Another attack on novels?

LuckyH · Dec 2, 2009

First we had Zadie Smith’s much derided assertion that essays would take over from novels which led to a lively discussion on her use of language too. I’ve just read that a collection of short stories has won a fiction prize over novels, and from famous authors at that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/02/guardian-first-book-award-gappah

Strangely, the short excerpt from one of the stories also contains writing that doesn’t fit with the accepted concept on how it should be done often expressed on this forum and elsewhere.

Those two examples don’t exactly herald a revolution in novel writing, but I think they should be considered by novel writers trying to judge how to keep up with modern trends.

That the winning author is a highly educated lady seems strangely at odds with that short example of her writing. But I was impressed with those few paragraphs and wanted to read on.

I must say it’s contrary to all those writing ‘rules’ and perceptions that I’ve clung to over the years.

willietheshakes · Dec 2, 2009

LuckyH said:
First we had Zadie Smith’s much derided assertion that essays would take over from novels which led to a lively discussion on her use of language too. I’ve just read that a collection of short stories has won a fiction prize over novels, and from famous authors at that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/02/guardian-first-book-award-gappah

Strangely, the short excerpt from one of the stories also contains writing that doesn’t fit with the accepted concept on how it should be done often expressed on this forum and elsewhere.

Those two examples don’t exactly herald a revolution in novel writing, but I think they should be considered by novel writers trying to judge how to keep up with modern trends.

That the winning author is a highly educated lady seems strangely at odds with that short example of her writing. But I was impressed with those few paragraphs and wanted to read on.

I must say it’s contrary to all those writing ‘rules’ and perceptions that I’ve clung to over the years.

First off, I disagree with the notion that short stories are a threat to the primacy of the novel, simply because one won a prize. First off, I don't think I agree with the perspective of a "primacy" in the first place. Secondly, collections of short fiction win prizes over novels all the time -- have done for as long as the forms have existed.

I'm curious, though, as to which "rules" and norms you think this writing flouts.

blacbird · Dec 2, 2009

willietheshakes said:
First off, I disagree with the notion that short stories are a threat to the primacy of the novel, simply because one won a prize. First off, I don't think I agree with the perspective of a "primacy" in the first place. Secondly, collections of short fiction win prizes over novels all the time -- have done for as long as the forms have existed.

I'm curious, though, as to which "rules" and norms you think this writing flouts.

You got two "first offs" in there, so the "secondly" should be "thirdly". Otherwise, I concur.

caw

gothicangel · Dec 3, 2009

So being highly educated means you can't write good fiction? That's me f***ed then.

It didn't seem to flout any rules to me. I was quite taken with the strong voice, and that is what would carry me on. I did see one red flag in the word 'artifice' which screamed English Lit graduate; but I'm sure it will give the stuffy academics something to scrutinize.

LuckyH · Dec 3, 2009

willietheshakes said:
First off, I disagree with the notion that short stories are a threat to the primacy of the novel, simply because one won a prize. First off, I don't think I agree with the perspective of a "primacy" in the first place. Secondly, collections of short fiction win prizes over novels all the time -- have done for as long as the forms have existed.

I'm curious, though, as to which "rules" and norms you think this writing flouts.

My copying and pasting skills are hopeless, but I’m replying to the last sentence.

I’m neither an editor, nor a critic, and should have stipulated that it was purely my own opinion that the ‘norm’ was flouted in the short example. I re-iterate that the writing impressed me and that I wanted to read on.

I know that it would not have impressed my last editor, she would have been scrabbling for her red pen, clutching her heart at the same time.

But one of the qualified and knowledgeable editors contributing to this forum may read that short excerpt and pass on an expert opinion to answer your query much better than I can.

gothicangel · Dec 3, 2009

Depends what audience you are writing for. A editor of mainstream fiction would have multiple coranaries, yes. However, if for an editor of literary fiction this is completely acceptable.

Maxinquaye · Dec 3, 2009

I don't know if I would call it an "attack on novels". I'm kind of pleased that short stories got the prize for once. I like 'em, after all. And short stories do live a sort of strained life at the moment, away from the public eye. Now if a book of novellas could win the next prize...

ChaosTitan · Dec 3, 2009

Good on her for winning the prize. I'm not seeing where there's a problem, though.

