One of the hardest parts of writing a good story is trying to hit a word limit. It’s funny cause I remember in school struggling to vomit enough words out onto a page to get a good grade, but now as an adult, I have trouble removing enough of what I wanted to get across. It feels like some kind of karmic punishment sometimes.

Fortunately, there are a lot of good resources out there from other people who struggle with this very problem. Here’s a great video that a friend sent to me recently. It’s a lecture from Brandon Sanderson’s lecture series at BYU presented by gust Mary Robinette Kowal on writing short stories. It even includes a handy formula for predicting the length of a story. Check it out of if you’ve ever found yourself struggling to find direction while writing a short story!

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley