Short story usually focuses on one plot, one main character (with a few additional minor characters), and one central theme, whereas a novel can tackle multiple plots and themes, with a variety of prominent characters. Short stories also lend themselves more to experimentation — that is, using uncommon prose styles or literary devices to tell the story. Such uncommon styles or devices might get tedious, and downright annoying, in a novel, but they may work well in a short story.

A short story, written usually in the form of a narrative prose is a part of brief literature—one that could be read within a brief span of time, and the one that is self-contained. And although, short stories are quite often thought to be the future as it would replace novels with a briefer version of a story, novels would still be crowned as the quintessential face value of literature as a whole. The effect of a short story and a novel are poles apart, even when they still share those literary components with which it is crafted—both having their charms.