Contained

So it's Wednesday, and it marks the start of a new series... A series on the differences between short stories and novels, and the pros and cons between them.

This week, we'll be focusing on two of the pros of short stories, starting with:

Self-Contained

Many people might tell you that it's not a pro, and those people would be novelists. But I'm both a novelist and a short story writer, so I'm here to tell you it's a pro.

Why, you ask?

1. Easier on the brain

Because they're so self-contained, because there's not much of a universe beyond the single story and very little chance of a sequel, short stories are great when you don't want to do a mass of thinking. You see, both when you're just starting out and when you've been too focused on novels for too long, sometimes the brain needs a bit of a break, but we don't want to stop writing.

That's where short stories come in. They're so small that we're bound to complete them in a short amount of time, and they require less effort to get going and get all the way to the end.

They're also a good way to get your mind back into the swing of things, if you've been on hiatus for a while.

2. Simpler to begin

Because the short story is, well, short, it doesn't require a lot of backstory. Of course, it will need some, but because you'll be dealing with a smaller timeframe, a limited number of characters, and a simpler plot, it's a lot easier to get all the backstory out of the way and get down to the nitty-gritty of actually writing the story.

Realistically, this is the reason why I so frequently come back to short stories, especially after writing a novel or two. It's nice to take a breather, to focus on something that doesn't need quite as much attention and doesn't contain so much plot and detail.


And that's just one of the pros to short stories! Friday we'll talk about another, and next week we'll switch to novels for a bit.

See you soon, my lovely writers!

[love]

{Rani Divine}