Basics: How Long Should a Story Be?

With the advent of self publishing, that isn’t such an easy question anymore…. but let me start by talking about traditional publishing.

When it comes to traditional publishing, there are rules. And when it comes to word count, there are ranges. (I for one, like this. I’m a planner, I like knowing how many words I should have because it makes chopping my story up for outlines and spreadsheets