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  1. Berkwin

    Berkwin New Member

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    Short Story Awkward length stories...

    Discussion in 'Genre Discussions' started by Berkwin, Oct 15, 2014.

    Hello everyone,

    I love writing stories, but most of the time when I write the end result is far too long to be considered a short story (up to 10,000 words), but there is not much chance of me making them into full length books due to my minimalist style.
    What should I be doing with these? What would you call them?
     
  2. stevesh

    stevesh Banned Contributor

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    Well, I guess I'd call a ten-thousand-word short story something other than a 'minimalist style'. I've never read a short story that couldn't be tightened up length-wise. Maybe when you have been here long enough, you could post a paragraph or two in the workshops and we can take a look.
     
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  3. Nilfiry

    Nilfiry Senior Member

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    You would call that a "novelette" as modern conventions go, but there is no strict standard on how many words constitute a short story, novel, or novella. Personally, I would still call it a short story. Ten thousand words is not long at all.
     
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  4. jonahmann

    jonahmann Active Member

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    In this interview Stephen Kings says Anne, a novelette, was too long for a magazine but it ended up published in a short story collection. That might be the way you have to go.

     
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  5. Edward M. Grant

    Edward M. Grant Contributor Contributor

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    If all else fails, self-publish them. There's a market for stories of any length as ebooks, though novels generally sell the best.
     
  6. jazzabel

    jazzabel Agent Provocateur Contributor

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    10k words is still within short story limit. Once you are significantly over that, like 15 or 20k you have a novelette. 30-60k is a novella (roughly) and 65-70k and above is a novel, but most bestsellers are at least 90k.

    One thing you can do is write a novel that consists of related long-short stories. You can have three or even five, they can work together quite well. Also if you had ten stories of 10k words, you'd have an average-length book, so I don't see a problem. Write how it feels best, edit etc. and whatever you end up with, it'll work out as long as it's well-written.
     
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