The Writeoff Association 937 members · 681 stories
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Bad Horse
Group Contributor

I keep not bringing this up during a write-off because it seems better to bring up between write-offs, and then forgetting to bring it up between write-offs.

We've got the 2000-8000 word write-offs, and the 400-800 [EDIT: 400-750] word write-offs. I have often thought:

- that I wish the longer ones were 1000-8000 words, because I've read quite a few stories in these contests that were padded to reach 2000 words, and they always annoy me

- that I wish the shorter ones were 400-1000 words, because then I could end up with a story that I could post on fimfiction. Writing to 750 words and then expanding to 1000 words doesn't work well. A story has to be designed specifically for the under-750-word target; it will then be the wrong story for >1000 words.

Vic Fontaine
Group Contributor
Bradel
Group Contributor

I agree with all of this.

Though my problem right now has been figuring out how to turn my story idea into something that can work on 8000 words or less.

Pascoite
Group Contributor

For the 2k to 8k ones, I don't really care. For the shorter ones, I rather like the challenge of fitting the story in as few words as possible. It's not hard to get a 750-word story to 1k. After all, many people end up over 750 already and have to pare back. Save that longer draft and post it later. Or collect all those short works in an anthology, if you want to leave them as is. One of these contests actually had a maximum of 400 words, which was very interesting. I have a bunch of these stories that placed well, and then later became successful as 2500- to 4000-word stories later on. It won't work for all story concepts, but it does for a lot of them.

Titanium Dragon
Group Contributor

4029561
Honestly, I like them as-is. I do understand the annoyance in 750 word stories not wanting to become 1000+ word stories (or in 750 word stories that shouldn't be 750 word stories) and thus not being "suitable" for FIMFiction, but frankly I like them being shorter because it is an interesting constraint, and I write stuff there which is nice as being such a small story (some of my Famous Last Word stories come to mind here).

I also like the larger separation between 750 words and 2000 words; it makes the competitions a lot more distinct. It also makes it much less likely someone is going to submit multiple stories to the 2k+ word competition; 1k word stories are fairly easy to churn out in an hour, but 2k word stories generally take longer than that, and require more effort, this dissuading people from submitting multiple unless they REALLY want to. It also makes the competitions more distinctive, because the 2k-8k word competition makes for different stories than the 400-750 word competitions.

Also, 750 word stories can generally be read in 2-3 minutes, where the short stories take more than twice as long to read.

Bugle
Group Contributor

No idea how much weight a relative newcomer has on these kind of discussions, but I'm more inclined to agree with Titanium Dragon here. The larger gap in word count makes the two feel distinctive. Being able to write a story at exactly 1K words and being able to submit it for either competition feels a little weird to me. I'd rather have a distinction.

I could conceivably see bringing up the minific to 1K, just so it's more feasible to translate to Fimfic, but I don't think it's that big a deal. I kind of like the challenge of having to write in so few words, and that extra 250 is increasing the size by 33%! That is a huge jump!

Which is not to say I'm hard set in the old ways, just that nothing's convincing me otherwise yet.

Von Snootingham
Group Contributor

I've said this before in regard to the short contests. Since the minimum for the site is 1000 words, the short contests should go to 1000 words. Just makes good sense.

Sunny
Group Contributor

I do think there should be some gap, but I would not be averse to it being 400-1000 and 1500-8000, myself.

pterrorgrine
Group Contributor

- that I wish the shorter ones were 400-1000 words, because then I could end up with a story that I could post on fimfiction.

Why is it important that the stories be immediately publishable on FiMFic? Collections seem to work fine. This is especially weird from the guy who wrote "Self Image" (274 words). If you think fics like that ought to be publishable, fine, but Knighty's the guy to talk to.

Trick Question
Group Contributor

Here are my inexperienced thoughts on the subject.

0) I like the gap. I have no experience with the gap but I personally would expect Titanium Dragon's description of how it changes the feel of stories to be the case for me as well.

1) I don't agree with those who have said the 750-word restriction isn't a problem with respect to publishing on Fimfiction. If I plan to post something on Fimfiction it will probably be a more polished submission here, and contrariwise if I make a really polished submission here I won't want to pad it just to publish. Worse still, Fimfiction's word count can be off by as much as 40%(!!!) versus TWA's word count, which makes it very difficult to plan for both places at the same time. Most of us use Fimfiction, which is why we are here on Fimfiction discussing things.

2) I think the best solution to 1 is to advocate for Fimfiction to allow minific publications. Perhaps they could require you to publish a certain number of large works before you can publish minifics. Perhaps they could set up a filter like they do for mature works. Perhaps both of those, or something else entirely. But I would ask if I had any clout, which I do not. And I would strongly suggest Fimfiction fix their bizarre word count algorithm because it is complete ass.

3) I don't agree that the higher count is a problem for short-story length. If you're reading stories that have been padded, those are bad stories. Ponies will pad stories even to reach 750 words (we saw a few of those recently). I don't think reducing the word count requirement will produce better stories.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer
Group Admin

I still wish the short story contests were upwards of 12-15-20k like they used to be. :( There are so many story ideas I'll never be able to write in 8k words.

Unfortunately, the reality is that a limit that grand would push us easily into the hundreds of thousands of words every time, and that's just not something I want to deal with. So I can accept it, but I don't have to like it. :|

Chinchillax
Group Contributor

I would love the range extended lower to 1000.

I wrote a story for the "Behind Closed Doors" write off that I couldn't for the life of me extend beyond 1000 words. It would have been nice to enter it.

On the other hand, if the word count was lowered, I probably would have stopped another previous entry of mine too early and left it short. The minimum required me to stop and think about the story more and where it really needed to go, giving me as a writer more practice than giving up at around a thousand and calling it good enough.

I guess I stand on both sides of the fence. :/

Southpaw
Group Contributor

I like the idea of the 400-750 word limit; it's great to have that constraint and forces you to choose your words and how they flow that much more carefully. The 2000-8000 limit helps keep the two sets distinct.

So how about a third option? 1200-2500 words or so? Plenty of room to write a decent story, and all of them hit the minimum publishable length.

Sunny
Group Contributor

A hybridfic would be an interesting event, I do agree there!

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