"Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment"
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Abbey is defending the short story as a high-wire act, not a warm-up lap for the novel. The key move is her blunt, almost mischievous concession: "Novelists, frankly, can get away with more". That little "frankly" pricks a quiet industry myth - that longer automatically means harder, more prestigious, more serious. She flips the hierarchy by reframing length as slack: the novel’s scale offers cushion. It can absorb a "dull spot or two" because the reader has already sunk time, attention, maybe even money into the relationship.
The subtext is about trust and tempo. Short fiction has to earn its authority sentence by sentence because the reader hasn't yet invested enough to forgive. There’s no long runway for throat-clearing, no sprawling detour that pays off 200 pages later. "Exquisite sense of balance" is craft talk, but it’s also a warning: every element in a short story has to justify its weight. Character, setting, plot, language - one indulgent paragraph can tip the whole thing into self-display.
Contextually, Abbey’s coming from the working writer’s view of form: what the marketplace calls "short" is often what magazines, anthologies, and workshops treat as precision engineering. Her line also anticipates modern attention economics. In an era of tabs, feeds, and constant exit ramps, the short story’s demand for tight calibration isn’t quaint; it’s survival. The novel can be a long conversation. The short story is a decisive, unrepeatable pitch.
The subtext is about trust and tempo. Short fiction has to earn its authority sentence by sentence because the reader hasn't yet invested enough to forgive. There’s no long runway for throat-clearing, no sprawling detour that pays off 200 pages later. "Exquisite sense of balance" is craft talk, but it’s also a warning: every element in a short story has to justify its weight. Character, setting, plot, language - one indulgent paragraph can tip the whole thing into self-display.
Contextually, Abbey’s coming from the working writer’s view of form: what the marketplace calls "short" is often what magazines, anthologies, and workshops treat as precision engineering. Her line also anticipates modern attention economics. In an era of tabs, feeds, and constant exit ramps, the short story’s demand for tight calibration isn’t quaint; it’s survival. The novel can be a long conversation. The short story is a decisive, unrepeatable pitch.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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