Anyone prefer writing short fiction over novels?

tammay · Jan 7, 2007

Hi all,
I've been working with short stories, novel length fiction, and poetry for a while and until a few months ago, always felt that novels were my thing. I think part of this has to do with the grad school mindset - I'm in a PhD program in creative writing and I've noticed from several universities I've been to that the "thing" seems to be either everyone wants to write for their dissertation a novel-length manuscript or a book of poetry. Stories are functional in the sense that you can workshop them more readily than a novel but don't really get much exposure or much respect (at least where I've been).

Anyway, I started the program this fall dead set on writing novels and took a novel writing workshop where I submitted chapters for critique. Aside from the fact that it was a disappointing experience (I've posted elsewhere about this), I find I'm steadily having a lot of trouble with novel writing. I have about 3 novels in rough draft format (very rough) and every time I try to revise them I get caught up in anxiety and seem to be spinning my wheels. I try to put them aside and begin a new novel but any idea I start I just can't get excited about. I started a revision during the workshop, got some good feedback on it, wrote about 100 pages, and then the holidays hit and I got into that spinning-wheels cycle all over again. I've been thinking for a long time that maybe novel writing isn't for me - I'm just too anxious and too much a perfectionist. So I decided to set all novel writing aside and concentrate on shorter works, mainly short stories and novellas. I've been doing that now for a few weeks and I feel like my creativity has come back again. I'm enjoying writing the short story adn novella and finding them not nearly as anxiety-ridden as the novel. I know it's tough to get short story/novella collections published, but I've met a few writers who have done it so I know it's not impossible.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if anyone else tried writing novels and found it wasn't their thing and switched to short fiction with more success.

Tam

blacbird · Jan 7, 2007

I've worked with novels and with short stories, back and forth over time, and with equal lack of success at both.

caw

Jadezuki · Jan 7, 2007

PeeDee · Jan 7, 2007

I started out writing short stories, I wrote short stories from then until now, and I still write short stories. I'm writing one now, in fact. It's my favorite medium. My favorite component of the medium are serial stories, but those have little use anymore, alas.

Novels have their uses, because there are stories I can't do justice in a short story form (although I could do them in serials; I suspect my novels are just serial stories with the extra bits stripped out) but even so, I still take more pleasure from doing several short stories than I do from doing novels.

Mike Coombes · Jan 8, 2007

I prefer shorts.

Rolling Thunder · Jan 8, 2007

Short stories allow me to work on building my writing skills better than novels. The first novel I wrote took only a short time to write but the editing is taking much longer. Short stories are just as difficult to edit, if you strive for a certain word length, but the rewrite effort flows better for me as I can see the end more clearly.

Course, like Pete says, you could treat a novel like a set of interlocked short stories. If each chapter moves the story forward and the central plot is threaded in nicely you might find it easier to manage.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 8, 2007

Shorts/Novels

From my experience, short stories get more respect in regular college creative writing courses, and often in MFA programs, and novels get more respect in Ph.D programs. I don;t think "respect" matter in either case. You need to be writin what you most enjoy writing.

But I also think you're making a serious mistake in setting one novel aside to begin another. This is never a good idea, and is, in fact, usually disasterous. It's one of the first things any new writer, at any stage of his writing, is warned against doing. It's a horrible habit, and almost guarantees failure.

If you want to write a novel, then you need to pick a novel and write it, start to finish, and no dropping it for another novel, no fooling around, is ever allowed, until you hit final draft.

It's also a horrible mistake to show novel partials around for critique. It just doesn't work. Even when you finish a novel this way, it's almost certainly going to be a bad novel, and you'll have no fire for the writing after the first critique. Novels should be critiqued only AFTER you finish one.

You won't write a good novel, and you won't enjoy the novel writing process, until you learn to stick to one until it's finished, and until you learn not to show a partial or a rough draft for critique.

Of course, the same can be said for short stories. Showing any unfinished work to anyone is simply a terrible idea.

This aside, you should write what you most enjoy writing. Writing isn't about "respect," it's about sitting down and writing whatever it is you most want to write.

But I will also say this. When a writer claims "perfectionism," it's usually an excuse for not doing something. Real perfectionists work like dogs, and don't stop until they get something right.

