Short Form Stories

I finally have been able to put into words the difference between short form and long form stories. To start with definitions, I will call a short-form story anything that is five pages or less. Of course, there are the usual exceptions (e.g. what about 6- or 7-page stories?), but use five pages as a benchmark.

Now, short stories tend to work great for comedy. We see comic strips, sketch comedy, 30-minute sitcoms as opposed to 60-minute dramas. Short form just lends itself to humor, but why?

The kinds of comedy in short stories are situational. It's based on the premise created at the beginning. A short story about a translator for a courthouse who mistranslates what people say is funny, regardless of who these people are. Again, the situation is comical; the premise is comical.

Short form stories do not need to be funny, though. You could have a very tragic story about a man going to his son's funeral. You could have the whole story not even go into depth about who these people are or what happened. The story will be tragic because the situation is tragic.

From here, the pattern emerges. Short form stories are stories about a premise, not a person. Characters will be involved, but we do not probe their psyche, nor study their life story. Because of the limited space we have, we must jump straight into the story and trust that people will relate to it because the experience is relatable.

I want to be clear that this is not a judgement of short form stories. I actually love short stories and more often than not, it's what I write. I like situations. When I read them, I like filling in the gaps based on context clues and letting my imagination try to answer the rest of my questions. I love jumping into the experience and just riding that wave.

However, it is simply a different experience from long form storytelling. If you find yourself with an idea for a story and not being sure how long it should be, ask yourself if the story is about the character or the situation. Then you will have the beginning of your answer.