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This Short Stories Newsletter is dedicated to readers and writers of short fiction and to those who want to know more about the art of telling big stories in small spaces.
This month:
Worth It?
What makes a story worth the reader's time? It's different for every author (and reader) but some patterns emerge. |
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I think that meaning is something we all sort of take for granted, as writers and readers. The social contract we make with another author by reading their work is that they will make it worth our time-- that there's an intangible benefit to the reader as well. Typically, this is imparted through adding meaningful events and reasoning. "Why am I reading this?" is essentially never something you'd want to hear from one of your readers. We want readers to feel something-- as a direct response to our words.
We are not entitled to this kind of revelation. In fact, we aren't even entitled to that readers' time, contradictory to some beliefs. Readers are not owed to you, nor fans and admirers, nor even the "courtesy" of being read. The situation of being read is one that is, in some ways, a merit-based and inherently unfair situation. Not all stories are created equal-- even those with a great deal of love and craft in their construction are not inherently "better."
That being said, sometimes it can be hard to dissect why we, as writers, feel the need to make a story exist, much less why it needs to exist in this specific way. Short stories are a challenging medium specifically because we have such little space to give life to an idea or a moment. That's part of what makes them so important, though. The brevity of the format is freeing because it allows us to make a subtle statement or observation on life without chaining us to a novel-length manuscript in order to get at that specific feeling or observation. Even better, when readers can come to their own conclusions about the story you've given them.
Part of building meaning within these short stories involves giving interesting characters something worthwhile to do or learn, a task or problem to solve that will have some resonance with readers (on a literal or imagined scale, either is fine). Without problems, characters are just imaginary people you don't know very well. In addition to this, the problems these people have need to be both believable problems (as fits the "reality" of the story involved) and, for the best impact, problems to which the solutions can give the reader some greater insight. No one likes to have a pat summary of life as the denouement of a story, but it's hard to argue that meaningfulness will provide greater depth in which the reader can be immersed.
This is a good self-examination, for those moments when we're stuck, or when things are not quite as tight as we'd like: "Why am I telling this story, in this way?" It's a simple question, but it might just provide something deeper to help guide the construction of your tale.
Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
~jay |
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Feedback for last month's issue: "The Next Step"
dwarf2012 writes:
Love Wonderbook!
It's such a fantastic resource for all types of stories, but especially what they've dubbed imaginative fiction.
blunderbuss writes:
A great newsletter, Jay. A useful reminder too that not all review feedback is actually useful! I tend to have an immediate panic reaction if something obviously didn't understand the plot for example, but now I look for a balance - and if others obviously had no problems, in fact admired it - then I don't let it worry me any more.
I think this is pretty close to my own approach-- take the bulk of the feedback and seek out the outliers-- high and low-- and regard accordingly.
Quick-Quill  writes:
Critique groups are made up of people with diverse goals. I belonged to Toastmasters once. Every speech I gave was met with Wonderful, We loved it! Never did I get pointers to do better. I know it was the content they liked, as I was funny and picked interesting topics. I quit after I moved from the area. I want to be told what works and didn't work. I will judge what is good advice and just being picky. Both are needed in order to make an informed decision on making changes to your manuscript. No one gets better if all you get are the 'atta boys.' Reality (rejection letters) will slam you in the face at some point. Be prepared early.
I think this is an attitude more of Writing.Com would do well to embrace-- the notion that there's more to this process than back pats.  Working on it.
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Short Stories: April 30, 2014 Issue [#6298]
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