No, You Do NOT Have To Write A Novel

A Celebration of the Short Story and the Short Story Writer

by Claire Guyton

I Am Not the Star of This Play

Here’s what I forgot to consider before I decided to go with my husband and a group of friends to a play about a young writer and her famous mentor: In our group, I am… The Writer. So while I was suppressing raspberries during the mentoring session in the first scene of Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories, during which the famous writer praises sentences that include embarrassments like the redundant “icy freezer” and the cliché “feverish anticipation”—while I was weighing the story and grading the dialogue, my friends were seeing this play both as a fiction and as a series of statements… about me.

When in the first act the protégée begged the Famous Writer Mentor to tell her if she’s any good, to please reassure her that she’s not wasting her time, one friend tugged a lock of my hair, another poked me in the back, a third pulled at my sleeve, and my husband squeezed my hand. It was dark in the theater, of course, so they couldn’t see my flushed face. “My parents … think this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done…” said the protégée, referring to her pursuit of the MFA. My friends replied with another round of tender battering as I sank into my wool coat, burning hot. Early in Act II, the young writer wailed, “What if I’m not really a writer after all?” and my friends assured me with a flurry of physical commentary that I should never have to ask that question. And then the most self-conscious, the supremely blush-worthy moment came, as I should have known it would.

When I’m asked if I ever plan to write a novel, I wave that heap of imaginary pages aside, sometimes I even roll my eyes. “All I want to do in this world,” I have said so many times, “is write just one perfect short story.” When the young writer in Margulies’ play has published her first collection of short stories to rave reviews, the mentor is delighted, but her protégée doesn’t let herself enjoy her success for even a moment. “Oh, God,” she says, “I’ve got to write a novel, don’t you think?” I missed the subsequent exchange in the storm of energetic pats and rubs administered by my fan club, then heard the young writer say, “I mean, in order for me to be taken seriously?”

That sentence, “I mean, in order for me to be taken seriously?”—catapulted me from the play. Yes, I kept hearing the dialogue, but I was no longer listening. In the actress’s mewling I’d heard Michael Chabon’s charge that modern short stories are plotless and boring, I heard Stephen King declare that too many stories are written for editors and teachers, and Mary Gaitskill lament that the short story is, if not dead, “ill from neglect.” For weeks I had been reading about the death of the short story in newspaper and magazine articles, in blog posts and introductions to story anthologies. I had listened to far too many podcasts of interviews and panel discussions featuring deeply opinionated Very Serious Literary Experts. It had been really getting to me, all that negativity. I felt smaller, less passionate about my work, withdrawn. The play was supposed to take my mind off all that grayness and meanness, it was supposed to be a break. And it was. Because it was that one more line of negativity, that yet another disparaging comment about the short story—just when I was feeling so self-conscious and vulnerable—that, finally… pissed me off. And as it turns out, anger is exactly the antidote I needed.

While the famous mentor shed her armor but not her wisdom, allowing herself to grow close to her student and therefore vulnerable, I made a mental list of my current top ten favorite short stories. While the protégée’s crush on her mentor dissipated, I wondered for the umpteenth time just how Tim O’Brien ever figured out the right structure for “The Things They Carried.” While the young writer’s innocence burned off in the fire of her thrilling success, while she inched her way to the inevitable (totally predictable) betrayal of her mentor, I asked myself: Is “The Metamorphosis” my favorite Kafka, or do I prefer “A Hunger Artist”? I considered my love for Donald Barthelmé and all his shenanigans, and I decided, again, that he never topped “Me and Miss Mandible.” I marveled at how George Saunders blends high comedy with such desperation and disillusionment in “Pastoralia” and “CommComm.” When in the dark of the theater my friends and husband gently mauled me with their physical reassurances, I reminded myself to pick up that Elizabeth Strout and Wells Towers collections everybody was talking about. The short story – dead? I have to write a novel if I expect anyone to take me seriously? I returned the pressure of my husband’s hand, my embarrassment vanquished. The heat in my cheeks was defiance.

