A Bookish Opinion: Story Length (Plus Goodreads Giveaway!)

     Hey, everyone! If you were able to catch my blog post last week, I promised yet another book review. Well, after posting, I remembered that next week was the first week of May.

    Why is that detail so important? Well, because May is the month I first started this blog.

    Yes, it's been a year since I started posting, and this blog has grown so much more than I ever thought or hoped it could. I wanted to do something special to celebrate the occasion (okay, more than a few somethings), and so I came up with a new, month-long post series: Bookish Opinions!

    Bookish Opinions is just that: me writing on some of the most popular, widely debated, and overall fun topics that are floating around in the book world. I hope that this will be a chance for me to share more about myself outside of blog tags and book reviews, and that it'll be a way to jumpstart more conversations with readers old and new. 

    Today, I'm starting the series with a topic that I'm sure many bookworms will have an opinion on: story lengths! How short is too short for a story to grab your heart and soul? How many page numbers should you focus on if you want to continue to read or write well?

The Effect of a Word Count

    Like it or not, how long you make a story impacts it, in every way possible. The most obvious would probably be the characters, plot, setting, and theme.

    If you're reading a five-paragraph snippet, compared to a two hundred plus page saga, the amount of words will determine to an extent each character's background, emotional depth, and place in the story. Complex villains, for example, will be harder to pull off with fewer words, while a multi-chaptered story allows the author to both foreshadow and heighten all of the skills and power of this character. You can only have one plot in a short story, otherwise the rest of it gets confusing. No time to describe the place your characters interact in if you can only put down a couple of sentences about it. And, like the growth of characters mentioned above, it's much, much harder to pull off a thought-provoking theme when you don't have time to elaborate on how twisted it really is. 

    Notice that I said to an extent...I have definitely read memorable, clever, and emotion-packed short stories that have said more about the human experience than an entire book series. Yet you can't deny that the amount of pages a story is allowed to have (or the author had time to write) is so much more than a word count. It's a way of seeing how much potential an idea has, how the author expresses it, and how he or she uses it in the story. 

    Right now I know of three separate types of stories, all categorized based on their lengths. Short stories are about 20 to 7, 500 words. Novellas are about 7, 500 to 39, 999 words. (I'm putting novellas and novelettes together because I categorize them in similar ways, plus I want to keep this post shorter!) Finally novels are 40,000 or more words.

    So, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each type of length? Keep scrolling to look at my thoughts. 

Short Stories

    Like you may have guessed from my introduction above, I have a love-hate relationship when it comes to short stories. On one hand, short stories can be horribly done and rushed because the author is trying to fit so many things into one or two scenes. Short stories have proven to be helpful for writers trying to hone their craft, but today I feel learning them is skimmed over in favor of trying to create bigger and longer works.

    On another hand, short stories can be powerful, having an impact novels can only dream of. They're easier for more people to read and enjoy, as due to busy schedules not everyone has time to sit down and flip through an entire book. Short stories are also nice because of their lack of continuity. Unlike many novels, I don't have to step back and worry about if I've been missing context or need to check out the rest of the series before reading. Though they may leave you wanting more (especially during the end!), well done short stories are able to play with this factor, giving you just enough story information to intrigue you and spark your imagination through all of the things they didn't mention.

Novellas

    These are a bit interesting in that the author loved the story enough to keep writing, but didn't want it to reach the full, daunting length of a novel. Again, I'd say that the weaknesses of novellas are similar to the ones that short stories often carry: too short, with skipped over character development, plot twists, and worldbuilding due to its length.

   

    However, novellas are great both for practice with longer, harder concepts as writers, and finding the author "voice" you enjoy as readers. Novellas are a great way for, again, people with busy schedules to have enough time to read a book and enjoy it. Another great strength of novellas is that they allow authors to write more about underdeveloped, new, or background characters from novels and series they've already created, or just try new plots and concepts out without having to plan a whole, long saga. 

Novels

    At their best, I love novels. Novels are the standard heroes of the literary world. A well-written novel can impact so many readers' lives, provide a great, unique storyline, tackle themes and story concepts in different ways, and truly whisk you away to another world, filled with friends you root for, scenes that make you laugh or cry, and antagonists you fight alongside the characters. 

    Novels are also one of the hardest types and lengths of stories to pull off! (Believe me, I've made five so far, and I'm still learning.) There are new, full-length stories coming out all the time, and it's hard to stand out, especially if you're a new writer. Novels have so much potential to dive into the complex, but so often lack of life experience and not knowing your audience can make an attempt to do so flop. Unlike short stories and novellas, there are all sorts of tropes and stereotypes that have been done until the life is sucked out of them, and little details that usually need to stick to one genre. Novels are also more memorable in a reader's mind. It's less likely that I'm going to continue to verbally support an author's work if I didn't agree with how they killed off a character, handled a difficult theme, or wasted so much potential with a setting or plot twist.

In Short...

    

    No matter what length of story you choose to read, each has its own strengths and weaknesses in terms of what its potential is based on word count. While some are more obvious, such as character development and plot, all of them impact the piece in its own way, whether you're reading about a warrior princess, a faraway galaxy, a Western showdown, or just an ordinary person.

    Despite all the ways that novels can go wrong, I still think they have enough worth and potential to be considered my favorite story length. Novels, while tricky to pull off, are capable of emotion, empathy, and a shared experience with millions from every walk of life. The complexity of a novel in and of itself makes it the most challenging story length to write well, but also one of the most rewarding to complete, polish, and share with the world. 

    Whether short stories, novellas, or longer, I'll continue to be thankful we have so many stories of all lengths to enjoy.

    Thanks for looking at my first Bookish Opinion! I know this is a bit different from what I usually post, but I'm excited to try this idea out and see what sort of conversations it sparks.

    And now...here's the huge announcement that I promised you a week ago! Again, this idea is happening because of this site's blogiversary month. Since I wanted to host another fun event tied to this blog's founding (which did NOT include my Week of Book Memes for this month), I am offering my first-ever book giveaway through Goodreads!

    The lucky winner(s) of this giveaway will receive free, signed copies of Rhonda and Kaley Rhea's Off Script and Over-Caffeinated AND Kara Swanson's Dust! (If you enter outside the U.S., you will receive e-book copies.) I've reviewed both books on this blog already and been able to interview Kaley Rhea and Kara Swanson separate times, so I already know the books included in the giveaway, as well as the kind, wonderful ladies themselves. 

    To sign up:

1. Sign up for a Goodreads account (if you don't have one already!)
2. Follow me (JadeSky: Stepping Stones Book Reviews), Kaley Rhea, AND Kara Swanson on Goodreads.
3. Post a comment below this blog post telling me you entered.
4. Wait for the winner! (Announced June 4, 2021) 

    There is no age requirement or limit for this giveaway, though you'll need to be comfortable sharing your email address or IRL location if you win. The day that results are announced, I will send a private message to who won on Goodreads so that they can communicate with the author or me about book shipping details. 

    

    I am so, so excited about this opportunity and hope that you'll consider entering. Again, both books are fun, thought-provoking, and would be literary gems in any avid reader's collection. 

    Another announcement: my Review Policy page is fully updated! I've decided to keep my review policy and request policy page separate, so go to the Review Policy tab and click on the link at the top if you want to know more.

    Well, that's all for now! Join me next Friday for another Bookish Opinion, focusing on print books, e-books, and audiobooks. 

(The photos used were taken by Koroush Qaffari, Roman Kraft, Blaz Photo, Chris Lawton, and Linus Sandvide of Unsplash.)