Category Archives: writing advice

The first question I usually get asked about writing short stories is how long they’re supposed to be. Here, in one handy spot, is everything you ever wanted to know about word counts, though in some cases the answers lead to more questions.

Flash fiction (a.k.a. microfiction) is 1,000 words or fewer. Flash fiction of exactly 100 words is called a “drabble.”

Anything from 1,000 words to 15,000 can be a short story, though the closer you get into the tens of thousands of words, you’re veering into novella territory.

Novellas are usually thought of as 15,000 to 50,000. The seldom-used term “novelette” can be given to anything on the shorter end of that, but the distinction is arbitrary and, in my opinion, sounds belittling. There’s something elegant and romantic about the word “novella” that, to my ear, “novelette” does not have. (It doesn’t help that Smurfette has rendered the –ette suffix demeaning, fake, sexist, and juvenile.)

Novels, then, are 50,000 words and up, and epublishing has made further preferences a bit fuzzy. Time was 60K was the sweet spot for literary fiction and 80K for genre fiction (those fantasy fans like their epics, went the thinking).

My novella We Shadows Have Offended clocks in at 16,715 words, which I suppose puts it in the maligned “novelette” column, and my forthcoming novel The Red Eye is in the 55,000 word range. While these are both on the shorter end, I’ve also been working on an urban fantasy novel for about three years now that not only isn’t done yet but is already over 90,000 words, so it’s not as if I’m incapable of long stuff; that’s just how these two pieces worked out. The Red Eye‘s first draft was originally written for NaNoWriMo, but another of my NaNo novels is 65K. It’s really just what feels organic for the story.

Duotrope, the publishing market search engine extraordinaire, defines flash the same way I have, short story as 1,000-7,500 words, novelette as 7,500-15,000, novella as 15K to 40K, and novel as 40K and above. I strongly disagree with their start of novel-length at 40,000, but again, epublishing has changed the game a bit. I suppose if I read a 40K-word ebook I would feel it was meatier than the average novella, but I still might find it on the short side.

Earlier this month, I talked about an excellent workshop I attended that changed the way I thought about my writing habits. Today, I want to show you the result of that workshop.

Yes, I’m censoring some titles because I don’t want to spoil some publication and project surprises coming down the pike.

The above spreadsheet has increased my writing output and happiness and decreased my stress levels, and it’s so simple. Some of my deadlines are editor-, publisher-, or school-imposed (e.g. The Curiosity Killers is my thesis novel for my MFA program, and therefore it has set monthly deadlines), and some of them are self-imposed (e.g. The Wraithmaker and Late Bloomer are not currently under contract, but they’re first drafts of books that I want to get done by the end of 2014). But by putting in self-imposed deadlines, I also am doing a better job of prioritizing which items I need to work on a little bit more. The titles in green must be worked on every day for a shorter amount of time; the titles in yellow, orange, and red have deadlines coming up sooner; and the titles in grey are on the back burner until other items are done. I have goals for how many minutes per day I want to work on higher-priority titles, and sometimes I’m making it and sometimes I’m not. But the point is to work on the high-priority titles every day, even if it’s for 10, 20, or 30 minutes.

Am I perfect at it yet? No, clearly not, as evidenced by the fact that some of the projects’ last date worked on is last week despite their appearance in the “every day” sections. But because a lot of this is indeed self-imposed, it’s okay. At least I am making some headway, and at least I am thinking about (and usually doing) high-priority writing every single day.

It’s essentially the NaNoWriMo concept made a little more practical. The best way to keep discipline with writing? Write every day. Full stop. There’s no secret weapon, there’s no shortcut, it’s just sitting down and doing the work. By tracking it, I’ve now got clear evidence of how my discipline is going. Before, I was scattershot and simply tried to work a little on too many pieces all at once. Now I feel a lot more systematic in my approach.

I recently attended a workshop on being more productive with your writing, and the presenter spent a great deal of time on the idea of keeping a writing tracker. While I do keep a submission spreadsheet so I know what stories are where and all the places I’ve submitted, I don’t really keep a writing log. I have a loose to-do list that isn’t terribly well-prioritized, making it daunting and inefficient. I’m inspired enough by this workshop to change how I work.

The main suggestion the presenter gave that was simple yet eye-opening was to actually give yourself deadlines, even if they’re self-imposed, and spend time working on one to three projects at a time, all of which you devote varying lengths of time based on how soon they’re due. Sounds logical enough, and yet I’ve been writing with serious intent to publish for over fifteen years and this never occurred to me.

Why? Because deadlines so seldom exist in my writing life.

