What is the Difference Between a Short Story and a Novel?

A short story is built around one, and only one, conflict or problem, normally. It has some lines about the setting, some text about background which implies time and space, but most words are about the action.

That means, it is also short considering the look and outside of the characters and their world. It is forced to focus on the flow and climax of the action.

I want to show an example of a very successful short story, and use my fantasy to imagine it as a novel.
It is Hemingway's great story 'The Killers'. Two killers are waiting for their victim in a little restaurant, but he doesn't arrive, and finally they leave without having murdered him. As long as they are staying in the bar, they terrorize the owner, the cook and a boy who is often there.

The story has about 10 pages and covers all the elements of a piece of high quality literature: a special setting, some central and very typical characters, a developing conflict, a climax of action, and a solution.

You might say, it is a short novel, and a novel is a long short story. But this is only true to some degree. There is a special difference between the two forms, and it is not only length.

The typical aspect of a short story is the focus on the action and the conflict. The novel has much more space for other elements like place and time, descriptions, unimportant details, the look of people or things, and perhaps the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

The short story makes everything short, in so far its name is correct. But it cannot really make the conflict and the central core of the action shorter than necessary; it shortens all the other elements, but this most important element of the text must be represented. Even though the short story is also shorter than the novel in this regard - the true reason is not the shortening of the conflict. The true reason is that the short story is limited to one conflict, the novel on the other hand can and must deal with several conflicts and climaxes; sometimes the novel has a special conflict in every chapter.

To understand what I mean, you could read some of  Raymond Chandler's short stories, and then take the long forms of them which became his famous thrillers. As an alternative, imagine 'The Killers' as the central chapter of a novel. What has happened before they come to the restaurant, and what will happen after they have left? You will need several chapters and many pages to write this fantasy novel.

Henry Arnold, author of 'School Stories'