Question for those who write both short and long fiction

I write mostly novels, with some short stories just to exhaust ideas that keep rolling around in my head.


My suggestion: If you're still in the process of learning how to write (we all are, but to an extent), like you are, you should focus on just writing what you wish to be good in.

Short stories and novel writing can be completely different, and if you practice in one, you're going to get good at that one, but all those skills might not trade over to the other.

In the past, for publishing, it was about getting your name known with short stories and work up to novels. Now, it's mostly about a break out novel. If your writing is good in the novel, an agent/publisher will not turn you away if you haven't published before.

I've learnt a lot about writing from short stories. People tend to down on the idea on the basis that it won't teach you to pace a longer work, but most people's first novels don't fail due to pacing. They fail because the basics aren't there.

Novels and short stories, especially flash fiction, are two different ways of writing for me, and I approach them differently. After finishing a novel, while working on a short story, I wanted to keep "novelizing" it. I had to keep catching myself doing that--less often now that I'm back in the groove. What I did to break myself out of my "novel" habit was to read some short story collections. Tenth of December by George Saunders, and Birds of America by Lorrie Moore, and Best American Short Story collections, etc. I (re)learned so much. I like to think of the short story as an art form.

Some writers think they can take a scene from a novel or short story and call it flash fiction. Flash fiction should be so much more, and still needs to have a satisfying ending.

I've written both successfully right from the start, and sold three short stories and a novel within about two months, back when I started. But I have no idea how I did it.

I do have a theory. I think writing is simply where we learn to polish the talent and knowledge already inside us, and that we really learn all the techniques of writing good short stories and novels by reading hundreds and thousands of each. This is where we learn how scenes should be written, how characterization should be handled, how pace, rhythm, mood, tone, etc. are done. Writing is simply where we put this knowledge into action, and learn how to polish it. . .or not. By the time I started writing, I'd already read thousands of short stories, and thousands of novels. What made each successful was already inside my head.

Some writers can write both equally well, some can really handle only one or the other well. I do know I've seen a lot of writers have great trouble writing a good novel after they wrote short stories for a year or two.

The differences between short stories and novels isn't just pace. Everything is different. Dialogue is somewhat similar, but even with dialogue you have to keep it brief, and you can't let character speak at all unless they have something important to say. Every line of dialogue has to matter, and needs to perform more than one function.

You don't write scenes the same way, you don't plot the same way, you don't handle characterization the same way, and the very things that make a short story good make a novel bad. Too many new writers, especially those who write a lot of short stories, write novels as if a novel is just a very long short story. It isn't, and a novel written like a very long short story is going to be boring, and will not sell.

Good short story credits can help sell a novel. No matter how good a novel is, it won't sell unless an agent or editor reads it, and good short story credits pretty much guarantee they will read it. Such credits get your query and your novel past first readers, tell an agent or editor that you probably have a firm grasp on grammar and punctuation, and can write something well enough to be paid for it. They also raise the possibility that you will bring a number of readers along with you, and this can be important.

But you can't learn to write novels by writing short stories. You can, in fact, hurt you ability to write novels by writing short stories. And just like novels, you can't write good short stories at all unless you love reading short stories, and have read hundreds, at the very least.

As helpful as really good short story credits can be, I think the only reason to spend time writing short stories is because you LOVE reading and writing short stories. Otherwise, don't do it.

I write all lengths, but only because I enjoy writing all lengths. It does take different skills, of course. But I've found (as most writers will) that some ideas will only work for short stories; others cannot be written except in novel length. (The rest, of course, depend on the writer.)

Short stories, for me, are often projects I can finish in a few days. Novels require much longer to accomplish and I find I need a "roadmap" (ie some sort of rough outline) to keep myself focused in on track (even when the project varies frim the outline I can usually get it back on track within a few chapters using the outline).

Short stories are tightly focused, usually one-off pieces that virtually write themselves and require only minimal research. Novels are long-duration projects requiring much more research, concentration, maps, tracking, and ultimately dedication and perspiration to complete.

Novels need a decent beta-reader and a good editor. My short stories usually require only minimal tweaking after posting them down in SYW.

FOTSGreg said:

Short stories, for me, are often projects I can finish in a few days. Novels require much longer to accomplish and I find I need a "roadmap" (ie some sort of rough outline) to keep myself focused in on track (even when the project varies frim the outline I can usually get it back on track within a few chapters using the outline).

Short stories are tightly focused, usually one-off pieces that virtually write themselves and require only minimal research. Novels are long-duration projects requiring much more research, concentration, maps, tracking, and ultimately dedication and perspiration to complete.

Novels need a decent beta-reader and a good editor. My short stories usually require only minimal tweaking after posting them down in SYW.

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Well, for some. Novels need betas and editors no more than short stories, and I'm not about to show a novel to a beta reader. And just like with short stories, the only editor who sees it will be the editor at the publlisher.

I've written novels almost as fast as I've written some short stories. Good short stories usually do come very fast for me, but every great now and then one can take two or three weeks. I've written a novel that sold in three weeks. I know one guy who wrote a 100,000 word novel that sold to a top publisher in four days.

It's different for all of us. Of course, the ultimate measure is not how fast you write something, but where it sells.

I enjoy writing both, different styles for each.

I think there's much to be learned from writing shorts that can be applied to novels, centering on the importance of every word chosen, how to focus a scene, etc.

Editing was the only thing where writing short stories really helped me with novels. Most of the skills didn't make it over to novel writing, and a couple of them have really hurt me. I always have trouble getting enough into the story, and I tend to run short.

