The Questions That Drive a Novel vs. Short Story
Writing fiction to me has always been about asking questions—really good questions. The type of questions that keep me up at night, burning a hole in my brain, until I find an answer.
(10 Questions You Need to Ask Your Characters.)
While writing this article I began wondering if short fiction was really asking questions that were smaller in scope than novels. I write a lot of short fiction, especially flash fiction, and it always begins with a question for me. What if a group of displaced women who owned a hair salon were actually women who were half human/half alligators? What if a woman who is unsure about her upcoming wedding begins seeing the ghost of her ex, who is actually not dead? What if a woman’s hair was made out of flowers and as she was dying she began shedding all her petals?
All these questions, that are based on short stories of mine, are not necessarily small questions. The questions we ask dictate the depth and breadth of our storytelling canvas, much as choosing between taking a snapshot or recording a video.
Author Lorrie Moore once said, “A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.”
I believe this to be true. I am two different people when I write short stories and when I write novels. I am impulsive when I write short stories. One of my big joys and pleasures in life is sitting down with an idea and writing the first draft of a short story or a piece of flash fiction from start to finish, in one sitting. I love the feeling of ideas and sentences flowing onto the page, so fast I can hardly keep up.
You can’t write a novel in one sitting. Maybe you could, but it wouldn’t be very pleasurable. When I write novels, it is like I’m trying to make a pact with the person I want to become. The version of myself that is disciplined, takes notes, asks the right questions and keeps track of the story I am trying to tell without veering off too much. I have a routine, I try to keep a journal, to meditate and go for walks—all for the bigger purpose of writing something that I am deeply committed to.
But what distinguishes a question fit for a novel from one suited for a short story?
Of course there can be passion in marriages, and there can be commitment in a love affair. One could say that it’s a mixture of both: Passion and commitment. You know that you’re committed to this idea enough to build a routine, build endurance, and make pacts with yourself so you keep showing up. It’s also a passion.
It’s easier to shed the habits that one doesn’t enjoy, so you do whatever is in your power to enjoy the project you begin. In order to keep showing up, there must be a why. A question that is burning a hole in your brain—a sustained camera shot that keeps following a character for months, or even years on end.
Check out María Alejandra Barrios Vélez’s The Waves Take You Home here:
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When I set out to write my novel, The Waves Take You Home, I began with a question that many immigrants have: How would my character choose between two worlds, and two very different lives that were pulling her in different directions? Would she choose her life in NYC, where she had a stable relationship and was trying to make it as an artist, or would she decide to be at home, in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, trying to save the family restaurant, a place that her ancestors told her to run from?
I’ve written a couple of short stories that are in the universe of my novel. These short stories ask different questions, though. A flash fiction called Black Cake reflects on the tradition of having black cake at weddings and the protagonist’s mother’s love addiction. The story shows the main character’s life in two cities and what leads her to take the ultimate decision between her two worlds. The flash fiction has two characters, one setting, and one main conversation.
I don’t think the flash asks a smaller question necessarily but I do think that as a writer I had a shorter answer to the question. A smaller canvas, if you will. Sometimes we have to write a story for six months to realize it is a novel, and sometimes we have to write a novel in order to realize it’s better as a short story or a collection of short pieces.
When sitting down to write, consider your questions. What’s more powerful, a picture or a video, a big canvas or a small one? What are the dimensions of your story? Do you feel passion and commitment? Or only one of them? Why?
These questions are pivotal when starting a project. Consider how you want to tell your story and which way will be more powerful. There are no wrong answers—just adjust your questions and answers accordingly.
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