"How do I know if I'm writing a short story or a novel?"
Nov 14, 2022 0:22:32 GMT
jimcobb, alexnorcross, and 6 more like this
Post by Brian Keene on Nov 14, 2022 0:22:32 GMT
WHAT THE HELL AM I WRITING?
Okay. You've got your idea. The next thing to do is turn it into a short story or a novella or a novel (or a comic book script or screenplay). But how do you know which one of those things it is, and how do you actually begin that process?
Any college-level writing course, or non-credit writing class, or weekend writer's workshop, or Internet search engine will give you differing answers as to what length constitutes a short story versus a novella versus a novel. The reason there are differing opinions is because the parameters are changing in our modern society. Why? Because now, more than ever, prose fiction must compete with a plethora of other media formats -- movies, video games, etc. As a result, publishers and self-publishers alike are beginning to discover that shorter sells better. Oh, there's still plenty of demand for a thick old 250,000 word doorstop of a novel. But shorter fiction, particularly in digital or ebook format, seems to be in current high demand.
Here's my personal definitions:
Short Story = 500 to 9,000 words.
Novella = 10,000 to 50,000 words.
Novel = 60,000 to 300,000 words.
If you doubt me, if you're thinking, "My agent/professor/dude on the street told me that nobody will publish a novel under 90,000 words" tell them they are wrong. Only one of my nearly 50 published books has come in at that length -- CITY OF THE DEAD. The rest of my work falls into the 70,000 to 85,000 word range.
(In addition to these, the average screenplay is 100 to 120 pages, and the average comic script is 20 to 22 pages).
So, how do you decide which of these formats best suits your idea?
Practice. Experience.
And you can examine it visually, as well.
If your idea is, "During the zombie apocalypse, a man escapes his survival shelter to go look for his son, and spends the night hunkered down in a church where he has a crisis of faith" then that's probably a short story. Why? Think of it visually, as a movie. Is there enough to that idea to sustain it for a two hour running time? No. Not unless you want to add lots of unnecessary filler and bore people to death. That idea is probably a short story.
Let's expand upon your idea a bit. Lets say it's, "During the zombie apocalypse, a man escapes his survival shelter to go look for his son, and spends the night hunkered down in a church where he has a crisis of faith. He meets a preacher, who vows to help him. The next day, they set out and are confronted by zombies and after a battle, continue on their way". There's a few more visual elements to this, correct? But is it enough to sustain a full-length novel? Are there three complete acts? No, not really. But there's also too much here to comfortably fit into a short story. So, this is most likely a novella.
If the idea is "During the zombie apocalypse, a man escapes his survival shelter to go look for his son, and spends the night hunkered down in a church where he has a crisis of faith. He meets a preacher, who vows to help him. The next day, they set out and are confronted by zombies and after a battle, continue on their way. They travel up the East Coast, meeting and helping other survivors and killing more zombies before finally reaching his son" -- then you're looking at a novel. You're looking at THE RISING in fact.
Understand, these are not hard and fast rules. Yes, there are rules later, when it comes to submitting and contracts and such -- but so much of the actual writing, the actual creative process -- comes down to "find what works for you and do that".
Don't obsess and worry for days or weeks about what length or format best suits your idea. If you don't know or aren't sure, sit down and start it. Writing a short story and writing a novel are two very distinctly different processes (and I think writing a short story is vastly more difficult than writing a novel) -- but they both begin the same way. they both begin with you sitting down and typing the first word, and then following it with another word and another and another. Do that, see where the narrative takes you. Maybe what you thought was going to be a short story turns into a novella instead. Or maybe you sit down to write a full-length novel only to discover there's not enough there to be a novel, and it's better suited as a short story.
Sometimes, an idea will lend itself to different formats as well. In 1999, I wrote a short story called "Earthworm Gods". It was about 10,000 words long. In 2005, I expanded upon that short story, and turned it into a full-length novel called EARTHWORM GODS (also published as THE CONQUEROR WORMS). Both formats suit the main idea -- but the main idea was full enough with possibilities that it was easy to expand upon.
I mentioned above that writing a short story is harder than writing a novel. That's because of the length restrictions. With a novel, you have hundreds of pages to craft realistic characters, make the reader care about and believe in them and sympathize with them, move from points A to Z, etc. In a short story, you don't have that luxury. You're dealing with a finite amount of words and pages, so every word counts. Every. Word. Counts. And later, you may find that, while you're happy with the short story and while it got published and earned you ten bucks and people said nice things about it...that you find yourself returning to all the things you didn't have room for.
Now...lets pretend you've decided what format your idea is going to take. Next comes the outline. It's okay if you outline. It's okay if you don't. Once again, this is one of those writing things for which there is no hard and fast rule. If someone tells you, "Oh, if you're going to write a novel, you MUST outline" go ahead and slap that person and tell them Brian Keene says hello.
Some authors make extensive outlines nearly the length of a novel themselves. Others might limit themselves to a page. Some don't outline at all. As I said above, it's all about figuring out what works for YOU and then doing that.
I don't outline, but I do use 3x5 index cards. Each card represents one chapter. On each card, I write a one sentence summary of what happens in that chapter. To stick with the example of THE RISING, the first index card would say, "After Jim's backstory, he learns Danny is alive." That's it. that's chapter one.
If you do this -- if you out a one sentence summary of the chapter on the index card -- and your idea only fills two index cards, you can safely assume it wants to be a short story. If it fills ten or a dozen index cards, it might be best suited as a novella. If we creep past fifteen index cards, that's fifteen chapters, and you, my friend, have a novel to write.
