Thread: Short vs Long
View Single Post
Old 02-12-2013, 10:08 PM   #12
crich70
Grand Sorcerer
crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.crich70 ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
crich70's Avatar
 
Posts: 11,310
Karma: 43993832
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Monroe Wisconsin
Device: K3, Kindle Paperwhite, Calibre, and Mobipocket for Pc (netbook)
I agree that Short Stories are different from Novels. It's like the difference between an episode of a T.V. show and a Movie. Even if the T.V. program is part of a larger whole as far as story arc you still have to fit the basic elements of character, plot, problem, conflict, and resolution of the story being told in that episode within a period of 45 minutes instead of the 90 minutes or more of a full length movie. Movies like Novels can have subplots and multiple story arcs while there isn't as much room to do that in a single episode of a series or in a single short story. Novels let you explore at a slower pace than with the short story too I think. While both jump right into the story from page one it's a more hurried pace in a short story than in a novel length story, and not every story can be told in both formats I don't think either. I re-read 'Zen' a short story by Jerome Bixby last night and I don't know how he could have made it into a Novel.
Spoiler:
The story tells how an astronaut (the narrator) finds the last female Zen and introduces her to a male Zen found on another asteroid. The premise is that their home world had been what is now the asteroid belt.
That doesn't mean he couldn't have done it, only that I can't see how he could have stretched the basic story any longer than he did.
crich70 is offline   Reply With Quote