Know What You're Writing: A guide to story forms · 5:10am Aug 14th, 2013
Someone on some forum the other day was complaining about shipping fics that just go on and on being fluffy and cute without a real story. I’m generally annoyed by this myself... except when I’m not. That difference has nothing to do with the subject or style of writing, and everything to do with whether an author knows how to structure the story they’re telling.
I can’t express to you guys how important it is to know what form of story you’re writing or reading. They all have their own merits and weaknesses, and writing one kind of story when you thought you were writing another is easy to end up doing and can lead to fatal flaws that could have been easily avoided. When reading a story, the form is part of how you judge it; if you wanted a novelette and got a short story it can lead to feeling like the short story wasn’t good, even if it was a perfectly fine short story. On the other hand, there are bad short stories out there, and knowing what a short story should be trying to do can help you offer constructive criticism to the author. You might love some story forms and hate others, and recognizing what form an author is using can help you avoid wasting your time, or wasting the author's time with a whiny comment, or calling entire forms "bad."
So, this is a handy guide to figure out how to structure the story you want to tell, or how the story you’re reading probably should be structured. As always, what I’m writing here aren’t rules you have to follow. Fanfic writing allows for all sorts of experimental fiction. But experiments do fail, so keep that in mind if you aren’t using a traditional story form. (And if the English majors out there notice something I missed, let me know and I’ll add it.)
Short story: According to the SFWA (whose guidelines I’ll be using) a short story is under 7,500 words. If you poke around the site, you’ll see that’s not a lot of words. Most authors on here feel like they need something like 10k to tell a proper story, and they’re sometimes right -- if they want to tell the whole story.
Short stories often aren’t the whole story, frequently they’re the most important pieces of the story standing alone. The skill that goes into these is in evoking the rest of the story without making people feel like you were too lazy to type up the whole thing. There are a ton of tricks to doing this, I can’t go into all of them here, but generally speaking if it takes you more than a few sentences to catch people up, you can’t just narrate it.
Some short stories are the whole story, though. This works best if the story is simple and straightforward. My rule of thumb is that a scene is at least a thousand words; if your scenes are less than that, there’s a good chance you’re leaving out things that would make them feel natural. So if your story is going to take more than seven scenes to tell, you’re probably not writing a short story anymore. There are exceptions, of course, and reasons you might not want things to feel natural. But if you’re doing that, it should be on purpose.
Novelette/Novella: between 7,500 and 14,999, and 15,000 and 39,999, respectively. These are essentially the same in terms of writing. I find these fall into two groups.
Long short stories: These are usually short stories (simple, straightforward stories) in which someone is telling the whole story and going into a lot of detail. Generally these will get deeper into emotions, action scenes, or both than a true short story.
Short novels: These are usually novels that lack subplots or tangents. The single plot is big enough for a novel, but if you never lose focus on it you can probably keep it under 40k words.
In both of these cases, your story is probably the right length. I’ve read very few fics in this category that felt rushed (well, maybe Best Young Flyer), I think that by the time an author tops 10k they probably are willing to write everything that needs to be written. I have read a few of these that feel like short stories that are way too long, to me at least, but that’s probably a matter of opinion that I wouldn’t argue too hard.
One note about novellas and novelettes, if you plan on going into pro-writing someday -- they are (traditionally) very hard to sell. This may be changing with the advent of epublishing, but in the past they were an awkward size that was too much space to give a novice writer in a short story collection, but not long enough for a novice to publish as a book. If you get used to writing novella length, you might have trouble if you switch to original fiction and find your ideas coming out that short/long.
Novels: 40,000 words or more. Yup, just that. Not 70k (as the big publishers would have you believe,) not 100K. Just 40,000 words of fiction.
Novels usually have one “main” plot, and can also have several subplots. They start at the point in the story where the main plot becomes relevant to the main characters, and end when that plot is resolved. There’s some leeway on this for introduction and denouement, and that varies based on how long the work itself is. Another rule of thumb (which also applies to short stories and novellas): If it’s taking you more than 10% of your work to get to the story, you started the story too early. If it’s taking more than 10% of your work to wrap things up at the end, you’re droning on too long.
