Why You Should Tackle Short Stories Before Writing A Novel

You can’t play Beethoven until you‘ve learned to read music

In the summer of 2019, I sat at my computer and skimmed through the 6,000 words I had written ten years before.

That summer, I decided to spend each night writing 1,000 words a day until I completed the first draft of my novel. After reading through the draft I had written in 2009, I started from scratch and wrote for over a month until I produced 31,443 words.

I looked at the calendar and realized I only had about two weeks to edit it before the fall semester of school started, so I went to the university and printed out a copy of the first draft.

I printed it triple-spaced so I could make notes between the lines on what needed to be corrected. I aimed to edit the draft, make corrections, and publish my novel by the summer of 2021.

The more I read, the more I cringed

Everything was inconsistent, from attention to detail, too little character dialogue, grammar, and continuity errors. I failed to show the reader what occurred in the scene, instead just flat out saying what happened in the story. Because of the horrible flow, I couldn’t read past the first five pages.

I read the first five pages a second time and made corrections. I removed info-dumps and killed off unnecessary characters that didn’t contribute to the overall plot. That dropped my first chapter from five thousand words down to two thousand.

As I stared at the printed black ink, hidden underneath my handwritten red ink, I realized I would need to dedicate more time than I expected to complete my second draft.

I looked at the calendar, and with only a few more days until the fall semester started, I decided to leave my novel for another time.

I should’ve learned to write first

Since that day, I wondered what I needed to do to improve my writing. I searched YouTube for videos on how to write a novel. I found videos from Jenna Moreci, Vivien Reis, and Hannah Lee Kidder on how to write, plan, edit, revise, market, and publish your novel.

Though I learned a lot of valuable information, I did not feel satisfied. I felt I lacked the skills needed to successfully publish a novel.

Eventually, I came across this video from Hannah Lee Kidder.

There are many skills that go into writing, like imagery, plot details, character and story development, info-dumping, continuity errors, and more.

Twilight seems to get a lot of hate by people, saying the book is difficult to read. In a recent video Hannah Lee Kidder created, she rewrites the entire first chapter of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

As Hannah Lee Kidder points out, thousands of sales does not equate to a good book. After reflecting on the edits Hannah made, it reinforces the idea that mastering short stories should come first before actually taking on a novel.

Writing short stories are easier and quicker to improve upon

In college, I had a bad habit of submitting incoherent papers. I enrolled in the same Intro to English class three times because my essays weren’t improving. I continually made the same mistakes: incoherency, grammar, and info-dumping.

When I began tackling short stories, I realized I continued making the same mistakes. However, spotting these mistakes in a short story is far quicker than spotting them in a novel. So, I purchased a book to help me fix these errors.

Reading about writing better works

It’s one thing to watch YouTube videos on how to improve your writing, but another thing entirely to read about it.

I purchased a book called Understanding Show, Don’t Tell by Janice Hardy. She provided tremendous insight into fiction by explaining the basic mistakes many fiction writers make.

Her writing opened my eyes to the art form behind writing, especially how a scene can quickly go from dull to tense by changing a few words. For example, instead of saying ‘he closed the door angrily’, you could write ‘he slammed the door in my face, which shook the house’.

Janice Hardy emphasized the idea that it’s not just what you tell in your story, but how you tell it that captures an audience. Your goal as a writer should be similar to producing a silent film — it’s not about making your audience understand what’s going on. Your goal should be to show your audience what’s going on and have them make the connections themselves.

Writing and learning to write are very different philosophies

I’ve seen so many writers clash on how to improve your writing. Some say it’s better to read and adopt other writers’ methods, while some say it’s better to write frequently.

I’ve learned both ideas are flawed.

First of all, reading other people’s writing does not make you better at writing any more than listening to music makes you a pianist. If you don’t know what imagery, foreshadowing, or hyperboles are, you will never use them correctly in your writing.

Second, if you make mistakes repeatedly, you will not become a better writer. You need to identify your mistakes and remove them from your writing to improve.

After reading Hardy’s book and identifying mistakes in my writing, I applied the skills to improve my storytelling.

If you aim to write a novel but don’t recognize the quality of your writing, you will spend countless hours fixing these errors instead of improving the plot. Eventually, you will burn out and might publish a novel you won’t be proud of.

Save your novel for when you feel confident in your short story writing

Having a friend or family member read the draft of your novel is a serious commitment. If they cannot get through the first chapter because of the quality of writing, they won’t continue reading the rest of it.

If you write a short story, your friend or family member can quickly provide you feedback. I wrote a short story a few months ago and asked a friend if she could offer suggestions on how to improve the story.

She provided feedback in less than fifteen minutes saying I lacked detail and offered suggestions on how to improve it. I adopted most of her ideas, which helped the story win second place in a local horror story writing contest. Since then, I have improved the attention to detail in my writing.

Had I written a novel, I wouldn’t have received feedback for weeks. In this, writing a short story benefits you, as you can receive almost immediate feedback. In the long-term, you will improve the quality of your writing.

Once you produce short stories with confidence, you can move on to bigger projects, like your novel.

If you want to write a novel but have no idea where to start, I recommend you take a week and practice writing short stories. Once you have written a few of them, you can look back at them and identify where your strengths and weaknesses are in writing.

Do some research on how you can improve those weaknesses and correct them in your short stories. As you correct your short stories, write new ones with the skills you’ve learned and look for other ways you can improve.

Once you feel confident in your writing, find someone you confide in and ask them to read through your short stories and provide feedback. If all is well and good, you know you can move on to writing your novel.

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