Shorter is better?

We’ve almost made it through the week! We’re so close, can you believe it? And I have an amusing little tidbit to share with you today, that I noticed over the holidays and couldn’t find a way to properly express… so I’m sharing it now.

Sometimes, I like short stories better.

But understand me here: I mean both that I like writing them, more than I like writing novels, and that sometimes... I'd rather read them.

*gasp*

Blasphemy! I’ve always preferred writing novels over short stories. Shorts are harder to do, I’ve said. They take more effort to be concise and pristine in a small number of pages. You’re confined, unable to be free with your story and take it wherever you want to go, I’ve whined.

Well, in December I realized what’s so great about short stories.

Like I always say, it’s important that we’re writing. As writers, it’s just what we need to be doing. Duh. If you’re a writer and you’re not writing, something’s very wrong. Make sure you’re writing, all the time. Doesn’t matter what you’re writing, just make sure you write.

That’s been my mantra, for years. And I realized last month, that I’ve never honestly followed it. I said it, I recited it, but it didn’t hold true in my life. I always wanted to be writing novels, nothing more, nothing less. Just novels. If I wasn’t writing novels, then I wasn’t writing, and that wasn’t good.

Last month, however, was insanely busy. I didn’t get to write in my novels. I got to write short stories. And I actually really like them. They’re great, they were a lot of fun to write, and one of them I think I might be able to expand into a mini short story series, which could be cool. Never done that before. But I also discovered that short stories are easier to read when you're super busy, too.

Here’s the thing:

Short stories are easier to digest, easier to find time for, and sometimes all we can make ourselves do in a given month.

Here’s the kicker though:

For a lot of people, short stories is all they have time to read.

So, maybe short stories aren’t so bad after all. Maybe they’re just a great way to reach a new set of people with these amazing things called words. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not something we should shy away from at all, but something we should embrace with gusto.

Let’s write more short stories.

Submit them to Mavguard, while you’re at it. ;-)

But don't worry, I'm still working on a new novel right now, and I don't plan to stop. But I'll hopefully be pushing more interesting short stories out too. 

[love]

{Rani D.}