Why reject a story that's too short?

[amar7112002]

Twice I submitted the same story to this web site and twice it has been rejected. The main reason for being to short. Why should the admins care if the story is to short? Would I have better luck posting it in the poems section?
Thanks, Andrew

 

[lovecraft68]

Twice I submitted the same story to this web site and twice it has been rejected. The main reason for being to short. Why should the admins care if the story is to short? Would I have better luck posting it in the poems section?
Thanks, Andrew

How short? I believe the minimum is 750 words. Can you "bulk" it up to that?

 

[Darkniciad]

It's just one of the rules at Lit. Why this limit was chosen I have no idea.

If you have multiple short stories, you could bundle them under a single title to go over the minimum word limit.

Doubt you'll be able to get it posted as a poem unless it's actually a poem. The poetry section also gets very few reads, and the readership appears to be quite critical. Odds are that you would get very few votes, and that they wouldn't exactly be on the high end of the scale.

If I were you, I'd muse up another short story or two with similar themes and bundle them.

 

[estragon]

The great OggBashan bundled 50 fifteen-word stories, got to 750, and scored very well.

 

[Darkniciad]

The great OggBashan bundled 50 fifteen-word stories, got to 750, and scored very well.

15-50 word stories

 

[Stella_Omega]

If you post it as a poem, be advised that there are some readers who take their poetry very seriously and will critique the fuck out of you.

Write an author's note at the beginning or end, about what the weather was like the day you wrote it, or something like that untill you get your word count up to the limit

 

[mythtrav16]

It's just one of the rules at Lit. Why this limit was chosen I have no idea.

You need a minimum size limit on stories, otherwise a budding writer might assume writing "Tits!" is an erotic composition worth of being immortalized. After all, it conjures up arousing fantasies, in some cases to the point where the reader doesn't need any further stimulation.

Submissions this short, while fun, would ultimately become quite repetative, as no doubt many other authors would have similar short entries of their own. e.g. "Boobs!"

And can you imagine what this trend would do to the theme day contests? e.g. Typical entries:
Valentines Day: "I love tits!"
Earth Day: "Natural tits!"
Nude Day: "Bare tits!"
Summer Loving: "Hot tits!"
Halloween: "When I die, I wanna be smothered by huge tits!"
Winter Holidays: "Tits when they get cold!"

 

[mynameisben]

Take a minute or two to identify all the adjectives in your story. Then insert the word "really" immediately ahead of each adjective. Or, if you're feeling particularly creative, mix things up a bit by replacing every other "really" with a "very" to keep your readers interested. If that doesn't get you to your word count, use two really's or two very's in a row. Repeat as necessary, following the same pattern of expansion, until your word count goal has been achieved.

 

[Stella_Omega]

ergo:
Valentines Day: "I really love tits!"
Earth Day: "Really Natural tits!"
Nude Day: "Very Bare tits!"
Summer Loving: "Really Hot tits!"
Halloween: "When I die, I wanna be smothered by really huge tits!"
Winter Holidays: "Tits when they get really cold!"

 

[mythtrav16]

ergo:
Valentines Day: "I really love tits!"
Earth Day: "Really Natural tits!"
Nude Day: "Very Bare tits!"
Summer Loving: "Really Hot tits!"
Halloween: "When I die, I wanna be smothered by really huge tits!"
Winter Holidays: "Tits when they get really cold!"

Out of curiosity, how can bare tits get any more bare?

I was about to ask the same question about natural tits, but I suppose really natural tits are ones that have never had artifical support from bras and whatnot.

 

[Darkniciad]

I don't think anyone's talking about one sentence stories, here. Flash fiction, people

 

[Stella_Omega]

I don't think anyone's talking about one sentence stories, here. Flash fiction, people

I belong to a kink-writing community elsewhere, and i find that most people's flashfiction isn't fully realised. It is possible to get a beginning middle and end into one hundred words, or a premise and denoument-- but the effort of clicking onto a page, waaaaiting all those precious seconds for the page to load, just to read someone's didn't-quite-make-it attempt.. Well it just leaves me clutching my pearls. And in a bad mood when it comes to rating.

 

[Weird Harold]

It's just one of the rules at Lit. Why this limit was chosen I have no idea.

From discussions long ago:

"The 750 word limit was chosen so that the story takes up (nearly) as much room as the ads."

 

[mynameisben]

Out of curiosity, how can bare tits get any more bare?

When the wife shaves hers and I can actually see her nipples, woohoo!

Other bare tits can become more bare by removing nipple jewelry, piercings, pasties, suction cups, etc.

 

[amar7112002]

Thanks to everyone who helped answer my question about story length. It made sense to me now. I'll try and spice it up a bit. to get to the minimum word count. Maybe some ohhs and ahhs to help the count...lol
Andrew

 

[Candlelight062]

I WISH I could write a short story.

Every time I try, I end up with a 10,000 plus word chapter! I guess I talk too much, and I do enjoy talking (and dialogue), but I'm jealous of people who can write short stories and be satisfied with them.

One of my half bro/sis stories, "A Shy Flower Blossoms in Alpena" was part of a much longer story that I had worked really hard to shorten. Took me a fucking three weeks to do it, too.

I'm still not happy with it although I do get great feedback and it scores pretty well, too.

 

[HeyAll]

If people thought the 5 day wait for a story to be posted, just imagine if the minimum requirment was cut down- oh my. You could potentially have a 10 day wait were a bunch of clowns submit their trash in an attempt to either troll or see their name on a website.

 

[bumblegrum]

Hi candlelight062. You said, "Every time I try, I end up with a 10,000 plus word chapter! I guess I talk too much, and I do enjoy talking (and dialogue), but I'm jealous of people who can write short stories and be satisfied with them."

I agree absolutely. I try to write short stories, but the characters take over and won't let me stop. Incidentally, I suspect that if you (we) write a lot of dialogue it will tend to make the story longer. But more interesting, so far as I'm concerned

 

[lovecraft68]

If people thought the 5 day wait for a story to be posted, just imagine if the minimum requirment was cut down- oh my. You could potentially have a 10 day wait were a bunch of clowns submit their trash in an attempt to either troll or see their name on a website.

What would be the difference? we already have a bunch of clowns submitting their trash, us included

at least real short stories would be able to be vetted quickly.

 

[PayDay]

If you post it as a poem, be advised that there are some readers who take their poetry very seriously and will critique the fuck out of you.

Write an author's note at the beginning or end, about what the weather was like the day you wrote it, or something like that untill you get your word count up to the limit

This is the single most awesome suggestion for story length that I have ever seen.

You deserve any form of the definition of the word 'cookie' that you choose.