Dear Todd.
Sorry I repeated mysealf in my last letter. I guess I forgot that you said that. Please don’t be upset with me, but, if writing short stories is so much easier, then why is there so many novels out there?
Don’t take this question the wrong way and think that I think you don’t know what your talking about, because I do believe in you. But I am just curious as to why you say it’s such a better idea to write “short stories”, but I see so many novels. Maybe it’s just the more experienced authors, I don’t know, like I said, I was just wondering.
I know I’m problobly repeating myself again, but I’d still like to ask you “another” question.(if you think I’m talking too much, or my questions are invalid, just tell me) Would it be normal(I know that’s a general term) to write a series of short stories, instead of just one or two novels? For example: Instead of writing two “novels” consisting of 10,000 or 20,00 words. Write 5 or 10 “short stories” consisting of 1,000 or 2,000 words.
What I think I am going to do is just see how the book turns out, and if I write a short story, I write a short story. If I write a novel, I write a novel. Just curious. Thanks again.
Sincerly.
Nhorad
Hey Nhorad!
Well, first you probably see so many novels because you go looking for them. Go look for “Isaac Asimov’s Magazine” or “Analog” or any of a host of others. In each you’ll see nearly a dozen short stories publisher each month. The combined total of short stories published in a year (including anthologies) is almost certainly higher than the total of science fiction books published in the year.
So the first answer is that you get a better shot with a short story — more markets and more times in a year to get published. The second answer is Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Robert Silverberg, Arthur C. Clarke, and Harry Harrison — just to name a few — all started writing short stories.
A short story requires all the background work of a novel but a short story, typically 5,000-7,000 words, takes much less time than today’s novels which normally are between 80,000 and 100,000 words. Short stories are where you hone your craft and learn your skills. Just from word count alone, you can see that you can write nearly 16-20 short stories in the same amount of words you can write one novel. And given that there are more chances for your short stories, you’ve really increased the odds in your favor by going with short stories.
You can also build a series of short stories which can be pulled together into a book. Dragonflight, The Ship Who Sang, To Ride Pegasus are all examples of this. Sometimes a short story can be expanded into a novel, such as “The Lady in the Tower” becoming “The Rowan” and “A Meeting of Minds” becoming “Damia.”
Whatever you do, do your homework. Read. Read a lot! Write a lot. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Todd