Word Count

Word count is a powerful story element. At Electric Spec we accept stories of length 250-7000 words. This is a huge range; not many venues accept such a large variety of lengths. A 250-word story is very different from a 7000-word story in many ways. A 7000-word story is complex and can have many characters and/or many try-fail cycles. At the opposite extreme, a 250-word story is generally merely(!) conceptual, and often has a twist at the end.

As a writer, I recently sold a 42-word story! Talk about challenging! How do you even tell a story in 42 words?
I've noticed when submitting there are a lot of markets that only want 1000-words. It's also quite challenging to tell a story in only 1000 words. Editors may have a different perspective...

If you've read Electric Spec, you know we don't often accept stories under 1000-words. We don't often find effective stories of that short length in the slush pile. We don't often accept stories over 5000-words either. This is because editting such a long story is more work.
So, bottom line: 2000-words to 4000-words seems the sweet spot for Electric Spec story length in recent years. It's long enough to tell a good story but not so long that it scares off editors. :) Good luck!