I would say almost any writing, short of a shopping list, could improve your writing. If you learnt from short stories how to introduce characters quickly and effectively, that could be useful in a novel when you need to introduce the spear-carriers without giving them too much space. For example.

Buffysquirrel said:

I would say almost any writing, short of a shopping list, could improve your writing. If you learnt from short stories how to introduce characters quickly and effectively, that could be useful in a novel when you need to introduce the spear-carriers without giving them too much space. For example.

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Any writing does improve your writing, but only the kind of writing you're doing. There's a reason why nonfiction writers, no matter how good they get, often can't switch to fiction. There's a reason even nonfiction writers who specialize in one kind of nonfiction have trouble switching to another kind of nonfiction.

The better you get at one kind of writing, the harder it can be to write something else well. You simply can't learn to write novels by writing short stories. The better you get at writing short stories, the tougher it is to write a novel because nothing is written the same way.

Write enough short stories, and it will improve your ability to write short stories, but it only harms your ability to write novels. When I sit down to write a novel, I have to switch channels and turn off everything I know about writing short stories. When I sit down to write a short story, I have to change channels again and forget everything I know abut writing novels.

Nothing is the same in the two forms. Not the way individual scenes are written, not the way description is written, not the way dialogue is written, not the pace, structure, rhythm, flow, etc.

This is partly why so many writers on AW say they sat down to write a short story and it turned into a novel. It didn't turn into a novel, it was a novel from page one because they were writing it using novel techniques.

I personally found the most helpful thing about writing short stories to be that they're a lot easier to get a beta for. (Esp. a good beta.)

It's remarkably difficult to get a total stranger to read 100K words (esp. if they're not very good words), while you can often convince someone to go through 3K or so because they're feeling nice.

This feedback has helped me tremendously with omitting needless stuff, finding plot holes, developing characters, plot, etc. Of course, the two forms are rather different. But...there are enough similarities that it's entirely possible to do both well. And getting good at one will make you better at the other, in general.

I am finding short stories a great mental break when I start to slow down on my main WIP. It also gives me a chance to work and develop my editing and revision process before I have to go up against the 2nd draft of a full length novel.

I think short stories help you learn to "spend your words" more effectively. You're on a budget, as it were, when you're writing short fiction. If you write a lot of shorts, then return to a long, it can help if you're prone to corpulent phrasing.

Plus, as others have said, it can be a nice mental break.

I've spent a year only writing short fiction. Now that I'm back to novel writing, I'm able to cut scenes out in my mind that are irrelevant to the reader before I write them. It's helped me streamline my stories.

Short fiction and novels are definitely two different types of writing, but I have noticed that writing short fiction helped me with certain basics when I started in on a novel again. Shorts helped me learn to streamline my writing, and to write cleaner first drafts with less extraneous stuff. Plus, because short fiction has a much smaller time-commitment, they've helped me find my voice a bit too, because I can be a little more expiremental than I would be with a novel.

On the other hand, writing shorts has actually hurt my novel-writing skills in some ways too. Namely, I found that I'm now having to entirely relearn how to write intertwined main- and subplots (and I wasn't that great to begin with!). So it's sort of a two-edged sword I suppose. Still, I write short fiction because I enjoy doing it, and because it helps me feel productive during novel-writing-slumps.

I find it hard to contain myself to a short story. I start thinking all I have is a short story, but it quickly blows out and turns into a novel. I generally start to see more potential in it as the characters start to take life, and then I can't stop myself.

SteveW said:

I am finding short stories a great mental break when I start to slow down on my main WIP. Amen It also gives me a chance to work and develop my editing and revision process before I have to go up against the 2nd draft of a full length novel.

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This. All of it.

I also have a hard time coming up with an --original*-- short story that
stays short. Somehow, I always find ideas that can be developed into a full
length novel and then I have to go and deal with them.

*Not based on my already existing characters.

I love throwinig in some short fiction while I'm working on a book. It's so nice to just be able to *finish* something.

They are different skills, though. If writing a novel is the marathon, short fiction van be anything from the 100M dash to a 5K.

I do all my writing for fun. I don't really know if writing short fiction has improved my long game or not. I do both for their own sake. I also write plays, articles, poetry, commercials, etc. I do know that short story writing is the hardest of all of the above. They say every word has to count...but never more so than in the short story.

I learned a lot about plotting and further developed my feel for language through writing short stories. Also, for some genres publishing short stories is a way to help promote your novels by putting your work in front of more readers. And having fun with writing is the best way to motivate yourself to keep doing it. All in all, there's no reason *not* to write short stories if that's what you want to do, and many ways in which it'll come in handy!

I've been writing short stories exclusively for awhile now after never quite getting a novel off the ground and I'm finding it tremendously helpful. For one thing, I'm learning how to develop concepts into an actual, fully realized story and at the same time, getting a sense of how my ideas will translate onto the page, length-wise. I'm just now recognizing that most of my novels fail because I haven't developed plots I can actually carry a novel on.

I'm also finding it a wonderful experience, being able to test ideas I would never want to write as a novel. For some reason I also feel a lot less pressured when I'm writing a short story vs. a novel. Possibly because it's less of an investment and the progress is a lot more visible. Or something like that anyway.

And having finished stories to actually revise and improve upon obviously helps my writing a lot more than having multiple unfinished novels languishing in the depths of my writing folders. This is just what I'm discovering for myself, of course--I've written plenty over the years, I just never finished any of it until I said ok, I'm going to write some short stories for awhile until I can figure some of these things out. And so far it's working. I think people with more discipline probably have a better time of it, frankly.