing out of control by Seacat has me wondering, what is a short story, or a novella, or a novel. How many words go into each? Is there a set rule? Is it just the feel of the story?

I'm not sure what the technical rules are for them, but I do know what I'm working on no longer qualifies as a short story.

I look at a short story as being anywhere up to ten or twenty typed pages.

Cat

 

[mack_the_knife]

I'm not sure what the technical rules are for them, but I do know what I'm working on no longer qualifies as a short story.

I look at a short story as being anywhere up to ten or twenty typed pages.

Cat

I can barely squeeze someone opening a door into a short story, then, I am too wordy. My shorties run between 5 and 25 thousand words. Novellas 40-80. Novels 100+.

 

[Guest]

One that leaves the reader wishing there was more.

 

[R. Richard]

The thread regarding his story growing out of control by Seacat has me wondering, what is a short story, or a novella, or a novel. How many words go into each? Is there a set rule? Is it just the feel of the story?

While there is not a set rule as such, many publishers set their own rules for each category.

 

[Alex756]

This is a good guideline

http://www.pgtc.com/~slmiller/writinglengths.htm

Micro fiction under 100
Flash fiction under 1000
Short story 1000 to 7500
Novella, novellette 7000 to 50,000
Novel 50,000 to approximately 150,000
Epic over 150,000


~Alex

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

The thread regarding his story growing out of control by Seacat has me wondering, what is a short story, or a novella, or a novel. How many words go into each? Is there a set rule? Is it just the feel of the story?

Whatever the editor you're submitting to says it is.

No joke.

Flashquake uses the guideline Alex posted and will consider anything under 1000 words. Expresso Fiction places a 200 word limit on flash. Write your story, then check the guidelines where you were thinking about submitting.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[mack_the_knife]

This is a good guideline

http://www.pgtc.com/~slmiller/writinglengths.htm

Micro fiction under 100
Flash fiction under 1000
Short story 1000 to 7500
Novella, novellette 7000 to 50,000
Novel 50,000 to approximately 150,000
Epic over 150,000


~Alex

Woot! Solitary Arrow is a short epic!
I've got sex scenes that are novellas!

 

[Alex756]

Woot! Solitary Arrow is a short epic!
I've got sex scenes that are novellas!

See I had to post something to make you woot gotta love making men woot.

~Alex

 

[Boxlicker101]

This is a good guideline

http://www.pgtc.com/~slmiller/writinglengths.htm

Micro fiction under 100
Flash fiction under 1000
Short story 1000 to 7500
Novella, novellette 7000 to 50,000
Novel 50,000 to approximately 150,000
Epic over 150,000


~Alex

I find it a little hard to believe that a novella could be as short as 7,000 words. I have a lot of stories longer than that and I think of them as short stories. My only novella is about 22,000 words.

 

[Alex756]

I find it a little hard to believe that a novella could be as short as 7,000 words. I have a lot of stories longer than that and I think of them as short stories. My only novella is about 22,000 words.

I've seen short novellas before, mostly in pulp mags like amazing stories/analog/whatever its called these days. but make some of thos 7000 words the monstrous hyphenated technical terms of hard sci fi with the itty wonds I use, 7000 is tiny tiny

Its all so subjective. i'm halfway to 7K on my NaNo entry and not even done with a chapter so no way do I think 7K is a novella, but *shrug*

~Alex

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Structurally, I think of short stories as being about one particular occurance or event. There may be a lot of background leading up to that event, but it's basically about one episode in your character's life - usually something profound, something that causes a change in your character or reveals something about them.

Novels and novellas take a different approach to telling a story. Rather than dealing with one event, they present a problem or issue that has to be solved and divide the action into a number of episodes. The only difference between a novel and a novella is in word count. Their structures are pretty much the same.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules, but that's how I understand it.

 

[Guest]

Structurally, I think of short stories as being about one particular occurance or event. There may be a lot of background leading up to that event, but it's basically about one episode in your character's life - usually something profound, something that causes a change in your character or reveals something about them.

Novels and novellas take a different approach to telling a story. Rather than dealing with one event, they present a problem or issue that has to be solved and divide the action into a number of episodes. The only difference between a novel and a novella is in word count. Their structures are pretty much the same.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules, but that's how I understand it.

i like this perspective. its easier for me to divide a story into ideals and then categorize it than to say..."ye of only 7g words are only a short story." even if it is.

 

[rgraham666]

I just write the damn thing.

If someone else wants to categorise it, shrugs.

 

[Guest]

well.. I found out that my last submission to LIT was too short a story. Rejected for not having enough words....oops! I didn't even count, wasn't thinking about a lower limit.
So I made every other sentence rhyme and resubmitted as a poem.










(kidding, about the poem, not the rejection due to my short length )

 

[elsol]

Short stories < 10 pages
Novellas > 60 pages but < 80 pages
Novels > 150 pages

Everything in between occurs because I'm not good enough to chop it down to the lesser or the story is not large enough to expand it to greater.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Boota]

Shit. I accidentally wrote an epic, according to those guidelines.

The most constant word count I hear about a novel is 80,000 words. That is kind of the target number most publishers seem to want as a novel. (My first novel is about 175,000 words. No wonder I had to self-publish!) I've always heard between 50,000 and 80,000 is novella range.

As far as short stories go I look at them in the same Dr. M does. Not so much as a word count, but as a one situation story. I've never even attempted micro fiction or flash fiction. It seems really difficult, to tell a good story in so few words.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Structurally, I think of short stories as being about one particular occurance or event. There may be a lot of background leading up to that event, but it's basically about one episode in your character's life - usually something profound, something that causes a change in your character or reveals something about them.

Novels and novellas take a different approach to telling a story. Rather than dealing with one event, they present a problem or issue that has to be solved and divide the action into a number of episodes. The only difference between a novel and a novella is in word count. Their structures are pretty much the same.

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules, but that's how I understand it.

I think this is the best way to describe it. Although, if you start a short story, and it runs 80,000 words, obviously it can still deal with a single incident, and obviously it isn't still a short story. A lot of the time, my short stories, which tend to be of the longer variety, will be divided into several subcategories, often more for effect, or to save me from making it longer by giving me (and the reader) a break from what can be considered the less "important action," meaning the explanation of each and every turn in a tunnel when I can simply break away when they enter the tunnel (assuming nothing notable happens while navigating said tunnel) and then open the next paragraph (after said break) with something like "After travelling hours that felt like days, through turn after turn, hunched over their own legs beneath the low ceiling fo the tunnel, they came to a fork/a break/the sight of daylight up ahead..."

I guess what I'm saying is, structure may not be the best way to identify either. I've honestly never really thought much about what they're called. I don't see the point when I can just write the story, edit the story, and let others label it their way, like RG said. If I need specifics, it'll be because an editor (or editor-in-chief) suggests I follow them, in which case, his/hers will have to suffice.

Q_C

 

[CharleyH]

This is a good guideline

http://www.pgtc.com/~slmiller/writinglengths.htm

Micro fiction under 100
Flash fiction under 1000
Short story 1000 to 7500
Novella, novellette 7000 to 50,000
Novel 50,000 to approximately 150,000
Epic over 150,000


~Alex

Yep - thats about it.