Looking at various competitions it is obvious that there is a wide variation in the definition of "short". From 500 words to about 8,000 all seem to be described as "short".
I haven't yet worked out how to create a story to a specific length. I just come up with an idea and get it down on paper. Or initially on a disk. Then I'll edit it and only then look at the word count.
Now I need to digress a little. I am currently very busy at work. I mean busy. My last day off was January 2nd and the next will be the 4th February. I'm not doing much writing. In fact I've only written one story this year so far. And it turns out that this story ended up at under 500 words.
Okay, next fact. I have booked in to the Verulam Writers Circle Get Writing conference in February. Details are here and I would suggest you seriously consider attending this Anyway, all delegates can enter a competition by submitting a story. The rules state that the story must be less than 1,500 words with no minimum.
So, I have entered my story which ended up at 427 words. Was that a waste of the £5 entry fee?
What do you think? Should you submit stories within, say, 10% of the maximum word count (as has been suggested to me by one person) or do I have a realistic chance?
No comments:
Post a Comment