Recently, I heard the opposite voice. Someone once said that the average length of a novel is 80,000 words. Later I heard that it was 70 thousand words. Now some organizations say that they think 50,000 words is a complete novel.
At the same time, 25,000 to 45,000 words seem to be regarded as a novella-I see hundreds of such novels downloaded every day. I even complained about some writers who seem to divide a long story into five short stories, so that five copies of the same story can be sold. )
If you want to write a short book, write a complete book! Don't give up halfway and write the second half of the story into a second book. There is a big difference between a gripping ending and a story that suddenly stops in the middle and starts over on another cover.
In many organizations, articles less than 25,000 words are considered short stories. Short stories and short stories can be 250 words (or about one page).
Short stories are usually published in the form of anthology: there are many independent stories in a book-whether written by the same author or not. Especially in the genre of romance novels, the anthologies of four or five short stories or short novellas are usually classified as one anthology. These stories may be written by different authors, but they all revolve around the same theme (such as mail order bride, billionaire boss, surprise baby or second love, etc.). ).
Whether fiction or non-fiction, the reasons for this trend are complicated. People have less free time, people will be distracted by electronic devices, and they don't have enough attention to read books. For some people, reading from the screen will make their eyes tired, so it is easier to read for two hours than eight hours in terms of eye fatigue.
As a teacher and librarian, I am more and more aware that the number of books I read is decreasing year by year. Even older students will ask how many chapters or pages this book has when they are looking for books to recommend. They didn't ask what the book was about, who wrote it, or how popular it would be. They just want to know if it's short. These are the readers! Even if the book is only 20 pages or less, non-readers will not touch it.
This may sound cynical, but as a former screenwriter, I can tell you that the film writing community has long accepted the view that writers write for those who don't read. Believe it or not, this is a fact in media life. No matter how excellent a writer you are, a young subordinate in the studio will read your 120 page and summarize it in one or two paragraphs. This is what all executives and decision makers will read (they may even let others tell them instead of reading it themselves). This is the way they decide what movies to make and what movies to throw.
Does anyone benefit from writing short stories? Absolutely. This situation may happen more now than before. But this is not new. Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is very short. Jonathan livingston seagull Livingston is actually a pamphlet, but it is a best seller in 1960s. At least that's what I heard; I was just born. )
If you write well, it doesn't matter whether you write long or short. Write as many stories as possible, and then stop. Usually, you will throw away the opening and closing chapters, because you find that the beginning and ending of the story are different from what you originally thought. )
Write it. This is edited and proofread. Ask as many beta readers as possible. Whether it is 20,000 words or 654.38+ 10,000 words, we must use words accurately-no waste, no redundancy. This will be the key to the success of this book. When everything is perfect, the length is absolutely unimportant.