Phaeal · Dec 3, 2009

Meh, I see no problem with the writing in the excerpt. Pretty standard literary fic style, down to the use of present tense and the studied but effective hyperdescription of the second paragraph.

Two short story collection wins in the history of the award does not a trend make. Nor would it much matter if it did. From my observations, the short story collection is a more common format in literary fiction than in commercial fiction, anyway.

And that writing short stories (or giving them awards) should be an "attack" on novels? I don't get that at all. The two forms have coexisted for centuries, and it's just too bad that the magazine markets for shorts have dwindled away to a tiny handful of well-paying publications with wide distribution, so that short story writing is too often considered just an apprenticeship for novel writing, a source of credits for the query letter. Gappah herself notes incessant advice to put aside shorts for novels, as publishers "hate" the former.

Libbie · Dec 3, 2009

LuckyH said:
First we had Zadie Smith’s much derided assertion that essays would take over from novels which led to a lively discussion on her use of language too. I’ve just read that a collection of short stories has won a fiction prize over novels, and from famous authors at that.

It was a fiction prize, not a novel prize. Short fiction is fiction.

Strangely, the short excerpt from one of the stories also contains writing that doesn’t fit with the accepted concept on how it should be done often expressed on this forum and elsewhere.

Good! I like it when rule-breakers are awarded for their ingenuity.

Those two examples don’t exactly herald a revolution in novel writing, but I think they should be considered by novel writers trying to judge how to keep up with modern trends.

It's always good to keep this stuff in your head, I think, but I believe pretty strongly that if you're not writing what you truly want to write without regard for whether it's on trend, then you're going to write less than your best anyway.

That the winning author is a highly educated lady seems strangely at odds with that short example of her writing. But I was impressed with those few paragraphs and wanted to read on.

Then her writing did its job.

I'm a barely-educated lady; I never should have graduated from high school, technically, but pulled it off by writing a short story that impressed my freshman English teacher enough to go back and change my failed grades from four years earlier (true story!) I never went to college -- not for long, anyway, and certainly didn't do well there. Many people have told me they think I must have a lot more education than I do after reading my writing for the first time.

Don't judge an author's edjumacation by the narrative voice they choose.

You never know who's pullin' your leg.

I must say it’s contrary to all those writing ‘rules’ and perceptions that I’ve clung to over the years.

Good! I'm glad it won the prize.

Makes us all think a little harder about our own fiction, eh?

Rushie · Dec 3, 2009

gothicangel said:
Depends what audience you are writing for. A editor of mainstream fiction would have multiple coranaries, yes. However, if for an editor of literary fiction this is completely acceptable.

ROTFLMAO! It sounds exactly like something my father would have written... "celebration of sanctioned fornication", ha ha ha, if he could come up with a string of big words to put a wry spin on some common thing (wedding reception) he would do it every time. No I guess you can't write like this for the masses, but it sure is refreshing for one who grew up with a walking dictionary for a parent. I loved this excerpt.

willietheshakes · Dec 3, 2009

Rushie said:
I guess you can't write like this for the masses

Maybe it's different where you are. Maybe it's a Canadian thing. Maybe I just give people more credit.

Your remark does a grave disservice to "the masses" -- people aren't stupid, and shouldn't be pandered to.

CaroGirl · Dec 3, 2009

The excerpt was lovely. I saw nothing in particular in those very few words, however, that would either give an editor a coronary nor win a major literary prize. Just evocative writing. It's a small piece of a whole, but would entice me to read on, for what it's worth. That's all I can say.

Good on her for winning the prize. It sounds as though she was thrilled, and certainly earned her stripes after writing several previous, unpublished novels.

Lady Ice · Dec 3, 2009

I thought the short story was okay; not stunning.

