Writing How would you define a short story?

[Katsuya]

What exactly counts as a short story and stuff? I know short stories are like stories that get to the point fast, but.... idk. i still don't really get it.

What exactly would 'gets to the point' anyways?

 

[RepresentingWrath]

A short story is a story that is short, the one that doesn't have many chapters\words.

 

[Katsuya]

A short story is a story that is short, the one that doesn't have many chapters\words.

can it have chapters?

 

[bigbear51]

It's a story that can generally be read in one sitting, very rarely reaching up to 15000 words. Apparently from what I've seen online, official contests for short stories keep the limit to 7500 words. An example being the Nebula Award awarded by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

To answer the second question, sure. There's no rule about chapters in short stories that I've heard of. Plus, when it comes to the rules of chapters, there's no set minimum for word count in a single chapter.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

can it have chapters?

Well, it all boils down to what you compare. Some Chinese novels have 4000+ chapters, which means a Korean novel with 300 chapters is a short story. But if we talk about it more seriously, google tells us that a short story is around 5-10 thousand words. But it's mostly talking about published works if I understood everything correctly. Web and light novels tend to be much longer. So, I would say a short story is something at most around 50 thousand words. And if you have, let's say 30, thousand words, you might divide it into a few chapters. So yeah, if we are talking about web short stories, yeah, they can have chapters.

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

What exactly counts as a short story and stuff? I know short stories are like stories that get to the point fast, but.... idk. i still don't really get it.

What exactly would 'gets to the point' anyways?

I consider short stories anything with less than 2k words. Also it’s okay to ha e multiple chapters in it, to explain your purpose in writing the pieces, end thoughts, and other stuff

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Anything less than 20,000 words is a short story. 20,000-40,000 words is a novella, and over 40,000 words is a novel.