When I was twelve, I wrote my first "novel". It was somewhere between 40-50 pages (no joke!) and it followed the lives of four best friends who were also (alas!) twelve years old. It was my masterpiece - and it was so easy to write. I came home from school everyday and sat down at my mom's computer and wrote and wrote and wrote until dinner.
I'm almost positive I didn't have a social life when I was twelve.
Anyway, I began to write numerous novels throughout middle and high school, and all of them except the first one remain unfinished.
What's my point?
I aspired to write novels when I was twelve, and thirteen, and basically up until I finished my senior year in high school. I most likely didn't even know what a short story was - Andre Dubus, who? I read R.L Stein, and Judy Blume, and eventually shifted my taste, as I got older, to Jodi Picoult and Ray Bradbury (Dandelion Wine still makes my childhood come back to life). I read fiction. I read novelists.
So, college rolls around. BAM. I'm introduced to forms of non-fiction and prose writers seem to come out of the woodwork, writers that I'd never heard of, let alone ever picked up off a bookshelf. I'm introduced to short story writers - and short stories that have made an impact, such an impact, that I no longer write novels. I write what I read, what I'm taught, what I'm allowed to turn in for a grade.
My thesis revolves around the short story and my capabilities within the realm of 10-12 page pieces. In a meager four years, I've managed to forget about my aspiration to write novels. I no longer "start novels" - I finish short stories. It's a whole new mindset. Not a bad one, by any means, but a different one.
The thing is, I want to be a novelist, and I have no idea how to go about being one anymore. I read novels and am instantly amazed. How is that plot drawn out for so long? Look at these characters! They're still in the game after more than 15 pages! Look, there's 300 pages and the conflict is still going!
It's weird, how college transforms the mind. It makes me anxious to graduate and see what I write when I'm not in a classroom. Who will I pick up off the bookshelf? What will hold my interest when I don't have to write an essay about it?
Did you read this essay, by any chance? Short stories are better suited for classroom learning, but maybe that encourages writers like you to drop the novel aspirations for short fiction.
ReplyDeleteI always wrote short stories. In college, I wrote my first novel and absolutely loved the process. But in the following years, I turned back to writing short fiction because I thought it would help my overall craft. (It did.) Now I write both stories and novels. They are totally different things, though. I think you just have to read a lot of novels and then, when you set out to write one yourself, concentrate on getting that entire first draft down before stressing over it.
For you honey, it's always about timing. When it's your moment to shine and write novels you will. If you're in the season of writing short stories, then so be it. Who says you can't do both?? You are amazing and can conquer anything with the right determination and mindset. Light those words on fire, and see where you go!!!
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