A short story has one main character and the story is told through that character’s point of view. Often it is told in first person or limited first person. A novel has a cast of characters and the story can be told from any of those characters’ viewpoints.

Both the novel and the short story fall in the same category of prose writing — narrative writing. With narrative being anything that is narrated, a story, it becomes obvious that both the novel and the short story share the same main narrative elements, such as plot, characters, theme and conflict.

Top 10 Story Ideas

• Tell the story of a scar.
• A group of children discover a dead body.
• A young prodigy becomes orphaned.
• A middle-aged woman discovers a ghost.
• A woman who is deeply in love is crushed when her fiancé breaks up with her.
• A talented young man’s deepest fear is holding his life back.

Today’s short stories make money and hold their value. Per word, a story can make more money than a novel. Some large magazines still publish short fiction, and publications such as Asimov’s, Ellery Queen, and Woman’s World still pay top dollar for genre stories. Short stories are great for practice, too.

Typically, a short story does not have chapters because it is considered one, longer story that would only take a story. Short stories, are remember, only 1000 to 9999 words. That is not to say you can not have chapters – far from it. Like some novels have 10 chapters and others have 100, there are no wright 😉

Some will tell you 2,500 words is the average, while others will say that 3,000 to 5,000 word chapters are more likely to be the norm. Most agree that under 1,000 words would be rather short and that over 5,000 might be rather too long. As a general guideline, chapters should be between 3,000 to 5,000 words.

If the short stories are all together in a single binding, it’s called an anthology. That would make it one book.