Short Story-Writing Tips: When an Essay is Too Short and a Novel’s Too Long

Over the counter in the neighborhood deli hung a sign that said, “One sandwich not enough? Two sandwiches too much? Try a sandwich and a half!” Adapted for a writing class, it might be accurately transposed into, “An essay too short? A novel too long? Try a short story.” This is an in-between genre of writing that allows for the development of more modest ideas, or big ideas developed in more modest or more suggestive than overt ways.

Let’s consider the metaphor of a cake. A whole, big, round, two-layered and frosted cake. That cake might be the dessert equivalent of a novel. The whole schmeer. The poetic equivalent might be an epic of some kind. Either would be some form of an entire cake. “War and Peace” is no more a lengthy or complex work than is the “Illiad.” They are two forms of a whole cake.

A short story, or, depending on the era we might be focusing on, the novella or “nouvelle” from the 17th century French, might be the equivalent of a slice of that cake. It is less ambitious. There are fewer (if any) sub plots or ‘lite motifs.’ The span of time covered is, generally more limited and it has far fewer calories and is much appreciated by the attention challenged because it can be finished in a single sitting. Just like a slice of that cake. The reading dieter’s delight.

At the minimalist end of the spectrum from which I have chosen only a few representative examples, are essays (half-a-slice of cake, like that asked for by the person trying to watch their weight but wanting to enjoy just a tad of dessert too), mid-length poems that could compare with anything between a crumb (a haiku), a ‘sliver’ (something between a half-slice and a ‘smidgeon’)or one fork full (a sonnet or poem with five-ten stanzas.) There are also cupcakes, miniatures of the full sized cake, but reduced in quantity with similar design. A novella? It all tastes good. The question is how much you want to eat or how much you want to create.

Short stories, like cupcakes, have their own styles and conventions. However, in the same way that the quality of a cupcake has everything to do with the recipe, ingredients and care in preparation – so does the short story.

Every short story needs a beginning, a middle and an end. Because the form is brief, it is less conducive to a writer wandering through their own experimental paths to find their way through their own creation as often happens in the writing of novels. With the short story, it is best to imagine and sketch out (outline) the whole idea from start to finish before beginning.

Most good short stories focus on one incident (often beginning after some critical incident is already in process) in a fixed period of time, in a single setting with a limited number of characters. “Gone With The Wind” would have made an absolutely lousy short story! Verbosity and meandering must be put aside to write with a focus far more demanding than that of a novel.

As an accepted and popular form of fictional narrative prose, the short story requires great focus and discipline and should not be confused with being somehow ‘easier’ to create than longer works of fiction. It is not. Oh, I suppose a person could write 30 pages in a lot less time than it might take to write 3000, but that would have no bearing whatever on the quality of the writing on those pages.

Plan it. Remain concise. Resist the temptation known to all writers to create paths and then stroll along down them to explore where they go. Leave marginal or non-essential characters for other stories. Reading some of the great world masters of the short story like Poe, Bradbury, H.G. Wells, Chekhov, Hemmingway or Tolstoy – one quickly realizes and appreciates that when it comes to short stories, less is more. Less is explicit. The reader does more of the work!

Decide just how much cake you want, and then enjoy every morsel. The short story is not less – it is a different genre of creative writing. Equally challenging, albeit in different ways, from the creation of longer works, as a form it has left an indelible mark on the world of literature and literary enjoyment.