 Romance/Love: October 18, 2017 Issue [#8554] |
  Romance/Love
This week: Best Story Length for Romance Edited by: Dawn Embers  
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Romance Newsletter by Dawn
A glance at story length in relation to the romance genre. Some stories work out great in short, concise form and others are much better when allowed thousands of words to develop. |
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When it comes to the genre, and well every genre really, there are some different options to consider when coming up with a story. One of them is the length or word count that best fits the particular story. Some will work better in a shorter range and others might expand into long series. (Okay, more so in say speculative fiction for big series but it's still possible to do a series in romance and I know from experience). What works best for your story? Well, let's look at some of the options.
Short Stories
There is a wide variety of options when it comes to the shorter stories. These can range from the oh so challenging type known as micro fiction (less than 100 words at times) all the way up to having thousands of words, when you get just below novelette length. There are Quickies, short bits and many fun times that can be accomplished without making a whole novel. And it can be romance, which is kind of important since this is the romance newsletter.
Flash fiction and short stories work well on the site. Most contests aren't going to go above the short story length for their requirements because they take longer to write, develop and subsequently they will also take longer to read and judge. Doing a story for a contest here is easier in 869, 2,000 or at least less than 5,000 words. And there are a few options out there either with rounds going or will have a round in the near future (I know one is going to reopen as soon as I can).
However, short does have some limitations and drawbacks. You can only show so much of the character and their romance in less than 3,000 words, for example. There is room for a little conflict but the flash fiction stories struggle at time to find the right balance in order to give the reader a satisfying romance story. So, some of us still write much longer pieces.
Long Stories
These are the novelettes, novellas and novels. The novella is a word count length that isn't as common as it used to be with certain genres, but when it comes to romance it is still considered a very viable length. And with self-publishing having increased so much in popularity, that has made the short lengths that are still not quite short stories have some great usage for getting stories out to readers.
The lengths have a great variety since they can range from 12,000 all the way to beyond 100,000. Though above 100k for a novel in the romance genre is probably going to be pushing it a bit too far. Might have to split that into a series instead. Not that the readers can't handle the length, but it's just not a preferred count of words for the particular genre even if the story manages to have that epic of a romance. Either way, the long story does have a decent variety of options while giving room to show the characters and their romance to the reader.
It has drawbacks too. Like not having contests available here on the site. It's also harder to get feedback on the much longer stories since they take time and a little bit of a different style for reviewing. Plus, it can be daunting and seem like a difficult task, especially when first coming into writing, to try and get that many words of one story done. Then again, that's what activities like NaNoWriMo are for. 
What story length works best? It depends on a number of things including the story and the writer. For me, I mostly write novels but for the site I enter flash fiction and short story scenes with romance. For someone else, the answer is going to be different. So... What works best for you? |
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What length of story do you find works best for a romance?
Last time, for the newsletter I discussed the use of romance as the main genre for the story compared to having it as a part but not the focus. Here is an interesting comment sent in on the topic:
Comment by Quick-Quill 
This is a very wide spread question. Most books now days inclue some romance or sex because many women read/write across genre lines. What is a true romance? My guideline is the original Harliquin romance paperbacks. Short reads where the focus is on a man an woman meeting and have an attraction but through circumstances, misunderstandings, or fear they are split apart. Those circumstances resolve and the two live happily ever after.
Cross genre writing to me is defined where the goal is something outside the two MC and they just happen to fall in love while getting there. Romancing the Stone is a good example.
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