Length of Posted Pieces

Posted by tcook on Fri, 01 Feb 2013

I am often asked what is the ideal length of a piece of prose to post on here - and the answer is 1500 to 2000 words.

If your piece is longer then I suggest that you break it up into sections and post it in bits.

You can get away with 3000 words - but it will inevitably suffer from fewer reads and anything over that taxes the patience of the Editors!

Comments

Submitted by karl_wiggins on
Tony, I couldn't agree more. People dip in and out of ABC Tales for a quick read, as opposed to taking a good book to bed or to the beach. A long piece taxes the patience not only of the editors but also the readers. One of my own pieces contains 11,000 words. Way to long for ABC Tales, I know, but I invested quite a lot of research into this piece in particular. I keep intending to submit it to the right magazine. Surprisinly it's had 119 reads, but as no one's made a single comment I can only assume people took one look at the length of it and moved on to someone else's work. I would.

 

Submitted by scratch on
Absolutely right Karl, I call it 'click and run'. I fell foul of the same dilemma with my first prose submission. I think it was jolono who offered sage advice at the time.

 

Submitted by scratch on
In fairness Harry this brilliant short was runner-up for this years story of the year. http://www.abctales.com/story/blackjack-davey/brightlingsea-boy Cited from the front page of the site. It can't be far off the length you mention.