As many of you know, I’m working almost full-time these days on a novel.  Part of my fiction-writing learning curve this year has been to introduce myself to the genre of short story.  For beginning fiction-writers, short stories are a good place to develop an eye and ear for what works and what doesn’t in the rhythms of story-telling.

But here’s my problem:  learning to write good short stories, like learning to write novels or anything else, requires that I do a lot of reading in that genre.  And…I have yet to find published short stories that I like.  (I feel like I should whisper that, and hope past and present writing teachers don’t hear.)  Is it me, or does anyone else feel frustrated by them?

My frustration is partly to do with feeling like they’re too short to not leave me hanging by the end, but partly to do with the fact that the majority of the ones I’ve read leave me feeling dark and heavy by the end, as though the movement in the people’s complicated lives is minuscule at best, and often not at all.  I’m the last one to want to sugarcoat life’s yuck.  Seriously.  But I guess I’m looking, in fiction, to be given a little light in the midst of that yuck.  Doesn’t have to be glorious or accompanied by crashing symbols or anything.  Just a quiet little light is fine.

Anyhow, all of this to say:  if anyone has short story recommendations to send my way – maybe collections that have more of the flavor I seem to be looking for – I would be oh so grateful to receive them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005 at 9:05 am and is filed under Books and Art, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.