Both the short story and the novel are two narrative genres , and their main difference lies in their length: the former is a short story, while the latter can span hundreds of pages.
Like any narrative text , both the short story and the novel are usually structured in three parts:
- Introduction. This is the beginning of the story, where the characters are introduced and the action begins. It also shows the “normality” of the story, which will be altered in the climax.
- Knot. This is the conflict that makes the story interesting to tell; it’s the moment when the initial harmony is disrupted and the most important events occur. It’s the main problem the characters must face.
- Denouement. This is the final part of the story. At this point, the conflict that arose in the climax is resolved.
However, the short story and the novel as literary genres present some significant differences.
- See also: Elements of Narrative
Particular characteristics of the story
Some of the most notable characteristics of the short story genre are:
- Brevity. Stories are generally short narratives , in which everything said must be essential to the plot.
- Few characters. Stories typically feature few characters, since they all need to play a significant role in the plot.
- Unity of space and time. Since these are short stories, they often take place in a few settings and in a single time period.
- Single Plot. In a short story, there is a single central story, and all the narrated actions must make sense in relation to the ending. What is usually recounted is a single episode from a life or larger story.
- It’s condensation. In the short story, due to its brevity, an attempt is made to condense the actions into a small amount of text, thus maintaining a certain narrative intensity throughout.
Particular characteristics of the novel
Some of the most notable characteristics of the novel genre are:
- Length. Novels are generally longer stories, where additional descriptions and digressions are possible.
- Greater number of characters. They usually allow for the appearance of many characters, given that the length and complexity of the plot warrant it.
- Multiple spaces and times. In the case of novels, the length allows for more settings than in a short story and for the story to take place in different spaces and at different times or times, since various episodes can be told that make up a single story.
- Various plots. A novel can present several plots and actions of equal relevance to the story, given that stories tend to be more complex. What is usually narrated is a world, a microcosm, rather than an isolated episode as in a short story.
- It’s expansion. Since a novel is a relatively long text, the story or stories to be told are presented in extenso , which alternates between moments of heightened dramatic tension and more relaxed ones. Therefore, they can also be divided into chapters and sections, something that doesn’t usually happen in short stories.
Examples of stories
- “The Aleph,” by Jorge Luis Borges.
- “House Taken Over,” by Julio Cortázar.
- “The String Quartet,” by Virginia Woolf.
- “The Tell-Tale Heart,” by Edgar Allan Poe.
- “The Infanta’s Birthday,” by Oscar Wilde.
- “Better than Burning,” by Clarice Lispector.
- “The Little Hunchback,” by Roberto Arlt.
- “The Diary of Porfiria Bernal,” by Silvina Ocampo.
- “The Black Cat,” by Edgar Allan Poe.
- “Telephone Calls,” by Roberto Bolaño.
- “The Garden of Forking Paths,” by Jorge Luis Borges.
- “The Errand,” by Elena Poniatowska.
- “Tell them not to kill me!” by Juan Rulfo.
- “The Cloak”, by Nikolai Gogol.
- “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
- “The Train to Bordeaux,” by Marguerite Duras.
- “The Continuity of Parks,” by Julio Cortázar.
- “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” by Ernest Hemingway.
- “The Apothecary’s Wife” by Anton Chekhov.
- “Blue Tale” by Marguerite Yourcenar.
- “The Feather Pillow,” by Horacio Quiroga.
- “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner.
- “Before the Law,” by Franz Kafka.
- “Cornelia in front of the mirror,” by Silvina Ocampo.
- “The Purloined Letter,” by Edgar Allan Poe.
- “That Woman,” by Rodolfo Walsh.
- “August Afternoon,” by José Emilio Pacheco.
- “Hunch,” by Mario Benedetti.
- “The Moons of Jupiter,” by Alice Munro.
- “Paco Yunque”, by César Vallejo.
- “The Younger Brother,” Mario Vargas Llosa.
- “The Cask of Amontillado,” by Edgar Allan Poe.
- “In Memory of Paulina,” by Adolfo Bioy Casares.
- “The Crocodile,” by Felisberto Hernández.
- “Lonely Hearts,” Rubem Fonseca.
- “The Smallest Woman in the World,” by Clarice Lispector.
- “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow,” by Gabriel García Márquez.
- “The Sentence,” by Franz Kafka.
- “The Axolotl,” by Julio Cortázar.
- “Adrift,” by Horacio Quiroga.
- “Ball of Suet,” by Guy de Maupassant.
- “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen.
- “To Build a Fire,” by Jack London.
- “Funes the Memorious,” by Jorge Luis Borges.
- “The Lady with the Dog,” by Anton Chekhov.
- “The Rain of Fire,” by Leopoldo Lugones.
- “There is no road to paradise,” by Charles Bukowski.
- “On Meeting the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning,” by Haruki Murakami.
- “Don’t You Hear the Dogs Barking,” by Juan Rulfo.
- “There Will Come the Soft Rains,” by F. Ray Bradbury.
- See also: Types of stories
Examples of novels
- The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,by Miguel de Cervantes.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude,by Gabriel García Márquez.
- Crime and Punishment,by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
- Madame Bovary,by Gustave Flaubert.
- The House of the Spirits,by Isabel Allende.
- Anna Karenina,by Leo Tolstoy.
- The Little Prince,by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
- The Invention of Morel,by Adolfo Bioy Casares.
- The Great Gatsby,by Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,by Mark Twain.
- In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust.
- The Lord of the Rings,by JRR Tolkien.
- 1984,by George Orwell.
- The Rabid Toy,by Roberto Arlt.
- The Feast of the Goat,by Mario Vargas Llosa.
- War and Peace,by Leo Tolstoy.
- Aura,by Carlos Fuentes.
- Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus,by Mary Shelley.
- The Savage Detectives,by Roberto Bolaño.
- Wuthering Heights,by Emily Brontë.
- Hopscotch,by Julio Cortázar.
- The Harp and the Shadow,by Alejo Carpentier.
- The Tunnel,by Ernesto Sabato.
- In the Name of the Rose,by Umberto Eco.
- Dalloway,by Virginia Woolf.
- Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel García Márquez.
- The Catcher in the Rye,by JD Sallinger.
- Leonora,by Elena Poniatowska.
- Moby Dick,by Herman Melville.
- The Man Who Loved Dogs,by Leonardo Padura.
- Ulysses,by James Joyce.
- Memories of the Future,by Elena Garro.
- The Count of Monte Cristo,by Alexandre Dumas.
- Les Misérables,by Victor Hugo.
- The Bell Jar,by Sylvia Plath.
- Around the World in Eighty Days,by Jules Verne.
- Pedro Páramo,by Juan Rulfo.
- In Cold Blood,by Truman Capote.
- The Magic Mountain,by Thomas Mann.
- The Stranger,by Albert Camus.
- Fahrenheit 451,by F. Ray Bradbury.
- Essay on Blindness,by José Saramago.
- Burnt Money,by Ricardo Piglia.
- Dracula,by Bram Stoker.
- Red and Black,by Stendhal.
- Operation Massacre,by Rodolfo Walsh.
- I the Supreme,by Augusto Roa Bastos.
- The Hour of the Star,by Clarice Lispector.
- The Truce, by Mario Benedetti.
- The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.
