 What's shaking? My name's Cam. Welcome back to another video. Here's me smiling. If you were to look at my Goodreads profile, you would probably think this is one of my slowest years as far as reading goes, and that would be completely accurate. But while I didn't smash through hard covers like my ex-girlfriend's dog's life depended on it, I actually did read quite a lot of short stories. It's actually kind of bizarre to me how uncommon it is to see booktubers talking about short stories. I'm not saying it's unheard of or anything like that, but it's pretty uncommon, and I'm not even saying that's an issue. I don't expect people to read short stories if they have no interest in doing so. Despite the occasional thirst comment here and there on my videos, I'm not actually anyone's daddy, but I'm also pretty confident that you can get just as much enjoyment from a 20 minute read rather than a 4 hour one. Anyway, the purpose of today's video is just to have a bit of a general discussion about short stories in general as a format of storytelling and about the things that make it great. I'll be touching on some things that you might not have considered or even known about, things that I myself didn't consider or know about until recently. It'll be good. It'll be fun. It'll be fun. First and foremost, a short story is generally considered as any piece of writing that is between a thousand words to maybe about ten thousand words. Anything below that is considered flash fiction and anything above that is usually considered a novella, a full length novel, or a trashy tabloid magazine because stalking celebrities is cool and trees can suck my dick. As you can imagine, stories around this length can usually be consumed in one sitting. In fact, that's kind of the point. Dedicating yourself to reading a full length novel is quite a big commitment. That's something we don't really talk about a whole lot. It is a pretty big commitment especially if it's an author that you're not familiar with. I would imagine this is part of why Booktube is so popular nowadays. It's because Booktube thrives on giving recommendations. Readers come to Booktube with at least some kind of level of trust to believe that the commitment they are about to make into reading something is worth it. Trying the fit in twenty minutes of reading before work for a full length novel and then having to stop at a very climactic part of the story can have a very real negative impact on how you experience the story. However, short stories are generally structured in such a way that it builds towards one singular climax. The ladies know what I'm talking about and the guys are probably saying that usually never happens. That's an adult joke. That's the adult joke of the day. Let's move on. I have said this before in a couple of other videos, but I want to have a bit of a discussion about just how well the short story format really lends itself to a couple of specific genres. Genres that are usually grounded in a very fleeting but powerful emotion. Fear, intrigue, anger, pleasure, horror, mystery, high-throttle action and erotica. They work very well in a short story format. And that is because most often the story is driven forward by the circumstances or the action rather than the development of the actual characters. Character arcs just aren't always a thing in short stories. In a lot of cases, they simply can't be. And that probably sounds pretty weird. Character development is such a vital and important part of long fiction and long narratives. So why wouldn't it be for short fiction? Here's my theory. My personal belief basically is that it's because after we read a short story, the thing that stays with us isn't necessarily the characters, but the circumstances that they were in. Now that is an idea that can be pretty damn fun for authors to toy around with. It has been said that writing short stories is a much easier form of storytelling or that it's simply a starting ground for most authors before they go on to write full-length novels. And I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion even if it's fucking stupid. Generally speaking, yeah short stories are easier to plan and less time consuming to write. But to suggest that they require any less passion or creativity is just TikTok comments debate level dopeness. Cut it out, guy. I'm not trying to give the impression that I'm an expert writer or a professional or anything like that. I mean I do own a blazer, but if there's anything I could say in this video in regards to writing a short story, it would simply be don't go crazy with the sub plots. I've seen so many potentially good and promising short stories ruined entirely and simply because they tried the crammed two or three separate conflicts into a 2,000 word space. In most cases that's just not wise. Usually short stories are entirely designed just to tell one story. Something that might surprise you is that in the film industry it's actually preferred by a lot of filmmakers to adapt a short story rather than a full length novel from a logistical standpoint anyway. Because when it comes to short stories the filmmaker knows that they have a lot more creative freedom. It's understood and accepted and even encouraged that they add more to the short story so that it lasts an hour and a half of movie. Whereas adapting a full length book can be extremely difficult because you're inevitably going to have fully grown adults like myself who definitely have life completely figured out criticizing them for not sticking closely enough to the books or just doing it badly. With short stories the critics are a lot more lenient and I would even say actively curious as to how they expand on the story. Some of the really famous movies that were adapted from short stories stand by me the curious case of Benjamin Button, The Fly, Memento and Brokeback Mountain. I would quite easily go so far as to say that I prefer short stories over full length novels especially anthologies of short stories. Collections of short stories is a really great way of finding a couple of new authors that you like all at once. Either that or it can just be a really unique and fun way to dive into some of the more creative ideas that your favorite author has had. There is a definite freedom in not having to spend 70,000 words justifying or keeping your reader interested in your story about a sentient cloud that gives you blowjobs. Anyway it's nearly Halloween so this is actually one of the very best times to get into reading short stories especially if you enjoy horror during Halloween. During this spooky season do yourself a favor and check out some indie horror anthologies. I think you'll really like it and like I said around Halloween is the best time because a lot of those authors, those indie authors will put them up on Amazon for free, the digital downloads. There really is nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain. So hey chief, what's your favorite? What is your favorite short story? If you're feeling up to it, like the video and maybe even subscribe. That way I can brag about it on Tinder. Thanks for watching. Catch ya.