Susan Hill writes in The Guardian Review (12 July 2008) about the appeal of short stories, which she says is far greater for writers than it is for readers. She bemoans the fact that creative writing courses continue to teach “how to write short stories” (sic); even though she admits that when she needs a writing lesson she goes to a great short story. She warns that beginners begin with the short story at their peril.
It is true, I think, that the short story form is, as she says, “unforgiving”. Yet there are good reasons why writers just starting out on their careers should think seriously about the short story form, even though they are very unlikely to make much money from selling them. Here are just a few that come to mind:
The short story offers the opportunity to complete a first draft of something relatively quickly. Though the process of revision may be long and painstaking, it is much easier to revise something when you know the ending (even approximately) and the shape of a thing than when you don’t. It feels good to finish something.
A first draft of a novel, even if written at speed, takes weeks, or months, or maybe longer. I don’t know about you, but I take a little time to get into a writing mind. For whatever reasons (and I’m not proud of the fact) it usually takes me a couple of hours to get the juices going; and even then there’s no guarantee that what I write will be any good. More often than not it isn’t. If all I’ve got is a few hours a week, most of that time is going to be spent in setting up. Raymond Carver said he wrote short stories because he found the form suited his lifestyle, which for a long time included a full time job and a family. One has to be practical and work with what one has got. The process of initial composition is one I’m still learning to understand and work with.
The short story form offers the writer the chance to experiment with many different styles, voices, and forms, without having to commit to any of them. This is extremely valuable practice. Readers expect and need a certain amount of consistency, and there are only so many styles etc one can employ in a single novel before it wobbles out of control. Managing a novel that employs many different styles and so on is a skill best left to the more experienced writer, perhaps.
It is hard to write well. Morale is easily lost if one does not feel one has made some progress, some achievement. I think the reason short stories appeal to novice writers so much is the fact that the form offers the possibility of a complete creation, a world in miniature that can be brought within reach relatively quickly. And there are some wonderful examples to aspire to.