by L.C.

Created on: August 29, 2009

Whether a short story or novel is easier to write is purely a matter of opinion, and many will base this opinion on the length and complexity of the piece being written. Short stories are exactly that: stories that are written in far less pages than an actual novel. Given the much higher word count, novels usually have more character development, subplots and description than a short story. For this reason many people feel that novels are much harder to write than short stories. I, however, disagree.

I have always found short stories very challenging. Even as a child I detested the word limits our teachers gave us; how could I be expected to write a half-decent story when I was only given six pages to write it on? Brevity is something I didn't learn until many years later, and even now I struggle with it.

This is even more challenging when trying to write a well-rounded, appropriately detailed and interesting short story. When we develop characters we tend to love them and want to develop them. We want to show our readers how great they are. The problem with a short story is that we have a very limited amount of space to do this. We have to cut back any useless dialogue, any meaningless descriptions, any characters who don't absolutely add something to the plot, and any scenes that aren't essential.

People who write great short stories end up with what seems to be a beautiful novel that has simply been squished into a smaller format. Their characters have depth, their plot is intriguing and all of the elements are well-represented. Those who struggle with short stories, like myself, come off with a piece that looks like a hamburger consisting of a patty and a stale bun. Ours isn't adorned with pickles, relish, ketchup, mustard, lettuce, bacon and whatever else a reader would love to indulge in. Our short story consists of the bare minimum, and is usually helplessly dull.

Novels, on the other hand, allow writers to fill them with as much as possible. The truth is, we should all be expert short story writers. Ideally, our novels would not contain any unnecessary fluff, pointless characters or useless scenes, but few of us are capable of fully tightening our prose, nevermind our plotlines. One of my favourite writers, Stephen King, seems capable of doing just that. He can write a book spanning over seven hundred pages, "Duma Key", and then turn around and write an amazing short story such as "Suffer the Little Children", which is only twelve pages. His ability to compact the information and still deliver a great story regardless of length astounds me.

Novels and short stories require the same amount of planning. To be honest, short stories can require even more planning, simply because writers have to cut out different parts to keep the length in check. Novels and short stories also need well-rounded characters, though it can be difficult to present a great character with so few pages. Novels and short stories all have the same elements, but short stories come with the additional challenge of writing a great story and keeping it brief. I salute all of the writers who can put together a great short story, and I hope that someday I will be capable of doing so, as well.

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