In preparation for a presentation I’m doing this week at my local library, I’ve been thinking a lot about short fiction and what it has to offer that full length novels cannot. I always say that, in spite of the fact that I love reading novels as much as anyone, I believe that short fiction is innately superior. This probably seems a bit extreme, and it’s important that I make it clear that I do love novels and I think there are things that can be done with novels that can’t be done inside the boundaries of short fiction. However, in my opinion, fiction in its most perfect form is extremely focused and tight, and because of the length constraints, that’s exactly what you get with short fiction.
Novels, because they have hundreds of pages to take up, almost invariably meander around. They give lots of background information and provide ample details, and they’ll sometimes spend several pages on some aspect of the story or other that is not really important to the overall story arc. Because they have the space, because, in fact, they must fill in the space, novels spend a fair amount of time establishing characters, establishing setting, and so on. Which is to say, not every page is actively moving the story forward.
As a reader, I like novels because I like getting lost in another world for a period of several days—I like that I can live as if in two realities, one foot planted in my own world, the other in the world of whatever novel I’m in the middle of. This is something that short fiction almost by definition cannot offer, since you can read a short story in one sitting. No matter how much you loved being part of that world, once you put the story down you leave the story behind and wholly reenter the real world.
Yet at the same time, as a reader/writer, I almost always feel dissatisfied with novels after I finish them. I enjoy the ride, but find my mind wandering when a novel veers off into territory that doesn’t feel truly important to the overall story. Again, I feel I should reiterate that I do enjoy reading novels, but most of the time when I read a novel, I feel like it would have been better if certain parts of it had been trimmed. To be honest, it’s not even all that rare for me to finish a novel and feel that it should have been trimmed down to short story length. There was enough for about 30 good pages of story in here, I think to myself when I finish, but the rest of the book was just filler.
Not so with short fiction. Because the shorter forms—even novellas—don’t have room for filler, they remain tightly focused on the story at hand. There is very little room for exposition in short fiction, and the majority of the words must be used to actively move the story forward. While some people might argue that this means short fiction is less complex than the novel form, I completely disagree. In short fiction—good short fiction, anyway—the complexity is still there, but all the complicated nuances of these characters and their world must be layered on top of each other, using the same words that are being used to move from plot point to plot point. The writer must choose his or her words very carefully, and each word must carry as much weight and meaning as possible.
The shorter the story is, the more true this becomes, and by the time we get down to flash fiction, we end up with a story that has been so carefully crafted and with such close attention to language that we find ourselves almost at a crossroads between poetry and prose.
So, yes, based on my opinion (this is, of course, a very subjective matter) of what makes for good fiction, I believe that the short form is better than the novel. Does this mean I don’t read novels? Of course not. Does this mean I’m going to stop trying to write them? Never! But I do have a sincere appreciation for short fiction, especially when I come across a really, really, really good one. Though I’ll never stop wanting to immerse myself in another world for a longer amount of time than a piece of short fiction can offer me, I do see the novel as inherently flawed, and the writer side of me can’t help but praise the short form.
It is really interesting to get your take on this issue. I definitely hold the opposing view. I have rarely read a novel that I thought should have been a short story instead, but I've read a lot of short stories that I felt were too rushed and should have been novels. And you write that you "almost always feel dissatisfied" with novels. That's how I am with short stories. Often, I finish reading a story and feel like there was so much more the author could have done and it's a shame they didn't, that just as I was getting pulled into that world and engaged with the characters, it was over. Of course, there are some great short stories out there, but for me, I don't think my favorite short stories really even compare to my favorite novels as far as how much I love them. Even when the story arc isn't really moving forward, I just love being immersed in that other world.
ReplyDeleteBut then again, some of my favorite novels are short novels. I definitely think there is something great about the shorter form right on that edge between a novella and a novel, where it's long enough to sink in deeply yet short enough to avoid a lot of filler.
I'm going to have to keep thinking about this. It's a really interesting issue.
