Writing Short Stories: Is the Tradition Dead or Alive?
Some, like Steven King in his introduction to Best American Short Stories 2007, suspect that short stories are dying, or are "not quite dead on the page … but airless, somehow, and self-referring … show-offy rather than entertaining, self-important rather than interesting, guarded and self-conscious rather than gloriously open, and – worst of all – written for editors and teachers rather than for readers."
In the same introduction, King also alludes to the scarcity of literary journals and magazines within our daily lives. Perhaps scarcity is not the right word, since readers can still order their favorite journals and even purchase a select few from their local bookstore, but the lack of interest definitely seems widespread and growing. If you can believe it, there used to be a time when you could open your Saturday Post for a nice short story and receive your weekly dose of literature, but not anymore. Nowadays, young adults (and some not-so-young adults) are more likely to pick up the latest celebrity gossip magazine than your bottom-shelf literary journal, despite their being filled with stories that are practically bursting at the seams with rich characters and insightful drama, written by some of the most vigorous emerging voices today.
Others, like the editors at Canteen, believe that, "clearly the short story, if not dying, is in transition … We do agree with King that authors are increasingly writing for other writers, but we see this trend less as scribal incest and more as adaptation to bigger shifts in the creation and consumption of media. There are fewer pure readers, yet creativity plays a larger role in more people's lives."
Some, however, believe the short story tradition is actually thriving. Just take a look at the alarming rate that new literary journals are being founded. Divided over hundreds of different literary magazines, the sheer amount of short story submissions received every quarter (more than 500 short stories on average and increasing annually) should suggest some increased level of interest. Short story contests continue to drive submissions and subscriptions, which in turn gives way to more contests – an ever-evolving cycle. Maintaining online e-zines has become the latest trend due to their inexpensive startup cost and easy management. Not to mention the growth of genre specific publications like The Strand Magazine, a mystery of fiction and non-fiction, or Nerve, an online magazine that publishes short stories and essays that speak "frank about sex, but not necessarily explicit."
Considering these points, the question becomes: Is King right? Is the short story tradition slowly dying off? Have MFA cookie-cutter writers doomed the literary cannon, starving it of real emotion and visceral sensations, keeping it hooked on a morphine drip of removed and formulaic irony? Is that the reason readers grab for Star Magazine instead of Glimmer Train? At least Star doesn't pretend to be something it's not, namely revealing, when in actuality, the prevalent short story is guarded. And it's not as though Canteen is flying off the shelves after all – that is of course if you can find it on the shelf.
Or is the short story actually alive and well, perhaps even thriving? Is there a niche market of readers who love the impact and boom of short stories? Perhaps the story has undergone a metamorphosis, but does that change the feelings of readers like King, readers who crave a, as King says, "emotional involvement … flipped-out amazement … stories that care about my feelings as well as my intellect … something that comes at me full-bore, like a big hot meteor screaming down the from Kansas sky … to be blown clean of myself for a while?"
And, more importantly, what does this mean for you, the short story writer? If you decide to publish your collection with Wordclay, into what literary climate will you bring your young book? An accepting and hungry one? Or one that's skeptical and jaded?
The Big Debate: The Fate of the Short Story
While the answer to the fate of the short story tradition will always be debatable (and perhaps eternally illusive), there are two issues upon which all writers and editors touch, namely (1) the issue of substance and (2) the issue of interest.
(1) Substance is a fairly straightforward term, but one that cuts at the heart of the story. You can open almost any short story anthology and the breadth of different voices will be astonishing. Even if you crack open a collection by a single author, you'll find differences in voice, style and content throughout the book. But that really isn't what is meant by "substance."
Substance is the mentality that is behind the writing. Consider the hyper-ironic voice of an urban author writing for an urban audience. You can hardly expect this writer to reveal insights about farmers living in Kansas, can you? The same holds true for rural writers who understand Manhattan about as much as they understand quantum physics.
•The substance debate: What's the deal with the current trend of short stories? Is their bleak fate becoming increasingly sealed by, dare we say, writers?
•The complaint: The overall substance of writing has become too removed and desensitized to invigorate (or provide catharsis to) readers.
•The defense: What some view as desensitivity is more a shift in audience. Writers, particularly short story writers, are marketing (and writing for) either pure readers or other writers. Collections are now meant to be laced with irony, and your average reader might interpret their stories as numb, hyper-ironic and emotionally uninvolved. The short story, perhaps above any form, seeks to dramatically avoid melodrama. Can you blame the story for being so cautious with its emotions?
In actuality, this issue has little to do with publishing, and even less to do with writing. There's legitimacy to the complaint and defense of the short story, or else the debate itself wouldn't have gone so far as to penetrate The Best American Short Stories Series. There are two sides to every coin: one side being those readers who now require the buffer of a more ironic, subtler impact; the other being those readers who crave a story that might dare to touch on the melodramatic, starved for a taste of what you might call, "romantic" or "theatrical."
But asking you to fight your writing style is like asking you to hold your breath indefinitely. Your unique voice lays within the very fabric of your desires toward the world and what you want to read. An audience for you is out there, and trying to cater to another group of readers (or all readers at once) will only hurt your writing, short stories, flash fiction or any kind of prose.
TIP: Write something you would never dare show to anyone, something so emotionally involved, honest as well as true to your thoughts and feelings that you might be embarrassed if another human being read it, and then, summoning the greatest depths of your courage, show the story to someone. Writing takes guts more than anything, and you have to be honest with your readers if you intend to be recognized as an author.