How To Write a Successful Article about the Death of the Short Story

Begin by summarizing the history of the short story. Say that Washington Irving wrote the first successful short story in America—not everyone takes this position, too often the Literary Expert goes directly to Poe and Hawthorne—so right away you’ll put yourself at the head of the class if you wake up Rip Van Winkle and trot out the Headless Horseman. Now really put a shine on that first paragraph by tossing in a couple of names most people won’t recognize—Bret Harte, for example, and maybe one of the Germans everyone has forgotten.

As you discuss changing form and expectations, dwell on epiphany endings. Prove that you are very serious by pointing out that although the epiphany ending is most closely associated with Joyce because he named it, in fact Chekhov created this kind of ending. You’ll be dead wrong about that—the epiphany ending has been with us from the dawn of story—but trusted critics and pundits often make this mistake, and it sounds great, everybody loves to hear about Joyce and Chekhov in the same paragraph, don’t be too picky with the truth. Use your discussion of the epiphany ending to segue into your condemnation of the current type of short story you and your literary friends hate so much. Name this detested story that has ushered in the poor short story’s death—and not a moment too soon, if this is all there is to offer—name it as though you thought of it yourself: The killing story is, you will write with bored contempt, the “slice of life story” with a weak-ass epiphany. Don’t use the term “weak-ass”—reach for something more professional and precious, like “wan” or “pallid.”

Don’t blame Joyce for all the stories that end with weak-ass epiphanies. You are far too serious to blame Joyce, an indisputable genius who may have written the best short story ever—here you get to choose either “Araby” or “The Dead,” but you must choose one, and yes, a Joyce-crush is obligatory. Chekhov-love is also obligatory but you don’t have to pick a story. If you do, pick “The Lady with the Little Dog.”

Now summon your courage and name the culprits responsible for all those stories with weak-ass epiphanies: MFA programs.

Define the “The New Yorker story.” Blame that, too.

Mention Cheever and Fitzgerald and Hemingway by way of pointing out how far we’ve fallen, both in the quality of our short fiction and in the popular appreciation for it. It’s not entirely the fault of short story writers, you must say—we aren’t producing good writers because we no longer have a paying market for their stories. Now bring the hammer down on that point by telling us how much money Fitzgerald made on just one story published in a popular magazine. Of course you’ll have to translate that sum into current dollars so your readers will understand just how much money that was. Yes, having to provide that calculation might remind some readers that Cheever and Fitzgerald and Hemingway made gobs of money publishing their stories in popular magazines so many years ago that their circumstances can’t possibly be relevant now. Your reference to Cheever & Company might even prompt a few readers to realize that first the radio and movies, and then television have been replacing the popular short story market for so many decades that to even bring up the long-abandoned notion of making one’s living solely from writing short stories is to suggest that you have been living in an underwater cave, it is to pretend that the literary world didn’t long ago adjust to that shift in circumstances, meanwhile producing knockout masters like Barthelmé, Hempel, Cortázar, Barth, and Berriault, just to name a few. But the risk of pushing one or two of your readers into a lucid moment is worth it. For most people the amount of money Fitzgerald made for one story is as distracting and demoralizing as it is staggering, and that’s the point.

When you suggest that we have fallen so far in the quality of our stories, be sure to keep the names Alice Munro, Stuart Dybek, and Tobias Wolff to yourself. Don’t say anything about Robert Olen Butler, Lorrie Moore, Aimee Bender. Definitely don’t mention George Saunders. And if your typing fingers seem inclined toward the J or the L, give it a rest. The name Jhumpa Lahiri is one hundred percent off-limits.

Neglect to mention that some of our most celebrated short story writers were actually born after Fitzgerald made so much money publishing a single story in the Saturday Evening Post.

Say a lot about the Saturday Evening Post.

