Sunday Book Discussion: Short Stories (and a review of the 2014 Hugo Nominees for Short Stories)
So it's still a SBC, right?
I have finished reading the four nominees for Best Short Story for the 2014 Hugos, and I must say I find myself somewhat lacking in whelm.
If you were a sci-fi fan back in the Olden Days before the Internet began killing print magazines, you read a lot of your science fiction in magazine form. Asimov's, Analog, and before that, the pulps that predate me. I will talk mostly about SF&F here, but I think it applies to horror, mystery, and other genres as well.
It used to be the case that most professional authors "broke into" publishing by getting published in a short story magazine. If you wanted to become a SF novelist, first you had to get some stories published; then you'd have enough name recognition, and proof of your craft, to attract a publisher. Hence you'll find that most older SF&F authors have a lot of short stories to their name even if they are better known for their novels.
Of course it also used to be the case that authors could actually live on short story sales. It was never lucrative, but pulp writers actually made a living at it if they were prolific enough. H.P. Lovecraft was mostly known for short stories - At the Mountains of Madness was, I think, his longest work, and it's really more of a novella.
Today, short stories in speculative fiction are mostly for prestige, and most industry pros will tell you that publishing short stories, even if you've won awards, does very little to help you get a book contract.
I think it's not coincidental that this is about the time when a lot of writing advice began focusing on short stories and novels as two very different forms. The usual advice nowadays is that you should stick to what you are good at/most interested in, and not confuse skill at writing a novel with skill at writing a short story.
I kind of agree and kind of don't. Obviously there are some skills common to any fiction writing: you have to be able to tell a story, you have to be able to use words pleasingly, you need to be able to get across characterization and setting and plot. It's much more compressed in a short story; there isn't much space for exposition or subplots or extraneous characters, and your writing, it is said, must be much tighter. But is it really the case that some writers are notably better at one than the other? I notice that even pro writers today who mostly write novels will dabble in short stories or write something for an anthology, while every writer who's mostly known for short stories seems to have a novel in them (or is trying to get one published).
I know that I often liked Isaac Asimov's short stories; they usually had a surprise "punch" at the end, a tradition of twists that has continued in SF to this day. (Of course O. Henry was doing the same thing decades earlier.) Whereas Asimov's novels don't do much for me; I think he can't carry characterization very well across the length of even a short novel.
Robert Heinlein, on the other hand, wrote books that I loved for his great storytelling, but I can't say that I've found any of his short stories particularly memorable.
Stephen King, hugely prolific, seems to be able to write doorstopper novels as easily as he writes short stories (and he's had as many movies based on his short stories as on his novels). And all his gifts and flaws are evident in both. He's creeped me out with his short stories and novelettes as effectively as some of his better novels; and some of his short stories have just been WTFs, like his worse novels.
Some other authors by whom I've read both short stories and novels: Larry Niven, Carrie Vaughn, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Catherynne Valente, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, Fred Saberhagen, Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, Haruki Murakami, and Tony Hillerman.
I have so far read some of Leo Tolstoy's short stories, but not yet tackled his novels, and ditto for Joyce Carol Oates, while I've read Virginia Woolf's only novel but none of her short stories.
And I could not mention short story authors without a mention of Jorge Luis Borges, who I don't think ever wrote a novel.
Nowadays, I rarely read short stories, not being a subscriber of any magazines. But I do appreciate the craft of well-executed short stories.
Which brings me to the 2014 Hugo Nominees. Which caused me to blink a little at a bunch of names who appear to be known only for their short stories. Some of our most memorable genre classics are short stories. ("Nightfall," "The Lottery," "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," etc. "Nightfall" is actually an interesting case in that, like "Ender's Game," it began as a short story and then got padded out to a novel.) But short story writing in SF today seems to be more of a hobbyist pursuit, with lots of Twittering as a prerequisite to get your name out there in the right circles. The stories were well written, but there was certainly no "Lottery" or "Nightfall" here, nor anything with the brilliance of Borges or even the unsettling imagery of King or Lovecraft. Are my expectations too high? Well, I was also annoyed because the "science fiction/fantasy" element in all of them was thin.
My reviews of the 2014 Hugo Nominees.
Discuss!
Who are your favorite short story authors?
Do you read short stories in some genres and not others?
What do you like in a short story? Emotional impact? Clever twist at the end? Tight, clever wordsmithing?
Who are some authors who you think write better novels than short stories, or vice versa? Who does both well?
How different do you really think writing short stories is from writing novels?
