: Can several related short-stories make a good base to write a novel? I've been writing related short-stories for years, but around 10 months ago, I started to think about a novel based on these

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Passion is the main thing that gives you good writing. If short stories catch more of your interest then you can go for them. If you wish to have change or some keen interest to deliver some message via novel, then you can go for a novel.

Or if you wish both can be done simultaneously.

Thanks.

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It sounds like your shorts stories would be backstory to the main novel. Things that happened to the main characters before the novel. That is not unusual, the Silmarillion is much the same for Lord of the Rings.

You would want to have the main characters have previous interactions that they refer to and these short stories would be them. This is a good way to provide real depth to your world.

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A really good example for this is Night Watch. Sergei Lukyanenko wrote three related "short stories" that, read together, form the book.

So, related stories that could be linked to a same plot, could be released as a single novel.

Another point of view would be Matrix Reloaded, even not being a book, but a movie.

Matrix is the main plot line but in Animatrix you will find a lot of related short stories that will help to understand the main plot and even open the curtains for it.

I guess this second option would fit into what you want, since you already have the shorties and want to write a novel that could extends them.

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