Short stories or novels?

[chongjasmine]

Which types of Sherlock Holmes stories do you prefer? Short stories or novels?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hello again, chongjasmine -- welcome back!!!

My preference is for a story to be the right length to cover everything that really helps tell the story.

Arthur Conan Doyle's first Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, includes a really long section in the middle that tells the "back story" (which had happened years ago, and helps explain what's happening in the main story).  It's my opinion that the back story could have been covered much more briefly and gracefully within the main story, simply by having the cab driver tell Holmes what had happened.  I suspect that Doyle was being paid by the word, but it's possible that his agent or the publisher wanted a longer story.

I think there have been a few times when I wished one of his short stories had included a bit more detail, or perhaps a bit of what happened next, but I don't recall which stories those were.