Kate Thornton · Jan 8, 2007

Way back when, I wrote a small batch of novels which didn't go anywhere but which allowed me to make a lot of mistakes and improve my craft. Then I stumbled upon the short story form and found my calling. I have quite a few short stories in print and enjoy the form to the exclusion of novel writing.

I really like short stories, the shorter the better, and I don't think I'll be doing the novel form anytime soon.

Lyra Jean · Jan 8, 2007

I enjoy writing short stories more. I leave my novel writing for November during Nanowrimo. Maybe not the best thing to do but right now it works for me.

steveg144 · Jan 8, 2007

I much prefer the small, self-contained nature of a short story over writing a novel. 2007 is my year to push hard on generating short stories (and also short plays, a form I've come back to after 30+ years and discovered I still love). That being said, I'm still thinking I'll want to write a novel every other year, simply because I have several ideas that won't work in a short story and basically demand a novel to realize them. But all thing being equal, if I could achieve Literary Immortality(tm) just writing short stories and plays, that'd be bliss.

PeeDee · Jan 8, 2007

I like that there are all sorts of things you can do with short stories. I love reading them as well as writing them (I get so excited when a new Best of Fantasy & Horror or ...Sci-fi comes out every year).

I can sit in a bookshop window and come up with a short story on the fly and post it in the window as I do it page by page. I would really not want to do that with a novel.

Treating a novel like a series of interlocking short stories was something that I did for my first couple of novels (which, gods willing, will never see light of day) because I had spent all my time writing short stories and I couldn't properly transfer from the one medium to the other yet.

I don't do that anymore. I'm thinking about it for my next work, though. I think there's a lot of fun to be had there, as long as I'm careful.

...

I lamented about this in another thread, quite some time ago: I really wish the short story market as it stands today is as it stood in the "golden" age of the short story market, when we had Astounding! magazines with Harlan Ellison and Bob Silverberg and Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon and so on. I miss that age, because I could be writing short stories for a living. That said, I'm also very quick to point out that what I'm missing is actually the IDEA of the age, because I woudn't bet you a dollar that it was exactly like I read. Time passing always makes things more romantic.

chartreuse · Jan 8, 2007

This is a pretty timely topic for me.

When I started writing fiction (my publishing experience was all in nonfiction), I started with short stories, which I loved. Although I wasn't getting published, I did get a lot of good feedback from the editors of the magazines I submitted to (all major markets).

However, in the back of my mind my choice to write was always linked to the possibility of being able to make enough money at it to not have to work a day job. I figured this was a near-impossibility doing short stories, so I put them aside and made a couple of attempts at novels.

What I found was that I just don't have the attention span. I just can't hold my interest in the story. I also have finally admitted to myself that even if I finished the novels, in all likelihood they wouldn't result in enough money for me to live on.

Once all this came together, I realized that when I take money out of the picture as a consideration, I'm much happier doing short stories. I finish them. I submit them. And I can write about whatever little story is interesting to me at the moment.

I don't regret the time I spent working on novels because I learned a lot. I also think I may be able to take some of those characters and situations and turn them into short pieces. But I always enjoy the time I spend working on short stories, whereas working on novels, even if I was excited at the beginning, just ends up feeling like the worst sort of drudgery. Life is TOO short to put myself through that.

Del · Jan 8, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
But I also think you're making a serious mistake in setting one novel aside to begin another. This is never a good idea, and is, in fact, usually disasterous. It's one of the first things any new writer, at any stage of his writing, is warned against doing. It's a horrible habit, and almost guarantees failure..

This is oh so true. We are never happy with every page or step of writing and if we set aside one novel we are certain to set aside the next. I have a few novels that I have abandoned. They were not set aside, they weren't good ideas. This is ok. I have a few short stories that beg to be novels and those are set aside, because I am working on one already.

