Short Story: noun: a story with a fully developed theme but significantly shorter and less elaborate than a novel.

That definition comes from The Oxford American College Dictionary circa 2001. With that definition in mind, what exactly constitutes a short story in today’s literary world? I mean length-wise. Is a short story 500 words or less? Can a shorty run at, say, 1000 words? How about 2000? It’s a difficult notion, this idea of imposing word limits on a creative writer’s work.

When I write, the word count is the last thing on my mind. I am too busy writing the story, constructing scenes, fleshing out the characters.

Recently, one of the sites on which I post short stories announced that they would no longer accept work for their home page if this work exceeded a certain word count. They’d continue to allow the longer pieces to be posted, sure, but just not on the main page, which is where many more eyes see these stories.

I have a problem with that. I’ve never sat down to write a story with a set word count in mind. Some stories might find a good telling within 500 words. I’ve written a few of those. They arrive at that lower count through a natural unfolding of description, narration, and dialogue.

However, many are the stories that take longer to germinate. I have some short stories that run in excess of 3000 words. Stephen King, Clive Barker, Daniel Woodrell, and T.C. Boyle are some of my favorite writers when it comes to the short story form. Some of their work stretches well beyond even that mark. Who in their right mind is going to tell Mr. King his latest piece is just too darn long?

I’m not in Stephen King’s league. But I am a writer. I write and the story unfolds. It’s as simple as that. If the story clocks in at 500 words or less, that just means the tale found a beginning, a middle, and an end in a quicker fashion. Will more people read it because it runs on the shorter side—as that other site suggests? Perhaps. But I am confident that intelligent readers will read a story—so long as it’s well-written and entertaining—regardless of length. These readers that supposedly prefer 500 words or less, do they not also read longer works, like novels? Is their attention span so guided by today’s ten-second sound-bite era that writers must adapt their style to this way of thinking? I certainly hope not!

And just for the record: this piece here clocks in at a mere 439 words.