Have you read the Hugo nominees? What did you think?
I have finished reading the four nominees for Best Short Story for the 2014 Hugos, and I must say I find myself somewhat lacking in whelm.
If you were a sci-fi fan back in the Olden Days before the Internet began killing print magazines, you read a lot of your science fiction in magazine form. Asimov's, Analog, and before that, the pulps that predate me. I will talk mostly about SF&F here, but I think it applies to horror, mystery, and other genres as well.
It used to be the case that most professional authors "broke into" publishing by getting published in a short story magazine. If you wanted to become a SF novelist, first you had to get some stories published; then you'd have enough name recognition, and proof of your craft, to attract a publisher. Hence you'll find that most older SF&F authors have a lot of short stories to their name even if they are better known for their novels.
Of course it also used to be the case that authors could actually live on short story sales. It was never lucrative, but pulp writers actually made a living at it if they were prolific enough. H.P. Lovecraft was mostly known for short stories - At the Mountains of Madness was, I think, his longest work, and it's really more of a novella.
Today, short stories in speculative fiction are mostly for prestige, and most industry pros will tell you that publishing short stories, even if you've won awards, does very little to help you get a book contract.
I think it's not coincidental that this is about the time when a lot of writing advice began focusing on short stories and novels as two very different forms. The usual advice nowadays is that you should stick to what you are good at/most interested in, and not confuse skill at writing a novel with skill at writing a short story.
I kind of agree and kind of don't. Obviously there are some skills common to any fiction writing: you have to be able to tell a story, you have to be able to use words pleasingly, you need to be able to get across characterization and setting and plot. It's much more compressed in a short story; there isn't much space for exposition or subplots or extraneous characters, and your writing, it is said, must be much tighter. But is it really the case that some writers are notably better at one than the other? I notice that even pro writers today who mostly write novels will dabble in short stories or write something for an anthology, while every writer who's mostly known for short stories seems to have a novel in them (or is trying to get one published).
I know that I often liked Isaac Asimov's short stories; they usually had a surprise "punch" at the end, a tradition of twists that has continued in SF to this day. (Of course O. Henry was doing the same thing decades earlier.) Whereas Asimov's novels don't do much for me; I think he can't carry characterization very well across the length of even a short novel.
Robert Heinlein, on the other hand, wrote books that I loved for his great storytelling, but I can't say that I've found any of his short stories particularly memorable.
Stephen King, hugely prolific, seems to be able to write doorstopper novels as easily as he writes short stories (and he's had as many movies based on his short stories as on his novels). And all his gifts and flaws are evident in both. He's creeped me out with his short stories and novelettes as effectively as some of his better novels; and some of his short stories have just been WTFs, like his worse novels.
Some other authors by whom I've read both short stories and novels: Larry Niven, Carrie Vaughn, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Catherynne Valente, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, Fred Saberhagen, Brandon Sanderson, Neil Gaiman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, Haruki Murakami, and Tony Hillerman.
I have so far read some of Leo Tolstoy's short stories, but not yet tackled his novels, and ditto for Joyce Carol Oates, while I've read Virginia Woolf's only novel but none of her short stories.
And I could not mention short story authors without a mention of Jorge Luis Borges, who I don't think ever wrote a novel.
Nowadays, I rarely read short stories, not being a subscriber of any magazines. But I do appreciate the craft of well-executed short stories.
Which brings me to the 2014 Hugo Nominees. Which caused me to blink a little at a bunch of names who appear to be known only for their short stories. Some of our most memorable genre classics are short stories. ("Nightfall," "The Lottery," "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," etc. "Nightfall" is actually an interesting case in that, like "Ender's Game," it began as a short story and then got padded out to a novel.) But short story writing in SF today seems to be more of a hobbyist pursuit, with lots of Twittering as a prerequisite to get your name out there in the right circles. The stories were well written, but there was certainly no "Lottery" or "Nightfall" here, nor anything with the brilliance of Borges or even the unsettling imagery of King or Lovecraft. Are my expectations too high? Well, I was also annoyed because the "science fiction/fantasy" element in all of them was thin.
My reviews of the 2014 Hugo Nominees.
Discuss!
Who are your favorite short story authors?
Do you read short stories in some genres and not others?
What do you like in a short story? Emotional impact? Clever twist at the end? Tight, clever wordsmithing?
Who are some authors who you think write better novels than short stories, or vice versa? Who does both well?
How different do you really think writing short stories is from writing novels?
Have you read the Hugo nominees? What did you think?