{"id":11166,"date":"2024-09-10T08:24:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T12:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11166"},"modified":"2024-09-10T08:24:54","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T12:24:54","slug":"short-story-essentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11166","title":{"rendered":"Short Story Essentials"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"481\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/18064460803_636fe0c012_z.jpg?resize=481%2C640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"reading, apple\" class=\"wp-image-4687\" style=\"width:230px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/18064460803_636fe0c012_z.jpg?w=481&amp;ssl=1 481w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/18064460803_636fe0c012_z.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 481px) 100vw, 481px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Almost a year ago\u2014how time flies!\u2014the Central Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime organized a Zoom workshop on the ingredients of a great short story. They assembled a fine panel of presenters, too\u2014Michael Bracken (well over a thousand short stories under his belt), Barb Goffman (recent winner of the Lifetime Achievement award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society), K.L. Murphy (Virginia native, novelist, and short story author) and Josh Pachter (not only a prolific writer\u2014first published in <em>Ellery Queen\u2019s Mystery Magazine<\/em> at age 16\u2014and anthology editor, but also an expert translator of others\u2019 fiction).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the piles of notes from the various seminars I Zoom in on are many intriguing insights. They often help me crystallize my own thoughts on a topic and, eventually, maybe, lead to a blog post for you. Here\u2019s what I took away from this estimable group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among the most important things that a short story needs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It needs a point. That\u2019s what convinces readers the story was worth it; short stories that aspire to being literary often miss this, obscuring their vague purpose in high-flying prose. If you read the masters, like Chekhov and Gogol, the point is not only present, it\u2019s significant. Yet it needn\u2019t hit you over the head. It\u2019s intrinsic. As <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4gjEXnE\">George Saunders<\/a> says, \u201cI want my stories to move and change someone as much as these Russian stories have moved and changed me.\u201d Dry, meandering modern stories will never achieve either impact or staying power.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It needs a strong ending, Goffman emphasized, which is what makes the point clear\u2014again, even if not stated in so many words (actually, preferably if not spelled out). Trust your reader.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It needs believability. Even if it\u2019s fantasy or about alien worlds, there must be a core of truth that the reader can invest in.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It needs strong characters, \u201cright from the beginning,\u201d said Murphy. She wants them to draw her in. Here\u2019s an example: <em>\u201c<\/em><em>\u2018Tell me the truth,\u2019 Ruthie Ford said. \u2018Why exactly did you come here?\u2019\u201d<\/em> from John Floyd&#8217;s terrific story \u201cMoonshine and Roses\u201d in the Jul\/Aug 2024 issue of <em>Alfred Hitchcock&#8217;s Mystery Magazine<\/em>. You know something\u2014something interesting\u2014about both these characters in just those first lines.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When selected stories for an anthology, Pachter looks for reliable writers, ones who\u2019ve withstood, as he said, \u201cthe test of time,\u201d which I\u2019m guessing in part reflects writers who follow guidelines, who can meet a deadline, who won\u2019t send in a too-early draft that will require a lot of editing. Such problems can hold up an entire project. An anthology is a collaboration among points of view, but the editor has the Master POV, the overall conception of the project, so Pachter also looks for authors who are willing to be edited, or, as Goffman put it, who will \u201cwork with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If there\u2019s fact-based information, Pachter added, the author needs to get it right. I\u2019ve read a two stories very recently (novels, actually), where the author didn\u2019t seem to have a good handle on the world. I referred to one of them in a post yesterday about the top temperature humans can survive at. In another, a character was bragging about her 14-carat diamond engagement ring. Whoa. That would be heavy! Not something you would\/could wear every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Asked to suggest a memorable short story, Murphy mentioned Goffman\u2019s \u201cDear Emily Etiquette,\u201d which is one of my favorites too. It appeared in the Sep\/Oct 2020 issue of <em>Ellery Queen\u2019s Mystery Magazine<\/em>, winning the Agatha Award as well as the magazine\u2019s annual Reader Award. Pachter is a fan of Stanley Ellin\u2019s \u201cThe Specialty of the House,\u201d which appeared in <em>EQMM<\/em> in 1948; you may remember the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_oWO4Osoqz0\"><em>Alfred Hitchcock Presents<\/em><\/a> television version from 1959. Bracken recommends John M. Floyd\u2019s well-plotted stories: \u201ctwist, twist, twist,\u201d he said. And Goffman is a fan of John Connolly\u2019s \u201cThe Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository\u201d (2013), which won both Edgar and Anthony Awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more, see the authors\u2019 websites:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crimefictionwriter.com\/\">Michael Bracken<\/a><br><a href=\"http:\/\/www.barbgoffman.com\/\">Barb Goffman<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/kellielarsenmurphy.com\/\">K.L. Murphy<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/joshpachter.com\/\">Josh Pachter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost a year ago\u2014how time flies!\u2014the Central Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime organized a Zoom workshop on the ingredients of a great short story. They assembled a fine panel of presenters, too\u2014Michael Bracken (well over a thousand short stories &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11166\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The elements short stories need and what editors look for when reviewing them. Advice from the experts.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,120,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-short-story","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2U6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11167,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11166\/revisions\/11167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}