The guidelines for Neon are deliberately vague when it comes to length. If we love something enough we’ll find a way to publish it no matter what the length – even if that means putting it out as a pamphlet or serialising it across several issues of the magazine.
But there’s another reason why we’re vague about word limits – which is that nobody really knows how long a short story is, or what constitutes a novella. Ten thousand words? Twenty thousand? What can be read in a single sitting and what necessitates several sessions to work through? It’s a question that a lot of people seem to want to know the answer to, but there’s no real answer to give.
That said, we can take a stab at it. Here are some classic reference points to help you pin down the length of that masterpiece you’ve been working on.
0 – 10 Words
The shortest story ever written (“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn”) ostensibly by Hemmingway, ostensibly on a bet. And of the stories on the Six Word Story site. Less than a single line in an average book. Approximate reading time of one second.
1 – 100 Words
Most Twitter fiction (Nanoism publishes some great stuff). A whole swathe of Lydia Davis’s work. Most things that are called microfiction. “Housewife” by Amy Hempel. Any of the stories on the 100 Word Story website. An average paragraph on an average website. Any of the stories in any edition of Battery Pack.
101 – 1,000
Most definitions of flash fiction. “Little Things” by Raymond Carver. “Sticks” by George Saunders. Between one and four pages in a regular book. Up to a page and a bit of A4 if you don’t space the lines out too much. The blog post that you’re currently reading.
1,001 – 3,000
A whole bunch of short stories. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Alan Poe. “But Always Meeting Ourselves” by Leo Hunt. Most short stories by Gabriel García Márquez. The length of a boilerplate Divorce Settlement Agreement. Approximate reading time of twelve minutes.
3001 – 10,000
Longer short stories. A sheaf of paper that you can hold between two fingers and not have it sag. About twenty or thirty pages in standard manuscript format. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. “Stone Mattress” by Margaret Atwood. Most features on Longreads.
10,001 – 15,000
Possibly still a short story, but it’s getting unwieldy. Can be used to swat a fly without rolling up the paper. The length of Amazon’s Kindle Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The approximate average length of an issue of Neon.
15,001 – 40,000
A novella. Many of Shakespeare’s plays, including Macbeth. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Animal Farm by George Orwell. Big enough to be bound into a book. Most of Shakespeare’s plays.
40,001 – 60,000
A short novel. Something with a spine, but a relatively sharp one. Might look a little lost among its beefier cousins when placed on a shelf. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwen. War of the Wolds by HG Wells. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
60,001 – 100,000
A regular-length novel. Paperback spine about as wide as a breadstick. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. The first three novels in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Paradise Lost by John Milton.
100,001 – 300,000
A long novel. Any of the individual books from The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien. The last four books in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. Dune by Frank Herbert. Edging into the territory of books that cause severe arm strain should you try to read them while lying down.
300,001 – 500,000
An epic beast of a novel. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Most instalments in the Game of Thrones series fall into this bracket quite comfortably. So does the entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien. Big enough that it would hurt if you dropped a hardback edition on your foot. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
500,001 – 1,000,000
The Bible. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Officially difficult to read in bed. Definite wrist strain. Makes an extremely satisfying thump when dropped onto a flat surface. Likely to be the heaviest item in any moderately-sized bag or backpack.
1,000,001 +
Long enough that finishing reading is an impressive feat all by itself. A la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust – Guinness World Record holder for longest novel. The Blah Story series by Nigel Tomm (an eyeball-melting 3,200,000 words long). Unwieldy to manage. Binding unlikely to last particularly long. Read time to be measured in months rather than hours or days.
Phew…
All of this is to say, of course, that it doesn’t really matter at all how long something is – there’s brilliant literature of all shapes and sizes. Word counts are really little more than a frame of reference. Are you writing a slim Animal Farm, or a rather more beefy War and Peace?