Here are some other specific examples of paranoia: 1  Loathing or hatred of activities you or normal people would usually feel comfortable in, such as parties, large crowds, and the mall.  Excessive worry about what people think about you, or that they are laughing about or whispering about you behind your back.
As a point of reference for the genre writer, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America define short story length in the Nebula Awards for science fiction submission guidelines as having a word count of fewer than 7,500.
Length: Short stories typically range from 1,600 to 20,000 words. Although authors and critics have debated the length of the short story throughout literary history, most agree on a minimum of 1,600 and a maximum of 20,000 words.