What has killed the short story - my answer

...to be honest, many short stories published nowadays are over my head. I have lots of difficulty just understanding what is going on in them and what the stories are about. Maybe you just need to be intelligent to grasp them, as well as "in the loop." So I usually stick to old stories, from the 19th century, which are told in a straighforward way that I can comprehend. Guess I should've applied myself more in school and got more out of the education I received.

Are you familiar with Josh Henkin's Letter to an MFA?

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/glimmertrain/mfaletter.pdf

Another article that might be of interest, though not quite so directly relevant, is A Reader's Manifesto by B R Myers (An attack on the growing pretentiousness of American literary prose, 2001) :

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200107/myers

They're not specific to short stories, but interesting reads nonetheless.

Cheers,
Rob

Hmmm, I think Henkin is overthinking the problem and, personally, I don't think the short story is dead at all.

First off, Henkin is saying that a writer should sit down with a clear idea of what they're going to write and why they're going to write it. This casual dismissal of the muse is what leads, in my opinion, to many stories in the literary tradition being simple "slice of life" with no real life of their own pieces of drivel. In my case, and in the case of many other writers I've read about, I've often sat down at the computer or with a pen in my hand and just started writing with no clear concept of where I'm going except that I have an idea for a scene in my head and it needs to be put down on paper or on the screen. My muse, my subconscious, my whatever, takes over the hand and the words flow and gradually a scene is constructed, a story is crafted, or a novel gets written. Worrying about having a clear view of what and why you're going to write is a highway to not writing at all in my opinion - and maybe that's what Henkin is getting at. Many of the writers in the literary tradition shouldn't be writing at all. They're not very good at it. They need real lives and day jobs and life experience and they need to read, read, read - something that all too many of them obviously do not do.

In regards to the death of the short story, I beg to differ. Dozens or hundreds of magazines and ezines out there complain that they have to wade through mountains of slush, as much as hundreds of stories a month, to get to the good stuff. That means there are probably hundreds of thousands of short story writers out there submitting stories. Simple math proves that - the Big 5 in the scifi/fantasy genre (Analog, Asimov's, F&SF, Strange Horizons & Interzone) receive an approximate average of 300 stories per month. That's 18 thousand stories a year in submissions alone and that doesn't sound like the short story is dead at all. Add in Harpers, The New Yorker, Playboy, and a few hundred other markets and you're talking several hundred thousand stories submitted each and every year to several hundred markets.

The short story ain't dead, but the literary tradition would have us believe that only the literary tradition is worth reading. Expand your horizons a bit and pull your head out of the doldrums that that tradition is in (and nearly always has been in my opinion) and you might see that there's a world of opportunity out there for the short story writer.

Doc said:

What has killed the short story? In my opinion the MFA has done it conclusively in a little over ten years. I just finished reading this year's "Best Short Stories." What an ordeal! I had to force myself to read through almost every selection. I found not a single opening line, or even paragraph that inspired me to read on. Most of the stories were long narrative style - tell! tell! tell! Rushdie selected these stories and if you've ever given Rushdie's books a go you know how much he admires a convoluted writing style. Almost every one of the stories he chose was from an MFA graduate, according to the accompanying biographical blurb. I remember reading short stories in high school and college with great enjoyment -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway and such. They wrote to entertain as well as to inform and reveal. I believe each one of them, could they write again, would be rejected by young (meaning brain-washed) MFA editors. I weep for the loss of enjoyable and entertaing short stories. Will my tears bring them back? Not even if I wept a bucketful. Right? Sad. Doc

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Okay, I love literary. I'm not a fan of reading for mindless entertainment. But even I think many of today's "Best Short Stories" are just trying too hard. They're overly literary, and seemingly forgot being entertaining is still a plus.

I loved Fitzgerald. Was never a fan of Steinbeck or Hemingway, either.

I read genre short stories - literaries generally bore me spitless.

I didn't pick it up because I saw that Rushdie was selecting the stories this year. He doesn't really do it for me. But I liked last year's King selections.

You would think in this me me era with all the now now that shorts would be popular, but they do tend to drown themselves in wordiness and style. I used to love sf shorts like in Asimov's but the crisp, shocking short stories are few and far between today. I'd like to see serials make a comeback, again the internet and email is a fine medium for it. Although I don't think any of the 'email a chapter a day' publishing venues have survived, and the traffic on a serial blog isn't massive.

I think viewing the "Best Short Story" compilations as exemplars of the best short stories available would be like viewing the Grammy Award winners as exemplars of the best music available...your perception of what's available would be horribly skewed. Having come out of an MFA program, I know just how awful a lot of the fiction produced in those hothouses is. That said, there's a ton of interesting stuff out there.

FOTSGreg said:

The short story ain't dead, but the literary tradition would have us believe that only the literary tradition is worth reading.

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That's *exactly* what is going on IMHO.

And that's why many readers don't read a lot of short stories. They're stuck having to wade through what many consider "the best of the tradition," and hence, they end up being bored to tears.

Hand them an entertaining story, one that's gritty, real, and unpretentious, and they enjoy it!

The problem is getting those exciting stories to them. (People are lazy.)

heatheringemar said:

That's *exactly* what is going on IMHO.

And that's why many readers don't read a lot of short stories. They're stuck having to wade through what many consider "the best of the tradition," and hence, they end up being bored to tears.

Hand them an entertaining story, one that's gritty, real, and unpretentious, and they enjoy it!

The problem is getting those exciting stories to them. (People are lazy.)

