Ever realized a short story should be a novel?

I asked this question once and it turns out it's very common to do.

And it's a little saddening when you realize that this great novel idea you have is only a short story.

This is usually because I've been toying with the idea, built a really good protagonist and I suddenly realize I'm in for a weekend visit rather than the long leisurely summer I was planning.

Makes for a really good short though!

Yeah, definitely common. I've had a few.

I didn't realize it, but other people did and told me so.
They turned out to be right.

Pretty much any short story could be a novel--IMHO a really good idea can be written to any length.

veinglory said:

Pretty much any short story could be a novel--IMHO a really good idea can be written to any length.

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Um... no. Pretty much by definition. A story could be a facet or a thread of a novel, but I really doubt anyone could get 85,000 words out of "The Lottery" or "The Cold Equations."

I don't care how long or short a story is. But I do care how good it is.

Some short stories of mine could possibly be expanded to a novel -- they would become a part of a longer work. But so far I let them be the shorts they are.

Anthony Ravenscroft said:

Um... no. Pretty much by definition. A story could be a facet or a thread of a novel, but I really doubt anyone could get 85,000 words out of "The Lottery" or "The Cold Equations."

Click to expand...

Haven't read "The Cold Equations," but I know a good novel could be made out of "The Lottery." No problem at all. And, obviously, a full length movie can also be made from "The Lottery", since it's already been done.

I've never seen a short story that actually is a short story that can't be written as a novel, and I've never read a novel that couldn't be written as a short story.

Turning short stories into novels, and into full length movies, is pretty common, and it isn't even all that difficult to do.

Full-length movies are made all the time from short stories -- for instance, The Last Mimzy.

But that says nothing about whether a novel can be made from puffing lard into a short story.

Nothing.

It's not "pretty common" or there'd be "A LOT" of ready examples.

Ditto for "a novel ... written as a short story."

Expanding short stories to novels is actually fairly common, at least in SF.

Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" was originally a short story.
Arthur C. Clarke's short story "the Sentinel" later became the book and movie 2001.
Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonflight" was expanded from the short story "Weyr Search."

There are a number of other examples but those will do for starters.

Let's take one of those examples, then.

With "The Sentinel," as I recall, the story began with someone going to check on a strange artifact, & ended just after it broadcast a tight message. That's it; the overall denouement was, "Now we're waiting to see what happens." Correct?

That forms a piece of 2001, true enough... but it was in only an inappropriate &/or dishonest sense "expanded" from a short story to a novel (a series, in fact) -- making such a claim is like saying that a typical novel is made from strung-together standalone pieces, which rather is unusual if not rare. Matter of fact, I'm fair certain that the POV is changed, the setting & occurence drastically chopped, & that it becomes little more than a passing anecdote to set up the main body.

The novel was not an "expansion" of the story's plot. By definition, a short story (to abuse Dorothy Parker) runs the gamut from A to B, or perhaps more appropriately from E to F, while the novel must manage to make a much larger range.

I think it'd be amusing to watch someone try to write, say, Cryptonomicon in 5,500 words or less.

Could it be chopped down? or could a scene or subplot be pried loose? could all but three or four of the characters be eliminated? Certainly.

But that would no longer be the source novel. Just a pried-loose chunk.

I'm reading a nonfiction book by an agent who mentions selling a novel on the basis of a 150-page presentation. I have my doubts he could have done so with less than 10K words

Therefore, to claim that a short story is a novel minus the adverbs -- or that a novel is a short story with entire chapters describing the wallpaper -- is nonsense.

Combining short stories into a novel is common enough in SF that there's even a term for it. The "Fix-Up Novel." As to the expansion of short stories into novels I may be viewing that differently than you are. I see the expansion of a short story into a novel as taking the ideas and characters in that short story and making a novel from them.

Both 2001 and the Sentinel are about the same question: What if someone left an artifact on the moon to signal when we reached it? It's actually the weakest example of short story to novel of the three I mentioned.

The point is that the same basic idea, if it's a good idea, can provide the basis for either a short story or a novel. A short story will cover just the core of the idea, and a novel will explore ramifications, but they can both grow from the same ideas. They won't be identical, they will be different ways of expressing the same basic story.

The Odyssey has been rewritten as everything from short stories to novels. It's still the same basic story.

Everything depends on what the writer wants to do with the story.

Let's turn this back a bit more toward the root post.

A novel, by definition, has at least one overall story arc, a handful of somewhat shorter arcs, & a bunch of very brief arcs. As you look at briefer forms, it's inevitable that (a) there's less room for arcs, & (b) what room their is crowds out the grandest arcs most readily.

There is simply no room in a short story for a grand arc AND a bunch of little arcs. If you opt for the former, then you've got a synopsis -- period. Not a story.

But we're wandering astray in any case, because I've certainly experienced what the OP brought up: sure, I've started to sketch out "a nice little story," only to find that all sorts of closely related stuff sprouted readily, & tyhe next thing I know I've got a timeline, a sweeping set of interlocked story arcs, & a nice little cast of characters.

And a couple of times I thought I had the makings of a nice novel, but on consideration one detail after another just rang false, & after paring so much away I found I had a nice little arc that'd hold its own for maybe 10,000 words.