A short story is ‘a world seen in a quick glancing light,’ so said Alice Munro. It’s a ‘glance at the miraculous,’ according to Joseph O’Connor (in his introduction to the 1997 Fish Anthology). It allows ‘a glimpse into the moment of a life,’ says literary agent Lucy Luck on The Story Website. Glances and glimpses – are these what make a short story really work?
I’ve been pondering on this recently, not least because the VWC’s champion of the form, Jon Pinnock, has nobly accepted the challenge to compile a VWC anthology, and has called on members for submissions. So what’s he looking for?: poems and short stories of no more than 2500 words that are ‘good enough’. I’m reminded of Zadie Smith’s plea, on announcing her decision not to award a prize for the 2008 Willesden Herald International Short Story Competition: ‘We have only one principle here: MAKE IT GOOD.’ But what’s good?
We’ve got some very useful advice on what not to do from Stephen Moran in the ‘Willesden Herald List of common short story faults’, but what to do? Look at that list, and immediately you’ll find a wonderful description of the objective: ‘The short story takes off vertically, rises to a great height, usually carries only one or two people, and lands not very far from where it took off.’ So maybe a kind of circularity in the journey is part of the magic formula. Ali Smith seems to agree about endings. In her introduction to the Bridport Prize 2009 anthology, she said this: ‘A short story’s end isn’t an end at all, but always a kind of beginning: the point where the story, having closed, opens for and in a reader like a germinating seed cracks open in the ground.’ I love that. A good short story cracks open the tarmac – it’s potent, irrepressible – it won’t be forgotten. To quote Joseph O’Connor again, it’s a ‘quiet bomb’.
Short stories can be immensely powerful, but they rarely prove to be money-spinners (with a few notable exceptions, such as the RNA’s Love Me, Love Me Not anthology). There’s an established, though not hugely lucrative market for stories in magazines, particularly women’s magazines, but for collections of short stories there’s not a lot of demand (except amongst writers!). Why? Jen Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing says they have an ‘identity crisis’ – ‘We see short stories as one step away from poetry; the public and the book world see them as one step away from novels.’ But in these days of short attention spans, why should being short be a problem?
I think Tessa Hadley answers this very well (once more on The Story Website) : ‘At the end of each story we’re thrown out again, out of the containing sea of illusion, into the dry air of our awareness outside the book.’ A novel becomes a familiar world that we, as readers, can re-enter at will. A short story unfolds quickly and then plunges us back into reality.
It’s the same for writers, too. Having just finished a lengthy series of revisions to my novel in progress, I thought I’d turn my hand to a few short stories for ‘a break’. How naive! I’d forgotten how difficult it was. I’ve also been left wondering whether there’s any ‘best way’. (I clearly need advice from Vanessa Gebbie.) Over the past few weeks I’ve produced one story of about 1,400 words from scratch in a single day, and another, about twice the length, by a more protracted process of distillation (involving paring down a bottom drawer work by about 10,000 words!).
The end result is the same – I’m left shivering in cold air! ‘Give me back my novel,’ my inner voice is bleating. Writing a novel involves a monumental investment of time, love and effort, but the ‘sea of illusion’ is at least familiar and invites return. A good short story leaves both author and reader back at a sign that says: ‘Now go off and think’.
Well, you will be familiar with my view of the publishing industry’s marketing people, and I think the inability to make money is as much to do with an almost complete lack of flair in the marketing of collections (to be fair, partly constrained by an even more hideously conservative book store business). Find where the market is: sell to the market.
Also, I sometimes wonder if the plethora of competitions really helps – and I speak as one recently commended by the lovely Leaf Books. I do think they tend to generate a particular approach to storytelling: what I call the “Ta da!” ending. More contemplative stories aren’t well suited to judging systems because their impact is – almost by definition – insufficiently transient and too minor key to avoid being swamped by the next high-impact, major key, story in the pile (does that make sense?).
What we need are commissioning editors who understand short fiction and who can resist the urge to squeeze it in a straitjacket
Anyway, just as a random thought, the best short story collection I have seen was a science fiction collection edited by Damon Knight called Cities of Wonder, with a uniting theme around cities (I have a geography degree – sue me). Many authors, including that giant of science fiction, EM Forster.
The last very long comment that I wrote disappeared when I submitted it, so I’ll simply say that this was an excellent post by Jenny and one that deserves a longer response from me, which will appear on my own blog in the next day or so. As far as Ian’s comment is concerned, yes, there are a lot of competitions, but ALL submissions processes are inevitably competitive, whether they are for something called a competition or for a particular magazine. I’d also be interested to know what recent short story collections Ian has read that backs up his view on “ta-da” endings, because it doesn’t reflect my experience.
Right. I have finally written my post in answer to this one: http://www.jonathanpinnock.com/2010/05/swiss-tonis-guide-to-writing-short-stories/
And apologies to Ian if I sounded a bit brusque. But I really don’t think that your point about “ta-da” endings applies to a lot of the short story collections that I’ve read recently – by people like Vanessa Gebbie, Elizabeth Baines, David Gaffney and Sara Maitland, to name but a few.
Having now read your blogpost, Jon, I must say, I’m impressed. Reading a short story is indeed like a one night stand – and it can end just as abruptly if your date fails to hook! But I do think Ian made a very good point about ‘Ta da!’ endings, and it’s interesting that ‘Swiss Toni’s’ advice on this has attracted so much comment…
I’d say that current trends in short story collections appear (at least to me) to be moving away from the ‘sock it in your eye’ reveal. In fact (as quoted), Ali Smith said: ‘A short story’s end isn’t an end at all, but always a kind of beginning.’ Certainly the Bridport winner last year, Jenny Clarkson’s ‘Something’ (which I love) ended very quietly and pensively, with a sense of continuation, and no great denouement, surprise or resolution.
This is not to suggest that Ian doesn’t have a point, because, I think, in a way, he does. It’s your point 8, Jon, ‘I Don’t Just Want a Meaningless Fling’. A good short story has to have meaning – it’s got to deliver a consummation – it must be a changing experience in some way. And with an eye to the word limits now demanded in most competitions, it’ll probably have to do that in under 2000 words. So I guess there will be a ‘Ta da!’ – But maybe it won’t be appreciated all at once in a climax of a few seconds!!