For most of my creative writing life, I’ve tried to write novels. Novels are the pinnacle of fiction writing in the same way oil painting is the pinnacle of art. I thought that if I was going to be a writer, I didn’t have a choice but to write novels.
However, recently, my thoughts have changed. In fact, for a few years I locked my novel away in my desk drawer to focus all my attention on short stories.
4 Reasons to Write Short Stories
Here are four reasons why I chose to write short stories instead of novels:
1. The Best Writers Started With Short Stories.
Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain became famous writing novels, but before they wrote novels, they published short stories.
Ernest Hemingway wrote twenty-four stories about a single character, Nick Adams, writing most of them before his breakout novel, The Sun Also Rises. Twenty-one years before The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain published his first short stories in a local newspaper. Stephen King started submitting short stories at such a young age that by the time he was fourteen he had a stack of rejection letters so thick he could no longer nail it to the wall.
2. They’re Practice.
You know how I feel about practice.
Short stories give you the chance to write a full-length story from beginning to end. You can practice every part of the writing process, and you can do it in a matter of weeks. If you write a novel, it could take years to practice the whole process. And if it’s your first novel, after all that hard work it probably won’t be published.
Short stories are a training ground, the place where you can make all your mistakes before you jump into the much more difficult process of novel-writing.
3. You Need to Publish Something Sooner.
And by that I mean you need to get your work out of the dark closet of your computer screen and into people’s hands as soon as you can. Feedback is the fastest way to improve.
Why?
Because you need people to tell you how bad it is. Or how amazing it is. Or how good that one paragraph is, especially compared to how bad the rest of the manuscript is.
When I finished my last short story, I sent it to over twenty people, and the feedback I got from them made me completely change the feel of the whole story.
That’s why we practice in the comments section and not on our own. We all need feedback, whether we’re Stephen King or Joe Bunting.
4. Because You Have Stories to Tell.
You should write short stories so you can experience the taut tightrope walk of the moment, the inexhaustible richness of the present. You should write short stories so your children can read them when they’re your age and think, “Wow. My father, my mother was a writer.” You should write short stories because you’re consuming stories everyday, from books and television and movies and newspapers, because you want to stop consuming and start creating. You should write short stories to discover what your life is for and why you’re here and what you’re supposed to do.
Don’t Wait to Write
In short, writing short stories is one of the best ways to practice writing, get feedback, and get your stories into the world. If you want to grow as a writer, this is one of the best ways to do it.
Not sure where to start? Check out our master list of 100 Short Story Ideas to get inspired. And consider joining a writing contest for the feedback, encouragement, community, and deadlines to help you take that inspiration and turn it into a great story.
(Keep an eye out—we’ll be announcing our next writing contest soon!)
We all want to become better writers. Why not start your next short story today?
Why do you write short stories? Let us know in the comments.
PRACTICE
As you’re thinking about short stories, I want you to free write. Don’t try to write any particular story. Relax. Just let your story take shape on its own.
Write for fifteen minutes. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.
And if you post, be sure to give feedback to a few other writers.
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