Question: When you write a short story that spawns a novel or when you extract material from a long project to create a short story, how concerned are you about consistency between them?
In my own practice, I make a regular habit of developing short work and submitting it for publication from whatever novel project I’m working on, both to buoy my spirits and to test the general concepts/characters. I rarely take into consideration how the short work diverges from–or outright contradicts–the long work.
I imagine I need to think more about the dependencies between the forms if they are operating with the same concepts, although the only time it was an issue that I was aware of was when Barrelhouse hosted an event to support my novel but were also selling issues of the mag with a story of mine in it. They cautioned purchasers not to read the story before the book because the story gave away the ending.
Wish Tank 