Pretend that the New York Times bestseller list is relevant to writers of literary fiction. Point out that it is painfully rare for a collection of short stories to appear on the list. Of course anyone who takes the time to peek at that list will realize immediately that the number of literary novels that have ended up on the bestseller list is only marginally higher than the number of literary short story collections and both numbers are, well, wan. Anyone who takes a harder look will understand that if the New York Times bestseller list had anything to do with literary fiction, Judith Krantz would proudly own the title of Supreme Literary Master. But most people who read your article will not think about these things, most of them will not Google the list and waste an entire afternoon studying it. So you’re safe.

When you talk about how difficult it is for short story writers to publish collections, linger over an anecdote about some fresh young hopeful trying to shop her collection, only to be told that she can’t have a contract unless she agrees to deliver a novel as well. Imply that this is a recent development in the world of publishing, a situation that has grown from the now near-universal dislike of the form. Don’t mention that somehow story collections manage to get printed every year despite this common pressure from the publishers. Certainly don’t mention that the literary establishment has been pressuring short story writers to produce a novel since the dawn of the short story form. In a letter written to a friend in 1824, Washington Irving defended his choice to write the tales he was called to write and declared his resolve to continue to resist the pressure to produce a novel. But don’t mention that.

Assume that the vast majority of your readers won’t know that every decade a handful of Very Serious Literary Experts write articles about the death of the short story. When the form was barely a hundred years old George Orwell, in his 1936 essay “Bookshop Memories,” refers to the “unpopularity of short stories,” which, he says, “the publishers get into a stew about … every two or three years.” He blamed mostly the writers, saying, “Most modern short stories, English and American, are utterly lifeless and worthless….” Incidentally, Fitzgerald and Hemingway were busily building their reputations, earning fat checks for their stories right about that time. Cheever was just getting started. This of course doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It certainly doesn’t mean that George Orwell, another indisputable genius, was wrong. It just means that the short story is spooling out its death at a miserably slow pace. You can only hope that your article will hurry it along!

Don’t forget that part of the success of your article will depend on your follow-up. One burst of hot air won’t cut it, you’ll need to huff and puff for some time. You must visit the comments section on the page where your article appears online, respond to some of those readers who dare to argue with your declaration. Keep the words “derivative” and “plotless” at the ready, bring back “pallid.” The words “flimsy” and “fey,” too, will come in handy. Whatever the vocabulary, the goal for every reply is to revel in being right. And don’t be afraid to share a little of your own plight. You missed the literary heyday, after all. Look at what you have to read, what you have to write about. You suffer from ennui. Tell them.

Finally, to keep your argument going, make yourself available for interviews with radio shows who give away their podcasts on iTunes, where a short story writer just beginning to submit her own stories will find and download them because she’s promised herself she will lose ten pounds and to do that she had to buy an iPod to take to her workouts and what better to download than free podcasts of radio shows devoted to literary topics. When she has forced herself on some innocent stairstepper at the gym, when her favorite Bare Naked Ladies song dies out and by now she’s huffing and hating, the podcast will start and the interviewer will say, “You just wrote an essay declaring that the short story is dead,” at which point the short story writer will try to release her grip on the stairstepper so she can jab the iPod’s skip button but her fingers won’t let go, because the stairstepper is going faster than she’s quite able to manage, and now she has to listen to your flimsy arguments, your pallid position on the short story, your weak-ass epiphany, so do that, book some interviews, let yourself be taped. You might not convince that woman who just fell off the stairstepper, but you’ll surely discourage somebody, and that is, after all, your goal, isn’t it?

A Short and Vicious List of Brilliant Short Story
Writers Who Wrote a Novel but Shouldn’t Have

Andre Dubus, who disavowed his first book, the novel The Lieutenant, and scrapped his second novel in progress after discovering the stories of Chekhov. “I write with him on my shoulder,” Dubus said. Chekhov rested quietly in the eight years it took Dubus to get a publisher to put out a book of his stories. And we know the rest—Dubus was nominated for or won just about every important fellowship and literary award there is, including the Rea Award for his contribution to the short story form. Chekhov apparently told Dubus it was okay to write a novella that many people consider a novel, Voices from the Moon, a book that has its fans. I’m better off considering this successful book a novella, because that gets Dubus on my list, where I can quote him as saying this beautiful thing: “I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.”

