This is what I’m talking about when I talk short stories. If this combo makes it under my tree this Christmas, I will consider myself a lucky little girl, indeed. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0395843677/qid=1101829594/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/103-4232114-4620640
I have that book – I’ve barely made a dent in it though.
Try finding a book of short stories that holds the same theme(s) throughout or, better yet, has a set group of people interacting together (ie, in an apartment) which reappear and disappear during random stories about the occupants. (What may seem minor to one is major to another, for instance.)
I don’t really like short stories because they seem so much more cruel than novels. Short story writers seem much more likely to make their characters suffer or to kill them off than do novel writers. I guess it’s because short stories tend to be more idea driven than character driven…
Certainly fits Flannery O’Connor’s stuff. It is like getting ingrossed in a palpable world (physically feeling the atmosphere she creates) and then getting thrown back out. Love them, though.
Oh. Um, don’t do that Google search I recommended upthread. Although… it’s still a great short story.
I’m a little surprised series of short stories aren’t more popular—y’know, self-contained stories that share the same characters, setting, and/or format. Most of the examples I can think of are mysteries/crime fiction: the Sherlock Holmes stories, Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, Mortimer’s Rumpole stories… You get a short, self-contained story, but it’s easier to “get into” than a stand-alone, non-series story because you’re already familiar with some of the characters and have some idea what to expect. This is to a TV series as a movie is to a novel.
Another short-story fan here, for most of the reasons others have mentioned.
I’ll throw out another recommendation: Theodore Sturgeon. He wrote mostly for magazines; a lot of his works are speculative fiction, but most of his early stuff is more mainstream.
Actually, I do love those types of short stories. The ones I referred to above are the stand-alones. But I think those don’t exist much anymore because there isn’t a market for them. Those authors used to pbulish in periodicals and there aren’t really any popular periodicals that regularly publish fiction, particularly the type of fiction that lends itself to serialization. (all the fiction magazines I can think of are the “literary” ones, the mystery and sci-fi fiction mags don’t do so well) It’s a pity tho’…
Yet another short-story fan here. I find that a short can have a lot more impact than a novel, maybe because you can read it at a sitting.
For hard-boiled mystery/crime shorts, there’s nothing better than Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories. Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a sort-of-SF collection that’s great. Lord Dunsany wrote wonderful short fantasies. ("[Dunsany’s] rich language, his cosmic point of view, his remote dream-worlds, and his exquisite sense of the fantastic, all appeal to me more than anything else in modern literature."–H.P. Lovecraft. What other recommendation do you need? Thanks for the reminder, Hunter!) Finally, The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers has connected stories ranging from fantasy to somewhat decadent realism.
Yep, the term you’re looking for is contes cruel. Just like short stories lend themselves to atmospheric horror, they also lend themselves to…well…unpleasantness. Which is not, of course, to say that you can’t find happy-n-cheerful short stories.
No compromisers here? I’ve got some of the same issues with short stories that some of you do - while it can be a great way to show off just one cool idea, you just get into it and then it’s over. It’s a fantastic use for sci fi and horror and some fantasy… but what if you have a longer idea? It’s the cure for bloat, but it’s the cure that kills, if you ask me. To you I give the novella. What the hell happened to novellas lately? It seems you can’t ever hardly find a skinny little sci-fi book anymore, or a book that’s two or three novellas unless they’re old ones, republished with a new introduction by whoever. Hell, a “short novel” is often a vanishing breed in genre fiction, too. Some stories are 1000 page stories, but some very excellent ones are not.
Stephen King writes a hell of a short story. Connie Willis sometimes writes a hell of a short story, but her best ones are really more like short novellas.
I’ll come out and tell you, I think Harlan Ellison writes a damned good short story title. I don’t have the energy right now to express how un-thrilled I am with his actual stories, though.
I’ve just discovered Cordwainer Smith, picked up an omnibus “short fiction” volume which seems to span the short story-novella gap a bit (I don’t know what the word count for “novella” technically is, but you know it when you see it.) They’re awesome. Totally cool.
Most of the time, I prefer novels. Then again, as I gaze up into the darkness, I see my self as a creature driven and derided by vanity, and my eyes burn with anguish and anger.
It depends on the author. A.S. Byatt writes beautiful short stories, and I often prefer them to her novels. A friend recently gave me a book of ghost stories by M.R. James. Those are a lot of fun.
One of my favorite anthologies is McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon. It includes stories by Glen David Gold, Dave Eggers, Kelly Link, Nick Hornby, etc. What I love about it is that the stories are all plot-driven. I can’t abide navel-gazing, and modern short stories often seem like nothing but that.
Voracious bookworm/writer here. I like both, although I’m currently leaning towards short stories/novellas. There’s only so much detail you need to get into when writing a story; any more and the plot gets bogged down.
I’ve been practicing with a variety of 100-word stories (not counting the title or liner notes), and boy, it’s pretty tough to fit some premises into that short a work! Those are definitely just of the “plot bunny” variety, little bursts of inspiration that could be the seeds to something great. I already have a few ideas lined up…(sighs and adds to the ever growing list)