Novels have an end. They can have sequels, but those are different stories. If your story is open ended, you’re not writing a novel, you’re probably writing...
Serials: Literary serial fiction has been out of style for about a century, but fanfic and epublishing seem to be picking it up again. Basically, this is an open ended story, most similar to television dramas or soap operas. It will probably start off with one main plot and/or a handful of subplots, and by the time the first main plot is resolved there will probably be another one already running, or ready to take its place. This can go on forever.
One danger with a serial is that readers will get bored if the main plot ends and you don’t introduce a new one, or if the main plot never seems to advance in any way. A serial has to have a sense of momentum, people need to feel like something will happen in the next chapter. They can really grow attached to the characters in this story, so if they feel like the characters are treading water, the readers will get frustrated too.
Another danger of the serial is heaping misery on the main characters. Characters in serials often seem to have the worst luck anyone ever had. The author needs to keep those new plots coming, and they all come with new problems for the protagonists, which pile up after a while. Soap operas are famous for this, with people having five husbands (some concurrently), battling cancer, dealing with their long lost twin, getting amnesia and falling in love with their stepson, etc... Another good example is comic books, which do most of the same things as soap operas but in spandex and through multiple dimensions. Usually you need a decent sized cast to avoid this problem, and sometimes you just have to end the darn thing because it’s getting silly.
Episodic stories: You all know what these are, you watch at least one. These are series of related stories set in the same fictional universe. Some continuity will be retained from chapter to chapter, but each chapter will have its own plot, more or less (sometimes plots might span a few chapters, but they’ll usually be resolved fairly quickly.) The chapters aren’t quite short stories, in that you can build on information from previous chapters so they don’t have to stand alone, but the plot should be fairly self-contained.
Since the plots are limited to a chapter or so, they tend to be fairly simple and slice of life. These stories mostly ride on either enjoyable character interaction, or an interesting premise with a lot of room for different situations to play out. You may have seen some of these on TV, where the situation is played for comedy, but dramas can be constructed this way too -- a good example being the procedural (shows like Law & Order, CSI, House M.D.) where the same characters are brought a different problem each week and have to fix it before the episode ends.
The danger of an episodic fic is that it can get repetitive. The same characters interacting or solving problems chapter after chapter can be enjoyable for some people, but others will wish that someone would do something to break the mold after a while. Sometimes you can fix this by throwing something new into the mix; a new character to interact with, a new setting, a change to the basic idea behind the story. Other times, you might just want the story to end on a high note.
Other stuff:
Drabbles/minific/flash fiction/micro fiction: A drabble is 100 words, exactly. The others are best defined as “too short to post on this site by themselves.” These can be a lot of fun to read and write, the idea is similar to a short story, except that you have to pick just a moment or two that tells the story. Many writers like to try them as exercises, and some readers appreciate them because they’re easy to fly through.
Poetry (definition by bats): Two main distinctions: form poetry and free verse poetry.
Form poetry follows a conventional, established structure in regards to number of lines, iambic pentameter, rhyming scheme, subject-matter, syllables, etc. It's one of the most concretely ruled forms of creative writing, and part of the 'art' to it is fitting within those restrictions. Examples include sonnets, limericks, haiku, villanelles, odes, ghazals, and many others. Word count on them can be intensely variable, depending on the form, with haiku being very short, to some odes being novel-length.
Free verse poetry doesn't have any structure requirements like form poetry, though it often shares some. Most have line breaks similar to form poetry, though often does away with rhythm, rhyme, or syllable requirements. It can be written out as almost prose, and the distinction between poetic prose and normal prose can be hard to define. Generally speaking, it has less to do with conveying a traditional story, and more to do with conveying emotion and imagery.
Anthologies: Collections of short stories and/or novelettes by the same author or related to a theme.
