Short Stories

MacAllister said:

Found this Marion Zimmer Bradley essay, surfing around, sleepless last night. What do y'all think?

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It's OK, but a lot of good stories don't follow this "formula".

A useful summary of the most common sort of genre story.

MacAllister said:

Flap, a ton of good stories don't follow the formula. MZB spent a lot of time fostering new writers and bringing them along, though--so her advice is very much aimed at the writer who is trying to run before they can walk, I suspect.

And not selling, as a result.

Anyhoo, I thought it was worth a look.

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Oh yes, I agree - I thought it was worth a read as well, but I'm automatically suspicious of articles trying to somehow put a generic structure onto a story.

I think the usefulness lies not in suggesting the formula but showing how you can botch using it (if that is indeed what you are doing).

veinglory said:

I think the usefulness lies not in suggesting the formula but showing how you can botch using it (if that is indeed what you are doing).

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Yes.
Short stories, though - they're bloody hard, aren't they?

MacAllister said:

Yeah, they are. It has to be complete, and come to a satisfactory conclusion; you have to care enough about the characters to keep reading--and you only have a few thousand words to pull all this off.

But good short stories are soooooo sweet! I love well-written short stories.

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That was one thing that put me off a lot of the horror stuff in the 1990s that was appearing in the small press in the UK - a lot of it was nicely written, but always seemed to feature awful characters. Miserable. I just didn't want to read about them. There seemed to be a pre-occupation with council estates & dereliction & self pity. I remember getting a magazine and starting the first short and thinking "Oh no, not another one set on a council estate"!

MZB

MacAllister said:

Found this Marion Zimmer Bradley essay, surfing around, sleepless last night. What do y'all think?

Click to expand...

It's a good article, and a true one. Paying attention to what it says is very wise. It's easy to say a lot of short stories don't follow this "formula", but the great majority do, and those that do not very rarely work well, or make for lasting fiction.

The proof is in the publishing, and writers who follow this basic "formula" generally do one heck of a lot better than writers who do not. Really, is there a single thing she lists that you wouldn;t want to see in a story? Read down that list and find something to object to. In all honesty, I can't remember the last time I read a published short story that didn't follw these basic guidelines.

These really are guidelines, rather than a formula, but as guidelines they are excellent, and writers who follow them are far more likely to sell short stories than those who don't.

MZB knew what she was talking about. She was even better as an editor than as a writer, and when she says anything about writing, it pays to listen and obey.

I think stories that may be said to have a "mythic" structure follow the formula (SF, Fantasy, Wild West etc.): but does it apply generally to all fiction? Most of the great horror stories don't have likeable characters as protagonists, for example.

My rating of a short story will be based on how complete it is. Unlike the novel, it cannot afford to ramble. But almost all short stories show a character at a significant moment of transformation.

Nandu.

I've read other how tos on writing by MZB and there looks to be more on her site that I would like to read. It's all good information to absorb and try and put fort hin your work. However, that's easier said than done!



Kristin

Thank you for sharing the link to this article and to the site. I can use all of the help I can get!

I scanned the article by MZB and really liked it, Mac. I haven't read it thoroughly, but I saved it and definitely will. Thanks much for sharing it.

i agree with jr: how is this 'formula' a bad thing? indeed, i don't even see how it's a 'formula' at all. a formula, say, for fantasy would be having your halfling type hero (invariably unsuited and unprepared for any kind of heroics) whisked away by a wizard, thrust into a ragtag band of misfits, some of whom don't get along, going on a trek through dangerous territory while being pursued by the great evil's terrible minions, and having the halfling save the day in the end. somewhere there's a big battle and a few of the characters will likely die. *that's* a formula, lol.

i would, however, like to amend the 'likeable' part to include just 'interesting' if that's all you've got in a character. no one wants to read about a mary sue any more than they want to read about a vampire with a moral objection to drinking human blood (oops, sorry, i probably stepped on some toes there).