Writing Novels? Read Short Stories
This morning I stumbled across a Reddit thread with a familiar question:
As an author, what novels should I read?
Like a lot of questions arising in casual writing talk, and especially the “should I” questions, this is almost certainly the wrong thing to ask. There’s no one answer, no one path. But it does make sense to wonder how you might read more deliberately, broaden your horizons, read in a way that strengthens your craft — which, overall, is what the original poster was after, and is what most of the responses dove into.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, my own contribution was this:
Read short fiction as well as novels.
Here’s what I wrote:
Read short fiction as well as novels.
Short fictions is a different form, with different constraints. Different strengths and weaknesses — and learning those, at least learning how to recognize the range and versatility, will give you a lot.
Short stories do cool stuff. A great short story can make you love a protagonist and then kill them off in the space of 25 pages. A great short story can pull off things you could never sustain for the length of a novel, like being written from the POV of a sentient refrigerator, or as the transcript of a YouTube channel, or where linear time is not actually a thing. Short stories can also focus on something really small, intimate, or odd — a single date; a snapshot of one compelling character; a single captivating thought-experiment. So reading a diverse array of short stories will keep setting off lightbulbs of "I didn't know you could do that" — and those lightbulbs will carry over to your novel-writing as well, because you'll have all these tools and tricks and techniques in the back of your mind. You'll know a hundred different ways you can stretch your writing to be different, and to accomplish different things.
Short stories are a masterclass in compactness. In getting information across really quickly and smoothly (and also, knowing what information is worth getting across, and what's better left as vibes-only); in favoring scenes and substance over preparatory conversations; in cutting right to the heart of a story and also convincing readers this is a story worth reading all at once. In a great short story, most every paragraph is doing double or triple duty, establishing character and introducing the setting and rules and moving the plot forward, all at the same time.
That's all craft you absolutely want and need in novel-writing as well. You want your novel to feel tight, not flabby; you want your big overarching story to be full of scenes and subplots that function very similarly to the way short stories do; you want those sub-stories to be compelling, and you want not to feel like the same thing over and over, or like one big thing that just keeps stretching on and on interminably.
Short stories teach endings. One of the great strengths of novels is a sense of immersion, of going on a journey with particular characters or in a particular setting. But there are so many novels where the ending is lackluster, or just... y'know, fine, but not the high point of the book. The journey was worth it in its own right. That's why you can still pick up Song of Ice and Fire or Name of the Wind and enjoy what there is of it, even if the next installments never materialize. The anticipation can be better than when it actually arrives. But short stories are tight, and focused, and bound to their endings in iron. They're too brief for the separation between "middle" and "end" to feel like two different things. If you read one anthology of a dozen stories, then congrats: you have read a full dozen endings, each of their own shape and type and style. Pay attention to what makes something feel and function as an ending, and you'll learn a lot.
Where novels are a commitment, short fiction can be a playground, a gallery tour, a lab for glorious experimentation. If you want to know what's out there, and see the full range of what this craft can do, I strongly advise you not to miss out on it. :)
Here's a little grab-bag of stories from all kinds of different types and styles:
"Magic for Beginners," by Kelly Link, eerie, ethereal magic in the mundane.
"Please Undo This Hurt," by Seth Dickinson, sorrow and existential horror.
"A Fine Balance," by Charlotte Ashley, swashbuckling and intrigue.
"Who Will Greet You At Home," by Lesley Nneka Arimah, literalized metaphor and social inequality.
"Lies I Never Told You," by Jaxton Kimble, sweet, gentle, affirming.
"The Long Way Up," by Alix E. Harrow, mythology retelling from a relatable, intimate, contemporary POV.
"A Strange and Muensterous Desire," by Amanda Hollander, wonderfully ridiculous character humor.
“How Music Begins,” by James Van Pelt, familiar people placed in strange and desperate circumstances.
Hope this helps whoever stumbles across it, and hope you enjoy!
