Okay, I’m provisionally heartened.
Judging from your response to the loaded question I posted last time, it’s safe for fiction writers to go back in the water. In case of trouble, however, I’m not going to count on the short story to keep me afloat. Alas.
Even the great and famous Stephen King, editor of Best American Short Stories of 2007, is coy about it: “The American short story is alive and well. Do you like the sound of that? Me too. I only wish it were actually true.”
“What Ails the Short Story?” is the title of his opening essay, reprinted by the New York Times. He has 3 answers:
• dwindling markets,
• lack of emphasis,
• the need to impress agents and editors.
Dwindling markets. That’s painfully obvious. Less than a century ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald could make handsome living on short stories alone. Lack of emphasis goes with dwindling markets. How can you read them if you can’t find them? Need to impress peers. “The readership of short stories is typically other writers and would-be writers looking for what sells.”
Writers writing for other writers. Now I’m really depressed.
The shrinkage of the market comes at a time when more good stories are being written than ever. This unusual vitality is really all that gives King hope for the short story’s future, showing “how vital short stories can be when they are done with heart, mind and soul by people who care about them and think they still matter. They still do matter.”
They certainly matter to me. But you feel a lot better if you can buy into Randall Kenan’s Big Tent view: “The great Garcia Marquez has written for telenovelas. It’s good stuff. It’s a powerful form. But forms of artistic expression don’t necessarily have to battle for eye-time. They can make love. We can all get along. In the words of that great American philosopher, Martha Stewart: It’s a good thing.”
Did I say there would be a quiz? Here are four questions from Harvey Gunther (an excellent short story writer himself) whom I thank gratefully for pointing me at this:
1. Is the short story dying?
2. Do you believe it’s worth it for for new writers to submit short stories, or would we be better off trying to work on novels instead?
3. Do writers write short stories to impress editors and teachers rather than readers?
4. Do short stories still matter?
What do you think? (And no more “dying” posts for a while, I promise.)
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, short stories matter. I love them. But I wish there was more, I don’t know how else to say it, quality control. Or standards? I’ve read some real stinkers even in the New Yorker. It’s like their editors are kind of faking it. They don’t really know how to evaluate them (like me tasting wine) but manage to get lucky more than half the time, so nothing changes. I think that’s one reason the short story market is going away. Too many ordinary readers get burned by bad stories that you would expect to be top notch because they are in the Atlantic, NYer, and so on.
In response to the quiz, I think short stories are still one of the best ways for a writer to “find his or her feet,” to learn the craft of writing from start to finish. Most of what I write is going toward what I hope will be my first novel, but I think that most of my growth as a writer has come from short story critiques, both my own stories and those of other beginning writers. It’s hard to find time to figure out what works and what doesn’t if you have to wade through 50,000 words of it at a pop. Will the short story die? As long as there are people who write, I think we’ll have short stories if for no other reason than that we all have to start somewhere.
I agree. Though I’m more a novelist than a short story writer, the story has been my primary teaching tool for years. It gives you the chance to run the full course as many times as you want before taking up something longer and more of a commitment. Sometimes a novelist will publish a celebrated first novel, many years in the writing. Then, when they try something different in their second novel and it doesn’t work, you realize their training is incomplete. Their entire apprenticeship was spent struggling with one set of challenges. Then suddenly, since that book brought instant status, they were assumed to be masters of narrative, when in fact they had only mastered one kind of narrative.
Recommending a book of short stories to a non-reader or someone generally unfamiliar with fiction is a great way to introduce someone to the joys of reading. Saying that to writers and readers of this blog is preaching to the choir, I know.
But I flinch when someone around here says they’ve never read anything by or even heard of Lee Smith or Allan Gurganus. I try to stifle a response of “you’re joking!?”, then recommend a collection like “News of the Spirit” or “White People”. It’s a decent strategy, with a subtext of “hey, commit yourself to 20-30 pages and see what happens.” This won’t solve the macro problems posed by the four questions, but it’s a start.
For people willing to try a few pages a few nights per week, suggesting Allan G.’s “Blessed Assurance” from “White People” is a very, very good beginning.
I doubt short stories will die, but I have a couple of thoughts regarding their lack of pop culture popularity…
First, having attempted a few shorts in my writing career…and failed, I think shorts are very hard to write. They are obviously so different in style and content from a book length piece of writing. It takes a whole different set of skills to pull off a short (besides the general ability to write).
Second, our young readers and writers are subject to crap! Have any of you actually read some of the short stories our elementary aged children (4th & 5th graders) are reading? Most of it is boring and frankly not that well written. Up until this year, the short stories in their “Reading” books are awful. This year my 5th grader is reading portions (but not a short story) of Gary Paulsen’s book HATCHET. Finally some good writing. I did, however, object a little because I felt the content was a little too much for 5th grade (but, Bill told me to chill unless my daughter was bothered and she wasn’t). My point…can you see why I don’t write short stories? My point is this, if we don’t expose our youth to “good” shorts when they are learning to be thoughtful readers and learning to be writers, how can we expect them to appreciate shorts when they are adults???
That’s my 2 cents.
Short stories are how I got into writing fiction. I would get the central idea for a story (overheard in conversation or experienced personally, shared through ancedote) and decide, “Somebody should write about that!” And I did.
All the way, in fact, to my first collection (which, to give King his due, the market didn’t want to take) twelve stories later.
If you are a young writer looking to get into print, there are lots of quality second tier lit magazines and journals out there with pages to fill, and on the roam for a good story, descriptive detail, and a take away.
This is how I got my first few pieces and landed in an anthology.
In fact, the writing and publishing of short stories was so gratifying that I stayed away from the colossal novel. Also, a collection of short stories allows you to visit a particular theme and turn it over; creating a cycle within the smaller pieces which becomes a larger narrative with say, a wiser narrator, or a fuller exploration of women’s experiences in the home, etc. than would a linear novel’s plot.
But – I am writing a novel now.
So I guess that means the short story was my launching pad/training wheels?
Short story collections are also the subject of my dissertation research.
Do I have to choose?
Bill, if it makes you feel any better, poetry has been “dying” for decades now… : ) Thanks for an interesting blog entry. I’d disagree with you only on one point: I’m not depressed by the idea of writers making up a significant portion of the market for literary fiction (and poetry). Our society is reading less, on the whole, and that’s not good — but at the same time, I think that as creative writing courses have increased in quantity and accessibility, a large number of folks who would formerly have been simply “readers” are now both “readers and writers” . . . and that’s not bad.
Best of luck with your blog, Bill!
Peace,
Evie
Good thought, Evie. If EVERYONE was a writer or poet, then by definition you’d be writing for other writers–not so bad after all, when you think of it that way!