Keeping it short

I must confess, that I never look at the number of words in a story before reading. As long as there is still something happening in the story, I keep reading. I only leave a story before the end, if it seems to be of a kind, that I do not like.

When I begin to read a story here on LSF, many times I'll look at that little bar on the side and judge from its length how long it is. Unless it really grabs me right away, I'll pass on the stories that seem to be >4 - 5K words in length.

When I write long stories I'll post them as one long story on other sites, but here I break them up into chapters to make them easier to read.

Goodgulf

For a standalone short story I like to stay under 5K words. Doesn't always work, as witness my recent contest entry which even at 6k plus did ok. Beyond that I split it into parts with each part being somewhat integral, that is, having a beginning, middle and a satisfying end. Can't always do this, but that's the objective.

The length of a story just depends on what you have to tell. If my story is about a guy who has encounters with 3 different ladies, it will be longer than one in which a guy has a spat with his wife. As a rule, I tend to like novelettes and novellas which can run from 12k words to 50k words. It's just what I like to write. I find that the longer forms allow more plot and character development. That said, if I get an idea for a quick hit short story, I'll do it.

I think tastes differ. Many readers don't want to get into long epics and others like those forms, but I'd say that a preference for the short story dominates on this site.

I had an interesting experience with a challenge entry, ending up with 3100 words when the limit for entries was 2500. It seemed terribly difficult to lose those 600 words, I was sure the story would be ruined and considered not entering it in the challenge and just submitting it as an ordinary story. Finally I forced myself to prune it quite brutally and I got it below the limit. The interesting thing is that when i go back to it now I'm not aware of anything being missing. In fact, I can't even remember what was in those bits I cut out!

I know I've said this before somewhere on the LSF forums, but give this topic, allow me to repeat this guideline for story length. A story should be like a woman's skirt. Adequate to cover the subject, but brief enough to be interesting.

My experience was different. I wrote a story that got to 3900 words and when I pared it down to 2500 I hated it, so I published it outside the contest as a standalone.

Lots of very good advice here by alot of experienced good writers far beyond my capabilities. Like Jessica, I do alot of technical writing for Journals and such and all articles are peer reviewed before they are accepted for publication, or not. I've had a few that haven't made it but several that have. When it comes to writing these kinds of stories I have to agree with the advice which states write whay YOU like, not what you think others want to read. I follow this advice. I write what I like in spanking fiction and since my favorites go back to the old letters to the editor in Mr. I have adopted this type of story here. I also like shorter stories like these letters were. I also think that if you are writing something that really does it for you, it can stimulate and make the writing better. I can't imagine writing a spanking scenario that I just have no interest in, I am pretty sure that would show up. So write what you like and there are plenty here who will also enjoy it as well. So far this has worked ok for me.