I think a lot about the craft of writing. The poem, the essay, the
short story and the novel each have their own internal rules, all of
which are to be broken if a writer wants to achieve something new.
Lately, my obsession has become short form. The short story has all the
same requisites as a novel: voice, characters, arc. But because it’s
short form, everything must be compressed.
You don’t have hundreds of pages at your disposal, maybe only a dozen
at most. So you haven’t got the time to paint a sweeping landscape or
people a multi-generational cast of characters. You may not even have
enough space to get through a single day. Short story writing is about
choices.
Not that I know much about the matter. Only three of my short stories have been published
and I have enough rejection letters to paper a small whale. But I try
anyway. I read and listen. And as soon I think I’ve figured it out, I
hear the admonishing words of John Gardner in The Art of Fiction (p.3):
When [a writer] begins to be persuaded that certain
things must never be done in fiction and certain other things must
always be done, one has entered the first stage of aesthetic arthritis,
the disease that ends up in pedantic rigidity and the atrophy of
intuition.
Yikes. What then is a writer to do? Luckily Gardner gives all of us writers an out.
Every true work of art – and thus every attempt at art
(since things meant to be similar must submit to one standard) – must be
judged primarily, though not exclusively, by its own laws.
So what sorts of laws are there?
beginning, middle and ending
A great deal of the art of the short story is to do with exits and entrances – when you jump in; when and how do you dismount.
That’s a great description by Sam Leith
on the craft of short story writing and all its predicaments. Where
should the story start? When is it over? Which arc bridges the beginning
and its end?
Lydia Davis writes stories so short that some are no longer than a
few lines. So that’s two, maybe three pen strokes to create a whole
world, characters and action. Like this one from the collection Can’t and Won’t (p. 235):
My Childhood Friend
Who is this old man walking along looking a little grim with a wool cap on his head?
But when I call out to him and he turns around, he doesn’t know me at
first, either – this old woman smiling foolishly at him in her winter
coat.
Other stories from Can’t and Won’t don’t sound like stories
at all to me. They could be better described as vignettes, prose poems
or sometimes just a gag. But given that Davis is one of the icons of our time, it’s hard to quibble with how she chooses to break the rules. As my writer friend Megin put it:
She’s one of those who give me permission to do what I
want/need. I was so surprised when I first read her, what could
constitute a story. If she’s allowed to do it, why can’t I?
Maybe it’s just me, but I like more tension in my fiction. Oddly
enough, I don’t care whether that tension is resolved. In fact, I have a
particular weakness for short stories with an ambiguous ending.
When does it end?
Let’s take “The Night in Question” by Tobias Wolff. I heard it on The New Yorker fiction podcast as read out loud by Akhil Sharma.
It’s a classic story inside a story. Frances has spent most of her
childhood protecting Frank from their abusive father. Now an adult,
Frank has found God. He tells his sister about a sermon he heard.
A father gets an unexpected call to work the night shift and, because
he’s alone that night, he takes his young son along. His job is to
raise the movable bridge for water traffic and lower it to allow cars
and trains to pass. There’s a train on the way when the father realizes
his son is missing. He knows that the boy has gone into the machine room
to play among the crunching, grinding, unforgiving cogs and gears.
Should the father lower the bridge, thus saving the lives of all those
on board the speeding train, or does he leave the bridge open to save
the life of his son?
We never find out. Frances refuses to hear the end of Frank’s story.
All she wants to know is, if it were me, you would save me, wouldn’t you
Frank?
Wolff doesn’t tell us the answer to that question either. And that’s
what’s so wonderful about his ending. There is a finite number of ways
this story could go. You could plot it out yourself with a dotted line
like the one the roadrunner draws just before Wile E. Coyote
gets clobbered.
Drive It Off the Cliff
Another great example of an open ending is “Herman and Margaret” by Vi Khi Nao, first published in Glimmer Train,
issue no. 90. Herman is a war veteran, now missing a leg, his wife and
any more reason to live. He’s en route to Hoover Dam in his wheelchair
where he intends to throw himself off the edge. Margaret has the same
plan though she’s traveling by RV, all 489 pounds of her.
Herman and Margaret arrive at their chosen departure point.
Improbably, they meet. Tenderly, they fall in love. Life has suddenly
become worth living. Tomorrow will be another day. But before dawn can
come, Margaret must pee.
In the dark, she cannot see, but she steps just far
enough from Herman, lifts her dress, and pees. And, then, without
realizing it, she walks right off the edge and into the abyss.
light at the end of the tunnel
John Gardner says (p. 194):
The novel’s denouement … is not simply the end of the story but the story’s fulfillment.
When I attended the Paris Writers Workshop in 2014, Lan Samantha Chang was the leader of the fiction workshop. She described the function
of an ending in a way that has stuck with me ever since, a grain of
sand inside the oyster of my mind. She said that an ending should send
light all the way back to the beginning.
Note: The Sense of an Ending was first published by Karen Kao on her blog Shanghai Noir.