Epic novels: Novels that have really big stories to tell. Many popular fanfics are epic novels. An epic can easily top 200,000 words, and features multiple plots and subplots. But it should still follow one main story thread, and end when it gets to the end of that thread. (Many serials like to pretend they're epic novels, but they're wrong. If the plot 100k into the story is not the same one you started with, it's a serial.)
Epistolary format (suggested by Vidatu): Epistolary stories are told through fictional documents; letters, diaries, interviews, newspaper clippings, etc.. "Scenes" (i.e. documents) can be shorter than usual, or even incomplete, and the narrative might be told out of order. This gives an author a lot of control over how much information is supplied, when, and by whom, but can also limit them to information that might be reasonably conveyed by the point of view documents. From a form perspective, these tend to require some of the skills of a short story, even at novel length; you have to use limited information to evoke larger things happening in the world where the documents were created.
Experimental stories: these are stories that play with their form. If you want to write a novel that’s the same scene from the perspective of everypony in Ponyville and still has one plot, or a serial that tells the stories out of order, or a short story that’s a series of drabbles that finally come together as one story in the end, go right ahead! This is the best place to try things out, people will read it and tell you what they think. Of course, that’s not always a good thing. As I said in the beginning, experiments can fail, and you should keep this in mind if people complain.
Bats, on experimental stories:
There are several 'movements' of experimental fiction, and your examples share some similarities to specific movements—for example, something novel-length told out of order and fragmented could easily be considered an Antinovel—many of which seek to say something specific about writing, storytelling, reading, life, etc. by the form of the work on its own. Some specifics outside of chronology/scene length/etc. would be:Oulipo writing: basically form poetry-like 'rules' applied to writing prose. The 'novel told about one event from multiple perspectives' could be considered an oulipo, but other types of constraints could be applied. For example, the novel A Void was written without containing the letter 'e' anywhere in the text. Writing something that has a set number of words per chapter (exactly 2000, a chapter's length is n+200, where n=the previous chapter's word count, the exact number of words per chapter has some sort of numerical significance like they're all prime numbers, etc.), having a narrative requirement of never naming a specific character, etc. could all be considered Oulipos.
Modern/Post-modern literature: stories told stream-of-consciousness, often eschewing normal rules and guidelines for grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., often with an unreliable narrator to give a sense of unknown and disconnect from what is and isn't real. Usually makes commentary on society in an idiosyncratic way. James Joyce's work, notably Finnegan's Wake, is a prime example of Modern literature. Post-modern is usually more playful and tongue-in-cheek; Modern is often a commentary about trying to control the chaos of life through art, while Post-modern says 'it's uncontrollable, best for an artist to have fun in the chaos.'
There are more, but a lot of them fit within the structure of novels/short stories/etc. and simply tell a different sort of story—like the Nouveau Roman movement, which are novels focused on specific objects and imagery, rather than plot/characters/action, or absurdist literature, which are novels where everything that happens is inconsequential and ultimately the characters' goals are futile—rather than play around with the mechanical structure of the forms themselves.
That’s all I can think of, I’ll add more if people bring them to my attention (in the form of a stylistically similar entry I could copy and paste would be even better.) Hope this helps some folks!
Lovely information from a master of the craft!
Nice to have some clarification... It's nice to know that, actually.
~Skeeter The Lurker
So uh how is that epic AppleDash adventure story coming along? Are there even any of these?
*edit*
The Advent of Applejack may be one, but as it has just begun I can't say.
1284115
I don't think there are any right now.
As for mine... you've seen my update speed and ability to focus, do you really have to ask?
Interesting information. Myself, I am hoping that my story, A Brave, New World will survive to the level of Epic Novel.
Hmmm, interesting. Now I'm trying to figure out what category Austraeoh and its sequels fall under. It has a main overarching plot for the whole thing (still ongoing) but has tons of smaller plots and new character integration hundreds of thousands of words in. And it updates daily in little spurts. Epic Serial? That should definitely be a breakfast brand-name. Epic cereal - the epic way to start your day! Eh, jingle writing is hard.
