But with the rise of electronic fiction, the roadblocks against middle-length fiction are falling away. It is just as easy to buy an individual short-story as it is to buy a novel. So why not be able to buy stories that fall between the two traditional lengths?

One of the challenges that remain is helping the reader understand what the length of a story is. In printed media, we could look at the number and size of the pages and know how long the story is. But with electronic fiction, the number of pages varies depending on font and reader size (e.g. Kindle, Nook, iPod).

One solution to this is letting potential buyers of fiction know the number of words. Thus the reader will know whether the story is a short story, a novella or a full-length novel.

Of course, pricing of e-fiction is all over the place. You can get a decent e-novel for free or buy one for $14.99 or more. So where do short stories and novellas fit into this? Who knows? There doesn’t seem to be a per-word price point. But there is nothing to suggest that short and medium-length fiction can’t be a equal player in this twenty-first century world of literature. If the story is told well, it will sell.

As I mentioned earlier, writing rough drafts is tough most of the time. So many decisions on what the story should be, how to make it unique and how to tell it.  It takes a while to build up some momentum, but once I do, I find some brief moments when the writing gets a little easier. It’s almost fun! LOL.

In the past 24 hours, I’ve written a prologue and the third chapter of my novel Desert Witch. I’ve also made progress on a short story titled “Chaperone”. I like times like this.