The Commonplace Shelf · A Tool for Writers
The Shape of a Story
Enter a word count and a genre: see where the story can go, and where its turn should fall
Length is the first fact an editor checks. Shape is the first thing a reader feels. This tool puts the two together: the magazines whose current guidelines accept a story of your length, and a beat map, drawn from measured classic stories, of where each movement of your story is likely to fall.
What it is
Where it could go
| Magazine | Length accepted | From the guidelines |
|---|
The beat map
| Movement | Typical position | In your story | What it does |
|---|
The measured models
Eight classic stories, counted word by word from their public-domain texts. In every one the decisive turn falls past the 80% mark; in four it falls in the final 5%. The model nearest your length is marked.
| Story | Words | Trouble begins | Decisive turn |
|---|
Magazine figures come from each publication’s own guidelines, checked in October 2026 and collected in The Short Story Today. Guidelines and reading periods change often: always read the current page before you submit. The beat-map proportions come from The Shape of a Short Story. A template is a scaffold, not a cage; the writers measured here did not work from percentages.
Unfamiliar with a term? The glossary defines novelette, flash fiction, epiphany, and nearly two hundred more. More free booklets are on the Commonplace Shelf.