Ive looked for this and for the life of me, I cant find the answer. What are word counts that make short stories a short, a novella a novella, and a novel a novel? Help appreciated.
what makes a short story a short story? (mss. lengths/wordcount)
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I am sure someone will come along and give you word counts. I was going to say....a short story is fewer words...lol. But I know that is not what you are wanting.
Flash stories can be from 50 words on up to like 2500 or so. I think a lot depends on what genre you are doing. Like I said...someone will come along with the numbers you are looking for. I think novellas are around 40,000.
Flash stories can be from 50 words on up to like 2500 or so. I think a lot depends on what genre you are doing. Like I said...someone will come along with the numbers you are looking for. I think novellas are around 40,000.
http://stason.org/TULARC/writing/mi...andard-word-counts-for-novels-short-stor.html scroll down for the count list
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/wordcount.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count
http://www.lindarohrbough.com/pdfs/genrehurdletableone.pdf breakdown of average lenght for genres in novels
Google. learn it. Use it.
http://www.fictionfactor.com/articles/wordcount.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count
http://www.lindarohrbough.com/pdfs/genrehurdletableone.pdf breakdown of average lenght for genres in novels
Google. learn it. Use it.
The only official wordcounts I know are those for SF & fantasy award categories.
The one used for the Hugo and Nebula awards and also certain magazine contents pages are:
up to 7500 words is a short story
7500 to 17,500 words is a novelet(te)
17,500 to 40,000 is a novella
40,000 and up is a novel - though bear in mind these date from the days when many SF novels were as short as 40k!
The World Fantasy Award just has short story and novella categories, and 10,000 words is the dividing line there, with novels again beginning at 40k.
The one used for the Hugo and Nebula awards and also certain magazine contents pages are:
up to 7500 words is a short story
7500 to 17,500 words is a novelet(te)
17,500 to 40,000 is a novella
40,000 and up is a novel - though bear in mind these date from the days when many SF novels were as short as 40k!
The World Fantasy Award just has short story and novella categories, and 10,000 words is the dividing line there, with novels again beginning at 40k.
I've read a short story that spanned about 100 pages in a Robert Olen Butler Collection. I think it was called "The American Couple." No joke. Good story, though.
I would certainly call that a novella - with normal typesetting that's likely to be somewhere in the 25k to 35k word range.
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We have a stickied formatting/submissions guidelines thread in FAQs forum that's well worth a read:
FAQ: Cathy C's Formatting Manuscripts for Submission - All your questions answered!
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26126
-Derek
FAQ: Cathy C's Formatting Manuscripts for Submission - All your questions answered!
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26126
-Derek
There is no absolute rule. Different groups set different approximate guidelines. Editors & publishers have their own opinions. Novellas and flash can appear alongside short stories. Flash fiction is variously defined as <1,000 words, <500 words, 100-500 words, depending on the market. <100 words is sometimes called micro fiction. Exactly 100 is a drabble. It's all a bit silly, just humans splitting things up to make a mess where none needs to be. ;-)
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