I also didn't know that novels could be so short, (40 000 words) which is cool to know. Now suddenly that novel I've been clunking away on doesn't seem so implausible
I think I've read certain stories that seem to be pure fluff, too (which can be great in its own right, but sometimes it just gets drawn out way too long. Too much fluff can end up equaling one honking dust bunny, and not many people like finding those things under their furniture), or have some sort of big, exciting premise set out in the synopsis section, but then turn out to have tens of thousands of words of filler fluff before anything actually happens, which is kinda annoying only because it can be misleading.
So yeah, story structure was never anything I thought about with any great amount of detail before (other than, "alright, it starts like this, this crap goes in the middle, and then we tie these loose ends up in a big bow right here") so this was quite interesting.
1284110
I agree. I do have one criticism, though. The experimental fiction section is rather woefully short and can be summed up by one word: Tarantino. If you take the three examples provided, stick them in front of Tarantino and a movie camera, you get Pulp Fiction. Seriously, it's a series of drabbles with their own serial sub-plots that come together at the end to reveal that they've been the same couple days all along, just told from different perspectives and out of order. 3/3.
1284125
Sounds like a traditional heroic epic, similar in format to works such as Homer's "The Odyssey."
1284132
Eh, her blog. I liked how it read.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I've read/played/watched all of them, and given my hand at writing most...
I generally don't prefer any one over the other, though I find good short story writers (Gaiman always comes to mind very strongly here) incredibly fascinating and impressive. A really solid feeling short story is one of the most satisfying reads I've ever known. Plus I'm not really good at the form myself, heh.
A great blog and, yes, I agree that many people would benefit from a proper understanding of the forms.
1284120 interesting, so I was right in saying that Green is most like a manga series. Its episodic in nature but also leaning towards serial form. Huh.
Back on topic a bit, one thing that I have noticed in regards to fluff stories is that the release schedule can actually effect my enjoyment of it. If a slow drawn out fluff piece is released one chapter every week or two it can keep my attention. However if I return to it later to give it a second read or find one that is already completed I find this is no longer the case. It is to much to take in all at once without ODing on the pure sugary sweetness.
1284132
If you have other examples, I'd be happy to add them.
One of the things I always try to point out to people when they argue about novel word counts is Animal Farm. Most people read it, or at least heard of it (and anyone in high school should read it; it's important dammit), and most think 'novel, if on the short side' when picturing it. 30,000 words. The first book in Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy is about 50,000. Not everything needs to be 150k words to tell a novel-sized story.
It's something people should keep in mind when planning stories. Which, I think, is tangentially just as important to talk about here as the forms themselves. I have written currently several short stories, a few 'long short story' novellas, a 'short novel' novella, and a few novels in progress/finished. I have yet to be surprised by the form the story ended up being, because I went in with the plan of what type of story I was writing. the exact lengths have had some wiggle room based on how long it actually took to tell all of the story, but the form itself was exactly what I planned. Haven't had any short stories bloat into 20-30k novellas, or any planned novels peter out at the same length or shorter because I ran out of story.
1284115
I'd say I have one planned, but I should probably finish Coming Back first.
1284156
Maidens Day shot up there on me, but it stayed in novella/novelette range. The world building took about 10k more than it seemed to in the outline.
But more often, my stories inflate in the outline. Wet Feathers was conceived as a 5k story, but there was more potential there when I actually sketched it out. I've had several stories I conceived as quick side projects and abandoned when the outline showed that they weren't. So I totally agree, outlines can really help when it comes to knowing what you're getting into.
I would argue that the differences between a novella and a short story, and a novella and a novel have nothing to do with word count, but you've covered your bases. The difference is in plot complexity, not length. I wish people would stop trying to define story forms with exact word counts.
1284192
Well, the word counts are set for award purposes (the Nebula awards, in this case.) So your original fiction, 45k novella is probably not going to win any awards, because it's not a very good novel.
For the purposes of fanfic writers and readers, it provides a guideline they can check against. If their story is 20k, and it isn't a novella/novelette, something probably went wrong somewhere.
