Short stories

19 January 2008 | 9 Comments

Kelley:

Recently I have been reading a short story book by Jeffrey Deaver called “Twisted Stories.” Reading the book, and comparing it to similar books I have read by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, leads me to one question I have about short stories.

I like to think I am good at reading character, in people in general. So my question is can a good writer, reverse that type of process, and give a reader a good solid character in a short story?

It’s especially obvious in Deaver’s book that characters take a back seat to get a good shock by the ending. Surely you can manage a short story while still giving your character some depth if movies can do it, it’s a very similar format in pacing and length. Thoughts?

I absolutely believe that three-dimensional, emotionally true characters are possible in short fiction. I would have to put a fork through my forehead if I didn’t (grin), since those are the kinds of stories I try to write.

I agree with you about Deaver and many, many other writers of short fiction, particularly in crime/thriller genres. I’ve read very few short stories in those genres that paid much attention to character. In those stories, the point is the twist at the end, the shock (the big reveal, they call it in screenwriting). Some science fiction is like that too, although much more SF these days tries to focus the “cool idea” through the lens of character. Some people are more successful than others.

And some writers just don’t do short stories very well.

And some writers believe short stories are not to be taken as seriously as longer ones, which makes me exceedingly grumpy. There’s a school of thought that says novels are “better” than short stories because they are longer, more complex, require more carefully blended layers. Et cetera. I think it is certainly true that novels are more work than short stories; they take longer to conceive and longer to write. What pisses me off is the assumption that doing more work automatically makes a work more worthy, and therefore short fiction is automatically lightweight not just in word count, but in intrinsic value. Stories certainly can be lightweight, sure — you’re reading some right now. But they can also be luscious and dense and have as much layering, pound for pound, as a novel; and to create compelling character in 5,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 words is neither an easy nor a less worthy thing to do.

Not sure I agree with you about Stephen King. I think he’s a master of character. There’s no one who does a particular American voice and manner like he does, and with such obvious love for his characters, even the real shitheels. I love his work. If you’re not finding enough character in the shorter stories to interest you, then I highly recommend any of his novella collections (writing as either Stephen King or Richard Bachman): Different Seasons (amazing stuff, including Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body), Four Past Midnight, and The Bachman Books, which are actually short novels but rip along so fast they feel like novellas.

I’d love to hear anyone’s recommendations for short fiction with great characters. Let’s talk.

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And if anyone wants to start a different conversation, just use this link (or the Talk to me here link on the sidebar). It may take me a little time, but I will respond — I love these conversations.

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Edited to add: Jocelyn just turned me on to the short review “where short story collections step into the spotlight.” A brief wander through the site already tells me that there are plenty of collections out there dealing with character-based fiction…. so let’s all go find something good to read.

Also check out their blog.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, reading, talk to me, writing 

Travis McGee and me

11 January 2008 | 3 Comments

I’m currently re-reading some of my favorite books — the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald.

Here’s a writer I wish I’d had a chance to know. Not “meet.” Meeting isn’t good enough. I’m greedy, I look for connection and relationship with artists whose work I admire, which is why I’ll wait in line for 12 hours to be in the front row of a U2 show, but I won’t hang out for 20 minutes at the stage door hoping that Bono will autograph the back of my hand so that I can squeak Ooh, I’ll never wash it again! (and please, girls, ick, the last tour was over 2 years ago…go wash those hands!). That’s not the kind of relationship I want, the fan yearning for connection and the artist wondering if there’s any roast beef left in the green room.

I love the artists that I love — writers, musicians, actors. They take me places no one else does, sometimes places I’ve longed to go but couldn’t find by myself. They have changed me, shaken me up, rocked my world, made me think, made me cry, made me dance, given me moments of the most piercing joy — but I don’t think they are better people than I am, and I don’t worship.

But I do like to talk (grin), and that’s the relationship I would love to have with my favorite artists — the long evening of food and drink and conversation, the time to roam around inside each other’s heads. To share stories. To connect over how amazing it is to be alive in a culture that has time for art, that makes a space for it.

I think I would have liked MacDonald. He writes smart and funny and deep. He makes small moments big. He tells a great story, And he likes to riff in his writing the way I do, to just go off…

I went out into the bright beautiful October day and walked slowly and thoughtfully back toward midtown. It was just past noon and the offices were beginning to flood the streets with a warm hurrying flow of girls. A burly man, in more of a hurry than I was, bumped into me and thrust me into a tall girl. They both whirled and snarled at me.
 
