“People who rarely read long books, or even short stories, still appreciate the greatest examples of the shortest literary genres. I have long been fascinated by these short genres. They seem to lie just where my heart is, somewhere between literature and philosophy.” PeopleHeartLongStillsBookPhilosophyStoriesSeemsLyingLiteratureExampleMy HeartAppreciateGenreShort StoryFascinatedLong BookLiterary Genre Author:Gary Saul Morson
“I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is, and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.” WritingBelieveDifferentStoriesSeemsFormSpiritI BelieveNovelPoetry IsShort Story Author:Tobias Wolff
“Well, as a short-story writer, I don't think there are any weaknesses to the genre itself. I guess I would say that the difficulty of the form is that one must create an entire world in five to 30 pages, as opposed to 300. There is very little room for fat - you must be economical. And you must begin as close to the end as you possibly can.” ThinkingWorldWritingWellsLittlesEndsStoriesFormRoomsFivePagesWeaknessDifficultyFatsGenreShort StoryStory Writers Author:ZZ Packer
“I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.” ThinkingWritingFirstsWholeStoriesNovelThirdsShort StorySpoiledInterference Author:John Sayles
“Once in 1919, when I was traveling at night by train, I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of the newspaper who published the story.” StoriesNightTownsTrainNewspapersShort StoryPublishers Author:Mikhail Bulgakov
“I started writing about New York as soon as I arrived. I was 19. I used to write short stories and send them out.” WritingStoriesUsedNew YorkShort Story Author:Candace Bushnell
“A novel requires a certain kind of world-building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see.” WorldKindStoriesCertainNovelBuildingReaderShort StoryClosureHinges Author:Dan Chaon
“I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.” StoriesMysteryBuiltShort Story Author:Dan Chaon
“Short stories are wonderful and extremely challenging, and the joy of them, because it only takes me three or four months to write, I can take more risks with them. It's just less of your life invested.” WritingI CanStoriesJoyThreeChallengesFourWonderfulRiskMonthsTake MeShort Story Author:Anthony Doerr
“I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.” ThinkingWantFirstsLittlesMadeBookStoriesBitsNovelReaderLittle BitShort Story Author:Nell Freudenberger
“I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.” ThinkingGivingWritingI CanDifferentStoriesReadingGraceGive MeShort StoryWriting ShortWriting Short Stories Author:Nell Freudenberger
“Traditionally, people have been adapting novels and short stories forever. Now, they're doing it simultaneously, with an eye towards writing the movie before the novel has even come out or been finished. It's a function of this hyper-accelerated society we live in, where everyone is trying to short circuit the process.” PeopleWritingTryingHas BeensStoriesEyeProcessNovelForeverFunctionFinishedShort StoryCircuitsAdaptingHyperShort Circuit Author:Howard Gordon
“I chose philosophy because it sounded like something I ought to be interested in. I didn't know anything about it, I didn't even know what it was talking about. What I really spent my time doing in those years was writing short stories. There were all sorts of interesting courses, but what I really wanted to do was make stories one way or another.” KnowsWayWritingYearsPhilosophyStoriesWantedCoursesInterestingTalkingOughtOne WayMy TimeShort StoryLike SomethingWriting ShortWriting Short Stories Author:Wes Anderson
“I wrote one terrible manuscript after another for a decade and I guess they gradually got a little less terrible. But there were many, many unpublished short stories, abandoned screenplays and novels... a Library of Congress worth of awful literature.” LittlesStoriesLiteratureNovelTerribleLibraryCongressDecadesAwfulShort StoryAbandonedScreenplaysManuscripts Author:Seth Grahame-Smith
“I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories.” WritingWellsBookStoriesReadingIllusionShort StoryTraveledLiteracyReading And Writing Author:Tom T. Hall