Is 10K too long for a short story?

prairie

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I completed a 10K short story which is a YA dystopian piece. It's already been rejected once, but don't know why by Analog. In any case, I'm wondering if the story is too long? I've had it professionally edited and criticqued so I feel good about it, but just wondering.
 

Anna Iguana

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It's longer than what a lot of fiction mags and anthologies are looking for, but in researching publishers, I've for sure seen an open call for stories up to 15,000 words.
 

jenvander

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies just upped their max length to 14,000 words due to their subscription drive success. The fact that this was a specific goal of theirs speaks to their love of a longer story, in my opinion. I read them regularly and it is not unusual to see 8k+ stories. They enjoy good worldbuilding and character-driven stories. If your piece matches their style, it might be worth a try. They are an SFWA qualifying market too. They don't require a subscription to read their stories (they use a donation-based model), so it costs nothing but a bit of reading time to get a feel for their style :)

To be fair, if the story's pacing is too slow, or if there are slumps or expositionary dumps, judicious cuts couldn't hurt. Since I haven't read it, I don't know if that's true of the piece. Since you've had it professionally edited and critiqued, I would assume you'd been warned about any of that by now ;-)
 

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10K is not too long for many magazines, but since they pay by the word, the longer the story, the better it has to be. So a very long story is a harder sell.

Analog is notoriously difficult to break into. They're arguably the biggest and longest-running and most prestigious mag in the genre, and can afford to select only the very best of the best.
 

blacbird

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Now is when you need to research publications and their expressed requirements. Almost every publication will clearly state guidelines regarding word count.

caw
 

emstar94

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If the submission requirements are 10,000 or below you should be totally fine, in any case it doesn't sound that long to me. Since you've had it edited and critiqued it should all be in good form so I'm not sure what the issue could be, other than bad timing
 

Harlequin

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Analog prefers stuff with a decent amount of science in it, from my understanding, and also I can't recall any of their published short stories being YA. It's almost certainly an adult fiction magazine, but I could be wrong.

"NEEDS: Basically, we publish science fiction stories. That is, stories in which some aspect of future science or technology is so integral to the plot that, if that aspect were removed, the story would collapse. The science can be physical, sociological, psychological."
 

CL_Hilbert

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In my experience, 10k is nearly impossible to sell. I've never been able to do it. I'll get editors who like the story and the writing, but it's too long. Or, even more frustrating, they think it's too *short* and say it feels like it should be expanded into a novel. Not that they buy novels, mind you, it's just a thing they think would be nice.

Maddening.
 

Taylor Harbin

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Beneath Ceaseless Skies just upped their max length to 14,000 words due to their subscription drive success. The fact that this was a specific goal of theirs speaks to their love of a longer story, in my opinion. I read them regularly and it is not unusual to see 8k+ stories. They enjoy good worldbuilding and character-driven stories. If your piece matches their style, it might be worth a try. They are an SFWA qualifying market too. They don't require a subscription to read their stories (they use a donation-based model), so it costs nothing but a bit of reading time to get a feel for their style :)

To be fair, if the story's pacing is too slow, or if there are slumps or expositionary dumps, judicious cuts couldn't hurt. Since I haven't read it, I don't know if that's true of the piece. Since you've had it professionally edited and critiqued, I would assume you'd been warned about any of that by now ;-)

I've had my eye on BCS for a long time now, but only one of my recent ideas really strikes me as appropriate for their magazine. The others are either too short or it's impossible to bend an otherwise science fiction story into a "future fantasy" tale.