I think most here are novel writers, but I'm drawn more to the short story. I just read Joe's interview with Elizabeth Bear (see the blog forum
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...postcount=1025) and I like what she said about short vs. long:
Quote:
2.) How different is it putting together a short story for an anthology opposed to writing your novels, and which is more difficult?
Well, short stories and novels are very different beasts, and its hard to compare them. Short stories, obviously, are less physical work–by which I mean typing–than novels. They take less actual time to write. But I have had some that have taken years and years to figure out. And as for hardness–well, they’re also hard in different ways. Novels require sustained effort, attention to consistency, sustained invention. Short stories require concise brilliance, no wasted movement, perfectionism and attention to detail.
If you think of them as the difference between grandfather clocks and pocket watches, you will see what I mean.
Novels can sprawl a little. They have room for grace notes and flourishes and cuckoos and little mechanical figurines. Novels can have some white space in them.
In a good short story, on the other hand, everything needs to be doing about six things at once, and if one tiny thing is a little bit out of line, it throws the whole mechanism off. The tolerances are much tighter.
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What are your thoughts? Do you write novels instead of stories or do you do both? If you've done both what are your thoughts on the differences, the difficulties?