When it comes to writing short stories, the word count can be a little below 10k or at approximately 10k, right or wrong?
What are your thoughts on that?
Bump.
Short stories are anything under 10,000 words. A full list of word counts would be:
- Micro fiction is 300 words or less.
- Flash fiction is 1,000 words or less.
- Short story is 1,000 words to 10,000 words.
- Novelettes are 10,000 words to 20,000 words.
- Novellas are 20,000 words to 50,000 words.
- Novels are 50,000 words and above.
Micro fiction, flash fiction, and novelettes are the main words for those word counts, but a lot of people tend to use “short story” as anything less than 20,000 words, even if it’s 200 words. It’s used interchangeably.
So, it’s safe to say that a 600 word story is a short story, or that a 5,000 word story is a short story. You can even say that a 15,000 word story is a short story, too.
Novellas and novels are the only ones most don’t change as they are the popular choices and, of course, you can’t really go wrong with a novel’s word count. But I’ve seen a lot of people say that if their book isn’t above 20,000 words, they may just call it a short story for a loose term of it because, technically, it is a short story. Not a novel.
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Yep, this is accurate
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