I do bounce between my one novel in progress and short stories. Shorts break the monotony of drudging through a single project. One Novel, one short, at any one time.

ekm · Jan 8, 2007

Tammay, it sounds like you're going through what I went through when I first started writing. I "bled" over every line and edited as I went. It took some time for me to get past that and I was finally able to just write the thing, to heck with how good it was.
Then the edit process became a serious problem. It would take me hours to revise a single paragraph. Boy, talk about anxiety. I hated even thinking about editing my work so I just never did it. I did what you are doing. I would work on other outlines. Outlines are safe. They're just outlines.
Then one day I found Critique Circle. I dont know what it was about critiquing other peoples work but whatever it was, it cured me of my phobia and now Im about a 1k words away from finishing the 2nd to the last draft of a 7500 word short story. I think it had something to do with seeing the work of everyday folks like me that convinced me I could do this writing thing but I dont know for sure. But, maybe you ought to try it yourself. It might help you too. I havent posted anything up there for critique yet, but will before the 10th.
Good luck to you.

PracticingWriter · Jan 8, 2007

novel writing to story writing

This is an intriguing topic for me, too. I had a novel manuscript completed (and newly agented) when I began my MFA program. At the same time, I'd just begun writing short stories, and was really enjoying that.

I also found short stories (mine and other people's) were simply much easier to "workshop" than novels (again, mine and other people's). I can elaborate on that if necessary. And I've had some nice successes selling/publishing my short stories. I've also won a fairly major short story contest. In the meantime, that first novel never sold. That, too, is another story (not a very happy one, I'm afraid; that agent and I ultimately parted ways).

The trouble I've encountered in the time since is that virtually every agent I've approached with my story collection tells me how much more difficult story collections are for them to sell than novels. Even the agent who showed the most interest in the collection to date told me it would be much easier to sell as a two-book deal with a novel proposal included.

But I can't just come up with an idea for a novel, and write the novel, because novels sell. I need a novel idea to truly "speak to me." That's just me. Not necessarily commercially viable, unfortunately. So at the moment, I'm going to focus on pitching smaller/independent presses with the collection, and trying more contests. We'll see how it goes.

I'll be following this thread as it continues with great interest.

Best,
Erika D.

PeeDee · Jan 8, 2007

ekm said:
Tammay, it sounds like you're going through what I went through when I first started writing. I "bled" over every line and edited as I went. It took some time for me to get past that and I was finally able to just write the thing, to heck with how good it was.
Then the edit process became a serious problem. It would take me hours to revise a single paragraph. Boy, talk about anxiety. I hated even thinking about editing my work so I just never did it. I did what you are doing. I would work on other outlines. Outlines are safe. They're just outlines.
Then one day I found Critique Circle. I dont know what it was about critiquing other peoples work but whatever it was, it cured me of my phobia and now Im about a 1k words away from finishing the 2nd to the last draft of a 7500 word short story. I think it had something to do with seeing the work of everyday folks like me that convinced me I could do this writing thing but I dont know for sure. But, maybe you ought to try it yourself. It might help you too. I havent posted anything up there for critique yet, but will before the 10th.
Good luck to you.

THat this is a recurring problem for many writers (the editing without end, amen) interests me. Here is how you get out of this trap. The Pete Method. But don't call it that, your friends will think you're lunatic.

1) Write your story. Reach the end.

2) Do (1) one more draft of your story. This includes adding and deleting scenes, tightening up, and so on.

3) Step two should take you half as long as step one.

4) Do a grammar/spell check. Make sure you have your to's from your too's.

5) Put it in an envelope, and do not fiddle with it again unless an editor asks you to.

There.

Dave.C.Robinson · Jan 8, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
From my experience, short stories get more respect in regular college creative writing courses, and often in MFA programs, and novels get more respect in Ph.D programs. I don;t think "respect" matter in either case. You need to be writin what you most enjoy writing.

But I also think you're making a serious mistake in setting one novel aside to begin another. This is never a good idea, and is, in fact, usually disasterous. It's one of the first things any new writer, at any stage of his writing, is warned against doing. It's a horrible habit, and almost guarantees failure.

If you want to write a novel, then you need to pick a novel and write it, start to finish, and no dropping it for another novel, no fooling around, is ever allowed, until you hit final draft.

It's also a horrible mistake to show novel partials around for critique. It just doesn't work. Even when you finish a novel this way, it's almost certainly going to be a bad novel, and you'll have no fire for the writing after the first critique. Novels should be critiqued only AFTER you finish one.

You won't write a good novel, and you won't enjoy the novel writing process, until you learn to stick to one until it's finished, and until you learn not to show a partial or a rough draft for critique.

Of course, the same can be said for short stories. Showing any unfinished work to anyone is simply a terrible idea.

