Caveat: All of this is my opinion. You don't need to agree but as always, let's try and discuss, not argue. Some people don't like short stories, either reading or writing them. Some people struggle with the format, sometime because they can't get their story into the word count. Some people struggle to reach the word count. And many starting writers begin by writing the novel they've always wanted to write. Some people don't think short story writers are "real" writers. My opinion is that you shouldn't do that. Why? Well, as they say, the first million words is practise. Many will find that their first work isn't of publishable quality because they haven't yet honed their writing skills sufficiently. This is not a criticism, especially of anyone in particularly, it's just how things go. You don't get on a tennis court and immediately go and play Wimbledon. You need to get your skill up to a certain level first. So don't spend years writing your dream novel only to find you have to either rewrite it, or you don't find any takers - or that you self-publish and if it does get read, it gets poor reviews. Instead, learn to write and polish your skills first. Short stories are a great way to do that. Short stories, as a rule of thumb, run from around 2000-8000 words. Longer than that and you get into novelette territory, and they're harder to place. Writing one allows you to get feedback on a complete piece much faster, and quickly target the areas you need to improve. Imagine getting some feedback on chapter 10 that tells you that you need to fix pacing issues. You agree - but now you have to go back and do it for 10 chapters. Doing it on one short story means a lot less work. Watching word counts (e.g. for competitions) will help you learn about how to write prose and narrative. In the shortest forms, like flash fiction, every word matters. Even if the limit is 5000 words, you might still need to cut it down. Or conversely, if the limit is 5000 and you end up with a 700 word story, you might want to expand it. There's less pressure to write to a limit in novels. You learn how to write dialogue and narrative. Often, if you're getting feedback from excerpts of your novel, it's out of context. You can learn how to keep dialogue within character, and/or how to use it to develop a character. You'll learn how to make stylistic choices and develop your own voice., as well as how to create tension and manipulate the reader's emotions. Most importantly - writing short stories teaches you storytelling. You learn how to structure a complete story from start to finish. You learn how to begin a story and end it. You learn how to capture readers' attention quickly. You learn how to develop character depth. You learn how to plot. Who hasn't been hit with writer's block at some point in their novel? You're left wondering what happens next, what you should write? Learning how to plot with a short story will help you through that. You'll learn pacing, how to speed up and slow down your story where you need to. And you'll learn how to bring everything to a satisfying conclusion, giving the reader an emotional payoff or asking them a question that makes them think. And once you've developed to a certain point, you'll learn when to break the "rules". You'll learn when to tell, not show. When adverbs or the passive voice works. When it's ok to start with a long passage of exposition. When and how to use clichés. What do you think? Do you/don't you write short stories, and if so, why? Do you have any thoughts on the above? Agree/disagree? Discuss!
I both agree and disagree. I wrote my first novel without doing any short stories, and then when I had developed my skills a bit, I rewrote it. I may need to rewrite it again in the future, but as of now I may have hit my skill ceiling. It was valuable to me, to write the novel before any short story, because I wanted to get everything I had in my head down on paper so I did not forget it all, every detail I had. But then, I also used portions of my novel and converted them into related short stories that I posted for feedback, so I could find out what worked and did not. One example of such a short is my workshop entry "The Assassination of General Devalier" where I found out through feedback that the big bad general was just your common milk general and not at all what I really had in mind. It also taught me a lot of other things. So I basically use short stories to test portions of my full work. I've also posted the beginning works of some of my newer projects, because the start is the most important, and the feedback at the start lets me know what to keep in mind for the continued project.
Like a madman I agree and disagree. It depends on the goal. If you want to want to write a novel, write a novel. (possibly with some caveats) If you want to BE a writer write short stories, at least at the start. One of the extremely popular pieces of writing advice I am struggling with right now is the "Oh you have an idea for a story, well if you want it to be taken seriously DON'T WRITE THAT!!! Write 20 or 30 other things first, and then when you're a perfect writer, you can work on the story you want." If the muse hits someone, and they have a Novel they've just got to share with the world, write the damn Novel. As @Madman said sometimes you just got to get it down, if you have to rewrite it later, oh well that's part of the process. While you don't need inspiration to write, you shouldn't throw it away either. That passion, that drive, you won't always have it, so take advantage of it when it hits. BUT... if someone's goal is to be a writer, I would say start with short stories, It's just easier to get feedback when you have a completed story, more so then even with chapters of a novel. It's also just easier to get into the habit of writing, not having to commit months to years on ONE project before it's done, instead just a few weeks or even a few days, but you got it done and then you move on to the next thing. It's a good way to pump out work, get feedback and pump out more work, and build that writing muscle through habit..... BUT... there is a pitfall too... if you write too many short stories, you eventually become a short story writer. It's like building doll house furniture vs furniture for people, the basics are the same, but there are skills to making tiny dressers and there are skills to making dressers bigger than a person, and many of those skills are not the same. I think short stories are good if you want to practice writing (or just if you want to write short stories), but if your goal is to write novels... at some point you have to write novels, and all the short story writing in the world isn't the same.
