What makes a good short story?

Lakey

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This is a great discussion.

What do you mean by "scope of change"? Are you talking about character development?

Because short stories don't deal much with character development. There's no time. Short stories are about plot, a short, quick, speedy plot. The more unexpected the ending, the better.

Yeah, definitely. But that "powerful scene or situation" is still part of the plot. A character might undergo character development, but it's a result of the action. So the plot is still the main thing. Character development is a bonus.

I have been chewing on these statements all week, and I just don’t think I agree with it. There may be some genre-dependence here. I read primarily literary short stories, and I think in those, character development is often the primary point and primary driver. The idea that there is “no time” for character development in a short story is alien to me; character development is what these stories are for. To the extent there is plot, it is there to illuminate the character. In stories like this, the character isn’t a bonus; the character is the reason the story exists.

It isn’t always true. I have read literary short stories that are more plot-driven. So one can do either. But I think in a short story you can actually get away with less plot, because you don’t have to sustain reader’s interest for as long. So if whatever you have—scene, character, situation, whatever—is compelling for three thousand or five thousand words, you can be successful. It’s that quick burst of flavor I mentioned in my silly analogy to the chef’s appetizers—a quick burst of plot flavor will do in some cases, but so will a quick burst of character flavor, provided it’s intense enough to satisfy.

Here’s some more evidence that the necessity of character-development is genre dependent:

I don't care much about character development in a short story. What I look for is some sort of question/mystery to keep me reading (what's in the box? Why did the narrator tell his wife he was going to work then went in the wrong direction and changed into overalls? So the narrator is buying a corpse... how did the person die?) and then a twist at the end.

This isn’t really my experience of short stories at all, and I don’t think it’s what drives literary short stories. But I can see why someone might enjoy stories that deliver this kind of experience.

In one of my favorite short stories, Shirley Jackson’s “The Tooth”, a woman has a pained tooth removed at the dentist and in the fog of anesthesia afterward, loses her sense of her own identity. That’s what the story is about—this married young woman’s sense of who she is, what it means for her to be a self-actuated and independent person. There isn’t a mystery in the sense Earthling is describing here. There is plot; a woman getting amnesia is plot. And she meets up with a mysterious character who appears in other Shirley Jackson stories, and there’s plot in her interactions with him. But his function is as much symbolic as it is a literal driver of plot. The story isn’t about the woman’s interactions with this man; it’s about her identity.

I’ve gone back over a few other examples from stories I have read recently and discussed in the 2019 short story reading thread, and where I’m coming down is that the stories I like the best are about something in that larger sense. There is a plot in the sense that the character does something or has some experience that is out of the ordinary, but the primary driver of the story is what that experience means for the character and, in a layered way, what it means about the story’s theme.

Giving this some more thought...
Maybe it's silly of me to try and pick apart stories and figure out how they work their magic. (If it really is strictly a gestalt thing, then it really is silly.)

For me, there’s no better way to learn to write anything than to analyze examples of it and try to understand how they do what they do. Don’t be self-conscious about doing this.

I agree with ElaineA’s observation that short stories are a form of their own. It’s why I started the short-story reading challenge in the first place, because I wanted to improve my understanding of the form, and learn to write it better. If you go look at the thread, you will see people discussing what worked or didn’t work in the hundreds of stories we’ve all read over the past year. If I may so, I think it’s a pretty rich source for this topic. Maybe you will join us in 2020? :)

:e2coffee:
 
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Elle.

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This is a great discussion.

I have been chewing on these statements all week, and I just don’t think I agree with it. There may be some genre-dependence here. I read primarily literary short stories, and I think in those, character development is often the primary point and primary driver. The idea that there is “no time” for character development in a short story is alien to me; character development is what these stories are for. To the extent there is plot, it is there to illuminate the character. In stories like this, the character isn’t a bonus; the character is the reason the story exists.