You've managed to engross us with your musings on the art and craft of writing once again, Karen. Your post takes us on a tour of Grand Hotel Literati with the concierge letting us peek into many rooms and glimpse guests emeshed in all kinds of writerly hanky panky - allowed and disallowed by house rules. In the end, I feel not so much enlightened, but inspired anew. I love to read tales and admonishments from writers more esteemed than myself, ever eager to learn something, or have my memory refreshed. Then I think about what W. Sommerset Maugham said, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” All the more reason to carry on! The End.
Plaid Cymru leader Liz Saville Roberts struggled to hold back her tears at Prime Ministers Questions 5.1.2022 when she spoke of her fear that her mother's dementia diagnosis would also mean separation from her family when she was moved into a care home. Now Liz is one of four MPs ready to introduce legislation to ensure we all have the right to maintain contact with a family carer wherever we are in the health and care system Today, Monday May 8 th is National Help-Out day -- which may well mean that by tomorrow, when this blogpost is published (March 9th 2023), everyone’s impulses to benevolence will be as exhausted as the final damp squib from a village playing-field party. So maybe I’ll pitch this request as enlightened self-interest... If you have a stroke today, or a traumatic brain injury, if you develop a cognitive disability (such as a dementia) or any one of the array of incurable illnesses which will make you progressively less and less able to fend for yourself
The experts like to tell us to shovel research by the ton...then add a teaspoon to our work. Authenticity and seasoning. And there's something to be said for that. Failure to keep the old adage in mind results in bloated epics with chapters devoted to ancient Roman plumbing, the story itself getting lost on the way. Purists might even add that the teaspoon of research that is used be stamped 100% Organic. That is, the author must not pre-decide to add a particular bit. Well, three cheers for the Purists. Even with my love of ancient Rome, I'm less likely to finish a history by Colleen McCullough than a Sub Rosa mystery by Steven Saylor. I feel crushed in the former but alive, in the second, on the streets of Rome. And yet I'm here to tell you: I find it impossible, sometimes, to write or eat 100% Organically. My new Boss MacTavin mystery, Seattle Red, led me into the world of alternative weapons. For, in one of the most dangerous cities on earth, Boss is forb
Veni, vidi...Wiki! Not long ago I had the all-time greatest Great Idea: one, born of total ignorance, that nearly tanked a novel. As you may have guessed from my opening line, my subject is Julius Caesar. But you might not have guessed from the title that my Great Idea entailed his being reborn as a penis. Don't laugh, please, I beg you. I saw no way around this, even though showing JC as a 'dick' might lead some to think that I've written a spoof. In fact, it's a serious thriller. Without giving the plot away, I can say this: I needed JC's ghost, today, remembering his nights with Cleopatra on her fabled golden barge. There was the heart of my book--a ghost trying for 2000 years to relive that lost boogie with Liz. And I'd begun to run with this when my memory corrected me: Mark Anthony, not JC, was on the barge with Cleo. And this was after JC's death. What the hell was I to do, lacking the good sense to check memory's 'facts
When the invitation came through Facebook Messenger as a friend request, I saw a young man, no friends in common. Populated as facebook is by shirtless wonders peddling sleazy messages, I was about to hit Decline , but decided to check the message first. It was from the Festival Director of the Chicago South Asian Film Festival, inviting me to moderate a session after the screening of the latest film by one of the most acclaimed stars of the Bengali screen, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, on September 22, 2018. I am glad I got to view Shonar Pahar, The Golden Mountain . I also had to think about Bengali cinema -- and Bengali poetry -- in a way I haven’t consciously processed in many years. Bengali cinema is recognized worldwide for the towering genius of Satyajit Ray, and Shonar Pahar also pays tribute to a childlike wonder about the world. Parambrata Chattopadhyay beautifully weaves a story about the power of the imagination to create an alternative joyful universe even
Get this: over the course of a couple of days two handfuls of distinctive words soared above my news feed like wildings of fireflies. The first one took me by surprise. It had nothing to do with writing. And it was almost buried in comments on an ad for a pricey cardio test. But, at a glance, the author's personality stood out...she took a stance against the medical establishment...and ended with a war cry: I don't need this. I eat fruit and vegetables. So stuff your test. I came across these words in the lobby of a Tucson cardio medical mill, where scores of us were processed, billed in advance, and then herded to assorted rooms for exam--then scheduled for further batteries of tests when some of us at least were feeling reasonably well. While I thought about this, I reflected on how these 13 words had led me to seek out the author's FB page, where I filed a Friend request quickly. The next day I chanced on a quote from a poet mourning 'a San Francisco that sadly is
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You've managed to engross us with your musings on the art and craft of writing once again, Karen. Your post takes us on a tour of Grand Hotel Literati with the concierge letting us peek into many rooms and glimpse guests emeshed in all kinds of writerly hanky panky - allowed and disallowed by house rules.
In the end, I feel not so much enlightened, but inspired anew. I love to read tales and admonishments from writers more esteemed than myself, ever eager to learn something, or have my memory refreshed. Then I think about what W. Sommerset Maugham said,
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
All the more reason to carry on!
The End.