answer:They are completely different genres and styles of writing. An essay is a piece of non-fiction writing and takes an interpretive, comparative and/or analytical approach to a topic. An essay could be quite short (500 words) or long (a few thousand words). A short story is a narrative piece of creative writing. A short story may be very short or quite long but is shorter than a novel. This Wikipedia page suggests a short story with less than 1000 words is called a short, short story. This page suggests a short story shouldn’t exceed 20,000 words. I’m not sure whether there is a more authorative source regarding word lengths. A novel is a longer piece of creative fiction in a narrative form. A shorter novel would be called a novella. Each has its own style and structural elements.