Good Length for Stories

[Fishykarp]

I have been wondering what Length my written pieces in the Creative Corner should be. I have seen some with 200-400 words, but others which almost reach 2000. So I am wondering what the best Length is. Here is the link: http://pokecharms.com/works/return-of-team-rocket-chapter-one-the-hero.25888/
My Prologue is 300~ words long, the next ones are all 500-600 words long, and the most recent is 1300 words long. I want to know if this is an acceptable word count. I want it to be something where everyone can read it with ought getting bored by a wall of text, or on a Bus to school/work (And maybe back as well for the longer ones), but my 1300 word chapter was meant to be 800 words, because I write a lot. Is that still good?

 

[Aura]

I don't think there is a 'best' length for a story. You can tell a good interesting story completely in 500 words if you know what you're doing, or you can go all out and write a 50 000 plus word story in order to explore the setting and characters in as much depth as possible. Really you should stick to whatever works best for you and for the story, or whatever you think suits your audience the most.

 

[Fishykarp]

Ok thanks

 

[Shiny Motley]

I mean, there's also the fact that different kinds of written works would require different word lengths. Poems hardly go over a few hundred words (unless it's an epic poem, but you know what I mean). Haikus could theoretically be done in five or maybe even three words. If you're trying to go for a novel, a few thousand, hundred thousand words doesn't seem implausible. There's many different kinds of written works out there, and as @Aura mentioned, you could tell a good story in a few hundred words. What makes a "good" written work isn't the word count, but the content and quality of the content that's written.

 

[Teapot]

It really depends on the story, of course, but most stories (as opposed to drabbles or poetry) of any quality on the Corner are at least 500-750 words, and I'd say somewhere between 1000-2000 words is a good compromise between giving your work enough detail and heft, and not making it too long. That said, there are works that have been 5000+ words in a single chapter, but gripping all the way through due to their superior writing, and there's been great works that are very short.

A big factor in readability (and avoiding tl;dr) is the grammar and formatting of the work, mind you. This is one of the main reasons you'll find me banging on about it any chance I get – it genuinely is the difference between whether people will read your work, or just move on. I've seen a work here that is literally a thousand words long, but without a single line break or paragraph break. That fic could have been great, but I don't know because it's too difficult to read!

 

[Keleri]

At this stage you're doing OK, I'd say not to worry about these particulars and instead try to finish your story-- this will teach you more about structuring a narrative, setting up characters, description, etc. as you practice these different components of a story. You do mostly use line and paragraph breaks and give a new line to a new speaker, which helps a lot with readability; you can check out various writing or grammar guides, or look in published novels, to check how you're punctuating dialogue.