Most short stories are in the 500 to 10,000-word range. Technically speaking, a short story is a “shorter” fictional prose narrative.

Many would say anything too short to be a novel (so, under 40,000 words, give or take) is a short story, including novellas and novelettes (10,000 to 40,000 words).

Helpfully, someone at Commonplace Book organized many famous, classic short stories by word count. The short story's word counts vary from 710 words (Virginia Woolf’s “A Haunted House”) to 30,015 words (H.G. Wells’s “Time Machine”). 

Here’s a guide to the spectrum of this thing we call short stories, including microfiction, flash fiction, the traditional short story, the novelette, and the novella, as well as examples of each and where to publish your works.

Don’t forget that beyond traditional literary magazines, many short story contests also accept prose. 

As a work of fiction less than 400 or 500 words, microfiction treads a fine line between poetry and prose. 

The fantastic anthology “Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories,” edited by Jerome Stern, is worth reading. It contains many excellent examples of stories at this length. Poets wrote some of the book’s pieces. 

The famous and harrowing poem (or story or essay, depending on who you ask) called “The Colonel” by Carolyn Forche is another excellent example of this genre. 

These days, you can publish microfiction in places like: 

Definitions vary here, but for our purposes, we’ll go with the New Yorker’s parameters, which include all stories under 1,500 words to be flash fiction. Others would argue flash fiction is under 1,000 words, but I’m happy to agree with the New Yorker on this.

Examples of flash fiction include “Certain European Movies” by Emma Cline and “Blue Island” by Stuart Dybek.  

Most literary magazines will take flash fiction. You can submit these short stories to places like:

But again, you can often submit this length almost anywhere. 

Unsurprisingly, the most common short story type is the old-school short story itself (no modifier needed!). Due to the constraints of word count, short stories usually target a smaller scope of story than a novel—fewer characters, fewer events, shorter timelines, and so on.

There are some interesting and notable examples of very eventful short stories (thinking here of Anthony Doerr’s “The Caretaker,” which covers the kind of narrative ground you’d usually find in a novel).

I loosely group stories into two categories: shorter stories and longer stories. In my short story masterclass, I stress that the craft considerations of these two story types are quite different. 

These are 1,500 to 5,000 words and generally focus on a single episode with a small number of characters. Some notable examples of “shorter stories” are “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson and “Found Objects,” by Jennifer Egan.

Longer short stories are between 5,000 and 10,000 words—are my favorite to write. Six of my last seven published stories have been in this range. Many of the best short stories that teach new writers how to write are in this range.

These longer stories often have more backstory, multiple storylines, or complex, important relationships developing in tandem. The longer short stories tend to be organized in sections separated by white space—not quite chapters, but almost.

For longer short stories, think of most of the stories of Lorrie Moore and Danielle Evans. Among my favorites in this genre are “Nemecia” by Kirstin Valdez Quade and ZZ Packer’s “Brownies.” 

While most literary magazines publish short stories (longer and shorter), some of my favorites are the following: 

Most of these don’t explicitly limit your word count (I had an 8,000-word story in the Paris Review, and when I mentioned cutting some pages to the editor, he said not to worry; he did not want it to feel rushed).

Before submitting, I recommend familiarizing yourself with fiction or page counts from previous issues. Astute readers will notice that these literary magazines don’t publish a 40,000-word opus unless you’re George Saunders, and probably not even then. 

Emerging writers can aim at places that publish quarterly (they tend to have more spots) and places judged by MFA students. I focused my early efforts on Gulf Coast Magazine (short stories under 7,000 words), Phoebe (prefers short stories under 4,000 words), and Michigan Quarterly Review (up to 7,000 words). 

Pro-tip: Most print magazines are troubled by longer stories, whether they admit it or not because a longer story will “eat” a large portion of their allotted pages. Once a publication goes digital, this is no longer a concern. However, print, paper, and ink are costly, so longer stories are a more significant investment for the magazine. So the story has to be irresistible.

What we now call novelettes and novellas were once serialized in magazines long ago and devoured by a hungry reading public. These days, that length – 10,000 to 40,000 is exceedingly challenging to publish, though there are options. 

Novelettes are super-long short stories with an awkward length of 10,000 to 17,000 words. They’re a tough length to get published today. A single novelette would eat most of an issue of a print magazine. 

Some notable examples are the later short stories of J.D. Salinger, which were all about different characters in the Glass family (most of these stories—starting with “Frannie” and “Zooey”—were above 10,000 words). 

One of my favorite Kelly Link stories, “Stone Animals,” clocks in at 16,000 words (it was published in Conjunctions, a magazine that runs very long, each issue clocking in at 350+ pages)

My student Jenny Williams had a novelette, “A Short Future History of Whales,” published in Analog Magazine in late 2024. 

The newer CRAFT Novelette Print Prize accepts pieces between 7,500 and 15,000 words, which the editors categorize as short novellas. The winner receives $3,000 and sees their story printed. 

A good place for emerging writers, the literary magazine Alaska Quarterly Review will consider short stories and novelettes of up to 20,000 words. Massachusetts Review will publish works of up to 25,000 words as a standalone or digital-only e-book version. 

Novellas – at 17,000 to 40,000 words – are slightly easier to publish than novelettes because they can more easily be sold as standalone books or chapbooks. Novelettes and novellas are more common in genre fiction, primarily sci-fi and fantasy. There’s so much world-building required, and that’s tough to get done in conventional word counts. 

The writer Josh Weil published “The New Valley,” a collection of three novellas. Two of my favorite Denis Johnson books, Train Dreams (116 pages) and The Name of The World (127 pages), are novellas. 

As you might imagine, publishing novellas can be a unique venture. But look into the following, which routinely publish novellas: 

With Narrative Magazine, you submit a synopsis alongside the first 15,000 words. The editors ask for the rest of the story if it’s holding the editors’ attention. 

Yes and no. I generally write long and then cut back. This is normal. The short story I mentioned above, “Nemecia,” by Kirstin Valdez Quade, was vastly longer in its initial draft, but she cut many pages from the end. George Saunders says he dedicated 50+ pages to writing and then trimmed back until he had a typical short story. 

Generally, the title is not considered part of a short story’s word count for submission purposes. However, always read the submission guidelines for details. 

While there can be leeway sometimes, I recommend staying under the word count listed when submitting to publications or contests. Some publications and contests specify a word count you can’t exceed or come in under. Learning how to cut your prose strategically and improve your story is wise.