1284136
I meant no offense. In hindsight, woefully was the wrong word, but it's late and I'm tired and my brain started its hibernation cycle several hours ago. I suppose my issue with the suggestions is just that it accidentally implies that to be experimental, one has to be like Tarantino. I'm a huge Tarantino fan and love his way of shooting scenes, but that's his style and I find most people fall flat when they try to simply do as someone else. It's a good place to start, but I've seen so many people get stunted by that same method, never straying too far from their inspiration and failing to develop their own voice as a result.
1284150
I shall gather the appropriate wool while I gather some much needed sleep. Perhaps in a few hours, I will be more cogent and creative. Again, no disrespect intended regarding the initial post. In fact, I agree with all of it and had only a minor concern regarding the section in question.
1284214
I took no offense. In fact I agree with the fact that Tarantino is master of that style.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Okay, y'know what?
This is not germane, and given that I just blew the last two hours writing an extended ramble like a dumbass, I'm not even going to read this tonight. But I'm going to read it tomorrow, and I'm damn well going to start writing some decent blogs again, now that I keep seeing you and Bad Horse back at it.
Summer, you are officially over.
Alright, I'll try to add a bit here, using what I know concerning poetry, as well as experimental fiction.
Poetry: Two main, distinctions. Form poetry and free verse poetry
Form poetry follows a conventional, established structure in regards to number of lines, iambic pentameter, rhyming scheme, subject-matter, syllables, etc. It's one of the most concretely ruled forms of creative writing, and part of the 'art' to it is fitting within those restrictions. Examples include sonnets, limericks, haiku, villanelles, odes, ghazals, and many others. Word count on them can be intensely variable, depending on the form, with haiku being very short*, to some odes being novel-length.
Free verse poetry doesn't have any structure requirements like form poetry, though it often shares some. Most have line breaks similar to form poetry, though often does away with rhythm, rhyme, or syllable requirements. It can be written out as almost prose, and the distinction between poetic prose and normal prose can be hard to define. Generally speaking, it has less to do with conveying a traditional story, and more to do with conveying emotion and imagery.
Experimental fiction: There are several 'movements' of experimental fiction, and your examples share some similarities to specific movements—for example, something novel-length told out of order and fragmented could easily be considered an Antinovel—many of which seek to say something specific about writing, storytelling, reading, life, etc. by the form of the work on its own. Some specifics outside of chronology/scene length/etc. would be:
Oulipo writing: basically form poetry-like 'rules' applied to writing prose. The 'novel told about one event from multiple perspectives' could be considered an oulipo, but other types of constraints could be applied. For example, the novel A Void was written without containing the letter 'e' anywhere in the text. Writing something that has a set number of words per chapter (exactly 2000, a chapter's length is n+200, where n=the previous chapter's word count, the exact number of words per chapter has some sort of numerical significance like they're all prime numbers, etc.), having a narrative requirement of never naming a specific character, etc. could all be considered Oulipos.
Modern/Post-modern literature: stories told stream-of-consciousness, often eschewing normal rules and guidelines for grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., often with an unreliable narrator to give a sense of unknown and disconnect from what is and isn't real. Usually makes commentary on society in an idiosyncratic way. James Joyce's work, notably Finnegan's Wake, is a prime example of Modern literature. Post-modern is usually more playful and tongue-in-cheek; Modern is often a commentary about trying to control the chaos of life through art, while Post-modern says 'it's uncontrollable, best for an artist to have fun in the chaos.'
There are more, but a lot of them fit within the structure of novels/short stories/etc. and simply tell a different sort of story—like the Nouveau Roman movement, which are novels focused on specific objects and imagery, rather than plot/characters/action, or absurdist literature, which are novels where everything that happens is inconsequential and ultimately the characters' goals are futile—rather than play around with the mechanical structure of the forms themselves.
*the notion of the 5, 7, 5 syllable structure is an American idea, what's more important to the traditional concept of a haiku is that it's three short lines, have a subject related to nature that's a snap-shot of something, while at the same time expressing the idea of time passing. An example of a translation of a traditional haiku by Matsuo Basho:
Old pond
frogs jumped in
—kersplash!
This has been bats flexing some of his in-progress art degree.
