Welcome to the list/Fido echo, Lynn!

At 06:05 AM 4/23/2003 -0700, lynn.mundy{at}btopenworld.com wrote:
 >> I am in the middle of writing my first spooky.

Horror?    We're easily spooked around here.  But we'll close our 
eyes and just listen.  Headless horsemen, pass by.

 >> What constitutes a short story?  Is it a certain amount of words or is 
there a limit
 >> to the number of pages?

You'll get different answers depending on where you look.  Various markets 
put limits on story length.  If you hope to get this one published in a 
print magazine, you might want to look at the markets (mags you like to 
read, for a start).  Most markets buy stories from 1,200 to 2,500 
words.  2,500 words is about twelve pages for me, in Courier New and 11- or 
12-point size.  Unfortunately for me, most of my stories don't want to end 
at 2,500 words.    Stories can go up to 5,000 words (25 pages) for 
some markets, but those are tougher to sell.

In a more abstract sense, a short story is an incident.  A character that 
we can or do care about is doing something that intrigues us or going 
through some event that hooks us as readers, and the ensuing incident and 
the way the character handles it (and reacts to it) sheds some light on the 
human condition, the "why" of living, or something like that. 
There has to 
be conflict in the form of man VS himself, woman VS society, cat VS nature, 
and such like, or there won't be any story tension.  There needs to be a 
story question that the reader has satisfactorily answered by the end of 
the tale.  And it should be interesting and with bouncy 
prose.  Whew!  Quite a tall order.

 > I have been told in the past that I should limit my "inner thoughts."

Hmm.  What Fang said is all true.  Well stated!  That said, however, it 
could be that you've got a lot of introspection going on in the mind of the 
main character.  I find that I do have (or used to have) quite a bit of 
this that comes to the keyboard when I"m first writing a novel or 
story.  Often, though, on re-reading the tale I realize that the germane 
portions of this constitute only a sentence or two.  Or that some of this 
important info should come in the form of dialogue or discovery in action, 
rather than in introspection.  I *like*( reading fiction with 
introspection, and I was raised on it when I read all those Philip Roth and 
John Updike and classic novels throughout my adolescence.  However, it's 
not the new trend in fiction, and many people just "get bored" when the 
action pauses.  So you have to be a bit judicious here.  If what you want 
is publication in a commercial market, you might have to modify your 
existing style in order to keep them reading.

When I used to scribe lots of looong paragraphs "explaining" why a 
character was deciding to do what she was about to do, it wasted a lot of 
trees.  Finally somebody said I was hitting them over the head with it and 
being repetitive.  Either show or tell me about it, he said.  I finally 
realized "she conks to stupor" wasn't a useful way to write my story.

Everything's a trend, though.  Writings go in and out of style.  Nowadays 
critiquers generally fall apart if you write, "she said tensely," and they 
insist you must instead of the adjective insert a tagline
"showing" how the 
speaker is tense.  Well, that presents a problem, because for different 
people, tension comes out in different ways.  You have to trust your 
reader, but there's always gonna be that one guy who scratches head, 
dandruff flying, and says, "I don't get it.  What's going on?"  Well, the 
character is tense 'cause she's hiding something from the person she's 
talking to.  Used to be you could use that shorthand and write, "she said 
nervously," and the reader would accommodate you and picture the character 
doing whatever it is that reader thinks embodies "being nervous," whether 
that be tapping her pencil on the desk, glancing around all the time, or 
shivering.  But now you can't rely on the shorthand.  I believe that's 
because of the emphasis on figuring out stuff from visuals that has come 
along as film became the order of the day--everyone watches TV and films, 
and they have to figure out what's going on without being told.  Um, it has 
a little to do with the actor, I think, and just seeing the totality of her 
body language and facial expressions and "business" to get the
point across 
. . . but nevertheless, we have to do it in writing.

And when you learn to do it effectively, it is very good.  It makes the 
action of the novel or story unfold like "the vivid, continuous 
dream."  Tough toenails on us that it's so much more of a challenge to 
"show" it this way, rather than "telling" all the time.
 Acting it out (via 
characters), rather than narrating it.

MN>Just try to picture Yoda talking in Noam Chomsky's grammatical form.

This gave me a headache.  A headache me this gave.  Alack!

MN>Same advice we usually give in here: write your stories your way; in
 >your own voice and style and let the Dimbulbs(tm)(r) who insist on
 >spouting useless rules out of ignorance go hang.

Right; that's a good general rule.  You really have to use your own 
judgment and just smile and thank the critics.  At least they took the time 
to read the work.  You may not get one thing out of their "help," other 
than irritation.  And a list of fun new false "rules" such as
"never say 
'had'" or "never use -ing words" that you can poke fun at later.