Long story short, don't think about your audience, nor the general public, until after you've written your story. It might be helpful to write with a single person in mind (say a sister or a friend), but trying to please everyone will only crash you into a writing ditch, overwhelmed by population figures.
Whatever your mentality to writing (and your subject), the first thing you must remember is that you cannot fight your "substance." In fact, the substance of your collection will support and nourish your writing. Whether an urban, a rural or even a suburban writer, you can hardly fight your own instincts, instincts that are the fuel driving you to both write and sell your book(s) in the future.
(2) Interest is probably the most problematic issue facing the short story tradition. Neither what King, nor what the other editors have to say about the pulse of short stories can be discounted. But where does that leave you?
While short stories and collections are being published at an alarming rate, there exists a real undercurrent that affects both substance and marketability, namely the interest the general public has for short stories. At one point you have to stop and ask yourself: Will anyone care about my collection?
It's a good question, one you should definitely confront when you're thinking about your book (and perhaps a story collection in particular). You always have to be honest about the relevancy of your work. What's new and improved about your content and your style? What's classic about your collection? Will your book (or individual stories) affect readers on the level you desire? An emotional level? A cerebral level? A spiritual level? Basically, what interest will the public have in your stories?
Of course, writers read short stories, but does the baker down the street or the off-duty police officer at the diner three blocks over? Or are these individuals more prone to indulge in novels, memoirs and other non-fictions?
Essentially, what King is suggesting is an inquiry into the heart of the story? Has it become something that only writers will read (and buy), or is there room for the baker and the police officer in the mix?
•The interest debate: Writing (and marketing) story collections can be disheartening and sometimes futile due to the lack of general interest in them. Are they being eclipsed by memoirs and novels? How many would bat an eye if the short story was to suddenly, without warning, disappear? Poof – gone.
•The complaint: It's not as though stories are published in the Saturday Post anymore, and the current short story trends in style create a tide that splashes solely on the shore of "pure readers." Even The Atlantic Monthly discontinued its regular inclusion of stories in each issue – what's stopping the same occurrence from happening with other magazines in the future?
•The defense: You can hardly blame the short story for adapting – history shows that the currents of literature ebb and flow after all – and it's not as though all short story writers are hyper-ironic and analytical. Of course there are still writers who walk the fine line between drama and melodrama, writers who write for a broader, less aristocratic, non-literary elitist audience. The sheer number of story submissions to magazines suggests that all types of writers exist, and obviously there's writing to pique the interest of different readers as a result.
While there's no magical crystal ball that can predict the future of the short story, i.e. whether it will ultimately survive this "transition," this "adaptation," there are undoubtedly some observations to note and even some lessons to be learned from the heat emanating from this debate.
First of all, the power of the short story is just that – it's short. Brevity is a writer's greatest weapon when it comes to the story. The accuracy with which writers cut at the honest truth of characters, thoughts and emotions they employ will decide the impact of their stories. If this weren't the case, readers wouldn't prefer (and reference) different stories, but would rather be stuck on ones that seemed similar in tone, subject and style.
A good story is a good story, short or novel-length. Whether from irony-seeking "pure readers" or the baker devouring romance novel and craving that visceral reaction, interest comes from interesting writing – it's that simple. Maybe only the supposed "pure reader" will enjoy a certain story, but if a writer can reach one, he or she can reach many.
And it's not as though story collections are forbidden to Johnny Baker and Jane Officer either, but their individual desires (outside of literature) will always be the deciding factors over their level of interest. This is more an issue of theme than writing, and a writer must make choices after all. Readers can hardly demand that the short story writer paint a picture of the world, like a novelist. The short story is a window into many different worlds, and only for those readers who have caught of glimpse of a warm glowing house and began to wonder what's behind the front doorway.
Secondly, you can hardly expect the short story to die out altogether. If it were actually dying, we wouldn't be having the debate at all, even now repurposed in this article. Why would we care if the short story were an antiquated form, out with the fable and the campfire ghost story?
The reasons we've kept this debate (and the short story as a result) alive is merely because we want it alive. Readers wouldn't be able to bear that death of the short story anyway – anecdotes would turn into epics; jokes would turn into novels; urban legends would become history tombs. The death of the short story would be the equivalent of asking every child in the world to forget Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Little Pigs . It's impossible. It's nonsense. Some permutation, some hybrid of the short story has always survived (and will continue to survive) the climates of literature. Just look at the recent development of flash fiction if you're in doubt.
If the novel is a four course feast, then the short story is like a breakfast before you begin your morning, short-lived but always too short-lived. And as your morning becomes afternoon and then descends into evening, the story sticks in your thoughts, hauntingly, like a memory, a craving for yet another story, a hope for another breakfast, a small triumph over death.
Final Words: Publishing Weddings and Funerals
Perhaps the debate over the short story tradition will forever go unresolved, caught in an eternal tug-a-war between the "pure reader" and the Stephen Kings of the world, but the rope itself will never snap. So long as people read and continue storytelling, short stories will undoubtedly nourish and substance a public audience in one form or another. Insightful, accurate writing of all kinds has its rightful home, and the short story collection is no different.
Now it's your job to find that home. For tips and advice on defining and reaching your target audience, visit A Crash Course in Marketing Short Story Collections 101.
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