How Long Should Your Story Be?

Assalamu aleikum!

When you set out to write what came to you, how long should it be? The answer is, it depends. Alhamdullilah, I have written :

• One stand alone flash fiction story and two collection of flash fiction stories.

They are Bionic Romance, and Spin-Off Cité ,  …Centric : A Collection of Flash Fiction Stories . These can go from the length of a tweet to one thousand words. Don’t buy these three. The price is unreasonably high for a reason. There are set at $200 because there is a paper version of them and to stop eBook abuse. Or you can read them in Eclectic. This collection of flash fiction and short stories has 30,160 words.

• One collection of short stories

Steadfast

This is a collection of several of my short stories including the novelettes Freedom Fighter and Respect The Letters. I have two other novelettes L’Américaine and The Cursed Bride not included in this book.

• One memoir

The Dreams—A Family Biography

• Four romantic novels

You can get away with writing around 40,000 words on those.  However, my book BLOOM is 119,613 words for the three books; Mistress of the Spices, The Hazardous Life of Nilüfer and Oblivion. Oblivion can be considered a novella since it’s not quite 40,000 words.

The Library Clerk’s e-Shop is about 47,000 words. It includes an extended version of my novelette L’Américaine.

• One Thriller/Suspense

The upcoming The Certified Accountant falls in this category. Books in this genre should be around 80,000 words.

• Several poems
• Three children books
• Some personal narratives
• One Ivorian Cookbook
• One Muslim Journal/Planner/Notebook/Calendar
• One YA Fantasy Series

The Ducktrinors Book 1 and Book 2 . This epic tale is 83,483 words

• One ethnic and epic short story fantasy and one short epic fantasy story.

Clash of the Castes is the ethnic one and is available in The Dreams in print format. The other is Fiqh Tsion’s Tells of Faith.

In conclusion, perhaps in the moment you get inspired with a new story, it’s only a flash fiction, a short story, a novelette, a novella or a novel. It depends on how much “meat” you have on the story that’s nagging you and wants to come to life. Below is a graphic to guide you. It’s taken from here if the question has ever crossed your mind.

I hope this helps. And remember, each story can be extended and fleshed out over the years. It’s up to you to stop or expand the story.

Thanks for reading,

 

Papatya*