This aside, you should write what you most enjoy writing. Writing isn't about "respect," it's about sitting down and writing whatever it is you most want to write.

But I will also say this. When a writer claims "perfectionism," it's usually an excuse for not doing something. Real perfectionists work like dogs, and don't stop until they get something right.

Thanks, lots of good thought in that.

What I've been doing is working on shorts while I step back from a novel to let it "gestate." I've got a complete first draft, beginning to end, but it does need revision.

The question I have is should I not just work on shorts until I get the revision finished and only then start a new novel?

It's my second novel, and the first is currently under consideration by a publisher.

Summonere · Jan 13, 2007

short stories / novels

“any idea I start I just can't get excited about”

That’s probably your main novel-writing problem. Pursuing an unexciting idea over the course of a novel would give anyone fits of anxiety.

As to first drafts and perfectionist anxiety...

A first draft is supposed to be your best effort, not a perfect one. It gets perfected through revision.

“Best effort,” though, doesn’t mean you should spend time agonizing over anything or tearing at your hair, but rather that you should pursue the storytelling with all due fun -- and pursue it until the story is told. Not perfectly told. Just told.

Tossing aside an unfinished draft because it isn’t perfect merely assures that it never will be because it will never be finished.

As to workshopping...

I’ve found nothing more certainly fatal to a story than letting others comment on an unfinished draft. Talking about planned works, or works in progress, seems to suck all the life out of them, too.

Ad Astra · Jan 13, 2007

Allow me to put my two cents in, even if I am an unpubished, timid adolescent who enjoys writing.

I've been particularly fond of short stories, but in a way I've been writing them for a long time, which I've come to realize just recently. I am a writer of strong emotion, and I believe that a short story can omit a feeling of that matter better than a novel, as short stories can be less dealing with action or dialogue than the actual message.

Perhaps I am wrong when I say this, but I also find the world of short stories to be very flexible.

Tara

BuffStuff · Jan 13, 2007

I prefer writing short fiction. It is my most comfortable story length to work with. The vast majority of the ideas that I get are suited best to the short story form. When I was stubbornly focused on novel writing, I'd find myself thinking "How the Heck am I going to milk 80,000 words out of this idea?" a lot. I'll never understand the lucky ones who have the "problem" of having to pare down their works to accomodate a particular story length. The only frustrating thing about being naturally suited to the short story form is that the prospects of earning a living via full time fiction writing are far less hopeful. Sometimes what we like (for me, it was the thought of writing a novel) isn't always what we are good at (writing short fiction).

cinders23 · Jan 14, 2007

It sounded to me like when you started writing fiction you went right to writing novels. I know I would have found that hard to do. I initially started out writing short stories and after a few of those...then I moved into writing novels. So it may be a good idea to step back and do shorter works for awhile.

On the other hand, I found that after I completed a novel it was much easier to write short stories...so your attempts at novel writing will most likely be a benefit to your short stories.

Also having several novels going at once...that would make things VERY difficult. Concentrate on one project at a time.

Cindy.

tammay · Jan 14, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
From my experience, short stories get more respect in regular college creative writing courses, and often in MFA programs, and novels get more respect in Ph.D programs. I don;t think "respect" matter in either case. You need to be writin what you most enjoy writing.

But I also think you're making a serious mistake in setting one novel aside to begin another. This is never a good idea, and is, in fact, usually disasterous. It's one of the first things any new writer, at any stage of his writing, is warned against doing. It's a horrible habit, and almost guarantees failure.

If you want to write a novel, then you need to pick a novel and write it, start to finish, and no dropping it for another novel, no fooling around, is ever allowed, until you hit final draft.

It's also a horrible mistake to show novel partials around for critique. It just doesn't work. Even when you finish a novel this way, it's almost certainly going to be a bad novel, and you'll have no fire for the writing after the first critique. Novels should be critiqued only AFTER you finish one.

You won't write a good novel, and you won't enjoy the novel writing process, until you learn to stick to one until it's finished, and until you learn not to show a partial or a rough draft for critique.

Of course, the same can be said for short stories. Showing any unfinished work to anyone is simply a terrible idea.

This aside, you should write what you most enjoy writing. Writing isn't about "respect," it's about sitting down and writing whatever it is you most want to write.