 >You've got to keep in mind, Lynn, that when someone says "This thou
 >shalt not do in thine writing" they are usually making a Grand
 >Proclamation based solely on their prejudices.  When some dolt says
 >"your writing sucks" it's not that your writing sucks: it's that he
 >doesn't get the point of the story and such a one never assumes
 >that's because he's too dense to get it.

Exactly!  (Stolen for quotes file.  In fact, you ought to stick that in the 
database, Fangy.)

The only caveat to this is that if you do want pro publication badly 
enough, you might have to start taking into account that larger audience of 
people who believe certain things or like certain things about the fiction 
they read.  If you want to sell to an editor who's convinced that his or 
her audience (readership) wants action and not introspection, then you may 
need to write something in that vein to sell to him or her.  The editor may 
be getting told by his or her superiors that "we ain't in this business for 
our health, but to make money," and the marketing people want something 
high concept they can push to compete with Kellerman or Grafton, and so it 
may not be an artistic choice on his or her part, either.  However, it's 
something to bear in mind.  Today's market really is different from the 
past in that you're competing with movies and TV and MTV and MP3s and 
computer games for the reader's attention.  You might have to think about 
what the books on the shelves now are like, and go forth and modify your 
paradigm likewise.

I had to.  I think I've improved my work in doing that *because* now I know 
when I'm doing it (having long threads of introspection, I mean, or of 
backstory, or a flashback, or whatever), whereas before I really DIDN'T 
know I was doing it.  I thought that was just the stream of consciousness 
or something.  But now I KNOW when I've done it, and I can look at it and 
say, "Oh, I don't need to tell reader Josie or Jose that at this 
point.  Let's let her wonder and let him figure out for himself what's 
going on," and take out all but a clue or two.  And then sometimes I'll let 
introspection or speculation or interior monologue go on for a couple of 
paragraphs during what Swain terms "Sequel," which is the stuff between 
scenes in which characters regroup and think about what's happened (also 
includes transitions).  If you've given them a fast pace so far, or your 
action keeps rolling, and they're hooked and interested in the characters 
by this time, it's good to slow the pace for a moment and give them a rest.

Man, I'm going to stick my butt into the bacon grease again by saying this 
about this author in public, but you've probably read her, so it's a good 
example.  If you've read the Harry Potter books, you've experienced fiction 
that goes at a rather quick clip.  Harry doesn't sit around introspectively 
figuring out stuff or planning or wondering, at least not too often.  I 
read the first novel and was in the middle of the second when I felt 
overwhelmed by the lack of what I "need" out of a novel (which is not 
strictly interesting action, which she has plenty of, or funny bits, or 
clever magic all the time) and had to put it down.  I felt breathless and 
was saying, "But what does it all mean?"  I haven't so far picked #2 back 
up, and I didn't get far into the third novel.  Now, this is NOT to say 
anything about anything other than PACING.  She has a certain pacing that 
is PERFECT for the modern reader, or so it seems.  The MTV generation and 
people born after 1975 (IMHO) just doesn't want to hear all your inner 
thoughts.  *I* felt as if I were being pulled behind a team of sled dogs 
and going over bump after bump, snow flying in my eyes, and I wanted to 
take a few potty breaks!  I needed to have someone in the book sit and 
think analytically for a moment.  Now, Rowling may have written some of 
that, and I missed it, or it wasn't enough to fulfill my needs as a 
reader.  The point is that *for me* as an old-fashioned reader having cut 
my teeth on Chas Dickens and Jane Austen and Herman Wouk (okay, lots of 
Wouk--so shoot me), the books started to feel shallow and I couldn't get 
the depth I as an adult needed.  Which is fine--they're billed as YA 
novels, after all.  However, I hope this gives you some idea what I mean 
when I say that various novels may need a break for introspection every so 
many scenes, and others may *not*.  It depends on the audience you hope to 
reach and on what that audience currently expects from that kind of novel.

But some of that work had better be banned because I might read it and it 
might be very damaging to me.  

Does any of this make sense?  Or is it overwhelmingly convoluted pontification?
- - -
The only thing that flies faster than an F-16 is your guardian angel
- - - -
Nine out of ten doctors recommend reading my books.  The tenth is a quack.
Shalanna Collins   http://home.attbi.com/~shalanna/>
_Dulcinea: or Wizardry A-Flute_  (e-mail me 4 excerpt)  ISBN 0-7388-5388-7
New!  I'm trying out a blog/jrnl http://www.livejournal.com/users/shalanna/>

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