So how do all of you decide when a story is long enough? I tend to go back and forth debating with myself if the stories I'm posting are too short or in some instances too long. Just wondering how other authors decide
Do not worry about length. If you're sitting there looking at word count, you're never going to finish a story. That's when you'll start having doubts and second guessing yourself.
Some people have said my stories are too long. But that is a little handful of people who don't make up the majority, and certainly not my fans.
Never listen to critics. There are no rules to writing. You make your own rules.
I will write until I feel completely satisfied, regardless the length of the story. The last one I published went over 15,000 words. I have some BBB chapters that get up to 20k words. I don't think nothing about it. If the story needs more length to tell the ending, then it's worth the extra effort.
I like to compare it to the Grateful Dead. Sometimes their live shows would drag out from all the jamming they did. Sometimes they just felt like taking a song and playing it for 20+ minutes. Other times, Jerry needed more space to do a soulful guitar solo. They didn't care about the critics. The fans who followed them made it all worth it. Do something long enough and good enough, you eventually will gain fans.