Let’s start by considering ….
1.What is a story?
2. What is a good story?
3. What is a short story?
Actually, none of these apparently simple questions has a straightforward answer – and literary academics have been ruminating on them for decades.
Let’s try and answer number one. My class came up with …a narrative which has a beginning, middle and end (though not necessarily in that order)? Anyway, we realised the answer was very closely bound to question number two: what is a good story? Deciding whether or not a piece of writing or speaking is a story seems already to be a value judgment.
Think about something that has happened to you this week that might be a story – and jot down some notes/ ideas about this. Maybe the immediate and dramatic effects the closure of airports and air space due to volcanic dust from Iceland has had on your own personal lives and plans – or the everyday reality of doing the gardening. ‘This week I began growing vegetables for the first time…” Is one story more worthy than the other? And what’s the difference between a story and an anecdote?
Consider what is really intriguing for you in the story you’ve chosen. In my class this week, for example, the story of the volcanic explosion highlighted different points of interest for each of us – how we take for granted our freedom to move around, or our lack of respect for the impact on nature of our actions, or a salutary reminder that nature is a stronger force than we are, or the wonder of situations where strangers are suddenly thrown into intimacy together (in airports, hotels and taxis). Indeed, the volcano wasn’t really be the protagonist of this story – but a minor character.
Think about gardening (for example) – or whatever other everyday activity you’ve chosen to focus on as your ‘story’ – and consider that the seemingly dull details of everyday life can be the most compelling. Many classic short story writers (often men, interestingly) like Chekhov, Hemingway, Richard Yates – and women too of course like Katherine Mansfield – focus on the seeming trivia of domestic scenes: using the rhythm and routine of daily chores to enlarge our understanding of love, loneliness, and character (and so reflect back on our own lives and decisions and situations).
Next brainstorm the characteristics of a good story (what you personally would require from a story to consider it a good one). My class this week came up with a great list:
- detailed character descriptions
- descriptions of the surroundings
- interesting conversations
- page-turning quality
- thought-provoking content, keeping a touch of freshness but so that we feel we have lightly learnt something
- humour
- simplicity
- the writer shows empathy
- general lightness
- the inner dialogue of the characters – so that we the reader get to know secretsthat other characters are unaware of.
You can continue to expand on this list – and use it also when you’re reading stories to see if the ones you enjoy actually have these qualities. I found it interesting that no one in my class mentioned action or plot. I guess it seemed far too obvious. But in truth, I think we realised in our discussion about volcanoes, etc, that the story itself is often only the skeleton; the flesh is definitely in the telling..
So what do we mean by short?
Hemingway notoriously boasted he could write a complete short story in six words and came up with: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ (This story has recently had a revival and may even have sparked the current trend in flash fiction.) Interesting that while for some of us Hemingway’s six word story could only be a tragedy (the baby died), for others it was wryly truthful (babies don’t wear shoes! or they get so many!) But we agreed that it is effective because it is suggestive - and somehow immediately conjures up a setting (I saw a big white wooden house along a road in a state like Vermont – with the shoes in a yard sale in the front garden), and characters (the grieving mother, perhaps, sitting on a rocker inside the door, peering out occasionally to see who is rummaging through her things) and a page-turning quality (will they ever get over it? how do they continue their lives?).
We looked at some other six word stories written by published authors in response to a request from The Guardian newspaper (you can read them all here) and discussed which ones we liked. It’s interesting that already in such a short space you can almost define the genre of the story that’s being told, eg.
See that shadow? (It’s not yours.) Jim Crace. Could be a comic thriller(!) or a thrilling comedy
“The Earth? We ate it yesterday.” Yann Martel. (science fiction, comedy);
Thought love must fade: but no. George Saunders. (literary fiction)
But are these really stories? What constitutes a story? Are there minimum requirements? And do these phrases meet them? Personally, I don’t think so. But certainly there is often just enough information in those six words to stimulate the reader to use their imagination and join up the dots – and that does indeed seem to be an essential element of a good short story.
If writing your own six word story feels daunting, here’s a way to get started. First try and re-write the following 7 word question in 6 words:
Did he jump or was he pushed?
Here are some possible re-writes:
He fell. He died. An accident?
He jumped. But she pushed him.
His wings broke. She pushed him.
Please do add your own 6 word stories in the comments box – it’s fun to read them!
From here it’s a short hop to fifty word stories. Spread the Word (a London-based organisation running creative writing courses and events) held a competition for the best 50 word stories (or micro stories) and here are the winners’ entries. But there are loads of sites on the web that sponsor micro stories or flash fiction of different lengths. Do a search and check them out.
But in the meantime here are some exercises for you (and you can post your efforts/ thoughts below in the comment box if you like):
- convert any of the 6 word stories from The Guardian’s competition into 50 word stories (you don’t have to be too precise – just use them for inspiration – it’s hard enough to do!). Do this as many times as you want.
- convert any of the 50 word stories from the Spread the Word competition into 6 word stories. As many times as you want. This is a very different exercise from the one above. And probably harder.
- Read The Cat In the Rain by Ernest Hemingway. Is this a story? Is this a good story? Why?