New York is where it is going to begin, I think. You can see it coming. The insect experts have learned how it works with locusts. Until locust population reaches a certain density, they all act like any grasshoppers. When the critical point is reached, they turn savage and swarm, and try to eat the world. We’re nearing a critical point. One day soon two strangers will bump into each other at high noon in the middle of New York. But this time they won’t snarl and go on. They will stop and stare and then leap at each other’s throats in a dreadful silence. The infection will spread outward from that point. Old ladies will crack skulls with their deadly handbags. Cars will plunge down the crowded sidewalks. Drivers will be torn out of their cars and stomped. It will spread to all the huge cities of the world, and by dawn of the next day there will be a horrid silence of sprawled bodies and tumbled vehicles, gutted buildings and a few wisps of smoke. And through that silence will prowl a few, a very few of the most powerful ones, ragged and bloody, slowly tracking each other down.
 
from Nightmare in Pink by John D. MacDonald, 1964

MacDonald does that kind of thing all the time — Travis takes a moment to ruminate on some aspect of life, the universe and everything, and then just goes on about his day. He’s a smart, complex man engaged with his world and yet very separate from it. A thoughtful man, a man of sex and violence, a man who sits still for sunsets and notices the small beauties of the world. A man who wanders through his own interior swamps and doesn’t always like what he finds, but owns it anyway.

The series was written from the early 60′s to the early 80′s, and the early books have the occasional dash of a particular, casual racism, sexism and homophobia that were characteristic of that time in this country. (The racism, sexism and homophobia now are different, it seems to me, in terms of expression at least). I don’t like it, but it doesn’t spoil the books for me. I no longer need purity in my favorite books; I’m not pure either, you know? These days I need emotional truth and growth and the feeling of recognition in both the joys and sorrows.

I wish I had a Travis in my real life. (Although I think it’s arguable that my imaginative life, the life inside my body and mind and heart that only I know, is just as real to me as the outside stuff…) But I wish there was a Travis in both, the way I wish for an Aud and a Crichton and a Morgon.

And there’s all those real live people whose work I so enjoy, that moves me so. People to know someday. I have hope.

Who do you wish for?

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, reading 

More best

27 December 2007 | Comments Off

Nicola and I talk about our favorites of 2007 over at Colleen Mondor’s Chasing Ray.

If you’re interested in adult and young adult books, you’ll find an ongoing fascinating conversation at Chasing Ray. Colleen’s interests seem limitless, and she offers readers a constant cornucopia of good stuff — books, interviews, musings on writing and reading. I enjoy Chasing Ray and am delighted to be in the favorites gang this year.

Here’s Nicola’s take on 2007.

And here’s mine.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, news, reading 

Giving it up in ’07

21 December 2007 | 9 Comments

It’s my turn to talk on the Aqueduct blog about my favorite books, movies, tv and music of 2007. It turned out to be less of a list and more of a rant, or maybe a riff…

If anyone has suggestions for the kind of text I’m looking for, let me know — I’d be grateful. Or we can talk about what you’re looking for in text right now. Use the comment form below, or start your own conversation (the link takes you to a form where you can submit a question or comment about… well, anything. As soon as I can, I’ll respond and post both your question and my response to the blog).

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, reading, writing 

What’s the writer reading?

29 September 2002 | 5 Comments

I know what I’m reading (smile). What are you reading at the moment?

Sam

Lately I’m reading across a spectrum of genre and concern, and that’s about to become even more wacky: I’m making a research list for my new novel, which will include the geology and biology of Midwestern or Northwestern lakes; the art of Norman Rockwell; left- and right-brain neural functionality; cognitive development in adolescence; and who knows what else?

But until those start rolling in from the library, I’ve been enjoying From A Buick 8 by Stephen King. He’s so audacious and damn stubborn in his determination to put pure-D horror and subtle emotional metaphor in the same room and make them get along. I admire him immensely for this. When it works, the result is wacky, thrilling, thoughtful and grown-up, all at the same time. Even the moments that (IMO) miss this high-water mark still resonate for me.

I just read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (me and about a million other people). It’s a good book, lovely writing and some amazing moments. I think it wobbles at the end and loses some focus, but that’s a matter of taste, and is also a relative criticism, sort of like saying that someone hung the Matisse a few inches off center.

I am also reading a bunch of non-fiction about American Sign Language and Deaf culture, because I’ve been studying ASL. I’m about to get more serious about it — in January I’ll enter a 4-year program to study ASL and interpreting. It’s a beautiful and eloquent language, and its linguistics fascinate me.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint, reading, talk to me 

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