Going back to short fiction

Keep it up. The most important thing is that you write. It doesn't matter what it is. Eventually you'll finish the novel. It took me forever to finish my first one but now I have several complete and the process seems to be getting easier.

Starting with shorts is a good way to get into the habit of finishing things, and also teaches about submissions, rejections, editors, readers, boneheads, malcontents, madmen, and ... well you get the idea.

Good luck with it, but don't bury the novel for too long, especially if the ideas are still warm. The stuff you learn from shorts will only carry over so far when it comes to novels.

I think you're looking at it wrong. Novels may take longer to write, but they really require no more work than short stories. Often less.

You have just as much time for working on a novel as you have for writing short stories. Both are written exactly the same way. . .you sit down as often as you can and you write. Whether novels or short stories, you have to put in the same amount of time over the course of a year.

You weren't putting in the time. Your two thousand word novel would have been a two thousand word short story, if you put in the same amount of time writing short stories as you did writing your novel.

The best way to start out is to write what you most LOVE reading and writing, not what you perceive takes the least or the most time. Odds are you'll have to write a great big bunch of short stories before you gain the skill necessary to write one that's publishable, and in that same length of time you could easily write a novel, or even two.

Either you have the time to sit down and write, or you don't. If you don't, then writing only one or two short stories in a year isn't going to do you any good. If you do, then a novel is actually less work, and requires fewer ideas, plots, characters, etc., than writing twenty or thirty short stories.

If a single novel intimidates you, then short stories should scare you to death. Individual short stories may not take as long to write as a novel, but writing enough short stories to matter is far tougher.

If you write 200 words a day, you can finish the first draft of a 100,000 word novel in about a year and a half. Writing 200 words doesn't take much time at all.

If you want to write a novel, write a novel. But if you really think short fiction is what you want to do, you can do that small chunks at a time, too.

Try writing one or two short stories to give yourself the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing what you start. But if your aim is the novel, then go for it.

Shelley

I think I understand what you mean, Moogi. The others are correct that short stories aren't any easier to write than novels, and that 1,000 words is 1,000 words, regardless of whether that's a completed short story, or a chapter in a novel.

But there's something satisfying about writing "The End", and especially so when the rest of your life is in chaos. And short stories can be very satisfying, and seem less daunting than a novel. So, good luck with your short stories (and with your novel, when you decide to return to it).

LordMoogi said:

Given my current workload and rate of distraction, for the moment, short stories are a much more feasible project for me.

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I hear you, LM, particularly in regards to rate of distraction. I've found, especially since going back to fulltime work, that i don't have the attention span to write novels. I get a few thousand words in and get bored.

But short stories? Yeah, i love 'em to pieces.

Like you, i don't plan on giving up novel writing entirely, but right now, short fiction is where it's at for me enjoyment-wise.

To get myself into the swing of things again, I just finished writing a vignette wherein several of my characters drag me out of bed at three in the morning to yell at me for not writing. It was motivational, in an odd sort of way.

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Hee! Sounds... fun.

LordMoogi said:

So, I recently realized the truth here: novels are great, but really not a good idea for starting out. Given my current workload and rate of distraction, for the moment, short stories are a much more feasible project for me. I still plan on writing that novel, but for a while, I'm going to whet my appetite with the short stories that I really should have been writing over the last few months.

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I identify with a lot of this! I don't mean that short stories are 'easier' than a novel, but they have plenty of advantages when you're starting out, since they:

- fit better with a heavy workload
- offer the opportunity to try different voices, styles, topics
- provide the 'instant gratification' and longer-term lessons of actually finishing a piece of writing
- help you realize what methods of working suit you
- don't come with the crushing expectations of a novel. This story sucks? Doesn't come together? No big deal. There's no 300-page manuscript to throw on the bonfire
- give you a jolt of motivation when you place them somewhere

I wrote my first (and, so far, only) novel in a rush of enthusiasm and Red Bull, throughout the three-month period when I should have been doing my thesis.

That, three years ago, was the easiest part.

Rewriting it, making it come even slightly close to fulfilling what I hoped it would be -- this has been the real kicker, and I've put it on the back-burner for a while because endless tinkering was making everything worse.

Rereading chapter by chapter has only shown how much my proficiency and tone altered as I wrote. I see how naive (yet ambitious! well-meaning!) I was to think I could just dash it off, polish it, and be done; I'm sure people have achieved this, but, for me, I know there's a lot more work to do.

I think it's in 'Everything is Illuminated' where the narrator calls his short stories 'apprentice work' or similar. This is how I see mine right now -- and that's in no way devaluing or trivializing short stories. For one thing, some of the most beautiful, moving writing I've ever encountered has been in short stories. For another, I still suck at writing them.

Good luck with yours!

I was working on a novel, about my fourth, all unpublished, when, about a year ago, I took a class that required a short story. I've been writing short stories ever since and enjoying it immensely. I would not say that short stories are the best way to learn to write novels, but I think they do help. Cheers!

Just a thought, Lord Moogi (love the name btw), it doesn't have to be either/or, exactly. You can get the doability and confidence boost of short stories and still have those words count towards a book:

1) Composite or montage novel

2) Book of short stories, tied together by theme or location or some other logical way.

You could get each one beta-read and perfected and set aside, finished in itself, but still counting toward your larger goal. The only thing is, you could not have the stories individually published in any form if you wanted to sell it as a book, because then first rights to that story would be gone.

P.S. Personally, I do think that short stories are much easier to write than novels. A novel is more complex and has to all fit together over a lot of territory. I've never started a short story and got hopelessly stuck where I scrapped it, but I've scrapped several novels after 50-100 pages. But that's just me.

Short fiction was my focus when I was in college, too. For me it's harder to write unless I write every day or every other day - just picking up the thread of the story and getting back into it is tough when I haven't written in a while. It was easier for me to write a short story during a break than not write for three weeks, kwim?

I also had an idea for a novel, and I did write some short stories that centered around those same characters and their situations. Never published them, but they came in handy when I finally wrote the novel.

Good luck to you! There's nothing wrong with trying to fit a novel in, and there's nothing wrong with writing short stories instead - it's whatever works and keeps you writing and improving your craft.

Just think of your novel as a series of short stories glued together end to end. Write each short, wrap them up together, and voila - instant novel.

Jamesaritchie said:

You weren't putting in the time. Your two thousand word novel would have been a two thousand word short story, if you put in the same amount of time writing short stories as you did writing your novel.

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I agree that it wouldn't necesarrily make it easier to write huge ammounts, but it's inarguable that writing two or three thousand words of a short story, probably even finishing it, is far more significant than writing two or three thousand words of a novel. Besides which, perhaps the ability to actually get that sense of acomplishment/completion with each piece might be what's needed for motivation.

Oat Farmer said:

I would not say that short stories are the best way to learn to write novels, but I think they do help.

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Yep. Definitely agree.

I recently adopted a similar strategy. However, I am targeting short story contests, specifically. That way, when I query my three novels, I can refer to any contests I've won.

Bsharp said:

I recently adopted a similar strategy. However, I am targeting short story contests, specifically. That way, when I query my three novels, I can refer to any contests I've won.

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You could, of course, also references any magazines you've published in.

Without paying $15 a pop.

Nathaniel Katz said:

You could, of course, also references any magazines you've published in.

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