For much of my writing life, I’ve had a special disdain for writers who insist that it’s easier to write a novel than a short story. After all, it takes me years to finish a twenty-page story, and at that rate, it’s little more than a hobby.
Deep into my second novel, however, I believe I finally understand what they meant. Writing a novel circumvents the always-on editor present in all writers. When you start writing a novel, you know your’e going to throw most of it away. You know it’s crap. You know, in the beginning, that it sucks especially badly, and that’s OK. You just have to write it, scene by blind scene, because you’re building something bigger than your mind is accustomed to looking at. That’s what you’ve decided to do, so you do it.
Someone who writes short-stories is a writer. But a novelist is, first and foremost, a reader. A novelist is an archaeologist, a habitual explorer. You pick a place, and decide to dig. And dig. Your map is only so big, drawn by a blind idiot. You see the next day. The next minute. That’s all. You give up control. You give up knowing. You’re not the star. The story is the star. Your characters are the stars. You’re nobody. The novelist allows the curiosity to take center stage.
The novelist, in essence, gives up on writing, and he or she decides to tell a story instead. And the editor has nothing to do until the story is written down. He sits in a corner and silently waits until you tell him there is something to chew on. Something to tear at. If you can ignore him, you’ll finish. He knows his place, and you have to know yours. You can’t hold an entire novel in your mind; nor can he. You have to write it down just to see what happens. And so you willingly trade a few months of your life to dig that hole. You build a camp around that hole. You create strong characters to help you dig. You fortify your camp against the editor. You make sure enough of you survive to complete the task.
Halfway though your novel, you’re no longer a writer sitting alone in the woods. You have a team. Imaginary or not; you have a team. You’re the manager, the facilitator, the enabler, the executioner.
When I sit down to write a short-story, I already what will happen, and how long I have to make it happen. But a novel is a leap of faith. Too big for any one person. Certainly, too big for me. That is, I think, what those writers meant. Writing a short story is like diving into a lake looking for that beautiful fish that’s always eluded you. Until and unless you find it, you’re drowning. Writing a novel, however, is like grabbing onto of the fin of a whale and holding on until the very end. If you knew where the whale was going, you wouldn’t need to write the novel. But if you didn’t start the novel, you’d never have found the whale.
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