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in the "best" this year "bible" and "vampires in the lemon grove" were both wonderful. others were very good. some stories were the stuff people are complaining about, but it seems like built into the edition is a goal to have a variety of styles?

I have a shelf of genre anthologies on my reading shelf that tells me that the short fiction market is still very well alive and well.

Accepted styles and voices change over time. Your flavor of short story may not match someone like Rushdie but there is a veritable smorgasbord at your choosing. As I read, I find editors whose taste I share and others that I will shy away from in the future.

To my mind, the short story isn't really dead, but it's definitely looked upon as a dull invalid relative of the novel. The kind that whines a lot about being ill! I agree that literary short stories really aren't helping; the genre tradition has always been far more popular, but it's also been far more marginalised. Sci Fi, Fantasy, Romance and Horror are traditional short story markets, but they're also regarded as schlocky 'pulp' markets. The same unfortunately applies to novels in those genres too.

Analysis of the 'death' of the short story is probably better left to those MFA academics, and to those on the publishing side of the market. better use of their time than flooding the market with their own stories! Oddly, I like Rushdie's short stories; it's his novels I can't stand. I think I'd struggle with a larger anthology of his type than East West, though.

The weirdest part for me is that it makes no sense for the short story to be dead right now. Everything else is being tailored to fit ad breaks, short commutes and lunch breaks; short stories are perfect! It's just a matter of encouraging people to realise this. Leaving anthologies around at work can help, and enthusing about whatever you've got to hand. Maybe less talking about the death of the short story, and more writing what's needed to resurrect it?

Since I read and write mostly in the speculative fiction spectrum (fantasy, horror, science fiction), I haven't noticed the death of the short story, either. There's a large number of short story markets in the specfic field, though not as many pro-paying markets. These days I tend to read short stories more often than novels because they take less time to finish reading.

These stories strike me as alsmot a paroday of literary. They have the trappings and the suits of literary but I struggle to see literary purpose in most of them.

FOTSGreg said:

Simple math proves that - the Big 5 in the scifi/fantasy genre (Analog, Asimov's, F&SF, Strange Horizons & Interzone) receive an approximate average of 300 stories per month. That's 18 thousand stories a year in submissions alone and that doesn't sound like the short story is dead at all.

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More complicated maths would need to take into account that many of those are the same stories .

RobJ said:

Are you familiar with Josh Henkin's Letter to an MFA?

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/glimmertrain/mfaletter.pdf

Another article that might be of interest, though not quite so directly relevant, is A Reader's Manifesto by B R Myers (An attack on the growing pretentiousness of American literary prose, 2001) :

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200107/myers

They're not specific to short stories, but interesting reads nonetheless.

Cheers,
Rob

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Thanks for posting. Those are both great. I agree with every word. And the second one reminded me how much I love Saul Bellow, and that I need to pick up a few of his books that I haven't yet read.

nkkingston said:

The weirdest part for me is that it makes no sense for the short story to be dead right now. Everything else is being tailored to fit ad breaks, short commutes and lunch breaks; short stories are perfect! It's just a matter of encouraging people to realise this. Leaving anthologies around at work can help, and enthusing about whatever you've got to hand. Maybe less talking about the death of the short story, and more writing what's needed to resurrect it?

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Bingo. I don't think you can encourage people to realize short stories are perfect until there are more of them written in an ENTERTAINING way. (When did "entertaining" become a patronizing insult, by the way?!).

ideagirl said:

(When did "entertaining" become a patronizing insult, by the way?!).

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When "literary" became synonymous with "boring." Seriously, most "literary" fiction bores me to tears.

maybe it's not the literary fiction that's boring.

IMHO, Fitzgerald was THE master of the short story. When I read about his reasons for writing it, I laugh. He was also the master of frivolity. I love literary fiction. I love and buy short fiction all the time. I just checked...I bought 6 books of short fiction in 2008. And 2 so far in 2009. Nothing is dead. Everybody loves to talk about things dying, but meh.

WendyNYC said:

I didn't pick it up because I saw that Rushdie was selecting the stories this year. He doesn't really do it for me. But I liked last year's King selections.

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Good point. I felt like throwing myself from a plane after reading a certain Rushdie. I wouldn't have bothered had I seen that he selected them either. I choose to find the stuff I like on my own...I hate it when compilations of this sort are made. It's like saying, "You are to like THIS." NO thanks.

In case no one has seen this yet, the editors of One Story (my favorite short fiction mag) started Save The Short Story:

http://www.savetheshortstory.org/

I read and love both pulp and literary short stories (I'm still trying to break into the literary market, though). I wish mass market publications published more fiction, the way they used to. It's disheartening to see short stories relegated mostly to short story magazines. I remember reading John Cheever's "The Worm in the Apple" in Readers' Digest many years ago. That's where I think stories should be -- in the stuff that the general public reads. That would go a long way toward reviving interest in short fiction, I'm sure.

Bubastes said:

In case no one has seen this yet, the editors of One Story (my favorite short fiction mag) started Save The Short Story:

http://www.savetheshortstory.org/

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excellent site. will list it tomorrow as "site of the day" at authorscoop.com and link to it.

thanks.

kuwisdelu said:

Okay, I love literary. I'm not a fan of reading for mindless entertainment. But even I think many of today's "Best Short Stories" are just trying too hard. They're overly literary, and seemingly forgot being entertaining is still a plus.

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I think the problem isn't that the "literary" types have "forgot". It's that they actively eschew "entertainment", which they regard as beneath their efforts and attention. I don't know how to solve the problem.

But I also think the demise of the serious and popular literary publication galaxy has contributed mightily to the problem.

I don't know how to solve that, either.

caw