What Is Short Form?
Is the length “free form” or specific?
At first I thought, “it’s just a short story/article.” Then I noticed someone’s story about the Short Form who indicated the length must be 500 words or less. So I wrote an article that was just under 500 words. I learned from the experience and intended to repeat it again.
Then I came across another writer who claimed a Short Form story is less than 150 words. Which is it? Does it matter? Perhaps different persons or publications consider their own squeeze limits?
It turns out that Medium has defined the Short Form as 150 words or less.
Here is an official <150 word Short Form story, told here nested inside this <500 word story!
How Short is Short?
What I learned from writing a Short Form story is that you can’t go “wordy crazy!” That forces you to be concise, get to the point, and make it read smoothly too. It’s an exercise thing that hopefully gets easier with repetition and time.
Then I came across a “declared” Short Form story that wasn’t very well done. It was short, but it was a subject that needed at least a thousand words. Plus it had too many contained subjects which were barely touched upon. Kind of like skipping across the Himalayas with no more than 3 steps per…