Speaking of Chekhov, who many consider the father of the modern short story, and who virtually everyone considers a master of the form, well, he had his own brief love affair with a novel—a detective novel, no less. He was young, the novel was older and savvy, the novel knew things. The affair ended so quietly most people don’t know it happened, and we are all grateful that Chekhov courted only short fiction for the rest of his life.

John Cheever, famous for his mastery of the short story, whose 1982 obituary in The New York Times carried the headline, “John Cheever Is Dead at 70; Novelist Won Pulitzer Prize.” Of course Cheever didn’t win that Pulitzer, or the National Book Critics Circle Award, or the National Book Award for any of his bad novels. He earned those awards for his collected short stories in 1979.

Frank O’Connor, who in his 1957 interview with The Paris Review said that he originally wanted to write poetry but discovered that “God had not intended me to be a lyric poet.” He didn’t claim that the verdict on his novels came from such a venerable source—he merely said that writing a novel was “always too difficult for me to do.” He was right, and that’s why when people refer to Frank O’Connor’s fiction they mean his remarkable short stories, not the two forgettable early novels. The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award is the richest prize available to short story writers, and a fitting way to honor Ireland’s greatest man of letters.

Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote only twenty stories but wrote them so beautifully, that, for a time, the literary world couldn’t bear to tell the truth about her last book, Ship of Fools, a 500-page novel Charles Baxter describes as “bloated and sententious,” and full of “everything except the one element it needed, the breath of life.” Baxter’s remarks were the most generous I found. Although it’s painful to think about how a writer who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Stories could write a book that bad, I would much rather think about that than dwell on the fact that it took her 20 years to write it.

And now the winner of the coveted final spot… arguably the most famous of all American short story writers, Edgar Allan Poe! Poe didn’t just write stories, he didn’t just write thrilling stories—he set himself up as the champion of the short story, the one artist and critic who could articulate just how perfect a short story could be. Like me, he was lovesick. Perhaps this partiality had something to do with why his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, is such a disjointed mess, and, in every way, as Poe himself called it, “a very silly book.” The novel just wasn’t for him and he should never have forced his pen. Edgar Allan Poe, the world still loves you! For your short stories.

Hands off My Fantasy!

Nickole Brown wants you to know that you can safely dream about publishing your collection of short stories. For the last ten years, she has worked as a publicist for the nonprofit Sarabande Books, an independent literary press founded in Louisville, Kentucky, fifteen years ago specifically to publish short story and poetry collections. The press prides itself on high-quality book design and commits to keeping its books in print, a promise you won’t get from a big house. Sarabande puts out an average of three short story collections per year and depends on these collections to be its money-makers. For Sarabande, selling three to five thousand copies of your story collection makes you a bestselling author.

Of course Sarabande doesn’t stand alone—it gets welcome competition from other small literary and university presses. Consult your Directory of Little Magazines & Small Presses or cruise the website of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses or NewPages.com for a mind-boggling list of small publishers all over the country.

Understand, Nickole says, that the world of independent presses is typically quite different from that of the big publisher. The big houses do publish literary work, they do publish short stories—but, as you know, not often. We can all dream of being anointed by Oprah or winning a Pulitzer and landing on the New York Times bestseller list—who knows, maybe you will be the next Tobias Wolff and I will be the next Jhumpa Lahiri. It could happen, and going with an independent press does not automatically exclude you from the ranks (Paul Yoon’s Once the Shore, for example, published by Sarabande in 2009, was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review.) But we don’t have to settle for such a narrow dream of prizes reserved for so few. Over and over in my research on small publishers I came across the same rationale for why the founders chose to launch a press: They want to see in print the literary prose and poetry that big publishers neglect. These presses exist for us.

