Short Stuff

Novels novels novels. It's all about novels, isn't it? Somehow or other, we've been trained to expect our stories (the written ones, anyway) in big 50,000- to 200,000-word chunks. (We're currently being trained to expect our non-written stories to be a bladder-punishing 150 minutes long, half of which is devoted to CGI cartoons fighting other CGI cartoons. But that's a blog post for another day.)

Let's pause for a moment, though, and resist our conditioning and appreciate the lowly short story. Where would we be without it?

Surprise! That's not a rhetorical question! Cue ominous Movie Trailer Announcer Guy voice:

In a world where the mystery genre doesn't exist.... [Camera pans over the smoking ruins of a major city, its dazed occupants hunting through the rubble for something to read other than singed copies of 50 Shades of Grey.]

Edgar Allan Poe single-handedly invented the mystery in the short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." (He invented the locked-room mystery with a laughably ludicrous resolution, too, but that's not why there's an award named after him.) Nearly half a century later, Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the fledgling genre's greatest ambassador, Sherlock Holmes, who became a worldwide phenomenon via magazine short stories. And then (because -- pay attention, kids -- you always need to back up your assertions with at least three illustrative examples) there were, like, lots more magazine mystery stories that were, you know, super-popular and stuff. (Try to save your weakest point for last.)

I bring all this up because I've neglected the short story myself the last few years, but now I'm making amends. After a holy-guacamole-has-it-really-been-that-long? five-year absence, I've returned to the launchpad of my fiction-writing career: Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. You can read a preview of my story here. I like it, partially for the reason some of you might not: It's very different from my novels. In my mind, short stories are the place to experiment and explore. But novels? You want me to explore for 100,000 freakin' words? What if I get lost? It's cold out there! Nah. A novel you write with a map, a compass, a GPS and a tracking collar like the kind Jim Fowler used to wrestle onto thrashing alligators. (At least that's how I try to write novels.)

So I hope you enjoy my latest little ramble through the fiction wilds. I think it took me to an interesting place. If you disagree, no sweat. Hopefully, the next outing will be more to your liking. Now that I've got my hiking boots back on, I don't plan to take them off again....

UPDATE: Exciting news, gang! The last paragraph of this blog post has been nominated for the prestigious Richard S. Prather Strained Metaphor Award. Wish me luck!

Comments

[J Steven York]

Though I've been reading mystery novels practically forever, I only started reading mystery short fiction regularly a year or two ago, when I subscribed to Hitchcock's and Ellery Queen on my Kindle. I've got to say, I'm really enjoying it. There's been a lot more variety than I'd expected, and I've read a lot of excellent stories.

Okay, just off-the-cuff, a few things I like about reading short-stories, for the uninitiated:

1. A chance to discover new writers I'd otherwise have never have heard of.

2. A chance to read writers I already enjoy in novels doing something different (occasionally wildly different), and often discovering that I enjoy that aspect of their work too.

3. A chance to enjoy different kinds of mystery/crime stories that wouldn't work in novel length. I've long suspected that novels aren't really the natural length for a lot of mystery stories, and that many are padded to length. I find myself getting increasingly annoyed when, as the detective closes in, the real killer starts killing off the other suspects one-by-one in a clumsy and ineffectual effort to hide their identity, when the most reasonable thing to do would simply be to cut their losses and run like hell. Short stories, by necessity, trim the fat, and can be much more satisfying for it.

4. A chance to read favored novel characters in different kinds of stories. Quite a few writers do this, write short stories with their novel characters. Some will even write stories featuring secondary characters who get a rare chance to shine, or that look at their detectives from unusual viewpoints you'd never seen in a novel. Some will also use short stories as a way of filling in background.

In other words, if you haven't tried the mystery magazines, give it a go. And I know they can be hard to find on newsstands these days, so electronic versions are a handy way to sample them and decide if they're worth subscribing to.

[Facebook]

I'm with you, short stories are sorely missing from the scene, partially, I think, because it can be tough to tell a riviting story when hampered by space contrictions, and few can do it well.

But when it works, its awesome! (partially, I think, because it forces the writer to trim out all the gas-baggy muck...)

Can't wait to read your new stuff!

Owen Garratt
www.pencilneck.com

[Esri Allbritten]

I love your short stories. Am reading Dear Mr. Holmes right now - great stuff.

I took at look at your link to Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. My whole family used to watch that show, riveted, and now it looks so cheesy and set-up, with hardly a shot containing both the guys and the animals. Good times...

[Steve]

Excellent points, Steve. I have to admit -- for a guy who writes and occasionally bloviates about short fiction, I don't *read* it nearly as much as I should. A new vow: the next thing I grab off my TBR pile will be a collection, an anthology or a fiction magazine.

Thanks for the big thumbs up, Owen! That thumbs up in your pic is just for me, right?

And thanks for picking up (and publicly endorsing) Dear Mr. Holmes, Esri! I only watched a few minutes of the Wild Kingdom footage, but I'm with you: staged staged staged. But, oh, the fond memories I have of gathering with the family on Sunday night to eat Old El Paso tacos and watch that show. In my memory, it always came on right before The Wonderful World of Disney...In Color! (I know. I'm old.)

[Esri Allbritten]

Ditto.

[J Steven York]

I used to watch the show every Sunday too, and in my teens, I did a passing good Marlin Perkins imitation, and my stock line was always, "While Jim wrestles the deadly anaconda in the swamp, I watch from the helicopter through powerful binoculars..."