On an up note, I have been able to work on my drivel a bit. I am up to 21 pages double spaced and 7000ish words. Knowing how much I blah, blah, blah... it probably is twice what it should be. The fact is that, given what I have in my head, it is only about 1/4 of the story and that is a bit, well... intimidating.
For those of you who do like to keep track of random and/or useless bits of information...A Novel has at least 50,000 words (I have read 60,000 other places)
A Novela has between 17,500 and 50,000 words
A Novelette has between 7,500 and 17,500
A Short Story has between 1,000 and 7,500
And Flash Fiction has less than 1,000 words
from Wikipedia
Don't ask me what the heck the difference is between the last 4 other than length. I know Novels and Short Stories. I am sure that I learned about this in my college writing and lit classes, but that has been a while ago.
I haven't actually counted them (so I am going to just have to trust my resources), but a page is about 250 words. So a novel has at least 200 - 240 pages. I don't know about you, but I am not sure when the last time was that I read a book that was only 200 pages long. The one I am working on now is 350ish, and I thought it was rather thin. This could be personal prejudice. I read quickly and if they are too sparse, I feel like I am being ripped off. So I buy longer books so it is worth my effort and money. That probably made no sense what-so-ever.
See? I can blather on about nothing for way too long.
(When I guest teach a class, I warn them to tell me how much time up front and to watch the clock for me, because I can go on for hours. Sorry, that was more blather.)
I have nothing else. Thanks for listening.
5 comments:
So, the way I see it you've probably just "bashed" my version of a short story by actually having a list of what justifies it by the number of words it would HAVE to contain. I will no longer feel validated as a writer (of sorts) until the day I actually get someone to publish more than a poem in a stupid poetry contest. No really, thanks, I'm going to leave now!
I didn't know you were a published author!?! I missed that conversation. Was I drunk? Probably, huh?
An "A" on a story I wrote in college is the best I can do.
I am just reporting on my blathering drivel. Not bashing anything. Certainly not your writing prowess. Might have been bashing my own... *grins*
Just reporting what I read. I was surprised at the different lengths and definitions... I can justify anything all by my lonesome, I would certainly never need Wikipedia to do it for me. I think. Maybe.
What was the point? I got lost... Yeah, I know... Big Shock!
**HUGS**
Buying longer books to justify the expense makes TOTAL sense!
My point is, or was at the time...is a story defined by the quality of its content or by the number of words it contains? I choose the content.
You did read, poetry contest right?
LYMY!!
I gotcha. I definitely prefer quality over quantity. A long boring book becomes like a car wreck... I am only looking to see how bad it gets. (I haven't seen my friendly UPS man with a box of love from Amazon in over a week. He is going to start to feel neglected. I think I will go order something. *skips off happily*)
I buy so many books that sometimes I forget that point. I hit the young adult section and they have combined two books into one and it is nice and fat at a bargain price... I want to do backflips. LMAO
I can't remember what made me look that factoid up in the first place. But I naturally assume everyone is as fascinated with all the same things I am.
Contest, huh? You are still up on me. I am too big of a coward to submit anything. I can't believe I ever made it through my Fiction writing classes where we did peer editing and evaluation.
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