/ 
I’m by no means an expert in story writing, but I have noticed an interesting distinction between writers in my graduate program and the up-and-coming writers I trade critiques with. Of course, what follows are broad, sweeping statements, so if you fall into either category, dont’ think I’m talking about you. But I might be.
Writers in my grad program seem to have a harder time coming to grips with story structure. Many stories don’t have enough tension until several pages in, and the stories frequently have pronounced skips—skips in time, skips in locations, skips in POV. The sentence-level writing tends to be clean and descriptive but the stories don’t have enough internal coherence. At least for me.
Non-student writers with whom I trade critiques often have the opposite affliction. Stories generally have a good hook, rising action, climax, tension throughout, etc. but the sentence-level writing usually could be improved to have more clever descriptions or well-crafted sentences. In fact, there are a lot of published stories in the genre that I think could use niftier language.
Of course, there are all shades between. I tend to think that my stories are generally well-written but tend to fall down in the structure category. Long denouement is a recurring problem for me. I also tend to write “situations” instead of full-fledged stories. My sentence-level writing can always improve. I probably have more short-comings, but these are enought to work on. For now.
Stories are tricky to study because no two are exactly alike. What works in one might be a fiasco in another. Ignoring “rules” can lead to disaster, or it can lead to the only possible solution. There’s also a great deal of subjectivity in what works and frequently selling a story means shopping it around until an editor shares the writer’s sensibility.
Personally, I think it’s more fruitful to concentrate on what makes stories work. I listened to three writers read their (non-genre) work on Sunday and all three were quite different. The prose was generally excellent and the stories riveting. When asking the question, “What drew you into Story X?” the answer is rarely, “The sentence-level writing.” That can be a big factor in setting the story’s mood, but I’d argue that’s not the main thing. Language is like the lighting and scenery in theatre; it makes a huge difference in the quality of the production, but if that’s what you’re primarily admiring then there’s a problem with what’s happening on stage.
Just like Clarion helped me identify the stuff I find most illuminating in the genre, my classes are helping identify non-genre stuff that I’m really digging. I like pulling apart stories and looking at the guts. The greatest compliment I can give a writer is that I found his/her stuff worthy of dissection to try and figure out how they did it. Thankfully, school is pointing the way to stories and authors that I greatly admire and are worthy of detailed study. I feared we’d be reading domestic, plate-throwing dramas that bore me to tears, but none of those, thank God.
Current Mood: Pensive | 
Currently Listening To – Blind Willie Johnson – “The Complete Blind Willie Johnson”
5 Comments
Glad to hear school’s going well. It’s interesting that lately I’ve read several “literary” stories, then read several genre stories. I won’t make a blanket statement, but I tend to find more in the non-genre stories to admire on a sentence/love-of-language level. That’s not to say those qualities are missing from genre stories…but maybe I’m reading the wrong genre stories.
Having said that, I do appreciate a well-structured sentence/paragraph/etc. with beautiful language. But something also has to happen in a story, even if it’s just an inner conflict. I’m finding that in my own writing I’m starting to pay a lot more attention to language, word choices, word-painting, etc. than I used to. But like you said, no two stories are the same and there’s certainly no formula that works every time.
It’s a fine line, innit? The best stories somehow engage you quickly and keep you stringed along. It doesn’t matter if it’s genre, non-genre, or whatever; good writing is good writing.
I’ve really read very little non-genre short fiction from the last decade. It’s like anything—it helps tremendously to have someone point out the good stuff. The occasional story I’d read from the New Yorker would be some boutique piece that was agonizingly short on plot and I thought “Well, that’s boring.” So I’d be continually drawn back to ancient stuff or to recent spec fic.
My current story class introduced me to Jim Shepard and I can’t wait to get his collection. I was also deeply impressed by Michael Chabon’s short story excerpt from “Kavalier and Clay,” a novel I’ve picked up in the bookstore a few dozen times but never read.
It’s amazing about how tapping into the good stuff makes me want to do nothing but read, read, read. And all that reading usually results in writing. Which is good.
Every now and then I pick up a copy of Glimmer Train to read. They claim that they’ll buy genre stories, but I’ve not seen one directly, though some are pretty strange/mystical or have that genre quality of difference, yet aren’t really genre. Most of the stories I’ve really liked have been explorations of a life or a childhood or a strange situation — great literary fodder.
But even if these were spec fic stories, not a one would be picked up by the majors because they don’t have that action/dramatic hook to start or the drive to the resolution.
So I am not surprised that you find the difference you cite in the academic environment.
Dr. Phil
While I can’t even pretend to offer a comment on this topic, I have a thought and a question with a couple of followups. My reading style (of mostly media-generated content) has begun to affect my writing style (shorter words, sentences, & thoughts), and inhibited my ability to deeply pleasure read. Quick skimming is the rule, whereas “worthy of dissection” doesn’t even occur to me.
Do you have different reading styles, and if so what affects your ability to effectively read in the style you want (time of day, place, setting, schedule, etc.)? Are you able to discern when you haven’t given a piece of writing your “FULL” attention?
PT, yes, absolutely. I actually have a fairly low attention threshold when reading and I’m not afraid to stop reading something half-way through. Unless I’m responsible for knowing the material. Then I force my way through it.
A minority of stories blow me away and those are the ones that I pick apart. There’s no reason to dissect something unless you’re trying to replicate it. I try to figure out what phrases stuck with me, how the tension mounted, stuff like that. In many ways, a story can’t (and shouldn’t) be duplicated. But I find the elusiveness of what makes stories good becomes less elusive once you start breaking out all the stuff that you, as a reader, really enjoyed. So it’s less “I should copy that phrase” and more “I should write phrases like that.”
Moreso than distinctions between genres, I think the problem many of my classmates are having is the struggle with the short story form. People primarily read novels and novels have much more leeway in what you can get away with. Short stories are more compact and succinct, and you can lose a reader in a few pages whereas it usually takes chapters for a person to give up on a novel.
And back to what you’re saying about pleasure reading PT, I had to teach myself to enjoy reading again. At one point about four or five years ago, I realized I hadn’t read a book in over a year because work didn’t allow me the time. Once I made it a point to start reading stuff I’d always been interested in, presto! I suddenly rekindled my desire to write. That was one of the big reasons I went back to school, to keep myself in the reading/writing mode. I don’t think I could have a serious career and stay in the right frame of mind to write. But many people can and do.
Even so, I didn’t improve as a short story writer until I started reading short stories. Tons and tons of short stories. I’m guessing that would help a lot of my classmates. For instance, some have said my story for class is too long and broad for a short story. Happily the professor disagreed and said that what I was writing was definitely a certain style of short story that encompasses the significant events in a single life and they could get very long. Andy Duncan’s “The Chief Designer” is almost 20K words yet it’s a short story, and takes place in about as much time as my story.
So that’s one of the things that inspired this post. In class, we talked a lot about the thematic content of the stories we read, but we didn’t do a lot of deconstructing timelines, tensions, characterizations, etc. They’re all quite different in short stories and after concentrating on that particular form for years now, I have a pretty good idea of what you can pull off and what you can’t. And I think that’s what might have ruffled feathers, my saying “I’m not sure you can pull that off.”