I’m sure you’re like me, and mostly you dream of one day accomplishing the genuinely impossible—matching your vision for a story to what’s on the page. But I’m betting that also like me, you sneak in a dream, every once in a while, of making a book. Late at night, when the words on the computer screen are blurring, when my feet are ice cold and my fingers are stiff, I might cut the work short, break out the Maker’s Mark, and imagine what my name would look like on the cover of a book. Three thousand copies? Sounds like heaven to me.

And I can get there, Nickole tells me, you can get there. If the work is ready—and that might take many years, but if that happens, when that happens—we just have to know where to shop our books. And we’ll have to prepare.

Of course you’ll want to place your stories in literary magazines, first. If you break into some of the more prestigious magazines, an agent might notice you and then you’ll have a lot of help. With or without an agent, your book must be more than a motley collection of ten or twelve fine stories. Make these stories into a book by building connections among them. For advice on how to develop these ties, consult David Jauss’s excellent essay “Stacking Stones: Building a Unified Short Story Collection” in his book Alone With All That Could Happen. Be as brutal in your editing of the book as you were when you crafted the individual stories—if two of your pieces will never fit with the others, leave them out.

Once you have your manuscript—stop. Breathe. According to Nickole, too many new writers at this stage go into a submission frenzy, sending their manuscripts out far and wide to publishers who are just names and addresses. It feels good to do all that work, but not so good when it doesn’t get you anywhere. Instead, take the time to learn about the presses who might fit your stories. Explore the presses’ websites, read their recent story collections, drop by their tables at AWP—not to pitch your book, of course, but to further develop your impression of the work they do.

Once you have a list of presses that might be right for your collection, ask for submission guidelines and follow them to the letter. If you enter a press’s contest, know that you are competing against an absurd number of authors, and don’t pin all your hopes on a win. Nickole has been shocked by the number of new writers who send their collections only to contests, then give up when they don’t win any of them. You have a far better chance of getting a press interested with a carefully crafted collection that fits their niche, submitted at a time when they’re dealing with a normal flow of manuscripts—the competition won’t be nearly so strong. However you go about your submissions, follow that same old advice about any professional endeavor: Be patient, unfailingly polite, and absolutely do not give up.

So. Go ahead. It’s late, you’ve finished that fifteenth revision—the story works, finally! Mix yourself a whiskey sour, munch on a Day-Glo cherry, and indulge in that fantasy about your first book of short stories. Picture the cover, run your finger along that name at the bottom, your name. When your stories are ready, when you’ve done the hard work of creating a collection that is greater than its parts—you’ll find a home.

Nobody Tells You the Small Success Stories

Elizabeth Crane wrote a novel when she first started out, but the form didn’t suit her style, and her book failed to sell. In contrast, her first story collection—When the Messenger Is Hot—was picked up almost immediately, and came out in 2003, followed in 2005 by her second collection, All This Heavenly Glory, and in 2008, by her third, You Must Be This Happy To Enter. All three have been critical successes and sold at respectable numbers. She considers it entirely possible that she may one day be inspired to try another novel, but for now she’s happy to stick with the short story.

When asked what she has to say to critics who claim the short story is dead, Crane replies, “Read Stephen Millhauser and George Saunders and Aimee Bender and Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace and Etgar Keret and Lorrie Moore and Kelly Link and Joe Meno.” Her advice to new short story writers? “Don’t not [write short stories] just because it doesn’t pay well. If it’s what you love to write, you … have no choice. There are other ways to pay the rent.” Crane pays the rent with her teaching, another labor of love.

Kirstin Menger-Anderson spent many years trying to get a book published. First she shopped a novel and then a story collection, but she couldn’t get agents interested in either. So she went back to work, writing and placing in literary magazines a series of stories about medical fads. Once she had enough stories for a collection, she started her search for an agent. This time a few of the agents who rejected the manuscript gave her feedback, suggesting that she better unify the collection. She took that advice, then sent the much-improved stories out again. Dr. Olaf Von Schuler’s Brain came out this year to widespread, positive reviews.

