Current Events > Is 500 or 600 pages too long for a short story collection?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Novels often range from 200 - 1,000 pages, but conventional wisdom teaches us that a short story collection is meant to be about 150 - 350 pages. Why is this? I don't think I've ever read a short story collection more than 350 pages, unless it was a compilation, e.g. The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov, Volume 1 of W Somerset Maugham's stories, or that collection of all Flannery o'Connor's stories.
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What do you think, CE?
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Why does CE hate books so much? Also, why do readers hate short story collections so much?
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Shut up
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The usual high level of CE discourse. Well done, MC_BatCommander, you have posted something crude and obnoxious. Those old-skool trolls, who use clever language, interesting ideas, and, dare I said it, subtlety, have nothing on you.
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I told you to shut up
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Do books upset you that much? Why is that?
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Bump.
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Hello? Are there really no readers left on this board, apart from me?
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I wouldn't think it would be too long, there just wouldn't be much reason to do that.
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MC_BatCommander posted...

Shut up

I wouldn't object to a really long collection of short stories - the stories are short, that doesn't mean the whole thing needs to be that too.

But short story collections tend to be more like "Greatest Hits" albums anyway, don't they? They're often about picking out the stories the author is best known for (or the ones which are the most marketable) and presenting them for the average reader to get a taste of their work. Going beyond that brings in the question of where you draw the line between "let's pick this author's best works" and "let's just make a complete collection." Unless you want to start making more deliberate statements about an author's works, which might rub some readers the wrong way - "Here's everything this author did, minus the two stories I didn't think were worth keeping."
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You should uh... post a short story in this topic if you can.
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