It isn’t always true. I have read literary short stories that are more plot-driven. So one can do either. But I think in a short story you can actually get away with less plot, because you don’t have to sustain reader’s interest for as long. So if whatever you have—scene, character, situation, whatever—is compelling for three thousand or five thousand words, you can be successful. It’s that quick burst of flavor I mentioned in my silly analogy to the chef’s appetizers—a quick burst of plot flavor will do in some cases, but so will a quick burst of character flavor, provided it’s intense enough to satisfy.

Here’s some more evidence that the necessity of character-development is genre dependent:



This isn’t really my experience of short stories at all, and I don’t think it’s what drives literary short stories. But I can see why someone might enjoy stories that deliver this kind of experience.

In one of my favorite short stories, Shirley Jackson’s “The Tooth”, a woman has a pained tooth removed at the dentist and in the fog of anesthesia afterward, loses her sense of her own identity. That’s what the story is about—this married young woman’s sense of who she is, what it means for her to be a self-actuated and independent person. There isn’t a mystery in the sense Earthling is describing here. There is plot; a woman getting amnesia is plot. And she meets up with a mysterious character who appears in other Shirley Jackson stories, and there’s plot in her interactions with him. But his function is as much symbolic as it is a literal driver of plot. The story isn’t about the woman’s interactions with this man; it’s about her identity.

I’ve gone back over a few other examples from stories I have read recently and discussed in the 2019 short story reading thread, and where I’m coming down is that the stories I like the best are about something in that larger sense. There is a plot in the sense that the character does something or has some experience that is out of the ordinary, but the primary driver of the story is what that experience means for the character and, in a layered way, what it means about the story’s theme.



For me, there’s no better way to learn to write anything than to analyze examples of it and try to understand how they do what they do. Don’t be self-conscious about doing this.

I agree with ElaineA’s observation that short stories are a form of their own. It’s why I started the short-story reading challenge in the first place, because I wanted to improve my understanding of the form, and learn to write it better. If you go look at the thread, you will see people discussing what worked or didn’t work in the hundreds of stories we’ve all read over the past year. If I may so, I think it’s a pretty rich source for this topic. Maybe you will join us in 2020? :)

:e2coffee:

^^^ THIS

Lakey has pretty much eloquently explained how I feel about short stories and the importance of character development.

The example of Shirley Jackson's The Tooth reminded me of a short story from Daisy Johnson which I love called "Birthing Stones". The plot is basically a woman waiting for her date at a restaurant which never shows up so that's all but we discovered through her waiting that she is made of clay and how her mother made her through sheer will and mud and it's also a story about the inadequacy people can feel. So again simple plot but big character development, lots of subtext and metaphor.

I agree as well that the requirement for short stories varies from genre to genre but I cannot agree as it's been suggested that there is no room or no place for character development or that character development is merely an add-on, there are plenty of short stories driven by character and not plot (especially looking at literary short stories).

Also the plot / character relationship is not a one way system — A story can move because plot changes character but also a story can move because a character and their development influences or redefine the plot. It's a 2-way system for me.
 

Earthling

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This isn’t really my experience of short stories at all, and I don’t think it’s what drives literary short stories. But I can see why someone might enjoy stories that deliver this kind of experience.

It wasn't about my experience of short stories; I was saying what I personally look for in a good short story. Many of them don't meet my expectations. :)

I also don't have much interest in literary stories. I've read Shirley Jackon's as a horror fan, and generally for shorts I look for horror, thriller, or humour (if humour can be called a genre). They're generally plot-driven, which I prefer in a short.
 

Lakey

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It wasn't about my experience of short stories; I was saying what I personally look for in a good short story. Many of them don't meet my expectations. :)

I'm sorry; I understood that, but I expressed myself poorly. I probably should have said "this isn't my preference in short stories." I hope the second sentence you quoted clarifies that a little.

I also don't have much interest in literary stories. I've read Shirley Jackon's as a horror fan, and generally for shorts I look for horror, thriller, or humour (if humour can be called a genre). They're generally plot-driven, which I prefer in a short.