When you’re a fiction writer, if you’re not under contract to do a series or a specific book, you write when, how, and because you want to, for the most part. You work when you’re inspired, basically, though a good, prolific, and dedicated fiction writer will usually write every day or at least every week (I make it somewhere in between, usually). Unless you’re doing National Novel Writing Month or a degree program with a creative thesis (as I am now, which is why I took this workshop to begin with), there is no deadline swinging its blade-edged pendulum ever closer to vulnerable little you, hurrying you onward. Don’t get me wrong, I’m relatively prolific with my short prose, but I’m a slow noveler¹. Since I’m doing an MFA that requires a set number of pages every month, however, I need to become a fast noveler and definitely a write-every-day-no-matter-what noveler.

In the next few days, as I construct my version of a better writing tracker, I’ll share my end results here, so that if you’re a procrastinate-y, reluctant composer of prose and verse, you may find something useful here.

¹ Yes, I know “noveler” and “noveling” et al are not real words. Blame Chris Baty’s entertaining book No Plot, No Problem on that, for he uses the adorable term so much I have come to embrace it.

There was a study conducted by multiple British universities in 1997 that established that both mood and creativity are enhanced by physical activity. A quick review of what endorphins are responsible for would seem to support this. I’m not a doctor or scientist, admittedly, but I am a creative person as well as a person who is occasionally prone to feeling blocked in my creativity. I spoke about the benefits of yoga on one’s writing (and vice versa) recently, but much of yoga’s benefit is meditation-based. If you also want to release feel-good hormones and get your creative juices flowing, just thirty minutes of cardiovascular exercise is the way to go.

As we hit the midpoint of NaNoWriMo, you may be racking your brain for ideas. Why not take a stroll around the block and do a few sun salutations? It can’t hurt, and more likely than not, it’ll actually help.

Since we’re now in the thick of NaNoWriMo (and thanks to a helpful tipster who reported that my advice posts are being picked up by bloggers, tweeters, and authors), I thought I would link to each part of my ten-part NaNoWriMo advice series in one handy spot.

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: Brainstorm your protagonist before the beginning of November

Part Three: Write what you know

Part Four: Keep the word count in mind

Part Five: Catch up on the weekends

Part Six: Get some cheerleaders

Part Seven: Freewrite in a different genre; engage in ritual behavior and reward systems

Part Eight: Reread and flesh out

Part Nine: Visualize your scene

Part Ten: You’ve got a lot of editing to do!

This is the last in my series on NaNoWriMo! I hope this has been helpful and inspirational. I strongly encourage anyone considering participating in National Novel Writing Month this November to read Chris Baty’s excellent book, No Plot? No Problem! for even more helpful tips.

10. When the clock strikes midnight on December 1^st, you’re done, whether you finished your 50,000 words or not and whether your story ended at that 50,000 word mark or not. Congratulations, no matter how you did! And realize that what you produced, I’m sorry to say, is not good. It’s not a finished product. It’s a hurried exercise is quantity over quality, and that’s okay. It’s all about the process, after all, and it’s all about establishing a writing discipline. A professionally written, edited, purchased and further edited and published novel takes far, far longer than thirty days to create, regardless of the author, the publisher, and the editing team. It’s just a fact of the business and the art form. No matter how tempted you may be by today’s technology, do not hit “submit” on a self-publishing platform with this first draft of this first book that you wrote in thirty days. It isn’t even the best version of this particular work you could produce. Set your manuscript aside for another month at the very least and return to it in January or February with clearer eyes and a healthy supply of red pens. Show the draft to multiple people. And then once you and all your beta readers have had a go at it, fix it. Fix it lots. If you still want to seek publication, go for it, but it should be your second, third, fourth draft, and it should probably be longer by at least ten or twenty thousand more words, minimum. It’s also okay if this first effort never gets farther than your own computer. The point is the work itself, the practice, the exercise. The point is that now you can say the following: you wrote a novel in thirty days, or you made the attempt. You know that about yourself now. What are you going to do with that knowledge? How will you let this shape your writing life going forward? And are you going to give it another shot next year?

Check through my other writing advice tags for the entire series and other pointers for making your fiction better.

9. Visualize your scene. Don’t skimp on detail. Some of the most beautiful prose is that which sets the stage so well that the reader feels like they’re watching a film. Do this in your own mind. Give us all five senses. What do you see, smell, taste, hear, touch? How does the season affect the weather? Is it autumn? Is there the subtle scent of wood burning in the air? Is that something you can almost taste as you move through the space? What is the light doing? If you’re feeling really stuck here, go outside (or go to an interior space that’s similar to the one you’re describing), and do a freewrite on every detail around you. How do shadows play against the walls? What is the exact color of the sky at the horizon? At the uppermost part of the sky? What is the sun or moon doing? Are there animals anywhere? How does the carpet feel under your hands or your feet? Is the room dusty? What if you were describing the room as part of a police investigation? What does the room tell you about its inhabitants and their lives? Don’t be stingy. Let it all flow and continue to be in this habit of noticing everything so that when it comes time to inventing these details in fiction, you’ll have a wealth of things to draw from.