Well, it shows you can string words together, meet a deadline and complete edits. But, the difference between short and long fiction is wide and deep! Not every novelist can write short and not every short story writer can sustain a plot arc over a full novel. What I've seen happen is that there's not enough deep characterization and the plot tends to "end" in the middle--about the length of a novella, rather than being intriguing and page-turning to 100K words.
Novelists tend to drag out a short story too much and not keep up the action, or it ends abruptly without actually completing the much shorter plot arc.
To me, a short story is the crisis of the moment, as simple as making it to work on time, or as life-altering as defusing the bomb that will end the world. A novel is the crisis of a week (or a life). Different goals with different methods.
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Date: 2006-05-05 02:13 pm (UTC)Novelists tend to drag out a short story too much and not keep up the action, or it ends abruptly without actually completing the much shorter plot arc.
To me, a short story is the crisis of the moment, as simple as making it to work on time, or as life-altering as defusing the bomb that will end the world. A novel is the crisis of a week (or a life). Different goals with different methods.
JMHO... :)