Forum: Author Hangout

anything shorter than a short story, but then you need to define how many words that is.

It may not apply, but SOL's Contest Rules for a story indicate 20KB (4000 words) to be the minimum story length.

Someone else might say anything shorter than a short story, but then you need to define how many words that is.

A short story, at least by the traditional publishing metrics, is generally defined as anything from 5,000 to 1,500 words. Novellas run between 30,000 and 50,000, and anything over is generally a novel (though of course, each specific genre has it's own ranges).

Flash, from what I understand of it, never having participated, has more to do with a writing method, essentially encouraging hesitant new authors to dump as many words on a page as possible within a specific period to get them over their own hesitation. This form of 'flash writing' has been very successful (at least in terms of encouraging new authors).

The places I've seen advertise a Flash Story contest have usually put a limit of between 750 and 1,000 words on the stories to be submitted.

The contest I wrote "Coming Home" for limited me to 750 words.

It was the hardest writing I ever did. I was nowhere into the plot when I realized I was approaching 1,500 words. I think I finished it at 749 words.