Given her story, it’s not surprising that Menger-Anderson believes the best advice she can give new writers is to never forget how important it is to revise their work. She also preaches patience and perseverance. “Don’t let rejections kill your stories,” she says. Also not surprising is her response to the notion that the short story is dead. She rejects it outright.

Joan Leegant says the short story form was the one that came most naturally to her when she began to write fiction. She took her time writing the stories that appear in her first collection, placing them in journals and magazines until she realized she had enough for a book. Because the stories were strongly related thematically, she didn’t need to work hard at unifying them. Leegant’s 2003 collection An Hour in Paradise won both the Winship/PEN New England and the Edward Lewis Wallant awards, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. The collection also opened the door to the novel that will come out in 2010—W. W. Norton offered Leegant a two-book contract when they picked up her stories. Norton did not make one book contingent on the other—they brought out the collection right away, while the novel was still unnamed and unwritten—nor did they pressure Leegant to produce a novel. She continues to enjoy writing and reading both forms.

Leegant ignores all the literary hand-wringing about the death of the short story. “You have to write what you have to write. [P]oets, playwrights, composers – anyone in the arts – hear the same sorts of things. It doesn’t help the work.” But is it true? She doesn’t think so. When asked for her advice to new short story writers, Leegant says, “Don’t write to conform to some notion of literary fashion, or according to what you think will sell. But you also have to make what you write matter to others, and that means digging deep and going for truth, and looking at every sentence, and being fearless in both your insights and your prose.”

Crane, Menger-Anderson, Leegant—their stories underscore the advice we’ve all heard a hundred times. Every teacher of writing says it because it’s true. You have to put the writing first, and the publishing second.

A Much Too Brief but Wondrous List of Brilliant Short Story
Writers Who Resisted the Pressure To Write a Novel

David Jauss, who responded to the publisher who wouldn’t print his collection Black Maps without the promise of a novel by submitting the collection to the AWP contest, which, of course, he won in 1995. His stories have appeared in The Best American Short Story anthologies, and he has won the O’Henry Award and two Pushcart prizes. I couldn’t have made this list without honoring my former teacher Dave, because if the world had forced novels on him, he likely would have become a twisted, bitter man who couldn’t hold down a job, and just imagine the loss to all the students who have been fortunate enough to try to learn a scrap of what he knows.

Raymond Carver, whose biography is as inspiring as his fiction, and who was probably the most influential short story writer of his generation. A Carver story seems to have appeared magically on the page, it’s so unaffected. His prose looked so easy to me—until I tried to imitate it. Carver was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1984 and 1989, and won seven O’Henry Awards.

Amy Hempel, whose first published story, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” is on my all-time favorites list, and who doesn’t get enough credit for writing some seriously weird stuff. Hempel has won multiple awards and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her award-winning Collected Stories was named one of the top ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review. Hempel won the Rea award in 2008.

I’ve been savoring Stuart Dybek’s collection I Sailed with Magellan for over six months and have no plans to stop anytime soon. Dybek has won several O’Henry awards, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the MacArthur genius grant. He received the Rea award in 2007.

Grace Paley, who could fit the substance of a Russian novel in five pages. She wrote stories, she said, “to get the world to explain itself to me.” I only just discovered Paley and won’t be letting her go. She received the Rea award in 1993, and her Collected Stories was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1995.

Deborah Eisenberg, author of four critically blessed collections and winner of multiple O’Henry awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Rea award in 2000. Eisenberg earned my everlasting appreciation when in answering a question about her unconventional plot structure, she said, “I have to admit that I have no idea what the word ‘epiphany’ means.”

Lee K. Abbott, who has bucked the decades-long fashion for minimalist prose with his seven story collections, and said my current favorite quote: “I need the discipline of the sentence.” His stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories and he’s won two O. Henry Awards and three Pushcart Prizes. In my conversations and e-mail exchanges with other writers and readers on the subject of brilliant story writers who have never written a novel, his name comes up most frequently.

