The Surprising Truth About Why Writing Short Stories Might Be Tougher Than Novels

The Short Of It

The writing community has differing feelings about short stories and novels. Some feel that short stories are a great practice ground for much harder novel writing, but I’ve also heard the counter-argument that in short stories, everything must be so much more concise that they can be the harder form to write.

I’ve written and published short stories for many years and have shared many articles on the topic. I’ve probably been an aspiring novelist just as long, but only recently finished my first polished manuscript that I am now querying to agents. So let me compare and contrast them for you.

Length

The first and most obvious factor we must address is length. Short stories are shorter than novels, and thus, they are faster to write. They take less time. So short stories are easier, yes?

Well… just because something is faster or takes less time doesn’t necessarily make it easier. A 500-meter sprint may be faster to run than a 5k, but that doesn’t make it easier. There is a reason that sprinters and long-distance runners in the Olympics are different people.

To belabor the metaphor, I’m a terrible sprinter. Any short race of friends at the beach or my nieces challenging me in the yard… I always lose. By a lot. However, I’ve raced some of those same people in 5k’s and beaten them by a significant margin. Running the longer length, even though it takes more time, is easier for me to do competently and successfully than a sprint ever will be.

In the same way, there are those folks who write 300k-word fantasy epics and can’t imagine any way to be more succinct. On the flip side, there are the consummate short story writers who find writing anything longer to be like pulling teeth. Of course, there are many more in the middle that move between the two literary forms. Easier and harder can be a matter of preference here.

But here’s the thing, even if I’m last in the sprint, even if I ran it horribly… I’m still going to finish it in a shorter time than it takes me to run a 5k. Short stories do edge out as easier by the measure of…