Why Not Short Stories?

[Phil the Drill]

As most of us know, most novelists start out writing short stories and other media before going on to write books. However, I notice a lot of people seem to comment on their novels most of the time. Are you adverse to writing short stories or just prefer to write longer works?

I'm employing a system that I'm liking at the moment. I have my novel that I'm working on and now I've started squeezing a short story in between writing time. That way I can "cheat" and work on something else without getting Creative ADD and starting a new novel.

Anyone else in the market for short stories?

[Feo Takahari]

I can't answer why people don't, but the reason I do write short stories is that I don't know how to create a meaningful, non-padded story that takes an entire novel to conclude itself. When my characters have a goal, they set out to complete it, and while I could add an arbitrary number of obstacles along the way, I usually only need three to accomplish the necessary character development for the final conflict. (Maybe I need to start creating larger casts to develop?)

[Zophos]

Excellent discussion topic. I think I actually prefer shorts as a reader, as well. That's my primary complaint about the direction fantasy writing has taken. Maybe I'm a product of my generation, but I don't really want to sit around and read a trilogy of 1,000 page books. If it takes that long to get to the point, there probably never was one, IMO.

You know Feo, I have just the opposite problem. I can write a million and a half pages and never reach resolution. The hardest thing about a story for me is finishing the damn thing. I get sidetracked too easily, stack 10 themes on top of one another, and tend to be way too verbose.

There's a very frustrating irony to paragraph 1 & 2, above.

[Ophiucha]

I can't answer why people don't, but the reason I do write short stories is that I don't know how to create a meaningful, non-padded story that takes an entire novel to conclude itself. When my characters have a goal, they set out to complete it, and while I could add an arbitrary number of obstacles along the way, I usually only need three to accomplish the necessary character development for the final conflict. (Maybe I need to start creating larger casts to develop?)

I have the same problem, it seems. Try as I might - and I daresay I have tried to pad my works out a bit - I've never written anything longer than about 65,000 words, which is rather short for a fantasy novel. Most of my non-short stories clock in between 20k and 40k, which doesn't even qualify as a novel in publishing standards. I've even written novellas with decently large casts - the main party of my pet project for a while had eight people in the main "party" and a fair few supporting characters and antagonists. The final draft still only was 62,500 words, though. My current project is turning into a trilogy, but each book in it is 25k-35k, which makes the whole thing a bit shorter than a single average fantasy novel, let alone a trilogy.

@OP, I write short stories! A lot of them are just a "get the creative juices flowing" sort of project - unedited, first draft affairs - but I've got about ten short stories for my main worldbuilding project that I want to collect with the two novellas into an anthology of sorts. And I read a lot of short stories, too. Absolute favourite: "The Courtship of the Queen" by Bruce McAllister.

[ShortHair]

The reason fantasy writers prefer long forms is because they have a lot of background to present. You can't introduce your reader to a whole culture or an entire world into one short story--at least, you can't do it justice, when you've still got characters, plot, etc. to fit in there too. If you're dealing with an established setting, that's different.

[Phil the Drill]

@ShortHair: I have to disagree here. There are tons of awesome fantasy short stories out there that do fine with introducing all of those elements without sacrificing quality. I think when writing epic fantasy then yes, it is hard to fit all you want into a small package. But I've noticed more and more that e-zines and even magazines are trying to get more flash fiction because that's what people read (on the internet anyway). I'm a big fan of both forms, but I don't necessarily always think bigger=better. I'm reading a collection of short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski right now and it's really awesome. All within very small word counts.

[Steerpike]

Do 'most' novelists start with short stories? I'm not sure about that. The two forms are quite different and if you prefer novel writing I think it is fine to start with those. I don't agree that novels are written because they are needed to present background and world detail, either. Good writers aren't loading their stories with these things to such an extent that it would make the difference between a novel and a shorter form. You can find good novels approaching 1000 pages that don't do this.

I write both because I like both forms. That's the way to go - write what you enjoy.

[BWFoster78]

I'm with Feo on this one. I want a story that creates a meaningful arc for the protagonist. For me, that's hard to do in a short story (not that I think other's can't, just that it's not my forte).

Also, creating good characters is a difficult part of writing. Once I have one, I want to do more with him/her than go 10k words and stop.

Finally, as a reader, I want to get to know a character and spend a lot of time with them. I like series. I like long series especially. You got 15 1000 page books? Fantastic! Given that viewpoint, I don't particularly care for short series. Why would I write something that I don't like reading?

[ProfessorBrainfever]

It depends on your definitions, but I've written a short story almost every week since last October. That's because I have a weekly podcast. It keeps me writing. No matter what else I do, I have to write at least 1200 words a week, which is nice.

[Christopher Wright]

I think for a while novels became dominant because it was the most profitable way to sell a story. There is a specific baseline cost in physical printing, and since you can easily justify charging more for a novel (because it's longer) then publishers would say "if we tack another 200 pages on this printing our costs go up by x but our profits go up by x*y."

Technology and the cost of technology tends to affect things like that.

The good news is, I think there's room for the short story again. Look in the kindle market and you'll find a lot of stories, even ones being sold, that are around 25,000 words in length. Significantly shorter than a novel. It might take some time to figure out how to properly re-market the short story, though.