You're Writing a Novel, so Why on Earth Would You Write a Short Story?

And why novels are not just longer, and short stories are not just shorter.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve heard of writing teachers who say that you ‘shouldn’t’ try writing a novel till you’ve learnt to write short stories. It annoys me almost as much as ‘show don’t tell’, ‘cut everything involving was’ and ‘always cut had had’, and probably has even less truth in it.

Of course many writers work in both forms, but for others, one form comes so much more naturally than another that refusing to let them work in their form would be like like insisting on a baby Usain Bolt training for ultra-marathons. I do write short stories - my first publication credit was one - but not many, and my main writing-drives are novel-scale.

So this post is exploring why a novelist shouldn’t feel obliged to write short stories - and why, nonethless, you might choose to. If you’re wondering about what counts as which, I dig into word counts in my post about cutting and filletting.