501 Critical Reading Questions

In this passage, written in 1925, writer Edith Wharton distinguishes between
subjects suitable for short stories and those suitable for novels.
It  is  sometimes  said  that  a  “good  subject”  for  a  short  story  should
always be capable of being expanded into a novel.
The principle may be defendable in special cases; but it is certainly
a misleading one on which to build any general theory. Every “subject”
(in the novelist’s sense of the term) must necessarily contain within
itself its own dimensions; and one of the fiction-writer’s essential gifts
is that of discerning whether the subject which presents itself to him,
asking for incarnation, is suited to the proportions of a short story or
of a novel. If it appears to be adapted to both the chances are that it is
inadequate to either.
It would be a great mistake, however, to try to base a hard-and-fast
theory on the denial of the rule as on its assertion. Instances of short
stories  made  out  of  subjects  that  could  have  been  expanded  into  a
501