I took a class from Inprint Writing Workshops years ago on short story writing. I remember that the professor said that short stories are harder to write than novels. With novels the writer can take his time to set things up, they can use long, flowing passages that seem to go nowhere. With short stories it has to be punchy and quick.
When I took a class on novel writing at Rice's School of Continuing Education on Novel Writing the instructor told me the opposite. It's important to keep the reader's interest by moving quickly from action to action. If it doesn't move the plot along succinctly, it shouldn't be in the novel, they said.
Anyone who needs to understand what that last bit of advice meant should read The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake. Westlake moves the action along briskly . . . boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . the reader flies along with the action. There are stages of planning in many of the "capers" that I would love to read about, but nope, Westlake jumps to the next action scene and makes up for what was missed.
Nice to read, especially for less than four bucks.
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