Charles D’Ambrosio, whose stories made a good friend gush for weeks. She bet me that I couldn’t find one single unoriginal phrase in “The Screenwriter.” I sent her an e-mail with a list of seven, but I did that just to tease her. She was right, it’s hard labor to look for anything in his work that doesn’t feel new. “The Screenwriter” is an amazing story and the collection in which it appears, The Dead Fish Museum, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award.

George Saunders, who has held the gilded position of my favorite short story writer for two years, an unprecedented length of time, and who will make me weep if he commits the treachery of writing a bad novel. His collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner, and he received a much deserved MacArthur genius grant in 2006.

And now, the winner of the most-honored final position… Michael Martone! Because his collection of “Contributor’s Notes” (in Michael Martone) is one of the most delightful books I’ve read in such a long, long time, blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction, veering from eerie to comic to poignant and then just plain silly. But mostly he gets the coveted final position because he gave me the very best writing advice I will ever get: “I have just one rule,” he said. “Never do anything half-assed.” Michael Martone, I salute you!

How To Write a Successful Article about Your Passion
for the Happy, Healthy, Very Much Alive Short Story

Begin by summarizing the history of the short story. Point out that if Washington Irving wrote our first stories, we’re approaching the American short story’s 200th birthday. Announce that in anticipation of the Big Day, you plan to write a series of blog posts on your favorite short story writers. Encourage your readers to share the titles of their favorite stories and authors—tell them that you will write posts on the top vote-getters. Suggest that readers plan local events to celebrate this birthday, and ask them to share their ideas. There’s much you can do from your public perch to encourage passion for the form if that’s what you want, and I know you do.

Marvel over the fact that literary historians and critics have spent an inordinate amount of time and energy arguing about exactly what constitutes a short story, suggesting that stories pre-Poe and Hawthorne are better thought of as sketches or anecdotes. Wonder why so much ink has been devoted to the reasons why folk tales (and Canterbury Tales) and “beast fables” and parables do not belong to the world of short stories. Say that you are not at all certain that these are meaningful distinctions. What seems so extraordinary—you should say to your readers—is that in fact no form of the tale or fable or parable or short story has ever really gone entirely out of style. Many short-shorts and most flash fictions can fairly be described as sketches or vignettes or anecdotes, for example, and the best ones pack a wallop. Say that you don’t see the point of using definitions to pull things apart, you want to open your arms wide and celebrate short fiction’s endurance and vitality, its universal appeal, its marvelous flexibility.

Just to set the record straight, take on this canard about slice-of-life stories with epiphany endings. First of all, you’ve read some pretty fantastic slice-of-life stories with epiphany endings and you’d frankly hate to never read another one, so make that clear. Here you can talk about Carver and Paley and Updike, whose slices of life are elegant and textured and sometimes deeply painful—Carver, or laugh-out-loud funny—Paley. Second, you should say that you have no idea what these people are reading, because you encounter stories all the time that don’t fall into this category. Maybe they don’t know that Michael Martone is out there, maybe Kelly Link and Judy Budnitz have completely escaped their notice. How they missed Aimee Bender and especially George Saunders, you can’t address, but mention them—you’re here to help.

Speaking of Saunders, mention the time you interrupted a dinner party, apropos of nothing, to announce that George Saunders is a fucking genius. While at one end of the table somebody was bragging about her kid’s latest verbal acquisitions and at the other end a religion professor at the local college was explaining what the Tamil Tigers hope to achieve in Sri Lanka, you were wondering why those long, overheard phone conversations in Saunders’ “Pastoralia” work. If you had tried that, your writing group would have marked giant X’s over those interminable paragraphs, and rightly so, because you would have bungled it. Anybody else would have bungled it, but in Saunders’ hands those paragraphs are rich and hilarious and kind of horrifying, in his hands they serve as one of the pillars of that majestic story. That’s what was on your mind when you looked up, fork and knife still working on that overdone pork chop, and tossed your non-sequitur f-bomb. Don’t think about how you felt after you interrupted all conversation, don’t think about how you stuttered and tried to explain why you made your announcement, fading into a faint apology for your off-color language. Remember how you felt just before you said it—how your crush on George Saunders filled your throat, how your passion for his story had to live in that room. Hold that feeling while you write your article.

