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.
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Looking down the River Deben towards Felixstowe Ferry It’s grey outside with the hiss of rain. Peter Duck rocks slightly. Why should she care if there are drips on my head, on the cabin table and, occasionally, the laptop? She’s had what she demanded, which was movement; release from the captivity of her mooring. She craved a voyage, however small. She insisted. A boat always on a mooring is like a songbird in a cage. At 0500 the surface of the water was a mirror for the sky above. Not a ruffle of wind. A slow throb of engine gave us steerage way as we moved down river in the early morning light. The ebb tide carried us through Methersgate, Waldringfield, Ramsholt, then continued without us to Felixstowe Ferry and the sea. We picked up the last of the Ramsholt moorings for peace, breakfast and time to think. The quiet was astounding. Apart from the river birds. Nothing silences them. A tern settled on top of the main mast, spreading its sickle wings and forked-fan tail, opening it
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No. no, Austin Powers! I don't mean shake your booty, I mean move your butt--as in relocate from coast to coast, state to state, possibly country to country. Lord knows, I've done them all for a grand total of some 30 moves. So you can imagine my consternation, as an expert on the subject, when I found myself hamstrung and befuddled in the middle of a move: from Seattle to Tucson, Arizona. With just three months to go before D-Day in August, and with a strong foundation already in place, my head had started spinning from thoughts of the puzzles I couldn't complete: --How, on a limited budget, could I afford a professional mover and a junk remover? --How could I adapt to the changes since 2014, when I moved to Seattle with only a steamer trunk and four boxes? Amtrak will no longer handle a trunk--or allow checked luggage for relocation. Plus, in the past eight years, I've acquired a slew of possessions I value--not the least of them being new books. --What wil
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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.