The Detail is in the Devils

Or whatever.

I'm thinking about art. But also, I'm thinking about how different story lengths are different artworks.

Okay, sure, that's obvious, but what I mean is that while each art informs and improves the other, they are not the same. You don’t become a novelist by writing short stories, and you don’t become a short story writer by writing novels. Mostly, they just teach ytou to be a writer.

Or, to rephrase. Painting watercolours doesn’t teach you to paint oils; paintign in oils doesn’t teach you to be a watercolourist. Both teach you how to be an artist.

I never really understand what I'm doing, which is one reason I would be a terrible teacher of writing. I just...do stuff. And I keep doing stuff and hope to get better. This is a long and laborious process and everyone wants a quick hack and I don’t have any.

Sorry.

But, back to my point. Writing shorts for me is like doing an en plein watercolour -- I work quickly and freely, putting down the shapes and shades of my landscape while the wind tries to blow my easel away. Then I go back inside and add some lines to refine, tweak some colours here and there. Short stories are less about building an accurate and correct image, but capturing a sense of moving light, of emotion.

My novels feel more like grisaile technique oil paintings - rough sketches refined, colours layered over colour in glazes, the intensity of the story built up draft by draft until the whole emerges in deep, rich tones, full of shadows.

The novel is infinitely malleable; the short, less so.