Award-winning author Ken Liu has published over one-hundred short stories, novelettes and novellas in his career and two full-length novels. While short fiction and long fiction formats have some fundamental differences, there are some elements that are transferable between the two, Liu says, including writing style and character development. The key difference between short stories and novels is in the plotting and structure. A short story can be impactful without a strong plot, but a full-length novel relies heavily on a well thought-out plot line. When Liu began writing his long fiction fantasy series Dandelion Dynasty, he had to study some of his favorite novels to understand plot development and how to structure a compelling, full-length novel.
To express oneself within words or to express the minds thoughts can be very defined either in sentences, paragraphs or pages. The expression of thoughts to create your story differs according to how far into the subconscious they came from.