But I will also say this. When a writer claims "perfectionism," it's usually an excuse for not doing something. Real perfectionists work like dogs, and don't stop until they get something right.

James, thanks for the thoughtful comments. I can see how MFA programs would favor short stories and PhD programs novels. Having done my master's in English rather than Creative Writing, I didn't realize this.

I totally agree with you that putting a novel aside to start a new one is a bad idea and a symptom of other issues (such as a low confidence level, which I definately have). As I mentioned, I'm a very anxious person which I know is a part of it. At the same time, there are writers who work on multiple projects at once and feel this gives them a way to look at each project in a fresh way when they move back and forth between them.

I also agree with you that a novel should not be critiqued until they are done. I had actually finished the rough draft but was encouraged in the workshop to rewrite it from the ground up. I also came to the conclusion that it was a bad idea. In researching PhD programs in CW, I noticed that most of the program do not offer a novel writing workshop but this one does. That gives you some idea of the quality of the workshops here (and one reason among many that I'm now looking for another program and hoping to get out of here!)

If your definition of a prefectionist is someone that doesn't stop working on something until it's right, then that's exactly what I am. I've been working on this novel for years, editing and rewriting, and I don't feel as if I'm anywhere near getting it right. This is the first time I've set it aside for a period of time. But again, it's a symptom of something and I have to figure out what it is.

For right now, I'm enjoying writing shorter works and figure on sticking with that for a while. Maybe when I'm feeling more confident, I'll pick up the novel again and start to revise, this time working on shorter works in between so that I'll have a fresh look at it. But right now I think if I try to have another go at the novel, I'll be spinning my wheels again.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Tam

badducky · Jan 14, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
It's also a horrible mistake to show novel partials around for critique. It just doesn't work. Even when you finish a novel this way, it's almost certainly going to be a bad novel, and you'll have no fire for the writing after the first critique. Novels should be critiqued only AFTER you finish one.

I very rarely agree with James. I agree wholeheartedly with this.

The only part of my novel I'd ever bring to a critique group is the first three or four chapters, in order. This is the partial that editors will often request.

The only thing I'm actually listening for during the critique are things like whether the opening hooked the room, and if the group was hooked enough to keep reading.

That's just about it. Maybe they catch a "third-arm"* problem you missed, or a lone verb tense. But workshops and novels don't mix.

(*wherein a character holds a cup in one hand, a sword in the other and then lights a cigarette... hey, um, how many arms does this fellow have?)

I'd also only do such a thing with a completed work so I'd never be second-guessing myself.

badducky · Jan 14, 2007

tammay said:
As I mentioned, I'm a very anxious person which I know is a part of it. At the same time, there are writers who work on multiple projects at once and feel this gives them a way to look at each project in a fresh way when they move back and forth between them.
*snip*
If your definition of a prefectionist is someone that doesn't stop working on something until it's right, then that's exactly what I am. I've been working on this novel for years, editing and rewriting, and I don't feel as if I'm anywhere near getting it right. This is the first time I've set it aside for a period of time. But again, it's a symptom of something and I have to figure out what it is.

as for the first part: i do something similar where I'll have a bunch of different projects in the works. i do this for one and only one reason: to keep myself working on something without getting burned out. "Working" on more than one novel is fine, but perhaps not in the way you mean. One novel will be in the research/outline stage. One will be in the early draft stage. One will be in the final polish stage. One will be a short story. Perhaps a couple poems. A kid's book that I can't seem to get right. Etc.

I urge you not to have multiple novels in the same part of the process. That will just slow you down. Having multiple projects is merely a way to use different muscles in your head so you can work out everyday. Using the same muscles on different things isn't going to help you, just slow you down and burn you out.

This is a very important lesson to learn if the second thing i excerpted is any indication.

Academic workshops do try to grind perfectionism into you. Perfection is never possible. The slow process they advocate in such programs is not good for every writer. In fact, over-revising is as much of a problem than under-revising. You can lose the soul of the project by tearing it away from the original emotion bit by bit.

I've cancelled memberships to many a litmag because of surges in soulless writing that reaks of academic workshops.

September skies · Jan 14, 2007

I love writing short stories. I've started my first novel last year but find the ss much more fun to write.

Anyone prefer writing short fiction over novels?

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