At this point I’ve sold fifteen short stories and one novel, so maybe there was something to the idea.

I had absolutely no story credits to my name when I sold my first novel, and I got form rejection letters from just about everybody before I could get someone to even crack it open.

For anyone to claim definitively that a novelist must commence a career with short stories, that you can only learn to write well by doing that, is a nonsense.

I’m hoping that if I ever try to write another short story I’ll be better at it than I was before, on account of I’m a better writer than I was before.

But they are different forms. I mean you never see people suggesting that mastering the art of the sonnet is necessary for becoming a novelist . . .

Personally i think it’s a totally different artform. I don’t think it’s essential preparation for novel writing except for the fact that you do have to practice writing on something and it’s time consuming to practice on novels. I practiced on poems. Though in many ways novels are much easier than poetry, far more forgiving.

Looks like you missed the smiley, Edward! And all my other comments. You know, like this one: “As Tobias points out if you’re trying to make a living as a writer you have to write novels.”

Jeffv: As soon as you confuse art and commerce, the conversation becomes muddled. The economic need to write novels has nothing to do with whether short stories are necessary or not.

The orginal question (which was obviously poorly expressed) was a two parter:

a) are short stories necessary to develop as a novelist?

and

b) is publishing short stories necessary to breaking into publishing novels?

The first is your mystical art. The second your demon commerce.

No one on this thread is saying that one form is superior than the other. A lot of us are saying we’re better at writing one than the other. And that you can earn more money from one than the other. (For the record I love reading short stories, but despite more than twenty years of trying I’m not very good at writing them.)

For those of us who are trying to make a living writing the second is a matter of considerable importance.

These are two distinct art forms. They require different things from the writer and the reader. To say that one is better than the other is to say that a whale is better than a horse. Meaningless.

JeffV

so far, all my short stories have morphed into novels, bar one which was an exercise in ripping my hair out and stress.

i think it’s not the length that makes it difficult. it’s that i’ve not found any ideas small enough for a short story, if that makes sense?

to answer justine’s original question, i’m not sure. as a reader, i enjoy the odd short story, though i believe that the novel is a better test of a writer’s mettle (i emphasize, from a reader’s point of view).

as a writer, i see that they are different animals altogether. so far, for me at least, the lure of the novel is greater, probably because of the larger scope it offers.

Nope, didn’t miss the smiley–just forgot to add one of my own!

Off-topic, sort of: do you ever find yourself wishing you could use smileys and such in your regular fiction? ‘Cause I occasionally do.

The one advantage novels have is that they become objects. You can hand someone a book. Short stories are more ephemeral, unless they are collected into an object themselves. (Shameless self-promotion: As mine are about to be. Tachyon Publications, a volume called Portable Childhoods, next spring.)

I don’t think of short stories as appetizers to novels’ entree status, more as exquisite pastries.

Cynical bastard!

Jay Lake: It’s a shame, really, that we have a prejudice that says novels are more real, more important, than short fiction.

There’s at least one solid reason for that prejudice: As Tobias points out if you’re trying to make a living as a writer you have to write novels. If I only wrote short stories there’s no way in hell I could be a full-time writer. Such little amount of money as can be made writing fiction is made at the novel end of the pool.

Susan Marie Groppi: Hey! Speaking as someone who’s published your short fiction, I can’t let that ‘can’t write a short story to save your life’ claim stand. It may not be your preferred mode, but you’re certainly capable of it.

Hah! You got me.

It took me just as long to write that short story as it took to write my first published novel. I find writing short stories much harder and just as time consuming as writing a novel yet I get paid way more for the novels. Thus I stopped writing short stories.

Megan Crewe: Most of my short stories are novel-esque ideas compressed.

Me too! Or they’re actual chapters of novels.

Dan Goodman: I think there are actually more markets for short spec-fic than ever. Most of them—including the highest-paying one (Baen’s Universe)—are electronic rather than print.

Good point. But most of them do not pay well. Very hard to make a living writing short fiction.

But leaving the making money part aside, I do love how much good short fiction I can read online at places like Strange Horizon. One of the many beautiful things about the intramanet thingy.

Of course, I have yet to sell anything, so…

now, i’m not a full-time writer – heck, i’ve never even been a paid writer – so i can’t really speak from experience or anything, but it strikes me as rather sad that the craft has to be approached by so many as an industrial task as a means of survival.

back to the pianists: i love rachmaninov’s third piano concerto more than a helluva lot of pieces, but darned if i wouldn’t rather be locked in a room ’til the end of time with naught but a cd of chopin’s nocturnes. my point is, the big arena pianists make their money showing off their skills on the big pieces (concertos, sonatas, what have you), but some of them are flat out more skilled at playing the shorter stuff. granted, the analogy breaks down in several different places, but my gut feeling is the same. i just find it sad that to climb to the top of the billing, a pianist has to do it playing concertos (and won’t be able to, if only showing off the nocturnes), and i find it just as sad that writers have to climb to the top of the writing world using novels. i mean, i simply adore “for whom the bell tolls”, but darned if i wouldn’t rather be locked in a room with only “the snows of kilimanjaro” to keep me warm. there are just so many forms to use that it strikes me as ridiculous for one, the novel, to be so elevated as the primary measuring stick against which writers are graded. sad. we’re just so indoctrinated to think that the novel is the pinnacle, and it doesn’t make sense to me.

again, i’m not earning my keep with words, so i can’t speak from experience – heck, it’s probably not my place to begin with. if i were paying the bills by writing novels, i’m sure i’d be just as cynical as some of the people commenting here claim to be (although i’d think it’s more like realistic), i just wish it weren’t so.

novel on.

I think it is also a question of effect…short fiction has the ability to punch you in the gut, kiss you softly but ever so sweetly, or rip your heart out of your chest.

novels, i think, tend to be more torturous…stretching the emotion and power of the narrative out further and in a less direct manner. i suppose, you could say then, that it is form after all, but the effect of the form is also a key difference between them too.

as for the actual writing…short stories allow you to economise plot, character, setting and style, which is a good skill i think, and are also great venues for experimentation. novels allow you to wallow in your own literary filth (I’m sorry, i just liked that metaphor…I’m not meaning to imply novel-writing is inferior or anything), which is to say, you can enjoy it, linger and develop things; things you may not have the space to do in a short story.