The Art of the Short Story
There is a myth, in-genre, that an aspiring professional writer’s career should ascend in stages: first short stories, then novels. There are reasons for this myth: it is, in fact, comparatively easier to get one’s first short story published than one’s first novel, and the process of submission-rejection or submission-acceptance-publication is much faster for short stories, meaning that you can that much more quickly start your publication career and word-of-mouth reputation–and that, in turn, can make it easier to get an agent’s or editor’s attention. Note that I’m not claiming it’s the One True Way: many writers sell their first novel without selling–or writing–any short stories at all. But as professional advice goes, it’s pretty good.
As writing advice, on the other hand, not so much.
Short stories are not small novels, and novels are not big short stories. Beyond a certain amount of basic craft, you can’t learn to write a novel by writing short stories. It’s like trying to learn about rhinoceroses by studying tapirs. At a certain point, the ineluctable differences between the two animals become greater than their similarities.
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