Writing SF/F short stories - useful for novelists?

[Barney]

Originally Posted by Teresa Edgerton

To keep on writing and learning and improving is the important thing.

And you are far, far more likely to do that working on a project you feel passionate about. So of course, yes, if an idea comes along that you love and believe can best be written at short story length, then work on that. Or if you feel that you've lost the spark on something old and you think that a change will freshen your mind up.

I wholeheartedly agree. My only caveat, and it is a general one, is that writing has to be fuelled by passion or love. I have written stories when I felt gripped by inspiration and had the urge to start it. Once the initial scene was written and I didn't have the wind in my sails any more I found it much harder to write the scenes around it. Going back and editing can sometimes be even more of a slog.

On the other hand I have written stories for competetion entries or just as exercises, variations on themes, when choices on subject and style were dictated to me. It is hard to judge your own work, but I think the prescribed stories I wrote were probably indistinguishable from the "inspired" ones. The initial enthusiasm isn't apparent when you have written the story all the way to the bitter end, redrafted it and edited it and polished it.

I envy anyone who really loves the whole process of writing. I find it to be hard work which I get satisfaction from and sometimes get totally absorbed in, but I don't think I ever really love it, apart from rare moments!

[John Jarrold]

Again, I believe that everyone will have a different experience. I know many authors who ONLY write what they love, and who enjoy every moment of the experience of writing - and editing!

[Lobolover]

I never wrote a real novel myself,max. three novelettes,cause I cant readily keep atention long enough-distort the plot that much.

[John Jarrold]

If the plot is novel length, it won't need distorting. Every story has its own length...

[David Elliott]

Every story has its own length...

I agree! That's the one - possibly the only - part of my writing that I'm ever really sure about; which ideas are novels, which ideas are short stories, and which ideas are scripts ....

I'm not sure why that is though.

Also, I find that short stories or scripts are sometimes a lot harder to write than novels or plays. Not always, but definitely sometimes ...

[John Jarrold]

Iain Banks hasn't written short fiction since around 1990. He told me that the only ideas he has now are novel-length...

[Ian Whates]

Originally Posted by John Jarrold

Iain Banks hasn't written short fiction since around 1990. He told me that the only ideas he has now are novel-length...

When I approached Iain at the tail-end of last year about writing a story for Celebration, the BSFA's 50th Anniversary anthology, he told me he hadn't written a short story in nearly 20 years and had no intention of doing so.

He then went on to say that with the line-up I had in place for the book, he'd definitely be buying a copy, which I suppose is better than nothing.