You know, I should really get around to reading one of your stories these days, considering I follow your blog posts like a mad man. Excellent work as usual, especially from someone who's dabbled in all of the above.
I find that most people's grasp of what is written on here falls under "chapter fic" or "not chapter fic"- also known as one-shot. There can be long one-shots and short one-shots. There can also be long chapter fics and short chapter fics but what the hell, the system is flawed.
1284294
Thank you! That was awesome and informative, especially the bit about experimental stories. I had no idea about some of those, and it's so exciting to have new concepts to think about. They've been added to the post.
1284214 There's your experimental stories.
1284386
I totally agree. In fact, I've noticed that the times where my wordcount tends to shoot up without me noticing are the times I have a lot of characters to introduce or world building to do-- the outline looks the same ("Applejack and Rainbow Dash meet Dusty Rose" vs. "Applejack and Rainbow Dash run into Spitfire") but to convey an important new character takes more words than one is used to in fanfic.
But usually, if you're using the mane six or well developed background ponies in known settings it will make the story shorter than it would be as original fiction. How much shorter depends on the author and the type of original fiction, of course, but it's something to keep in mind if you try to switch over.
The other side of the coin is that fanfic readers are often more tolerant of fluff -- scenes that serve no purpose but to let ponies do something cute -- and a lot of fanfic gets, well, fluffed up by that. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because many people are here to read about ponies doing cute things, but they're scenes a real editor would insist on cutting because people aren't reading a novellla or a novel to read about characters doing cute things that don't really contribute to the story.
1284704
You're quite welcome. It's interesting to consider the fact that all fanfiction is a form of oulipo writing—I'm going to write a story with the restriction that it has the same setting/characters/etc. as My Little Pony.
Well, that was a good read. I'd say that planning out and being aware of what type of story you're writing is probably the single best piece of advice people writing ponyfic can receive. As to additional forms, I'm struggling to think of many.
There's epistolary format (think Dracula, Carrie, and World War Z), which is when the story is told through a series of documents, usually letters, interviews, diary entries, or media clippings. This is very often used in video games to tell backstory (think the audio logs in Bioshock, or all the letters, newspaper articles, and terminal logs in Fallout). It's a good way to both create a feeling of realism, and to tightly control point of view and what info is given or concealed from the reader. I've seen a few of these pop up in ponylit; the best I've read is In Memory Of by Obselescence.
The comedy of manners is more a genre than a form, but I think its structure is distinct enough to warrant mention. It's basically a satire of social roles and conventions, where the plot usually takes second place to witty dialogue. They're often written as plays (Oscar Wilde wrote these a lot, and Shakespeare had a few), but I've seen some in novel form as well. The fantasy of manners is a sub-genre that applies these conventions to a fantasy setting; instead of doing epic deeds, fighting monsters, or going on quests, characters banter with and strive against each other in social intrigues. Gormenghast is the only published one of these I've read, but it seems like a lot of pony fic that falls into the comedy of manners genre fits the sub-genre as well (though I can't think of any concrete examples at the moment).
This is about all I can think of at the moment (I'm just drawing on what I've read recently). As said before, this was well put together (maybe consider going in with Wanderer D at some point, and co-writing a site post on the matter?).
1284767
Thank you! You're right about epistolary format, I'll add that in a minute.
As for comedy of manners, I do think that's more a genre. I see your point -- the main plot doesn't have to advance like a novel/novella because the interest is more in people sitting around being witty -- but I think that's more a genre convention than a form issue. A lot of genres have exceptions like that; action stories can throw in fights that just "look" cool, romances are allowed to have scenes of the lovers being in love or staring longingly, and comedies in general are allowed to do things just because they're funny, even if it doesn't advance the plot. (Within reason of course.) But the core of a comedy of manners is still a traditional story structure (main plot and possibly subplots); you can write one as a novel or a serial, and it would have the risks and rewards of that form.
(It happens I've been outlining a comedy of manners recently, so I really considered this and appreciate this comment.)
