Oh Short Story Wonderful
Sometimes for an aspiring writer the novel seems like the ultimate thing. It is the great deed of the writer! The thing to brag about. You can go up to your friends and say "Hey, I wrote a novel!"
On the other hand, the short story is often underestimated. I mean, I'll admit, I feel proud of my short stories. They are my creations and they are wonderful. But, come on! They are not as impressive as writing a book.
Now you may disagree with me on the previous comments, or you may not. Either way, I want to take this little post to pay a special tribute to the wonders of the short story.
Short stories are short. (Well, that's obvious.) It is this briefness that makes them so wonderful. With them it is simple to switch!
When you are writing a novel or a story you have to stick to one style. If you start your story by using simple vocabulary and then halfway through the book you start using long complicated words, you might cause the reader a big headache (trust me, that's not something you want to do). With a novel, it is very hard to discover whether you like using long words or short words, or some other characteristic of writing. A novel's length makes it hard for the writer to go back and change everything. A short story's shortness, on the other hand, allows you to go back to the beginning of the story easily. Also, you can end a short story much faster than a novel and edit it much faster than a novel. Therefore, you can start a new story much faster and dedicate to a new story with a new style. Same as with gender. With one story you can only focus in one gender or in one mixture of genders. You can start a suspense story about a serial killer and then turn it into a dark fantasy story by making your serial killer an evil fairy. However, you can't just forget the serial killer and start writing about happy pretty fairies, without giving your past story an ending. If you don't ever end a story, you don't ever really finish a work. Thus it is much easier to use a short story than a novel to discover your favorite style of writing and your favorite gender.
It is not impossible to discover your writing style with a novel. I discovered a couple of things about my style by writing my first novel. Like for example, I discovered I like revealing details through dialogue and using simple words. I learned that when I write dialogue, I don't like using words like "wanna" or "gotta" but that I can manage to write good dialogue without those words. Honestly, I believe it takes a special talent to use those words correctly. Yet, it was only when I started writing short stories that I realized I liked writing mainstream, aside from dark fantasy.
Also, I may have discovered through editing my novel that I needed to work on setting descriptions, but it was through short story writing that I was able to work on my descriptions. That's another wonder about short stories. They work as writing exercises.
Other writers name other reasons for why short stories are so great: they help you stick to a word count, they allow you to express a complicated message in a brief manner, etc.
I told you what I find wonderful about short stories. Feel free to tell me what you find wonderful about them, or if you really don't see the big wonder.
In fact, if you want to, I dare you: write a story no longer than 3,000 words long and tell me what you learned from it or what you didn't learn. If I get enough answers I'll make a special post with them on Wednesday January 9, 2011. The post will appear on this site on my deviantART profile, and will be promoted on my twitter. As part of that post, those who leave a link to their own blog or website will have that link posted, but even if I have you as a friend on Livejournal, please leave the link to your page if you want it to appear on a post. If you don't want the link to be posted, you don't have to leave one. Be warned, the post will only be made if I have 4 or more people do this exercise.
On the other hand, the short story is often underestimated. I mean, I'll admit, I feel proud of my short stories. They are my creations and they are wonderful. But, come on! They are not as impressive as writing a book.
Now you may disagree with me on the previous comments, or you may not. Either way, I want to take this little post to pay a special tribute to the wonders of the short story.
Short stories are short. (Well, that's obvious.) It is this briefness that makes them so wonderful. With them it is simple to switch!
When you are writing a novel or a story you have to stick to one style. If you start your story by using simple vocabulary and then halfway through the book you start using long complicated words, you might cause the reader a big headache (trust me, that's not something you want to do). With a novel, it is very hard to discover whether you like using long words or short words, or some other characteristic of writing. A novel's length makes it hard for the writer to go back and change everything. A short story's shortness, on the other hand, allows you to go back to the beginning of the story easily. Also, you can end a short story much faster than a novel and edit it much faster than a novel. Therefore, you can start a new story much faster and dedicate to a new story with a new style. Same as with gender. With one story you can only focus in one gender or in one mixture of genders. You can start a suspense story about a serial killer and then turn it into a dark fantasy story by making your serial killer an evil fairy. However, you can't just forget the serial killer and start writing about happy pretty fairies, without giving your past story an ending. If you don't ever end a story, you don't ever really finish a work. Thus it is much easier to use a short story than a novel to discover your favorite style of writing and your favorite gender.
It is not impossible to discover your writing style with a novel. I discovered a couple of things about my style by writing my first novel. Like for example, I discovered I like revealing details through dialogue and using simple words. I learned that when I write dialogue, I don't like using words like "wanna" or "gotta" but that I can manage to write good dialogue without those words. Honestly, I believe it takes a special talent to use those words correctly. Yet, it was only when I started writing short stories that I realized I liked writing mainstream, aside from dark fantasy.
Also, I may have discovered through editing my novel that I needed to work on setting descriptions, but it was through short story writing that I was able to work on my descriptions. That's another wonder about short stories. They work as writing exercises.
Other writers name other reasons for why short stories are so great: they help you stick to a word count, they allow you to express a complicated message in a brief manner, etc.
I told you what I find wonderful about short stories. Feel free to tell me what you find wonderful about them, or if you really don't see the big wonder.
In fact, if you want to, I dare you: write a story no longer than 3,000 words long and tell me what you learned from it or what you didn't learn. If I get enough answers I'll make a special post with them on Wednesday January 9, 2011. The post will appear on this site on my deviantART profile, and will be promoted on my twitter. As part of that post, those who leave a link to their own blog or website will have that link posted, but even if I have you as a friend on Livejournal, please leave the link to your page if you want it to appear on a post. If you don't want the link to be posted, you don't have to leave one. Be warned, the post will only be made if I have 4 or more people do this exercise.