Short Stories vs. Novels: Strengths and Weaknesses

By R.M. Archer

Short stories and novels are two different beasts. In practicing both you can learn things about writing short stories that apply to novel-writing, and vice versa, but you’ll also find that they have different strengths and weaknesses.

Today I want to talk about some of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in short stories.

Small Casts vs. Large Casts

I don’t know about you, but when I’m writing a novel I tend to end up with large casts of characters. Novels allow space for many different characters to shine and influence the plot.

Not so with short stories.

Short stories thrive on small casts. One reason for this is that there simply isn’t space for very many characters to be uniquely important. But another reason is that short stories have to make an emotional impact in much fewer words, and smaller casts lend themselves to a sharper emotional impact.

I recently finished reading Phantastes by George MacDonald, and as I discussed it with a friend afterward I realized how much of its emotional and thematic impact was due to an intimate focus on the single main character—Anados—and the fact that he only interacted with one or two specific side characters at a time.

Phantastes is a novel, not a short story, but I think this same principle is an inherent strength of short stories.

When you’re limited to a small cast by nature of your medium, you have a wide open opportunity to use that to your advantage.

By focusing on just a few characters, you can devote more attention to building authentic character voices and bringing out traits for your readers to relate to than you might otherwise have time and energy for.

On the opposite side of the coin, short stories prevent the use of sizable and varied casts. Novels have the advantage of giving you multiple perspectives to work with when providing information, exploring a theme, or influencing your main character’s arc. But, as I think you’ll see in my further points also, this is a functional trade-off.

Short Story Strengths:

Short Story Weaknesses:

Intimate vs. Epic Stories

Novels require extended, often large-scale conflicts to support their length. Short stories are often better-suited to more intimate, personal conflicts.

These conflicts might be internal, with the character simply wrestling against themselves.

They might be external, but seen only through the character’s eyes. Maybe their society has fallen apart and they’re the only one who sees a way to rebuild, so they’re reflecting on that and looking for a way to move forward.

They might be interpersonal, but with only one or two other characters. Maybe your main character is trying to build a relationship with someone who’s a mystery to them, or maybe she’s having a conflict with her mom, or maybe with her best friend.

These intimate, relatable conflicts are perfectly suited to short stories. As you hone the emotional impact of your character, the focused snapshot that your story provides of “real life”—even if your story is set in a different world or follows a character of a different species—will resonate more closely with your reader.

When planning a short story, you might find it helpful to ask “Who will this plot impact?” Will your plot impact a whole slew of characters, or just one or two? If the impact is narrow, you’re golden. If not, you might ask yourself how you can place your theme into a more intimate context.

If it helps, think of short stories and novels in terms of camera angles or number of sets.

While a novel has a lot of broad shots and numerous sets that give you a full picture of the story’s context, a short story might have just one set and operate with a lot of close shots. A short story focuses on what’s most crucially important and largely keeps extraneous context out-of-frame.

Either balance of information can be beneficial, but you need to know if your story is one that will benefit from a broader view or one that is better-suited to only a frame focused on what your POV character experiences for a brief period of time.

Short Story Strengths:

Short Story Weaknesses:

Short-Term Themes

vs. Extended Arcs

Everything in a short story is more focused than it would be in a novel. A novel should be just as purposeful as a short story, but simply by nature of its compressed length a short story must be more to-the-point; every last word must serve a purpose.

Theme is no exception.

While the theme of a novel will necessarily be applied to a number of situations and approached from a number of angles and perspectives, the theme of a short story will necessarily be briefly explored in a narrow context.

This does not mean that the theme is therefore any less effective in short story form. The effect will simply be different, and resolved in different timing.

A character arc in a novel is much like the majority of real-life character growth; slow and drawn-out. It takes multiple lessons, multiple experiences, multiple attempts and failures to finally take a noticeable step forward.

In a short story, the theme often comes across as primarily hopeful. You see the first small step, and you’re left with hope for the arc to continue; or you see the final step, and you’re left with hope that the end is attainable.

Instead of carrying the reader through a journey, inviting them to grow with the character, you invite them deep into an individual struggle that they can relate to as part of the journey that they know is required for character growth. You show them a snapshot of what it’s like to be challenged by your theme topic and to take a step forward, even if that step is small.

Sometimes, this more focused approach to theme is exactly what a reader needs. Sometimes seeing the hope inherent in a well-executed short story theme will prompt a reader to action more effectively than the drawn-out journey of a novel. (And sometimes the opposite is true.)

Themes in short stories and novels might also complement each other, with the full arc of a novel providing a framework and the precise theme of a short story representing a step in that arc.

As you build the theme of your short story, you might ask

Short Story Strengths:

Short Story Weaknesses:

Short stories have a unique sense of focus that gives them distinct strengths. Focus on few characters, small-scale conflicts, and narrow applications of theme can lead to short stories that hone their purpose to a point and make a deeper impact on readers than novels are sometimes able to.

Have you ever read a short story that made a deep impact on you?

As a writer, have you ever found it easier to focus a theme through a short story than a novel?