I think I will PM Wanderer D and see if he'd like to do something like that. I'd really love it if more readers and writers understood this stuff.
1284213
I disagree, but I suspect my definition of novella might be different than yours. A short story can stretch on over 20k and still be a short story. It's not usual, but if through all those 20k words it's still only dealing with one conflict or one major theme, with little deviation, it's still a short story, just a long short story.
When I think novella, I think Of Mice and Men or The Crying of Lot 49. When I think long short story, I think Animal Farm or The Metamorphosis. They're all around the same length (I think, it's been a while since I read any of them), but there's a pretty distinct difference in story line complexity.
1285425
Traditionally, novellas are presented the same way as short stories, ie no chapter breaks, just scene breaks. The distinction between novella and short story is muddy, and the distinction between novella and novel is also muddy. Really you have 'stories told in chapters' and 'stories told in scenes' as the separating lines, with most 'scene only' stories stopping at about 40k.
Hmm. Will have to review my outlines to make sure they adhere to one and only one form.
Also, will you be doing a blog post about genres? It seems like a natural follow-up.
1285776
I might, though I always find that a lot muddier. That is, you can't write a story that's both a novel and short story, but you can write a sci-fi western, or a romantic horror story. Plus, there are some genres that I just don't read. I don't think I've ever read a mystery novel, for example.
That's probably a post I'd have to get other people to write for me. I'd have much better luck going on to characterization or plot or some other general aspect of writing.
I've often heard it said that a novel is 50,000 or more words, but people (even professional authors and organizations) seem to constantly complain at each other over it. Of course, it is something of a pile versus a heap problem - adding a few more words or taking a few away doesn't change the fundamental nature of a work. While short stories are distinctive, other things are much less so - novellas and novels kind of blend into each other at the top end as you noted, a "short novel" and a long novella being little different.
I think the real key to length is to just make sure that it isn't too long or too short for what it is - it shouldn't feel excessively drawn out or rushed, it should feel like it has the proper flow for the story it is telling. Honestly I think this is one of the dangers of writing here - it is very easy to write something of whatever length, so there is little incentive to keep things brief and to cut, even though cutting is frequently one of the things that most strengthens works.
For the benefit of those interested, I'm going to link to Scramblers and Shadows recent blog where he discusses Ursula K Le Guin's storycrafting concepts of crowding, leaping, focus, and trajectory. These elements are probably better at defining what differentiates a short story from a novella from a novel than word count, and the post is certainly worth reading.
Craft: Crowding and Leaping; Focus and Trajectory
When it comes to the creative aspect of writing there are few restrictions or reservations about story length. A writer will sit down and draw upon his skills and simply write, and when the story is completed, it is however long it is. It could be a story as short as ten thousand words, or it could be one hundred and ten thousand words; the determination of length is set by the creative power of the writer's will.
Writing for profit however is a different matter. Not all of us get the luxury of penning a twenty thousand word story, and pass it off to our editor, and pray that it meets reader approval. Most novels now are meaty bastards that soak up, in excess, of eighty to one hundred and forty thousand words. This is because the average reader wants "bang for their buck" and it's left to the writers to fulfill that demand.
There are few readers that will spend their money on a book, novella, novel or short story, and expect it to be less than two hundred pages. Readers don't see books in words; they see them in pages. An average reader will see any novel under two hundred pages not worth their time. They have grown used to popular fiction writers stuffing their hands with five hundred and seven hundred page thrillers. Why should they shill out their money for something that will offer them less return for their investment.
Granted, we no longer live in an era where authors are paid by their page-count, and so we no longer have four hundred to six hundred thousand word novels floating around. Economically speaking, we'd all collapse from the sheer exhaustion.
I myself understand the purpose of "guiding" a writer to a specific book or story length, and the necessity for understanding what they are writing, but I also know that despite the arguments, and the peripheral chest-thumping, fan-fiction, casual, and personal writing will never really stand equal to something that is under the harsh scrutiny of public opinion, critical scrutiny/acclaim, and monetary competition: the published novel.
And suddenly, I understand why people have been noting the breakneck pace of ny stories.