You are a short story. You start in the middle maybe, and you don’t have a long word count. A few pages. A short arc. A gimmick. Some terse resolution.
You’re certainly not a novel. You don’t creep sweetly along — slowly, steadily, building to a climax, resolving in the end. I don’t take you on the subway and read you for months and months. I don’t lug you around in my bag — with your pages bent comfortably, your cover ripping off, your edges worn. He was a novel, but you are a short story, wedged between other short stories, maybe, in some kind of collection. Or on your own — a light, morning read. You are notable. You can be good. You are favorite territory to re-tread, with little to no time lost. You are easy.
You make me feel like I am also a short story to you. It’s like we’re writing something small together — filling in the dialogue right where it should go, describing the people and the clothing and the setting. Making metaphors, twisting prose. Not predictable, and not a novel, but perfect in its own way. Strangely, in this short story, there are no first drafts. We are editing as we go. It’s minimalism. Every word counts. You are someone I can read over and over again, that I want to read to others, that I can recommend and not feel too uneasy about it. You can be longer, expanded, worked on — or not. You can become your own short story collection with bits and pieces of the same character followed through a single weaving timeline. You can stick around for a while. But in the end, you will never be a novel.
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