If you do discover that you prefer to outline, it's important to note that you shouldn't marry yourself to what you've outlined. Writing is an organic process, and as your story progresses, you might find that you want to change something or add something that's not in your outline. That's okay, That happens. Roll with it.
Okay. You've got your idea. The next thing to do is turn it into a short story or a novella or a novel (or a comic book script or screenplay). But how do you know which one of those things it is, and how do you actually begin that process?
Any college-level writing course, or non-credit writing class, or weekend writer's workshop, or Internet search engine will give you differing answers as to what length constitutes a short story versus a novella versus a novel. The reason there are differing opinions is because the parameters are changing in our modern society. Why? Because now, more than ever, prose fiction must compete with a plethora of other media formats -- movies, video games, etc. As a result, publishers and self-publishers alike are beginning to discover that shorter sells better. Oh, there's still plenty of demand for a thick old 250,000 word doorstop of a novel. But shorter fiction, particularly in digital or ebook format, seems to be in current high demand.
Here's my personal definitions:
Short Story = 500 to 9,000 words.
Novella = 10,000 to 50,000 words.
Novel = 60,000 to 300,000 words.
If you doubt me, if you're thinking, "My agent/professor/dude on the street told me that nobody will publish a novel under 90,000 words" tell them they are wrong. Only one of my nearly 50 published books has come in at that length -- CITY OF THE DEAD. The rest of my work falls into the 70,000 to 85,000 word range.
(In addition to these, the average screenplay is 100 to 120 pages, and the average comic script is 20 to 22 pages).
So, how do you decide which of these formats best suits your idea?
Practice. Experience.
And you can examine it visually, as well.
If your idea is, "During the zombie apocalypse, a man escapes his survival shelter to go look for his son, and spends the night hunkered down in a church where he has a crisis of faith" then that's probably a short story. Why? Think of it visually, as a movie. Is there enough to that idea to sustain it for a two hour running time? No. Not unless you want to add lots of unnecessary filler and bore people to death. That idea is probably a short story.
Let's expand upon your idea a bit. Lets say it's, "During the zombie apocalypse, a man escapes his survival shelter to go look for his son, and spends the night hunkered down in a church where he has a crisis of faith. He meets a preacher, who vows to help him. The next day, they set out and are confronted by zombies and after a battle, continue on their way". There's a few more visual elements to this, correct? But is it enough to sustain a full-length novel? Are there three complete acts? No, not really. But there's also too much here to comfortably fit into a short story. So, this is most likely a novella.
If the idea is "During the zombie apocalypse, a man escapes his survival shelter to go look for his son, and spends the night hunkered down in a church where he has a crisis of faith. He meets a preacher, who vows to help him. The next day, they set out and are confronted by zombies and after a battle, continue on their way. They travel up the East Coast, meeting and helping other survivors and killing more zombies before finally reaching his son" -- then you're looking at a novel. You're looking at THE RISING in fact.
Understand, these are not hard and fast rules. Yes, there are rules later, when it comes to submitting and contracts and such -- but so much of the actual writing, the actual creative process -- comes down to "find what works for you and do that".
Don't obsess and worry for days or weeks about what length or format best suits your idea. If you don't know or aren't sure, sit down and start it. Writing a short story and writing a novel are two very distinctly different processes (and I think writing a short story is vastly more difficult than writing a novel) -- but they both begin the same way. they both begin with you sitting down and typing the first word, and then following it with another word and another and another. Do that, see where the narrative takes you. Maybe what you thought was going to be a short story turns into a novella instead. Or maybe you sit down to write a full-length novel only to discover there's not enough there to be a novel, and it's better suited as a short story.
Sometimes, an idea will lend itself to different formats as well. In 1999, I wrote a short story called "Earthworm Gods". It was about 10,000 words long. In 2005, I expanded upon that short story, and turned it into a full-length novel called EARTHWORM GODS (also published as THE CONQUEROR WORMS). Both formats suit the main idea -- but the main idea was full enough with possibilities that it was easy to expand upon.
I mentioned above that writing a short story is harder than writing a novel. That's because of the length restrictions. With a novel, you have hundreds of pages to craft realistic characters, make the reader care about and believe in them and sympathize with them, move from points A to Z, etc. In a short story, you don't have that luxury. You're dealing with a finite amount of words and pages, so every word counts. Every. Word. Counts. And later, you may find that, while you're happy with the short story and while it got published and earned you ten bucks and people said nice things about it...that you find yourself returning to all the things you didn't have room for.
Now...lets pretend you've decided what format your idea is going to take. Next comes the outline. It's okay if you outline. It's okay if you don't. Once again, this is one of those writing things for which there is no hard and fast rule. If someone tells you, "Oh, if you're going to write a novel, you MUST outline" go ahead and slap that person and tell them Brian Keene says hello.
Some authors make extensive outlines nearly the length of a novel themselves. Others might limit themselves to a page. Some don't outline at all. As I said above, it's all about figuring out what works for YOU and then doing that.
I don't outline, but I do use 3x5 index cards. Each card represents one chapter. On each card, I write a one sentence summary of what happens in that chapter. To stick with the example of THE RISING, the first index card would say, "After Jim's backstory, he learns Danny is alive." That's it. that's chapter one.
If you do this -- if you out a one sentence summary of the chapter on the index card -- and your idea only fills two index cards, you can safely assume it wants to be a short story. If it fills ten or a dozen index cards, it might be best suited as a novella. If we creep past fifteen index cards, that's fifteen chapters, and you, my friend, have a novel to write.
If you do discover that you prefer to outline, it's important to note that you shouldn't marry yourself to what you've outlined. Writing is an organic process, and as your story progresses, you might find that you want to change something or add something that's not in your outline. That's okay, That happens. Roll with it.