Queue on 5/11/2010 at 14:38

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The recent thread about the NaNoWriMo sparking interest in, and drawing greater attention to, novel writing has me wondering: What do you prefer to read? Do you prefer diving into novels? Or, would you rather sink your teeth into short stories?

I've always been of the opinion that most novels are nothing more than really good short stories with too many words. That concise ideas become polluted and diluted by too much information. For me, a short story is the epitome of one's craft. A writer can capture a moment, explore it, give it meaning, and deliver a message. In the short story, metaphor shines and characters are given fuller life by what's not being told. For the writer, one's words have to be chosen and delivered carefully to achieve the greatest, and most desired, effect on the reader. And sometimes what isn't said can be the words that are most effective.

Now to say that novels can't, or don't, achieve these same points or conjure up the same emotions without delving into tangents and filler simply isn't true. But I wonder if there is too much of a focus on achieving a word count instead of paying meticulous attention to craft. Most new writers I talk with are plunging into novel writing instead of cutting their teeth on short stories. Their reason: There's no market for short stories. So, even though collections and anthologies of short stories are being published, there is this perception of a lacking market.

In many ways this is true. Long gone are the days of magazine racks stuffed with tomes offering one delight after another--finding adventure, murder, mayhem, joy, tenderness, realizations, good scares, good laughs, and good cries. The current short story "market" is more-or-less relegated to the pages of the world wide web, offering no to very little pay, where sites can be flash-point hot, and just as fleeting. Writers can no longer make a living practicing such a true form of art.

Which is a strange, since people always say they don't read because they don't have the time to become involved in a novel. For that, it seems short stories would be ideal for brief escapes from our day-to-day lives. I mean, who doesn't read on the toilet, right?

So what do you say?

demagogue on 5/11/2010 at 15:34

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Short stories (good ones) often are more memorable in the details because they're written so that, sentence for sentence, there's more bang for the words. Since your space is limited, it forces you to not waste words and get them straight to the ore without a bunch of dirt to dig through. But you have to have that discipline. The worst thing is a short story of wasted words.

The master of this IMO was Borges, whose short stories, almost vignettes, are so tight and awesome, like little mathematical proofs in language, that he can create an entire world that stays with you in 5 pages or so.

kabatta on 5/11/2010 at 16:33

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I enforce your belief and raise you a centimeter.

Fingernail on 5/11/2010 at 17:23

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Personally, I value conciseness, in nearly any form. That doesn't necessarily mean short (although it certainly means not bloated). Longer forms like novels, though, offer a much more extended relationship, as Stitch says, and over the days, weeks or even months that I'm reading something, can have a profound effect on the way I think and feel during that period - and even after.

Shorter works, short stories, poems, song lyrics, what have you, offer more of a direct hit in much less time, but it may take some time to truly appreciate all the detail, and I find myself constantly revisting and admiring the construction and beauty of shorter pieces.

But I particularly admire poems and in my own lyrics, attempt to reduce the words to the barely essential.

God, I love the written word.

Kolya on 5/11/2010 at 18:43

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Much as I love short stories (esp. by F. Scott Fitzgerald) it's just not an appropriate form if you want to describe a whole life (Bildungsroman) for example, or historic/epic events that stretch over long periods of time. There are probably more such examples that cannot be fit into a short story so you shouldn't sell novels short. (I MADE A JOKE!) They're not easier to write at all, you've just been reading shitty novels then.