Short Story Have you written short stories before your first novel?

How old are you now? And I'd like to see those cringey stories.

 

Be 34 on Thursday. IDK, where those stories are at the present,
and gonna take a petition or something to release that festivus
cringicus.

 

Well I’ve attempted novels, but I started my hobby writing many a short story. It felt like the natural thing to do as the short format is so much easier than novels.

 

My short stories were a way to finish something. I could start writing a story, but once I figured out the ending, I couldn't force myself to finish.
Also, I am/was dealing with attention deficit disorder and several other maladies, so writing short stories helped me push that envelope until I had written a few unpublished novellas around 40,000 words. From that, I went through my work and found one that would be my first novel, and three years later I finished it.

 

No short stories, I went straight for the novel. Nowadays, after writing two behemoths novels (one published, another on the way), I’m trying to keep my story length at around 25.000 / 50.000 words because I’m fed up with editing long novels! True story!

I had to write short stories for school (5.000 words) and they always felt too short and incomplete. I have the same opinion reading short stories from others so it’s not my genre at all. I do read short stories, but refuse to read flash fiction. That’s not even getting into the preliminaries, if you know what I mean. Not satisfying.

The shortest I could come up with was a 14.000 words story happening on my universe, but that hardly counts because it was supposed to be “bait” for the larger story.

 

I can't conceive of writing short stories. Just isn't my thing. I don't read them much either, except for sci-fi (which I love, but don't write.) I love the long haul, the immersion in time and place, and the slow character development that a novel gives me.

I know all short stories don't take this path, but I really don't enjoy gimmicky plots at all. Too many short stories—especially contemporary ones—seem gimmicky to me. They count on the reader not finding out something important till the 'reveal' at the end, or deliberately lead the reader astray by misleading them on purpose about who the characters are or what the situation really is (ha ha, fooled you!), or set the reader some puzzle to solve, etc. Just not my thing. I've got a lazy brain, and can't be arsed. I want to dive in, take things at face value and learn from what happens, not pit my puzzle-solving wits against the author.