SUBURBAN SYNTAX

Fact: I took a course on “yellow journalism” back in college, and one of the critical rules we learned is that the answer to any headline with a ? in it is likely “no”. So, then it stands to reason that TikTok hasn’t changed short stories forever.

Why did I write that ultra click-bait blog post title then? Well, besides the fact that it got you reading this, it feels relevant as one factor among many in the nuanced topic of word counts.

“Word counts?!” you say. “I thought this was going to be about TikToks, or Reels, or Facebook Shorts, or myriad other short-form video platforms that are all warping social media into TikToks image. Sorry to disappoint. This post is an observation on how short story calls appear to be drastically lowering word counts. Let’s investigate!

Diminished Attention Spans?

Modern society has a serious distraction problem. It’s been slowly creeping in for a decade, and psychologists and society at large only now seem to be recognizing it. Forget our inability to read novels, even the views on 10 minute YouTube videos are way down, in favor of these endless bite-sized videos.

While there’s no correlation, it stands to some reason that publishers “go where the money is” and if readers have decreased attention spans, word counts need to be reduced.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a decade ago, the average short story call was somewhere between 5000-10,000 words, and it’s now between 2000-4,000. I’m an “underwriter” and used to struggle to pad out my stories. That’s not so much of a problem anymore. Plus, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that flash fiction is seeing a precipitous rise in popularity.

The Rent is Too Damn High!

Costs are soaring for everything. Small-to-mid sized publishers are having to cut back where ever they can, and in many cases, the traditional pro model is to pay writers by the word. That, and if a physical print anthology is part of a project, word counts impact printing budgets. So I believe it’s fair to say the reduced short story word counts are also a symptom of waning publisher budgets.

Robot Slush Pile Invasion (AI Fiction Run Amok!)

It’s happening. We all hear about it, but what we’re likely not seeing (unless you, dear reader, are an editor) is the absolute inundation of slush piles with AI-generated stories. Moral and artistic arguments aside, more stories means more work.

With many small outlets either being passion-projects, or running on a small staff / volunteers, time becomes limited, and shorter stories mitigate that reading time, which is now effectively being wasted by editorial staff having to wade through countless AI generated stories.

Anecdotally, I am hearing of outlets being flooded regardless of how many “NO AI!” warnings they put into submission guidelines. Not only does this prolong response times, it rightfully drives outlet in the direction of requesting shorter stories so they can get through the pile faster. Again, this is anecdotal information, but it seems to be a growing trend.

Conclusion

Is TikTok solely responsible for changing short stories as we know them? Unlikely. However, I do believe its one thread in a tapestry of changes that are currently impacting the writing landscape, and decreasing the generally desired word count for what we consider the “short story” category of fiction. It will remain to be seen how that diminished word count affects short story writers creatively and financially, but the trend seems to be taking hold.