Have a story idea? Watch this. | 010

[@F.C.Shultz]

How do you know if your story idea is a short story or novel?

[@MeemNun_ALiF_Revived_LykNvrB4]

there are 4 realms and as least as 20 characters ..

[@F.C.Shultz]

@@MeemNun_ALiF_Revived_LykNvrB4 Sounds like a...series!

[@MeemNun_ALiF_Revived_LykNvrB4]

@@F.C.Shultz yes

[@pruina3395]

I feel like whether a story turns into a short story or a novel depends on how you write. If you're an architect, someone who tends to plan out their stories and write them methodically, it may make more sense to follow a checklist or method to determine what your story should become. I myself tend to be more of a gardener, my writing is spontaneous and therefore what my story becomes is less of a goal to reach and more of the conclusion of what I'm writing.

[@F.C.Shultz]

Certainly not a hard and fast rule. I'm always impressed by people who write as gardeners. How do you know when you've reached that conclusion? When a story is done?

[@FavourAfolabi-l]

Thanks for this. From this, I am looking at getting to that stage where I'll know how much a story can become. I think it's a sign of experience and I can't wait to be that seasoned.

[@F.C.Shultz]

Write a lot and read a lot, that will help!

[@FavourAfolabi-l]

Thanks. ​@@F.C.Shultz

[@ONEPEAKFRFR]

Good advice ❤❤❤

[@F.C.Shultz]

Thank you!

[@darrenalmgren634]

I just write the stories and they end up as long as they need to be. Some stories I’ve done has ideas I thought would be novellas or even just long story stories, but ended up being less than 2k words. Other ideas that I felt would be a 2k-3k story ended up being 10k. I try not to worry about the length, as long as the story is getting told how it needs to be told. If I try to push an idea to a certain length, I struggle more to write it down and get my head around it. Short stories don’t get enough love, I think. All the advice I see is how to write your first novel and how to write a book angled at brand new writers. But short stories are amazing and honestly teach you more about how to write than a book does. You’re allowed to make mistakes, allowed to make it bad, and even trash it if it’s not salvageable, and that’s easier to do with a short story. But you’re still learning about writing doing it. When you’re 30k, 50k, 100k deep into a novel, you feel the sunk cost fallacy in your BONES and it can end up making you see past the mistakes you should take care of. Short stories? Toss it and start a new one knowing how the last one sucked and keep going. For me, I try not to stress about length unless I’m working within a word count limit (mostly for school projects). Otherwise I just let the story be as long as it has to be.

[@F.C.Shultz]

I love this. I'm a big fan of writing stories you want to write, and letting them be as long as they end up being, without adding "fluff." Good for you! Have you set any writing goals for 2025 yet?

[@matthewtjeerdsma2549]

Interesting... I tried writing a novel this summer, and wrote about 30 pages. Unfortunately, those 30 pages have pretty much the whole story. Maybe I could add a bit and make it 40 pages, or even 50, but that's still not a novel. I like the short story every week idea, though. I might just try some version of that in 2025.

[@F.C.Shultz]

I would say don't try to force it. I wrote my first book during NaNoWriMo, where the goal is 50K words in a month. I wrote 30K and ran out of story. I let it be, and then a few years later wrote a sequel that's 40K. I'm always in favor of letting the story be the length it is, without trying to meet a word count.

[@bleachedout805]

But how do i know if they are bad or good stories?

[@F.C.Shultz]

If you're just starting out, the odds are that they will not be great (I have many stories hidden deep in my Google Drive that no one will ever read). But, reading a lot and writing a lot will make them better and better.