I, too, agree and disagree. I think the main thing for me is that I view Short Story and Novel writing as two seperate writing types. Like one might view playwriting and screenwriting. Both use similar things, but the format and structure is different. So too, is Short Stories and Novels. I understand your point about using Short Stories as a way to polish your skills. I agree with that. But what if instead, one views a chapter of a novel as a short story. It has a beginning, middle, end. It's a mini-story arc in the novel. So, I have been working on honing my chapter writing skills for years now. I think I am doing much better when 1 chapter isn't 50 pages. Rather, 3-7 pages is becoming standard and the story is moving forward with ease. I agree with the others that say if you write too many shorts, you end up a short story writer and it's harder to write big works. I think if you want to write novels, start with that. Because the pacing is different. The character arcs need to be more drawn out. The dialogue can wander a bit. It's just different from the short story. A short story also has its place in the literary world as some novels should be shorts instead. (Twilight comes to mind.) I have written a short story or two in my time. Mostly fanfics, but I still love them. But I find myself drawn more to novels as a writing format.
LOL. This is such BS. If you wait until you're perfect, you're gonna die without writing a single word of your story. I think people underestimate how FAST you can grow as a writer. I look at work I did 1 year ago and am like, 'what I write now is better!'. I would advise against the mindset above and just WRITE that novel you want to write. Because passion is important and writing, like all skills, take practice. My first novel I wrote in 2009 would NOT stand up today, but I am happy I wrote 50K words. Also, like I and other said before, if you don't write a novel-length work, how can you understand the pacing? All work needs to be edited and revised. The first draft is never going to be perfect, so why not JUST WRITE that novel.
Even if that happens, there's nothing wrong with that. Many great writers started off writing short stories, and many writers write short stories alongside their novels.
Story pacing may be different, but scene pacing remains the same. Both are skills you need to learn, and the latter, in my opinion, is more easily learned in a short story.
Yes, and no. In a short story, the scenes are shorter, or so I believe. But for a novel, a chapter is 5-10 pages. But yes, the chapter arc is the same.
They are and they aren't. It depends on the story. Stephen King's The Jaunt is around 7500 words long, and basically has two scenes and a framing story. It consists of one large scene and two smaller ones, so the large scene makes up about 5000 words of the story, which is longer than some people manage for a chapter.
Fair. But again, I don't read many short stories. It's not a genre I enjoy reading. Because when I do, I always wonder why it's not a novel.
Because short stories and novels are different. The Jaunt has one moment of horror - and it is very, very effective, but in a different way to Salem's Lot. That one moment wouldn't fill a novel. Yes, he could work the theme as an opening to a novel, but it would basically be repeating the same moment of horror over and over again, and that's not how King's stories work.
I think scene craft can be practised whichever way. Shorter works aren't a bad way to start. Flash, short, novella, whatever. If, however, someone tells you she's working on short story number 35 to get more experience for her novel, she's just avoiding the novel.
I've always thought that, in order to be a novelist, you have to "level up".... and short stories, i saw as "leveling up." I just thought all writers were supposed to start with short story publications. imagine my surprise when I started querying my first novel and a lot of people had never published short stories or had never written them. That really bummed me out. For years, I'd made it a point to write and publish at least 1 short story a year to build that portfolio to make myself more marketable/appealing to future agents. Now its just habit. Publish 1+ short a year....
i really feel this.... I'm not a prolific short story writer, but I have 12 published with a 13th coming out end of this month. and yet, i cant get any traction on getting a novel published. i feel like im more successful with short stories, and its frustrating
Interesting discussion... I was the type to start with a novel. It turned out terrible, and so did my second. They're pretty similar in terms of quality and each was about 250k+ words in length, so I had plenty of practice but little improvement on my returns. Short stories are what got me improving rapidly. Why? Because I could experiment as much as I wanted with little to loose. You invest a lot of time, thought, and energy in finishing a novel. It's harder to throw it away or start over. But a short story can be set aside much more easily. Another big plus is feedback. It's so much easier to get feedback on a short story than it is to get on a novel. People don't need to invest anywhere near as much time in reading a short. Sure, you can submit a single chapter for feedback, but that single chapter hardly covers anything story-wise. Feedback is the driving force of a writer. It's really hard to improve without that because you only have your own judgement. And your own judgement is very likely not representative of other people. They're the ones who'll do the reading at the end of the day. If you don't intend others to read your works, then I suppose go crazy and do as you like. I wonder whether anyone has any such intentions though. I imagine most people do want to have their stuff read at the end of the day.
You don't get the sheer variety you can get working on one novel as you can on working on many stories. I've written Jack Vance, Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, Harry Harrison, Roald Dahl's styles. Before anyone asks, yes, I have my own voice too. I don't have to write like other authors, but the point is, I *can*. I've written fantasy, horror, comedy, tragedy, noir, literary. I've written unreliable narrators and used POV to switch and control narrative. I'm not limited by genre or style. There is no way I would have learned to do those things if all the words I've written were just one novel.
I write short stories but I hope to advance to a novel, sometime, when I've gotten a proper writing and reading routine in place. But its hard with so many other things that I want to do even though I know that I must make a choice if I ever want to actually "do" something. I'm afraid that self-discipline is not my strong side
I have written short stories in the past, and it worked for me. With ADHD, I didn't have the ability to stay locked into a story enough to finish a novel. The short stories gave me the confidence to have a completed product, edited and ready. The whole process was a learning curve, but for me, it was also a discipline. Now I have four novels, and a memoir under my belt, and I'm getting close to a traditional published piece with my fifth, and yet I feel like I'm on the bottom rung of a tall ladder. There are some authors that have had success with debut novels, so I wouldn't discourage anyone from diving into the deep end of the pool.
