shoooooooooort stories?

I like Mississippi's idea. It sounds like a very interesting novel! I guess if you're going to write a 70,000 word "short story" you could always submit it in seperate chapters. Most of my short stories are on the lenghty side and I don't get very many votes either. But I can't possibly make them any shorter!! Hmm... that's probably a problem with me. Once I completely finish a story to my satisfation and find out that it's really long (namely what happened with my 8,000+ story), I can't bear to cut any big sections out of it! (It's too painful.) Even though I technically can.

Depends on the market you're aiming for Missus. I've found most of the 'usual' mags prefer their shorts to be up to 2000 words. But, there again, some will take 3000, some 5000. 'Course, if you're a Hemmingway, they can be any length you like... Like my old tutor used to say ('moan, groan, sigh and strangle' I hear you say) - study your market more than thoroughly... Bless 'im.

I wrote a short story 8,395 words once! (But was it really short?) I don't know! I just know that it's too long to be considered a novella, so I guess it's a short story! Or maybe you're looking for something like this: The longest one I wrote that has gotten cherried was 4,278. I guess you'd better ask the editors what they prefer. But then again, do the editor's wishes really matter? No! Write your story the length you think it should be! Make it 30,000 words if you think it's necessary!! But to answer your question, I would say a short story is between 1,500-5,000 words. It really depends on what you're trying to accomplish, though, and how much space you need to do it in!

How long is a piece of string? twice the length from the middle to either end !! I don't know what magazines or anthologies want but i think aiming for below 7000 is a good start. That's what i have always done i have stories that are less than 100 words though so it's dificult to say how long i should be really. I do know that some people have begun the new category of mini stories or micro stories something like that anyway. Does anyone know anything about this?

Difficult to say how long YOU should be, Mortal? Come now...(chuckle) Yes, know about the mini-story thing. It's a good excercise in learning how to cut out the ' purple prose' crap...

Donignacio - anyone who writes a 70,000 word story and posts it in one chunk on this site had better make every one of those words damn compelling - that's a lot of reading. Andrea is right - it depends who you're selling / trying to sell the story too. Of course, if you're just writing for yourself (and you'll probably turn out happier and richer in the long run) then it really doesn't matter. I did find recently that fixing an arbitrary length of 2000 words helped me quite a lot, because I had to go back and cut what wasn't important. So that's maybe the ultimate answer - you write your story and when you can't cut anymore without losing what is vital, then it's the right length.

My problem is somewhat different. I set out to write a novel, promising myself it would be at least 100,000 words. I now find I have killed off the central character after only 45,000 words... any ideas, other than a very, very, very long, descriptive funeral scene?

Right Fecky, here's the plan! After the funeral organise a seance at the piss-up, conjure up a resurrection and spend the next 55,000 words picking up where the grim reaper intervened and endow your central character with immortality! How's that? Hold on a minute, this sounds like one of Mark's favourite stories! (Only kidding Mark!) Thanks for the comments everyone, I wasn't looking to target anybody or even post a story, I was just curious about the broad guide lines. Having said that, I have been writing a story, for myself really. By last weekend it had passed 22,000 words and now stands at 25,000, and I don't seem to be able to stop. Andrews arbitrary 2000 words just about covers the cast! So I'll have to have a cull or publish it as a telephone directory. Trouble is I think that's already been done!

Continue the story from the perspective of the central character as if they weren't dead! And confuse the readership!! Or find another character to take over central stage!! Jen xxx

There's no definition. The first story I wrote panned out at 200k words, and that transmogrified into a four-novel cycle of 700k words. Before discovering ABC, my "short" stories averaged 4-11k words, but I soon realised that no-one would bother with much more than 1500 words online. So, on ABC.. 1-2 thousand words, and the most read tales are frequently much shorter. The average reader's attention span is notoriously short.. that's probably why so few people vote - they never get to the end.

The length of me is entirely personal suffice to say i'm lengthy enough but this sort of discussion best be kept in the bunker perhaps?