7,582 word short story?

I'd suggest moving this to the short fiction subforum to get more hits.

Short answer: depends on the market.

Shorts are usually ~5k, but I've seen upward to 10k. Dempsey was dead on -- depends on the market.

I believe the short story upper limit (which aside from magazine guidelines, defines annual prize categories) is 7,500 words. So technically you've bust the upper limit and should perhaps consider the joys of the 10% rule.

-Derek

Same as everyone else. It depends on the market but I would call it a long-short story.

Yeah, what they all said. As short stories go, that's long, but there are some markets in some genres which are open to such lengths. However, length alone makes you ineligible for many more.

I used to write much longer than I do now. It may not seem possible to you, the author, but odds are you could trim that puppy to 5,000 and have many more potential placements. If you decide that's an option worth the attempt, my own experience was that starting over rather than deleting was the way to go.

Maryn, glad to meet you

I'd consider it a long short. I also agree with the others: placement depends on the market. The two short stories I've sold were 9K words, but that particular market accepted stories up to 12K. Others cut off at 8K or lower.

It is a rather long short story. But still a short story nevertheless.

I consider it about mid-range, which is decidedly different than what others have been telling you. In my experience, it's difficult to find a market for that length.

About halfway between "short story" and "novellete" in most markets. There are still places that will take it, but they'll be a bit fewer.

JStephen said:

I appreciate the expertise everyone. I was worried that it may be too short, as it's about 13.5 pages single spaced in Word 12 pt. times new roman. I guess in courier, double spaced, it'd be many more pages and probably be a better projection of how many pages it'd actually be published.

This is only a first draft though, so the 10% rule will work nicely.

Click to expand...

Don't worry about pages now, just words.

It's the words that matter, not the pages.

It would be too long for any of the markets I normally submit to, but as has been stated before, it depends on the specific market.

The number of pages only matters when you're printing out copies to edit...

As has been said, it all comes down to your target market's definition of "short" (or, indeed, submittable).

At Pantechnicon we'll take anything up to 15,000 words for a story, but authors are welcome to contact us about anything longer that may be split into separate instalments. At Hub the upper limit is 6,000 words, unless we've previously published you, in which case we're willing to discuss longer pieces.

I don't think it's too long. However, you might wanna trim it so it's under 7500 words, that will open a few more doors for you. Some places have max word limits at 7500 and 10 000 words. Guess you'll have to research your markets, eh? Good luck. ^_^ *listens hard for the sound of duotrope being fired up*

-An

I've written a short story that is 11,800 words which is a really irritating length for it to end at because it makes it really hard to market. Its basically halfway between a short story and a novella. I've seen heaps of magazines that take stories higher then 5 thousand words. Alot have a limit of 10 thousand, some 7 thousand words. I know of one magazine that has a limit of 20 thousand. Try cutting your story down to a flat 7 thousand words. It'd make it easier to sell.

Most of the competitions I see are looking for 3,000 words max, some of them 2000. There are a few which relent and allow 5,000 but apart from the infamous Willesden Short Story Contest, I don't know of any which are free to enter.

As others have said, it depends on the market.

But it also depends on the story. If you decide to trim the story, do it because the story needs to be tighter and shorter and more compressed. Don't cut length purely because of the markets.

The trick is knowing which case you're faced with.

I cut a 7000 word short story down to 6000 words not long ago, which opened up a lot of new markets for the piece. In fact, Zahir just took it.

I try to keep a short to 5000 words or less, for marketing purposes. Often the brevity also strengthens the story. My habit is to write long, then cut by up to a third.

Your 7500 short is still a short, though a longish one. Post some on SYW and ask for estimates on how much it might be shortened.

I found this helpful, as I was wondering the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count

Here's the thing. Even places that accept pieces up to 8000 or 10000 words are more likely to buy a 5000 word piece than a 7500 word piece from an unknown.

I learned that with my first IMO saleable story, which still hasn't placed (though I cut and cut over the years and rejections and it's down to 5300 much stronger words now.)

1. That's a novelette.

2. Cut, cut, cut. Not because you want a leaner wordcount, but because you want leaner, meaner prose. Cutting is a great exercise.

3. Despite rumors to the contrary, a novelette can sell. It has to fit the market, and be good, but this is not the "killer" length. A novella, on the other hand, is almost impossible to sell.

First off: on the word-count/page-count thing... a page in manuscript format is usually about 200-250 words depending on how much dialogue is in it. You're looking at 30+ pages once you get it ready to send out.

Yeah, you can sell things at that length, but the shorter the better for most markets. I second Gray Rose, though. That's not WHY you want to cut, that's just a happy side effect.

Short stories need to have even tighter prose than novels. (Ideally, novels will have extremely tight prose as well, but there is more breathing room in the longer form.) Yes, magazines want to give really good stories first - but here's the thing. They also want to sell copies. If you can say "Contains stories by: BIG LIST OF AUTHORS HERE" you're more likely to hook readers on one or more of the authors. Magazines will have a maximum page count, so there's only so much space per issue. Long stories take up more space, which is why in most markets they have to be 7500 really good words.

Recommendations:
1) Let the story marinate in its own juices for a little bit. Let yourself work on something else for a while and get a little distance. Forget what you wrote.
2) Go in with a sharpened blade and cut. The 10% is a guideline, you might have to cut more. If you can't find a purpose for a line, cut it. If you have two sentences that do the same, or almost the same thing, cut one of them. If you have two sentences that do two separate things, cut one and revise the other to take up both roles.
3) Once you think that the story is ready - find a critiquer. If you don't have one already, Share Your Work is a good place to get some extra eyes on your work.
4) Take all of your critiques and then decide which ones to follow. Using your critiques effectively is another skill that you learn by practice.

The thing about cutting - don't feel discouraged that we're telling you to lose large chunks of the story without seeing it. I have read a lot of 6000-10000 word first drafts. Even the very best of the best of those could stand to lose upwards of 1000 words. It's just a function of the first draft process.

It's classified a 'novelette'.