Why is it hard to write a short story as compared to a novel?
I have read a lot of short stories, some were classics, and some came from acclaimed authors. Some authors who made their career in writing bestselling novels have attempted short stories. I wasn’t impressed by their efforts. In fact, I was a lot more disappointed because I thought with their experience in writing stories for a living they would do well with short stories.
I was wrong which piqued my curiosity. There’s a fundamental difference between writing a novel and a short story. That difference lies in the writer’s head. Some people are good at writing stories but aren’t as good at telling a story. Some people when they are in a group, narrate the anecdotes most hilariously while some people rush towards the climax, the pinnacle moment of the story.
Then there are some who know what good storytelling is but cannot implement it through speech. They can execute it with finesse while writing. There’s a reason why great writers aren’t good orators. There can be exceptions but they aren’t common.
When I wrote my first novel I worked on each character, their motivations that influence other characters who then are driven by their own motivation. All of their actions eventually end up influencing the outcome of the main plot. Unbeknownst to them they all played a pivotal role in the grand climax that happens at the end. I wrote a thriller novel with high-octane action so in the end whatever happens, they were all part of it and only the reader knows about it completely.
I enjoyed this desecration at the end of the novel that I planned. I enjoyed creating characters and their respective story arcs. This was a high-stakes story so I could take any form of liberty in telling and re-telling of a character’s story. There were seven to eight protagonists in the novel and they all had different motivations that made some of them the antagonists in the end. You can feel the seriousness of their actions and consequences in the novel. This is now common across all contemporary novels today.
This provides the best entertainment to the reader but then it ends up creating a problem for the writer. He is stuck in that zone forever. He cannot think of a story where the stakes are low. A short story doesn’t work in the same fashion that I mentioned above. I cannot afford to introduce or work with seven to eight protagonists if I’m telling a short story. That would confuse and overwhelm the readers at the same time.
In the novel, there’s room to mold the character and allow the reader to ponder on it. In a short story, you are not allowed to do that. You are not allowed because that’s now why short stories exist. Short stories have to be short and anecdotal.
I read James Pattersons’ Bookshots. Their unique selling proposition is that they are fast-paced and only have 150 pages. I think the idea is great for someone who needs a quick read on a short flight. There was one problem though with Bookshots. All of the stories have a lot of characters, and the stakes are as high as the novel but the book is one-third of the novel. In such cases, the character’s emotion-invoking moments won’t have the same impact as they would in a novel. Where’s the room for the reader to stay with that adversity?
I recently read Face Off — an anthology of short stories. I had the same issue. These are commercially successful writers but they cannot think in terms of anecdotes.
Do you know what happened when we once boarded that flight? This is the premise of a short story. It’s anecdotal and there cannot be too many characters. There can only be a primary character telling the story.
The reader will empathize with the primary character if the reader starts relating with the character. You as a writer have to allow that to happen. If you’re writing a novella you can borrow a few tricks from a novel while maintaining the pace of a short story. That’s what Stephen King does. The Shawshank Redemption was a novella. It was beautiful.
The common misunderstanding about a short story is that it has to be fast and pacy. That’s far from the truth. A short story can be anecdotal or allegorical which means the fundamental message of the story has to go through. If you are writing a thriller short story there cannot be an international terrorism filled with car chases. A bar fight is apt. A Jack Reacher kind of guy protecting a family who’s been harassed by a local goon is also a plot worthy of a short story.
Do you see the shift in scale? It’s still interesting but I have changed the stakes. The stakes are still important but as a reader you know it’s going to end. How do I know so much about short stories though? Because I have written both, a 500-page novel and a book containing ten short stories.
The feedback I received about my short stories is that they are all intense, some dark, and some give the thrills but all are intense. That was intentional.
My favorite short story of all is about a man getting a call of his brother’s death with whom he hadn’t spoken for 9 years. It takes an unexpected turn when the man decides to visit the town where his brother used to live. I loved this because it reads like a classic whodunit but the overall stakes are lower. For the protagonist, the stakes are higher. There are not many characters, the focus is entirely on the protagonist and his dead brother. That was intentional too.
I believe short stories are a playground for a writer to try all the storytelling techniques. That’s why I love writing short stories. I can choose to write a simple anecdote containing fewer scenes which I can write in my own way.
When a writer is completely absorbed in churning out two to three novels in a year you lose those techniques along the way. Then you become mechanical because your readers have stereotyped you into a niche. You plan a story and outline 100 short chapters. You start thinking in terms of filling those chapters. There are frequent scene switching as we see it often in the movies too these days. There are too many characters rushing helter-skelter.
The short story demands fewer scenes which are plotted and narrated with precision and utmost care. You cannot do it unless you live those scenes in your head.
If you are an aspiring writer, I would urge you to write a short story to begin with. Pick any anecdote or a scene that affected you and try to write that scene as it happened or exaggerate it if you can, that’d be even better. This will train you to visualize the scene. If you are writing about a trauma, feel some of it too and then you will some of the best scenes of your life.