Horror Aficionados discussion

I was talking to a friend of mine who's an editor/author about a story I'm planning on putting in my short horror collection (Apocrypha which I mentioned in the promotions folder if anyone wants to know any more about it). She feels that a story that's 9,500 words and change would be too long and could actually end up losing a reader's interest in reading the book. That in fact it might actually bore them regardless of quality or placement (I was thinking I'd put it at the end of the book since it's the longest).She was recommending marketing it as a separate piece, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to handle it.

My question for all you horror fans is: What do you think? IS a story of this length too much of a distraction or could it fit in with shorter pieces just fine? I need to sort this out before I start getting the collection together. I've got a couple of months yet (my co-author is still working on his stories) but if I need to market the story separately I should probably be getting it out there ASAP.

I know there is a burgeoning amount of short stories available as single works on Kindle. I don't know what the recommended limits for length would be though. Personally, I wouldn't release anything alone that was less than 10,000 words. I have a handful of short stories myself that total just over 11, and I feel like I should push it up to 20 just for a thin short story collection to sell for $0.99.

Things to consider would be the length of the other pieces in the book. A story bordering on 10,000 words might look particularly odd in a book that mostly flash fiction or that average 2000 words or less. If the other stories run 5-6, it would probably look much more at home.

If it's an enjoyable read the length shouldn't matter too much - It didn't hurt my collection The Trust Casefiles which had a mixture of long and short stories.

The 5-10 thousand word threshold is a tricky one. It's too short to be a stand alone novella, and can feel excessive to some for a short story. It really depends on how you present it in your anthology. An important question is, are the stories in your anthology connected or are they stand alone works? If they relate in some way, put it at the end as your "topper" story. If they are disparate narratives, consider releasing that one story as a stand alone.

Shaun wrote: "I know there is a burgeoning amount of short stories available as single works on Kindle. I don't know what the recommended limits for length would be though. Personally, I wouldn't release anythin..."

Hello Shaun :)

My short stories are all at least 5 pages long and most longer than that actually. The whole book will have at least 15 stories counting the longer story so it'll be at least 100 pages long (depending on the length of my co-author's stories it could be longer). My editor friend told me that the minimum file size for ebooks is 10KB on Amazon so it sounds like I could do this either way. Personally, I sort of want to keep it all together since I also plan to do a paperback copy and I don't want it to be too short.The idea of having something new out now is also appealing however ,since my novel came out in April and the collection isn't due out until winter. Hmm.

Lee wrote: "If it's an enjoyable read the length shouldn't matter too much - It didn't hurt my collection The Trust Casefiles which had a mixture of long and short stories."

Hi Lee :)

It's probably one of the best stories slated for the collection and the length suits the story well. If it were any shorter it would feel incomplete and any longer it would be too much. Initially I'd thought about ordering them by length, one short one long, in that pattern but the lengths are pretty varied so I can't quite do it that way.

Reed wrote: "The 5-10 thousand word threshold is a tricky one. It's too short to be a stand alone novella, and can feel excessive to some for a short story. It really depends on how you present it in your antho..."

Hello Reed :),

Yes this length is tricky although I do remember reading some longer pieces like it in anthologies over the years (granted those were generally collections with decades worth of work compiled under a similar theme.) As far as whether or not they'r related stories the answer is yes and no. Some of the stories are definitely related while others are stand alone pieces. The overall idea of the collection is to gather together stories about people dealing with their own personal demons which in this case are very real. So I guess the answer is that they all fall under a similar theme but only so many of the stories are actually related to each other.

I say include it if the story is strong.

As a reader I have never thought that a story was too long to be in a short story collection. I say include it. Usually I see most publishers put the longest story in the back of the book.

I put my longest one in the middle of my recent collection. I thought it was perfectly placed. And I agree with Traci. I like variety in a collection.

I think the length of a short story really all depends on the author. I know I myself tend to stop after about 10-15 pages. Also if the person gets it published then theres the whole possible guidelines and requirements they may have to meet. I believe though that we all tend to have an idea in mind of where we should stop and when its just enough to wrap a short story up.

The only reason I lose interest in a story is if it's badly written. Short story collections benefit, I think, from different lengths and writing styles.