Sounds like a bit of a silly question, but exactly how long, or short is a short story? I've think I've read one or two that were approximately five or eight pages on 8 1/2 by 11 paper.
However long you like. A good deal of the short stories people commonly read, espeically online, are between 2,000 and 4,000 words. However, most short stories that are published in print are usually in an anthrology or a collection or combination of short stories of sorts, and they're usually 7,000 - 14,000... after that I think they're technically considered a novella, but I'm not sure.
Well, short stories less than 1000 words are technically flash fiction, so you should aim for longer than that. From Wikipedia.com:
I dont really think theres a guideline for short stories. Basically, it can't be a whole book. I believe that would be the ground rule.
I use A4 paper and print using Microsoft Word as standard, so i work by word count. I'd say about 2000 - 5000 words.
Anything that can be read in one hit is a short story, apparently. Short stories are normally under ten A4 pages
you should only consider word count, not pages... that's all editors go by... and to the professional writing/publishing world, 'anything that can be read in one hit' is not a 'short story'... see the categories listed above by hylo, for the industry standards... add to that, under 1,000 is 'flash fiction'...
