The Craft of Short Stories

A student of mine asked me if there was any extra reading he could do to learn more about the craft of writing stories. Here was my response:

I wouldn’t recommend using analysis essays like you have for those college students whatever they’re called.

A structured MFA program will have a key component of studying literature. And what you learn, while reading is how to read like a writer, and not as a reader. So while you’re reading , your analyzing—what’s going on in a sentence. Which is what I’m trying to do with the pieces that I assign you guys to read. And what would also help is editing other peoples work that is workshopping your classmates work. It teaches you to read between the lines and teaches you what mistakes you must or must not do. I recommend this is the best way to go. As far as craft goes , I think we really need to address this in class on how to read writing like a writer and not a reader. I’m afraid this is going to ruin your reading experience for the rest of your life because you’ll forever be reading like a writer and never as a normal reader again. But c’est la vie so when you’re reading a short story, try to think about what is happening in a sentence. Analyze it. Meaning think about what is said and what is not said. Think about the language used , the words used. Word choice in short stories is very important. The right word can change the sentence drastically. And don’t worry no one gets it right the first time : it’s about revision revision revision. Think about how to keep your sentences, lively and fresh when you’re editing. Try and get rid of the tired words. Try and use less adjectives as possible, and instead be in the mind of your character .

Lorie Moore is a great one to study craft. Particularly Self Help.

Maybe jhumpa lahiri as well ——unaccustomed earth. William, Trevor is amazing also. Stylistically although this is not a short story have you read italo calvino’s Invisible cities ? it’s simply beautiful.
They’re almost like short stories are short prose poems. Very tight sentences. Very succinct descriptions. No wastage of words in space. The other thing I might recommend is taking a literature class for adults because you have a very different kind of conversation then you would if you went to a literature class with undergrads. It’s very important that you keep reading while you’re writing, although sometimes reading a writer who is very similar to what you do can be dangerous. You might get too influenced. But I’m glad you brought this up because I think we should spend a little more time on the same text and literally go through sentence by sentence and analyze what’s going on and why. Why does a writer choose to use a particular word ? Why does a writer choose a particular detail? For example, Alice Munro, when trying to describe a lower middle class house, describes the kitchen. And the way she described the kitchen is very subtle. So for example, in a rich person’s kitchen, you might find copper pots or Le Creuset, porcelain, etc. while describing a non-affluent home, she uses subtle examples, such as describing a lot of junk that has still been in its wrapping. She describes tacky things in the kitchen to distinguish between class.

Remember Chekov’s Lady with the Dog— how he describes going to the town of S. The descriptions of the mansion, piano playing somewhere. The workers.

All this creates a bourgeois world Chekhov means to portray.

These are subtle descriptions that you can use when talking about your various characters. And just by using one subtle detail, you will give us so much information about that person and his background. For example, if he starts talking about Bordeaux wine , you know that he comes from a certain kind of background right? But if you’re drinking bourbon, neat and slamming down a rock glass on the table you’re describing a completely different kind of American aren’t you? So think about how these little details affect the overall telling of a character. The clothes he’s wearing. The shoes. The hair. Mannerisms. Hope this helps.

Keep asking me questions.

Silence and Text

I’m exploring silence these days. Silence in words, between words. How to create silence because everything important is between what is left unsaid.

I thought I’d change my writing tips to show some new work exploring silence.

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How to write a character driven story

When I start writing a new story, it is very important for me to ‘know’ my character. I may not know what he or she will be doing later in the story, how she will enter the climactic scene where she bumps into her ex, but it’s important to know little things such as: what she likes to eat or what kind of music she listens to.

I need to know all this before I begin the story, else they never go anywhere. The story that is.

Most importantly, there are three vital questions about my character I need to have answered before our fictional journey embarks:

1) What was the first thing they thought of in the morning when they woke up

2) What did they dream of the night before

3) What is the one thing that they want most in life

If I can answer these three basic things about my character, I know her intrinsically. And once I know the core of her, the story sometimes takes its own path.

Naming of a character is another crucial aspect to that process.

The first story I ever wrote was about an old man who lived next door to me in an apartment building. The man didn’t even have a name. I just referred to him as ‘the old man.’ The story didn’t go anywhere. My former college writing teacher would have once again used that pernicious word: portentious.

I was very adamant, as a novice and naive writer, to avoid going where all Indian writers do. That is, to write about Indians in America. I didn’t want to be a Jhumpa Lahiri wanna-be.

My second short story was a love affair. I can’t remember the man’s name but the woman’s was Isabella.

The story was just not taking off. Something vital was missing. I couldn’t quite tell you what it was. I just knew it wasn’t there. I remember the diplomacy smeared, patient face of my then thesis advisor who clearly had higher hopes from me. How could I fail?

For reasons I don’t remember now, perhaps as a last resort, I changed the characters’ names to Ashok and Kavita.

All these years later, I can still feel the pin pricks of dread, horror and stupefaction that followed. Stupefaction because as soon as I put those names down on screen, I knew, deep in my gut, that this was it. This was a story about two Indians. Horror and dread because what followed perhaps changed me for ever. I knew that from then on, I would be writing about Indians. It was as simple as that—by finding the right names I found my niche.

Before you go to seminars on how to build a character, or create story arcs, just know one thing. Know who you are writing about. Dream of her. Live her. Write little notes on the subway about her which, you will later throw away. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get inside her.

The rest will naturally follow. Everything else will come out of a curiousity for and perhaps— from a necessity of that character.

Do not worry if you don’t have a plot. Plot is just a scaffolding to get to the heart of the matter. The matter comes through the people—humanizing them; understanding them; explaining them— to yourself and consequently to your readers.

Time and movement in stories

Today I want to talk about the movement of time in a story.

Pacing is important. If you are writing a story that takes place within a short period of time, you cannot dwell on every insignificant detail. Each word and sentence has to account for something.

For example: Your character has just woken up, hung over and is sad about something that happened the night before. A common mistake is to inundate the scene with descriptions that don’t matter.

“She woke up and made her way to the kitchen.

She opened the door and went inside . She opened the cabinet but there was nothing there. She opened another cabinet and took out a coffee mug. She filled hot water in the kettle and set it on the stove. When the water stop boiling, the kettle let out a whistle.”

What exactly is happening here?

What, if anything do we learn from this description?

This scene would have been different had these actions revealed. something significant about the character or given you an insight into an incident that had happened. Or, a precursor to something about to take place.

How about we wrote it this way:

“She woke up and made her way to the kitchen, not bothering to turn the light on.

She watched the smoke rise from the kettle, then disappear. It (the kettle). wobbled slightly—like her gait— on the hob where it was permanently placed. In all these years, she had never moved it.

Nothing remains.”

Do you see the difference between the two? Can you tell something or begin to understand the character in a certain way in the second example? It is not that you cannot add details, but it important to choose the precise ones.

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between using the right word and the almost right word is the same difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Notice the physical space between one sentence and the next. It is deliberate.

The white space is your friend. It gives relief. Use the entire page as your canvas, just as poets do. Sometimes one single floating line, is a way to convey interiority; introspection. Unlike a synopsis which is a way of closing in, a single stray thought opens out the narrative.

Time breaks can also be done by using the asterisk ***. after a paragraph.

The Em Dash too acts as a breathing space between one word and the next. It allows for rhythm and lyricism. Do not be afraid to use punctuation to dictate to your readers how you want the sentence to be read.

Everything in moderation— the classic show don’t tell is a cliche but remember to be subtle. Remember the significance of silence. Important moments happen between these silences and white spaces. That is where time really moves.