Worldbuilding for Short Stories (originally at The Other Side of the Story)

This post originally appeared at Janice Hardy's The Other Side of the Story.


Is worldbuilding for short stories different from worldbuilding for novels?

Yes and no.

You might guess that a short story would require less worldbuilding than a novel - but the size of the world itself is not the primary difference between the two. Short story readers will perceive world gaps, and be confused of frustrated by them, just as easily as novel readers. The biggest difference is that in a short story, you have very little room to explain or explore. Everything you do has to be done in as few words as possible.

Imagine that you're building a house. The first room of that house is the place where your reader enters the world. In a novel, that first room is full of doors. In a short story, it's all windows.

Doors can be opened. The novel format gives you the opportunity to send your reader through those doors, allowing you - and also requiring you - to explore a lot more of what lies in the rooms beyond. The most you get from an open window is the scent of fresh air. The short story format keeps readers confined, but if there's nothing to see outside, then they'll know something is wrong.

One of the wonderful characteristics of societies that I learned about while studying anthropology and linguistics is that large-scale trends in a society will tend to be visible even in small-scale interactions. I take advantage of this in my short story worldbuilding all the time. If you know a lot of large-scale things about your world, see if you can tighten your focus down and make them play out - i.e. be demonstrated, shown not told - on the smaller level. An entire system of phonology can be implied using a single unusual name. A system of social hierarchy can be implied by including small details of politeness in a single interaction between individuals. An economic model can be demonstrated by exploring the conclusions a character draws about the provenance of a single object.

Thus, in a short story, you should try to make every object and every interaction count. These things are not just working for your story but also for your world: they are the windows in your room. Realize that when you describe food, you're not only giving your character something to eat but potentially opening a view onto climate, agriculture, economy, socioeconomic conditions, and food culture. Realize that when you mention clothing, you're not just creating fashion but saying something about the value clothing has in your world. Realize that each person your character meets has a social role that illuminates the entire society - and that the opinion your character has of each person will give insight into that character's place within the system.

Of course, all this is true of novels as well. The demand for multi-tasking may be lower because you have more room with a higher word count, but it's always good to have your text do more than one thing at a time. Novels are expansive, so there are many opportunities to have the reader's sense of the world grow and expand.

The funny thing about short stories is that thought the amount of worldbuilding effort often seems disproportionately large, that effort will pay off. Readers can tell when the house has no windows - it's dark, and there's no air. If you choose the proper telling details to include, then you've placed your windows to maximize the view.

Give your readers something to see. They will thank you for it.

Short Stories vs. Novels - "natural length" and the fractal structure of stories

I've often heard it said that writers have a "natural length" - set a particular author loose on a story idea and their stories will tend to come out in a particular length range. This also applies to the idea of "natural novel writers" whose ideas like to expand into longer books, and "natural short story writers" whose ideas are pithy and can be concisely expressed. Some people find it really hard to cross over this borderline; others find it less difficult.

I believe in natural length. I began as a novel writer, and for the longest time I was convinced that short stories just weren't for me. Then, once I started writing them, I learned a lot of things about story structure that I could bring back and apply to my novels. However, it turns out I do have a "natural length" for short stories - it runs between 7500-12,000 words. This is called the "novelette" length. I never set out to write a novelette; I just have an idea, organize it and write it... and guess what? It's a novelette.

I think that the difference between novel and short story writers may have something to do with structure. It's hard to say, but I do notice that I find it easier to take a large idea and render it in a small form than to take a small idea and render it in large form. When I take a large idea and shrink it, I remove everything that doesn't tie directly back into the main conflict thread. When I take a small idea and expand it, I often find everything I add in feels like fluff. Maybe it's just that I like the potent feeling in every sentence of the short form.

Another factor, though, might be what I call the fractal structure of novels. People talk a lot about the "hook" and about "arcs" and about the "climax" etc. The more I write, the more I realize that this same kind of structure happens at multiple levels. Each chapter needs to have its own hook, its own raising of stakes, its own climax. To some extent, even each smaller scene has this same pattern on a smaller scale. It's no wonder that novel chapters can so often be used as short stories!

This may be one reason why it's tricky to move from short to long. A string of short stories does not make a novel, because they'll have structure on the lower level, but they may not have structure on the larger level. That large-scale, across-the-novel trajectory may be difficult to identify and work into the progression of the shorter pieces. I don't mean to say that it can't be done, but I know I would find it tricky if I had created a sequence of stories and hadn't come into it already thinking about how to create the larger-scale pattern.

Have any of you had experience switching from long to short, or from short to long? What was it like for you? Have you taken a particular story and tried to change its format from novel to short or vice versa? I'd be interested to hear what your experience was like.