The short story – the subject we are currently exploring in our life group – is something of a misnomer because it is usually over a thousand words but less than 10,000.
Good morning everyone! I hope you enjoyed our Creative Writing life group last night and woke up this morning invigorated and ready to write! Last night we covered “dialogue” and went into details regarding the character’s voice and how each character should have their own unique voice.
I think the “character development tool” we used in week three could be handy for this type of exercise. This brings me to some of the questions that were raised last night regarding Scrivener, flash fiction, a short story and how long a “page” should be. So, let’s get at it!
First off, Scrivener: “Scrivener is the word processing tool you need to take your writing from concept to finished draft. It offers a dedicated environment for writing, but also helps you organize your research and outlines.
With features such as cork board organization and real time word counts, Scrivener makes writing easier than ever before.” I don’t know if they offer a free version of this tool but to buy a one-time license for it costs $59.00. If you are interested, the website and purchase options can be found here: Scrivener.Com.
Now that we know a little about this word processing tool, let’s look at how flash fiction is defined.
Flash fiction is defined as brief! According to the website MasterClass.com, flash fiction contains these three characteristics:
- Brevity. Flash fiction compresses an entire story into the space of a few paragraphs. There is no defined word count for flash fiction, but some commonly used word limits in flash fiction range from just six words on the short end to around 1,000 words on the longer end.
- A complete plot. A flash fiction story is indeed a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. This sets it apart from a prose poem or vignette, which can explore an emotion, memory, or thought without a plot.
- Surprise. Great flash fiction often incorporates surprise, usually in the form of a twist ending or an unexpected last line. This is not a gimmick: the aim is to prompt the reader to think deeply about the true meaning of the story.
So, think one thousand qwords for flash fiction but then we have to define the short story and how long it should be.
The short story – the subject we are currently exploring in our life group – is something of a misnomer because it is usually over a thousand words but less than 10,000.
That’s quite a significant stretch! A novelette is around 7,500 to 19,000, and a novella is typically 10,000 to 40,000 (Jericho Writers). For the purpose of our group, the short stories we write should be 3,500 to 5,000 words.
Five thousand words comes out to around 10 pages of single-spaced text per page or 20 pages of double-spaced text. This brings me to the next question of page length and how to know “how much a page is”.
Typically, the general guidelines on page length is one page of single-spaced text is 500 words and half that – 250 words for a double-spaced page.
Handwritten pages will vary depending on size of the writing, spacing, and whether you are using college-ruled paper or regular-ruled. There could possibly be 130 words present on a handwritten page.
So, I hope this clears up any confusion about the differences between the flash fiction, short story, and other stories that may be even longer.
I think we had a great meeting and enjoyed hearing from those who shared their stories. I am looking forward to next week where we’ll focus on plot developments. Until then, practice the concepts we’ve been discussing and get into the habit of writing daily!