Revel in the number of literary magazines looking for short stories, about 600 active print journals and counting, according to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. Confess that you are completely befuddled at why so many literary pundits think it’s a bad thing to have that many markets out there where new writers can place their work while they’re still learning, where they can become better, more engaged writers by working with these magazines’ editors and reading the work that appears alongside their own. Point out that with so many magazines publishing stories, every reader will inevitably find stories that speak to his or her experience, his or her sense of what is true, what is necessary. Concede that we may not find perfection in every story in every literary magazine, but who needs perfection? Can’t we glory sometimes in the gaps, do our own dance with potential? Go ahead and make the obvious point that a little validation can only help a serious, dedicated writer, and make that other obvious point that, well, the more the merrier, right?  Don’t we want as many people as possible doing the passionate work of writing stories and publishing literary magazines?

Congratulate Elizabeth Strout, who just won the Pulitzer for her wonderful linked collection, Olive Kitteridge. Point out that judging by the Pulitzer prize, the first decade of the new millennium has been a lovely time for short stories. Despite the enormous imbalance in publishing story collections versus novels, despite the awkward matter of the short story’s death, story collections have captured a quarter of the Pulitzer nominations this decade and twice took the prize. Such a pity the story had to die before it could enjoy its accolades.

Don’t forget that part of the success of your article will depend on your follow-up. If you want to share your passion for the short story, you’ll need to devote more time to your mission. You must visit the comments section on the page where your article appears online, respond to some of the replies. You can debate with your readers who is funnier, Lorrie Moore or George Saunders. You can argue about what is more seriously strange, old Robert Coover or new Kelly Link. In reply to your readers’ lists of their favorite stories, tell them about the first time you read Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” When you finished that last line, you blinked a few times, then flipped back to the beginning and read the story again. Then you sat still for several minutes… and flipped back to the beginning and read the story a third time. When you finished your third reading you ran into the living room with your book and made your husband mute the football game while you read the story aloud. Or, if someone has already talked about “The Things They Carried,” you can talk about the night you read “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates and then felt compelled to describe in a notebook your reaction to each paragraph of the story. You did the same with Gish Jen’s “Who’s Irish?”, you did the same with “A Hunger Artist.” Remember the afternoon you read Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain” aloud, over and over, while you wandered through your home. You read that last section until you had it memorized. These stories, these private rituals of celebration—they are the only reliable, utterly attainable magic you know. Share that with your readers.

Finally, to really spread your message, make yourself available for interviews with radio shows who give away their podcasts on iTunes, where a short story writer just beginning to submit her own work will find them, because she needs something inspiring to listen to while she works out at the gym. When her favorite Bare Naked Ladies song fades out, she’ll hear you declare your passion for the short story, and she’ll find herself completely distracted from whatever injury the stairstepper is doling out, she’ll hear your love for short fiction and that love will re-ignite her own. Mention that you have been pissed off, lately, at the spate of articles and blog posts about the death of the short story. Don’t spend too much time on what they say, nobody wants to hear it again. Just use the topic as a way to talk about an article published in The New York Times by A. O. Scott, who decided to take a shot at the novel for a change, and used the short story to do it. Talk about how you really don’t understand why people appear to need to argue about how one form is better than the other, but admit that Scott’s praise of the short story warmed your heart. It warms the heart of the woman on the stairstepper, too. Now rise above that petty topic, because time is running short. You need to say something to all those new short story writers out there. You need to use your small megaphone to tell the truth. So do it. Take a big breath and then speak clearly into the microphone. Say: “The world needs your passion. And we need your words.”