LuckyH · Dec 3, 2009

“or Easterly

The wedding guests look upon the cracked, pink lips of Rosie's bridegroom. They look at Rosie's own lips that owe their reddish pinkness to artifice, they think, and not disease. Can Rosie see what they see, they wonder, that her newly made husband's sickness screams out its presence from every pore?
Disease flourishes in the slipperiness of his tufted hair, it is alive in the darkening skin, in the whites of the eyes whiter than nature intended, in the violently pink-red lips, the blood beneath fighting to erupt through the broken skin.
He smiles often, Rosie's bridegroom. He smiles when a drunken aunt entertains the guests with a dance that, oustide this celebration of sanctioned fornication, could be called obscene. He smiles when an uncle based in Manchester, England, calls on the mobile telephone of his son and sends his congratulations across nine thousand kilometres shortened by Vodafone on his end and Econet on the other. His smile broadens as the son tells the master of ceremonies that the uncle pledges two hundred pounds as a wedding gift; the smile becomes broader still when the master of ceremonies announces that the gift is worth two hundred million dollars on Harare's parallel market. He smiles and smiles and smiles and his smile reveals the heightened colour of his gums.”

Rather than keep referring to the link posted earlier, I thought it would benefit others, me especially, to present it this way. I tried the red lines to emphasize but failed; my formatting skills are less than zero.

The above, perhaps unkindly, reminds me of how I write first drafts, full of flowery language and self-indulgence, which I know full well will not get past an editor.

Therefore, I would edit that short piece by at least 20 percent, probably more.

There would be no ‘reddish pinkness to artifice’, ‘violently pink-red lips’, ‘sanctioned fornication’, ‘two hundred million dollars’, ‘smiles and smiles and smiles and his smile’.

And what would that editing achieve? It would destroy worthy writing that won a literary prize.

Which brings me to a conclusion I’ve reached over recent years. Modern techniques, mainly, have led to unacceptable levels of submissions, initially increasing the numbers of agents as publishers could no longer cope, then overwhelming those as well.

The overwhelmed agents set new rules to decrease the numbers; insisting on highly pre-edited manuscripts before forwarding the few survivors onward to the publishers editors. At this final hurdle, further severe editing took place to reduce numbers even more.

Necessary or not, the final result is commercial fiction at an extremely sparse level, which has had the few remnants of real literature sucked out of it to make way for the sort of bollocks topping the bestsellers.

And who are the guilty? Us, all of us.

Mr Flibble · Dec 3, 2009

The above, perhaps unkindly, reminds me of how I write first drafts, full of flowery language and self-indulgence, which I know full well will not get past an editor.

Well it obviously did get past an editor or it wouldn't have been published....( and I can't see where it breaks any 'rules' either *shrug*)

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying in the rest of your post though. Can you clarify?

James D. Macdonald · Dec 3, 2009

I don't know which rule or rules it's supposed to be breaking.

The rule that says, "If it works, it's right"?

The rule that says, "Don't bore the reader"?

The rule that says, "The author's job is to make the reader want to turn the page"?

The rule that says, "Every word should advance the plot, support the theme, or reveal character"?

Why should she not have flushed, feverish, diseased prose? The story is about disease.

She starts with a person in a place with a problem. That's dead classic.

The story is barely five pages long. You can do things stylistically in a short story that you can't do at novel length.

I once wrote and published a short story (850 words) that was all in dialog. No tags. No description. No narrative. No scenery. Nothing but dialog. Nearly twenty years later it's still earning me royalty income. Is it literary? I suppose. Is it genre? I suppose.

veinglory · Dec 3, 2009

Short stories as a form are widely acknowledged to be in dire straits as a professional product (markets very limited). This might help them hold onto existence but not much more.

gothicangel · Dec 3, 2009

I think it's beautifully written (I'll have to search it out.) Gone are the days of the Hemingway, Carver, Roth short story. It's great to see there is life in there yet.

I've been wary of attempting the short story because I've been put off by the women's mags style stories. This gives me hope, I think I might just give it a go.

Jcomp · Dec 3, 2009

IdiotsRUs said:
Well it obviously did get past an editor or it wouldn't have been published....( and I can't see where it breaks any 'rules' either *shrug*)

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying in the rest of your post though. Can you clarify?

I think the point was, for a lot of unpublished or otherwise aspiring authors, they get a lot of feedback in the form of rejections from agents or editors in mags stating that the abundantly "flowery" language is not necessary and burdens the story. So many are conditioned to trim such things.

As LuckyH points out, this "rule" about flowery language would have kept this story from being prize-worthy. I think Lucky's praising the writing but wondering about the ostensible contradiction.

I think the rest of Lucky's post is concerning how overloaded slush piles have generated an environment where certain editors and agents may be conditioned to dismiss stories that are quality if they are, at first glance, seemingly containing "purple" prose.

