Short Story vs Novel

Hi all, I have been wondering what the difference between a short story and a novel is, besides length.
What are the main differences?

I want to change one or two of my short stories into YA novels, but I don't know how to go about it.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

There's just... more. Of everything. More characters, more conflicts, more try-fail cycles... it's essentially like a series of short stories braided together into one larger story.

Hi all, I have been wondering what the difference between a short story and a novel is, besides length.
What are the main differences?

I want to change one or two of my short stories into YA novels, but I don't know how to go about it.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

There's just... more. Of everything. More characters, more conflicts, more try-fail cycles... it's essentially like a series of short stories braided together into one larger story.

Disgruntledpeony stole my answer, lol.

Hi all, I have been wondering what the difference between a short story and a novel is, besides length.
What are the main differences?

I want to change one or two of my short stories into YA novels, but I don't know how to go about it.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

There's just... more. Of everything. More characters, more conflicts, more try-fail cycles... it's essentially like a series of short stories braided together into one larger story.

Excellent answer, Liz.

I'll add just one more, and it's for breakout novels. Zuckerman said multiple POV characters are necessary, not just one. More braiding for a more intricate, deeper story.

For short stories, this is normally not a good idea. It can weaken them.

Orson Scott Card has said many times that when expanding a story into a novel he begins before the story.

Reading Ender's Game, the short story, is very useful here. It's about a boy who is very talented and is the head of an army; the plot basically follows the end of the book. But all the background with Ender's introduction to Battle School? That's all implied, just a quick sentence here and there. There's no Peter, no Valentine.

In the story, too, Ender gets tired, he says he can't go on. But to me, who's read the book, it's all awfully lacking--the sentiment is empty because the character is barely developed. Of course, this was the best Card could do at the time, with the word count he had, but the story is that much richer in the book, because all the characters are explained, all the motives, all the backstory.

Perhaps a short story of Harry Potter would start, and end, with the adventure on the third floor. There would be a lot that would need to be explained, but it would be easily taken care with a few well-placed sentences. Ever since he had met Ron on the Hogwarts Train. Hermoine would know, she always knew the answers in class. The book is, of course, much richer than this supposed story because of all its mileu and characters.

So I guess I would recommend reading short stories that spawned novels, like Ender's Game, or Nightfall. And know that you should begin the novel before the story starts. (After all, you want to begin short stories media res. This is not as important in novels, and in novels there's more res. )

Edit: This being written by a person who has never written a novel, so take it with a grain of salt.

Posted by: @crlisle

Hi all, I have been wondering what the difference between a short story and a novel is, besides length.
What are the main differences?

I want to change one or two of my short stories into YA novels, but I don't know how to go about it.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

For me, the difference between short stories and novels are two-fold. Novels are broader, as has been pointed out above. Time and story extend on the front and back ends, but also on either side.

But novels also go DEEPER. More character depth. More internalizations. Deeper emotions. Deeper insights. More thinking and feeling and internal struggle and drive. We get some of that in short stories, like a submarine hiding just below the surface. There's a specific mission. The periscope is raised, scanning for a target, and SOMEONE'S getting torpedoed! But in a novel, we also see the submarine diving to the ocean floor, engines off, running silent because it's being hunted, the crew all hunkered down and quiet, trying to avoid detection by an invisible enemy who's just as clever and deadly.

Writing a novel gives the author the chance to build worlds and use more characters. 

I'm working on one now that has reached 70,000 words. I read an article by Christopher Paolini about maps.

He commented that the map helped his story expand beyond what would have been possible without it.

So, the next step for me is to create a map for my world. It will be like connecting the dots and putting them in the right places.

Short stories do not allow the freedom to do much of this. 

Posted by: @storysinger

Writing a novel gives the author the chance to build worlds and use more characters. 

I'm working on one now that has reached 70,000 words. I read an article by Christopher Paolini about maps.

He commented that the map helped his story expand beyond what would have been possible without it.

So, the next step for me is to create a map for my world. It will be like connecting the dots and putting them in the right places.

Short stories do not allow the freedom to do much of this. 

Orson Scott Card has a book called How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, and I think he talks about the helpfulness of mapping out your story world. I should probably draw a map of my story world for my current submission story. But a) I'm too lazy, and b) my map-making artistry would get a chicken lost across my streets.

@storysinger Maps worked for Tolkien!