Yeah, I figured you would disagree. I think it all comes down to what the individual considers good writing. I'm all about brevity and keeping a really tight focus, and also leaving things unsaid so that the reader can infer them. So for me, short stories are much more well written than novels. But I definitely still like being able to get lost in a novel for a few days, and that's something short stories will never be able to give me, so I can definitely understand your point of view.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to brevity, a tight focus, and the reader inferring things that are unsaid, I often get frustrated that there is no actual answer to certain questions. I like ambiguity sometimes, but I feel like too often with literary short stories there are elements (that I sometimes feel are fairly major elements) that are simply left out and the reader could infer one thing or the opposite or something in between, and each idea could be equally supported by the text, so since it isn't actually included in the story, the reader can provide any answer he or she wants. And in cases like that, it seems like then the reader is actually making up the story rather than the writer doing it. So I would object to the notion that those stories are more well written than novels in which the writer has gone to the trouble to figure out the answers and to provide them for the reader.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I object to the whole idea of classifying something as "more well written" than something else. I suppose I can agree that some things are in a certain sense bad writing, that when there are unintentional flaws in verb tense and characters change hair color for no reason in the middle of a story or gaffs like that, sure, that's bad writing. But when it comes to scope and focus, tight or loose, meandering or brief, large themes, small themes, whatever, it's all subjective. I may want Alice Munro's stories to be novels instead (which I do!), but I can't say that her stories are not as well written as Graham Greene's novels. It just happens that I prefer spending my time with a Greene novel to spending my time with some Munro stories. Neither is better writing than the other. They are simply different, so different readers have different preferences.
And maybe I'm reading too much into your comment. You do say that "for [you], short stories are much more well written than novels." So maybe all you mean is that you like them more, but I balk at that language.
Yes, I definitely think that you are reading too much into it, since I did, in fact, go out of my way to point out that this is subjective, and that it is my opinion. We're going to have to agree to disagree on the language use there. I don't think there's anything wrong with each individual having his or her own opinion of what makes for good writing, and it follows that if I think good writing does X thing, than things that are written in that way are more well written in my opinion than things that aren't. What's well written and what isn't is obviously subjective. That goes without saying, but I even said it anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'll concede the point. Maybe it's just my own issue, but those terms grate on me.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in this idea of "filler".
ReplyDeleteI've read 300 page novels that contained no filler; removing any part of the whole would have damaged the book. Madame Bovary is one of these. Beloved is another.
I've also read short stories that seemed to go on FOREVER, that could have been/should have been cut in half.
I'm really enjoying short novels these days too. I think that sometimes commercial considerations make these books more difficult to publish (we're a society that is a little more interested in the size of our portions than the taste of the food).
Always a pleasure to read the thoughts on this blog.
Good point. Madame Bovary is an excellent example of a novel that definitely did not need anything trimmmed out of it. There are scenes in there that almost feel tangential, but they're so deeply related to the themes in the story that the novel wouldn't be as good without them. You're definitely right that some novels don't have any filler, and some short stories do. I'm probably overgeneralizing, but I think, in my experience, it's more common for me to feel like there was extra stuff in novels that could have been trimmed than in short stories.
ReplyDeleteMy mind wanders easily, so I may consider things filler that other people wouldn't. The main thing I would consider filler is what I see as excessive backstory--and this is something I see a lot in the longer novels being published by the major publishing houses (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo comes to mind. I actually really enjoyed that book--I know a LOT of people think it's terrible--but I felt like the first 100-150 pages could almost have been cut altogether and the book wouldn't have lost a thing. It spent forever meandering around in the backstory of the characters, trying to set up quirky character traits for each of them. A better writer could have developed the characters while also moving the action of the story forward, I felt).
Another thing I would call filler is, unfortunately, best exemplified by one of my favorite writers, Rick Moody. His earlier novels were much shorter and tighter, but in his recent novels, he goes on and on for pages describing the sunrise or some other inconsequential thing. His writing is so beautiful that I think he's just getting lost in the beauty of his own words. But regardless of their beauty, those descriptions go on for so long that even me, a huge Rick Moody fan, begins to find it tedious.