People call Jackson a horror writer but very little in The Lottery and Other Stories strikes me as horror. (Her novels, perhaps, fit the bill a little more closely.) If horror readers find what they are looking for in them, it only reinforces for me the depth and complexity of what Jackson was able to do with deceptively plan language. If you're in the mood, I would love to know more about which Jackson stories are most satisfying to you as a horror fan.

:e2coffee:
 

Earthling

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People call Jackson a horror writer but very little in The Lottery and Other Stories strikes me as horror. (Her novels, perhaps, fit the bill a little more closely.) If horror readers find what they are looking for in them, it only reinforces for me the depth and complexity of what Jackson was able to do with deceptively plan language. If you're in the mood, I would love to know more about which Jackson stories are most satisfying to you as a horror fan.

That's funny; I actually started thinking about which stories I liked, and why, after my post.

The anthology I read was Dark Tales and I don't think it included The Lottery, though I've read that separately. I think The Lottery is brilliant, though my recollection is there was no character arc in it. It certainly fulfilled my criteria of having a question (what IS this lottery?) and an unexpected ending.

From the anthology, the one I remember most vividly is about an old lady who seems to be a pillar of the community but has actually been sending nasty anonymous notes to other people in the village for many years. I don't recall any character change in it, though it's certainly about the old lady as a person. It had a question - what's going to happen when she's found out? - and an ending that got me right in the stomach.

Less vividly I remember one about a man/woman being terrorised in their own house by a small child. I can't recall the ending. I probably remember this one because I'm terrified of small children. :)

Likewise, I remember one about a woman who was having intrusive, murderous thoughts about her husband. Also cannot remember the ending. I guess that could be called a character arc, in that I believe we watched her sudden descent into insanity.

Then I THINK there was one about a socialite who runs away and returns years later, though I also have a feeling I'm mixing this one in from another anthology/different author. Again, it had a question and an unexpected ending, though in that one I can definitely see a character arc.

I would say she is shelved under horror because the primary feeling her writing inspires is unease/fear/other-emotions-in-that-area. From what I remember, that was true of the shorts as well as her novels. It may or may not be an interesting data point that Hill House did nothing for me, either as a horror or as a novel in general (I read pretty much every genre, bar fantasy, so something doesn't need to be horror for me to appreciate it).
 

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Heh... full disclosure, I'd *really* like to break into the paying SFF markets. My one real short story, which someone mentioned in the thread, was speculative but was in PANK, more of a literary outlet. (Much as these distinctions make my head spin, they do reflect different audiences, so I'll just go with them...)

So I read F&SF, Analog, Strange Horizons, etc. from time to time, though not super regularly. I love about 10% of what I read. Can't get into the rest of it. F&SF tends to prefer really voice-y stuff, IMO (which I enjoy), while Strange Horizons is more "literarily surreal," like David Lynch in literary form. I like that a lot too, more than the "traditional" SF of Analog, Asimov's, etc. Those are two markets which I really enjoy reading. Can't figure out why they don't love me back. :'(

You can easily overthink things, to the point of trying to come up with a set of rules written in stone, then judging yourself too harshly if you fail to hit those rules. This is especially weird for short stories, because it's a space where experimentation is easier (more markets are interested and if they're not... you didn't spend three years writing it).

I haven't read your story in SYW, but as general advice, you need to be careful about what advice you take and what you don't. Some of the stories I've sold would have been shredded in SYW, because they didn't have mainstream appeal. They sold because one editor liked them, not because everyone would have liked them. So you do need to separate between an issue with the story that would be an issue regardless and something that is down to taste. If a change would make it a different story to the one you wanted to write, that's not a change to make.

Selling stories is an entirely different thing. Many stories that are perfectly fine will not end up selling. It's a tough market. Do keep all those stories though, because you can use them for a collection later.