I'd add to this that the subjectivity already inherent in determining what is or isn't good writing is stretched further by the number of outlets available to submit stories to. You get a ton of e-zines out now, and other more cheaply produced traditional mags, and some of the "editors" behind these operations are just some untrained somebody who wants to run a publication. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but some of these folks set "rules" or guidelines based on a personal preference that may or may not be influenced by legitimate study of creative writing. So many inexperienced or aspiring writers get feedback saying "this was written poorly because of X, Y and Z," and then see a prize-winning story extolled for exhibiting X, Y and Z (although likely more well-crafted in most circumstances) and end up confused as to what the hell to believe the "rules" are.

ishtar'sgate · Dec 3, 2009

Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the excerpt. She's also written a novel that will be out in -- 2011, I think? For me it would be worth looking for. I like her use of language. It's becoming a lost art.

Jamesaritchie · Dec 3, 2009

I think the rule "no purple prose" is too often taken to mean writing must be completely colorless. And "no flowery language" seems to mean nothing but brown grass.

I've seen a bunch of first drafts that were much better than final drafts where use of language was concerned. The first drafts were just written without thought, but the final drafts had the life edited out of them because of "rules" warning against purple prose and flowery language.

I don't find the writing in that example either flowery or self-indulgent. For me, it just comes across as good writing for the kind of story it has to tell.

gothicangel · Dec 3, 2009

If you look at writing like "God of Small Things" it's the same style. It's not flowery or purple prose. It's rich and evocative.

Kathleen42 · Dec 3, 2009

willietheshakes said:
Maybe it's different where you are. Maybe it's a Canadian thing.

Well it's really cold in Canada. I suspect you spend much of the winter huddled inside and reading Margaret Atwood in between Vinyl Cafe repeats on CBC. That builds up your tolerance.

... oh.

... wait.

Mr Flibble · Dec 3, 2009

Jcomp said:
As LuckyH points out, this "rule" about flowery language would have kept this story from being prize-worthy. I think Lucky's praising the writing but wondering about the ostensible contradiction.

There's a rule about flowery language? But....that's all part of the style, which is personal taste, and there's plenty of flowery language published, particularly in Lit Fic.

I thought the 'rule' ( gak) was against purple prose, which, although an extreme form of flowery language, is another animal really.

I think the rest of Lucky's post is concerning how overloaded slush piles have generated an environment where certain editors and agents may be conditioned to dismiss stories that are quality if they are, at first glance, seemingly containing "purple" prose.

Thing is, while there is a fine line between flowery and purple, it is there. Lots of people ( and editors) like flowery. I do - although I wouldn't call it flowery, I'd call it lyrical. But again, it's all down to personal taste. I wouldn't say that excerpt was purple from first or even second glance. I'd say it had a strong voice and a sense of imagery. And who's 'conditioning' agents / editors? I don't think they're are trained like Pavlov's dogs by some mysterious Dark Lord Editor to auto reject someone for having the temerity to use an adjective. Editors have their own tastes, just like everyone else. They use that taste when they accept or reject. The Dark Lord Editor does not strike them dead for accepting something that has bags of voice, or is too flowery for person A. Becuase what is too flowery for A is perfect for B, and too sparse to X

The defining question is not 'is it too purple' it's 'does it work, and work well?'

So many inexperienced or aspiring writers get feedback saying "this was written poorly because of X, Y and Z," and then see a prize-winning story extolled for exhibiting X, Y and Z (although likely more well-crafted in most circumstances) and end up confused as to what the hell to believe the "rules" are.

Which is why I have a hatred for absolute 'rules' on matters that are completely subjective.

There are no rules really - only guidlelines. The only rules as such are the ones Uncle Jim mentioned up above. If it works do it. Don't bore he reader etc.

Another attack on novels?

Oh, really?

Gentleman. Scholar. Bastard.

Toughen up.

Oh, really?

Toughen up.

That cheeky buggerer

Around

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

Worst song played on ugliest guitar

Gentleman. Scholar. Bastard.

Living the dream

Makes useful distinctions

Oh, really?

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Your Genial Uncle

volitare nequeo

Toughen up.

living in the past

Toughen up.

crushing on fictional characters

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble