Too many scenes

The most reliable answer (but still a crap shoot) is to look through your own stories and figure out your average and your range. Your unique voice will be the best guide.

In my case, my average is about 1,500 words per scene. That’s close enough that I can estimate the length from the scene count. But I’m a pantser, so I seldom know the scene count in advance.

You’ve touched on another useful factor: the number of characters. There’s a measure I call the story’s scope. It’s not how big a story will be, but how big it could be. And it grows disproportionately as you add characters.

If your story has 1 character, Bob, you can write about 1 relationship: Bob.

If you have 2, Bob and Bill, you can write about 3 relationships: Bob, Bill, and Bob with Bill.

3 characters, Bob and Bill and Barb: Bob, Bill, Barb, Bob and Bill, Bob and Barb, Bill and Barb, Bob and Bill and Barb. 7 relationships.

And so on. Every major character added roughly doubles the scope. You don’t have to write every one of these relationships, but the temptation is there—especially if your plot grows organically from what you discover.

So one way to keep your story smaller is to cut down on major characters. Turn many of them into minor characters, combine them, or eliminate them.

Posted by: @martin-l-shoemaker

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The most reliable answer (but still a crap shoot) is to look through your own stories and figure out your average and your range. Your unique voice will be the best guide.

In my case, my average is about 1,500 words per scene. That’s close enough that I can estimate the length from the scene count. But I’m a pantser, so I seldom know the scene count in advance.

You’ve touched on another useful factor: the number of characters. There’s a measure I call the story’s scope. It’s not how big a story will be, but how big it could be. And it grows disproportionately as you add characters.

Thank you!  Excellent response.  It was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

If your story has 1 character, Bob, you can write about 1 relationship: Bob.

If you have 2, Bob and Bill, you can write about 3 relationships: Bob, Bill, and Bob with Bill.

3 characters, Bob and Bill and Barb: Bob, Bill, Barb, Bob and Bill, Bob and Barb, Bill and Barb, Bob and Bill and Barb. 7 relationships.

And so on. Every major character added roughly doubles the scope. You don’t have to write every one of these relationships, but the temptation is there—especially if your plot grows organically from what you discover.

So one way to keep your story smaller is to cut down on major characters. Turn many of them into minor characters, combine them, or eliminate them.

I too, have observed this, wrt relationships, not characters.  Do you find you have any guidelines for word count/relationship?  I've never successfully written beyond 10k words in any story.  That was years ago.  Now, I'm armed with more knowledge, and better tools than I had 20 years ago.  I'm ready to take on something more ambitious.  I have another idea I've begun outlining, but it is much too big for a novella.  At a minimum, it will have about 10 characters.  As the entire story is character/relationship driven, I'm even wondering if a novel will be of sufficient length.

Posted by: @abeona

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I too, have observed this, wrt relationships, not characters.  Do you find you have any guidelines for word count/relationship?

Again it varies with your style and voice, so your own past stories are your best guide. And it varies with intention: if you intend to write a novel, you'll probably give yourself permission to explore more relationships and more subplots that you would reject out of hand (I hope) for a short story.

Last year, Audible invited me to submit three 800-word stories, which is very short for me. The first had one major character (and one very peripheral character). The second had two major characters and a secondary character. Roughly the same length.

But the third had five "major" characters. It was an idea I've had kicking around for literally a decade, and I could never make it work, because it was so bloody big. The five characters were five generations of a family in a terraforming colony. That's a huge scope. There was so much that the story could be. I knew what the final, crucial scene would be, but getting there was a whole novel in scope.

But for some reason, when Audible asked, I realized that I could imply most of that and just tell that final scene plus its immediate lead-up. I could reduce the relationships to one discussion between the two eldest women, and trust the reader to fill in much of the back story. What really makes that story work is that final image. I just needed enough back story to support it.

So intention matters. And it varies. My latest story in Analog involves five characters with notable relationships between two of them and minor relationships between all of them. It's 4,000 words. My next Analog story has twenty-two named characters with parts to play, five of them major. It's 18,600 words. A lot more characters meant a lot more interactions.

Posted by: @martin-l-shoemaker

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Posted by: @abeona

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I too, have observed this, wrt relationships, not characters.  Do you find you have any guidelines for word count/relationship?

Again it varies with your style and voice, so your own past stories are your best guide. And it varies with intention: if you intend to write a novel, you'll probably give yourself permission to explore more relationships and more subplots that you would reject out of hand (I hope) for a short story.

Last year, Audible invited me to submit three 800-word stories, which is very short for me. The first had one major character (and one very peripheral character). The second had two major characters and a secondary character. Roughly the same length.

But the third had five "major" characters. It was an idea I've had kicking around for literally a decade, and I could never make it work, because it was so bloody big. The five characters were five generations of a family in a terraforming colony. That's a huge scope. There was so much that the story could be. I knew what the final, crucial scene would be, but getting there was a whole novel in scope.

But for some reason, when Audible asked, I realized that I could imply most of that and just tell that final scene plus its immediate lead-up. I could reduce the relationships to one discussion between the two eldest women, and trust the reader to fill in much of the back story. What really makes that story work is that final image. I just needed enough back story to support it.

So intention matters. And it varies. My latest story in Analog involves five characters with notable relationships between two of them and minor relationships between all of them. It's 4,000 words. My next Analog story has twenty-two named characters with parts to play, five of them major. It's 18,600 words. A lot more characters meant a lot more interactions.

 

Wow! I really want to read how you've managed 22 characters in 19,000 words.  Can't wait to read that.  I've not read any of your work before.  But, I just downloaded The Last Dance and listened to a couple of chapters.  I like your style.

Specifically for writing stories for this contest, I’ve learned a couple things over the years:

1. Other venues outside the contest seem to require the sweet spot of @ 4-5 thousand words. Anything more than that is a hard sell. Anything much less than that is often too short for the contest. So I try and keep all my short stories in that range simply to keep my options open in and out of the contest.
2. Specifically for short stories, I try and follow Emma Coats’s formula for Pixar stories:
   - Once upon a time, there was …
   - Every day, …
   - One day, …
   - Because of that, …
   - Because of that, …
   - Until finally, …

Of course, that’s a very rough story outline, and there are frequently many deviations. But in general, that’s the general framework I hang all my stories on.  

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

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Specifically for writing stories for this contest, I’ve learned a couple things over the years:

1. Other venues outside the contest seem to require the sweet spot of @ 4-5 thousand words. Anything more than that is a hard sell. Anything much less than that is often too short for the contest. So I try and keep all my short stories in that range simply to keep my options open in and out of the contest.

 

This. The stories I have written for the competition that are 3-5k words have so many other markets I can send them to. The much longer ones that this competition accepts (>10k) there are virtually no other markets that are looking for that from an unknown writer. Those stories sit on my hard drive going nowehere, and honestly I don't know that they will ever get published because of that.

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

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Specifically for writing stories for this contest, I’ve learned a couple things over the years:

1. Other venues outside the contest seem to require the sweet spot of @ 4-5 thousand words. Anything more than that is a hard sell. Anything much less than that is often too short for the contest. So I try and keep all my short stories in that range simply to keep my options open in and out of the contest.
2. Specifically for short stories, I try and follow Emma Coats’s formula for Pixar stories:
   - Once upon a time, there was …
   - Every day, …
   - One day, …
   - Because of that, …
   - Because of that, …
   - Until finally, …

Of course, that’s a very rough story outline, and there are frequently many deviations. But in general, that’s the general framework I hang all my stories on.  

Have you self-published?  I don't see any of your work there.  I am not very excited about the prospect myself, but I do recall taking a chance on a Kindle single-chapter submission, years ago.  IIRC, it was 99 cents.  Of course, it wasn't the money I was risking, but the investment of my time, emotion, and immersion, in reading something that would never get finished.  That book was "Wool."  He went on to write it into a trilogy.  I still have fond memories of it.  Writing 4k to 5k words at a time, lends itself well to chapter submissions.  Have you, or would you, ever consider self-publishing a book in that way?

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

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Specifically for writing stories for this contest, I’ve learned a couple things over the years:

1. Other venues outside the contest seem to require the sweet spot of @ 4-5 thousand words. Anything more than that is a hard sell. Anything much less than that is often too short for the contest. So I try and keep all my short stories in that range simply to keep my options open in and out of the contest.

 

 

This. The stories I have written for the competition that are 3-5k words have so many other markets I can send them to. The much longer ones that this competition accepts (>10k) there are virtually no other markets that are looking for that from an unknown writer. Those stories sit on my hard drive going nowehere, and honestly I don't know that they will ever get published because of that.

 

Same question for you that I asked Morgan.  Would you ever, or have you ever self-published on Kindle?  It sounds like you could publish an entire anthology of your own work today (figuratively).  I've only read 3 or 4 WotF books cover to cover.  I don't recall any of the stories being particularly short.  Do they often pick shorter stories?

Posted by: @abeona

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Same question for you that I asked Morgan.  Would you ever, or have you ever self-published on Kindle?  It sounds like you could publish an entire anthology of your own work today (figuratively).  I've only read 3 or 4 WotF books cover to cover.  I don't recall any of the stories being particularly short.  Do they often pick shorter stories?

 

Oh I'm way too lazy for that! 

No. I want to be a writer, not a publisher. I'd rather put my energy into writing the next thing than worrying about covers or promoting something I just put up on kindle. 

Now the caveat to that is these days you do have to do promotion if you get traditionally published, but its still true that if you are doing self publish it is 100% you. I'm not looking for that. I wouldn't enjoy it. I wouldn't do it well. I'm happy to play my part of a bigger machine, but if I was self-publishing no one would ever find my stories, so no point.

My feelings might be different if I felt the rejections I get are 'wrong'. But at the moment I think I am still learning to write, still growing, and in some ways those rejections, as much as I might wish they were acceptances, are actually professionals telling me "this isn't irresistible". (there are lots of other reasons for a rejection - great work, wrong market for example). But in the cold light of day, my works that have been 'rejected' I can see have issues. Poor structure, lack of creativity, etc.

If I get to a stage where I am still feeling great about pieces 12 months after writing them, maybe I'll think about self pub. For me though, I'm neither suited, nor ready for that. But its a personal call and I have friends who have made different choices.

Posted by: @abeona

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  I don't recall any of the stories being particularly short.  Do they often pick shorter stories?

 

They pick good stories. Write those I think, and it won't matter the size. I think one of the judges (perhaps David Farland, perhaps not. I remember the quote not which judge said it) said in response to the question of how long should a piece be for WotF, something along the lines of, stories should be as long as they need to be. Not a word more nor a word less.

Flash is now accepted, and though I haven't seen much, we now have a new coordinating judge. But also remember they are creating an anthology. They need balance. So I suspect they are okay with anything within the word count limits. Otherwise they would probably change the limits.

I could say more. I will leave that to wiser minds

@abeona 

Gideon pretty much nailed it in his response. Same goes for me. I’m dedicating all my time and energy right now trying to either a) win this contest, or b) sending my non-winning work out to other markets. WOTF typically gets the first crack at my stories. After that, I route them round the Grinder.

Some day I might compile all my flash and micro and shorts into some kind of self-pubbed anthology, but that day is still out there on the hazy horizon.