I prefer writing short stories because it prevents you from wasting a lot of time with possibly interesting but ultimately superfluous world-building details. There’s a balance to be struck between keeping the story moving and describing enough to let the reader’s imagination take over and fill in their own details, even subconsciously.

I’ve taken to starting stories in media res more often because it keeps the attention long enough to build curiosity and drop in the details as you go along.

The older I get, the more I find I lose patience reading novels that spend too long with excess dialogue that ultimately doesn’t drive the plot anywhere, serving as unfulfilled promises or red herrings at best.

Even some otherwise good writers will let you get halfway or more through a novel before you understand where the plot is going. I wonder how much some novelists add primarily due to expectations for longer word counts, the way broadcast TV shows were constrained by half hour or hour long slots with commercial breaks and that dictated the flow.