By Tabitha Levin
With the rise of digital publishing, it seems that the humble short story is indeed becoming popular again with readers.
Short stories lend themselves to e-readers well, since most people use their Kindles and Nooks while travelling to and from work, relaxing in a coffee shop in their lunch breaks, or snuggling into their pillow just before bed. All of these times are limited to how long the reader has, so being able to finish a story before switching off the lights has great appeal.
That’s not to say that novels are less popular now, not at all, in fact the rise in reading lengths is across the board from short fiction to epic novels, but nevertheless it’s good to see that short form fiction is on the rise.
In the past, traditional publishers thought they were not profitable enough to print due to paper and publishing costs, which is why novels became the standard (better profit margins). The only place that short stories remained popular was fantasy and science fiction due to magazine publications that were happy to publish them. But with digital publishing that is no longer a factor, and both fiction and nonfiction of all lengths can be produced for little cost.
The short length is popular with young adults especially, who in today’s culture, often don’t have the attention span to stay with a long novel. If they can get all of the action they want in a few pages, along with a tight plot and interesting characters – that suits their fast paced lifestyles better.
But it isn’t just young adults that don’t stay with long novels, with so many entertainment mediums competing for our attention, from television, iPads, cinemas, and e-readers most people have limited time. Choosing a story then becomes a much more attractive option.
Many short stories are also being optioned to become films, since the shorter length translates onto the screen much better than a full novel, which requires substantial editing to get it to fit to less than two hours. Recent movies including Brokeback Mountain, iRobot and Fight Club all started this way, and many more are being made or optioned right now. It’s of no surprise that Hollywood directors are scouring the Amazon bestseller lists for potential movie ideas, and just recently independent author Hugh Howey got the interest of producer and director Ridley Scott for his excellent story Wool.
It’s not only readers who like short stories, many authors, including myself are also enjoying writing short fiction. [http://tabithalevin.com]Click here to see my latest work (including short stories and bundled collections) and while you are there make sure to read some more reasons to read short stories. http://tabithalevin.com/reasons-why-you-should-read-short-stories
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