On Wrestling and Rejection

Don't Give up the Fight

Yesterday I received my third rejection this year. Oh well. Not the end of the world, but a bummer. What do you do when you have a piece rejected? I know: it's time to seriously revise, zen out big time. Then go into secretary mode. Send it off again, get it out of here.

Absolutely no hard drinking or buying shoes.

The good news is that for every three to six rejections - BINGO! - I often get my foot in the door. Yesterday I also received corrections for a piece that is coming out in a hip literary magazine (I'll blab when it goes to print) with comments from my adorable editor whom I met -by chance- while working in Paris in January. Sometimes it all comes together, hey?

And last week I received the publishing agreement for another piece I have coming out in the summer, and news that I will be paid £100! Rather breathtaking for this poor author.

Neither of these stories was accepted the first time they were submitted. The first was praised by several editors, but was submitted 6 times. The second, while they were interested from the start, had to be shortened by 3000 words and went through a sophisticated editorial board before it was accepted. Over a year of waiting!

It's agonising, isn't it? Are there any rules to this? I have had pieces I think are worthwhile rejected again and again, and a story I ran off and hardly checked accepted with embarrassing praise. Why does one editor accept a piece and another sends you a form rejection slip? Why does one rave about your work and perhaps another not reply at all?

Try this for size: Unfortunately, we aren't able to accept this story for publication.. There are many possible reasons for turning down a story, and we regularly turn down great work just because it isn't quite right for us..

I mean, what a tease. Are they just being nice letting you think that yours may have been that 'great' piece that they've had to let slip away? Hmmm. I'm not convinced. Even Granta editor Ellah Allfrey recently said they've done away with reading interns because they weren't able to identify great work. (Perhaps some of mine that came trickling back?)

As we all know, small magazine are run on the whiff of an oily rag. They involve passion, sacrifice. Choice of material comes down to individual taste. Magazine space. Prior acceptances. Issue themes. I recently had one piece put on hold by a magazine I've been trying to break into for yonks, because it didn't fit their themed issue for March. Now it's going through the mill for the next selection. Groan. But happy groan. It makes acceptance feel like a mix of luck, talent and serendipity - on top of all your hard creative work.

I read a great blog post ages back by American writer Robin Black, whose first collection 'If I Loved You I Would Tell You This' came out to wonderful reviews and is an unforgettable read. She speaks about this drama. Why this story yes, and now?

Sometimes it's like a slap in the face. You might feel wounded and down, but don't give up the fight!

I Had a Gallery in Africa

Readers familiar with Isak Dinesen's work might remember this first line from her famous book 'Out of Africa'. I first had it drummed into me by my dreamy African history professor many years ago at university. Isak Dinesen-Karen Blixen's stirring first line read,

I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

And her sweeping autobiography told of her sad life in colonial Kenya as a failing coffee plantation owner, as an unhappy wife, as a bereaved mistress. We all remember the breathtaking shots from Sidney Pollack's Oscar-winning film: Robert Redford's Gypsy Moth moving over the green hills of East Africa; Meryl Streep grieving on her dramatic country verandah.

As much as I was entranced by these words, I soon felt guilty for ever being swayed by them. As a young wife posted in pre-war Mogadishu, we visited Isak Dinesen's house on the outskirts of Nairobi. We walked quietly through the preserved, wood-lined rooms, past her trunks, onto the waiting verandah. The guide that day was irritated to see us and unhappily answered our silly questions about Meryl Streep. No, it wasn't the house they used in the movie. Yes, they are the Ngong Hills.

Not a very magical visit, and if one reads the novel (rather than the cheesy film) one sees that Dinesen's personal melancholy is almost on a par with that of the thwarted, subjugated Kenyans, while figures like Denys Finch-Hatton-Robert Redford commanded the skies and hunted the animals.

Years later I had my own flawed dream in West Africa where I lived for a good many years. I've always collected traditional art. Not high end pieces but rather good copies and some surprising authentic works. I love sculptures, fabrics, silver.

So I put together a gallery. Like Dinesen I had a mournful time of it for various reasons. Sometimes, I look at the pieces I salvaged and they give me uneasy comfort.

 

 

Seven Essential Tips for Writing Prize-winning Short Stories

1. Get a Secretary. To win a prize, you have to enter, right?

Given that few writers can afford a secretary we creative people must learn how to hop out of our slack saggy-bottomed writer's trackies and become business-like. On a slow creative afternoon, or with rigour in a regular slot, we must change hats and sit down with resolve. We must investigate.



Draw up a calendar with deadlines for the significant short story competitions on your planet. Familiarise yourself with word counts for each. Read past winners and it doesn't hurt to read up about the judges either. Be informed, be efficient.

2. Read the instructions.

One of the favourite pastimes in my family (my Dad is an engineer so he can afford to, my bros are brainy and practical) is to open up the box and throw away the instructions. To wing it. Go blindfolded. Well, when you enter your potential prize-winner into a big competition, it will be like the first day of school. So many children, so many shining faces. DON'T TRY AND BE DIFFERENT. If they say before 12.00 on 25th August, they don't mean on the twenty-sixth with a sob story. If they say no names on the document, that means no names AT ALL. If they say 12 point Times Roman double-spaced, DO IT. Spellcheck, triple edit. Sleep with your printout under your pillow.

3. Be humble, but be great-minded.

Junot Diaz

If you read a piece by Katherine Mansfield or Grace Paley or Ernest Hemingway or Sarah Hall or Kevin Barry or Junot Diaz and you throw the book to the other side of the room and shout, It's no use, I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO WRITE LIKE THAT, well you may be right. These authors are established, original and brilliant. BUT REMEMBER THAT THEY HAD TO START SOMEWHERE. They too started with doubts, with rejections, with silence, probably with depression or alcohol or both. But what I am certain all of these writers possess/possessed is perseverance. Not of the type, Bastards - my story shoulda won! Rather, Okay, it didn't go well, what could be imbalanced or weak or in excess?; let's revise, where else can I send it?


4. Find an idea. Ha! I hear you cackle. An idea? Why they're going 3x2 at the supermarket! What an earth is original any more? Is this some sort of joke?

Recently I read an interview between authors Alison MacLeod and Hanif Kureishi where I was thrilled to read that Mr. Kureishi and I are in agreement. Mr. Kureishi says something rather revolutionary, he says that some days HE DOESN'T WRITE AT ALL. He says that he won't sit down to write unless he has an idea. A light bulb. Illumination. Don't you agree? I DO. I don't buy the idea that you have to write in notebooks, on walls and table napkins; that every day has to yield a word count of up to a thousand words. What about honing? What about being exact? What about storing up impulses, images? What about the rush of putting the fuzzy idea in your head into sure-footed, savoured words?

WAIT FOR A SIGN

Sarah Hall

 A short story is a powerhouse, a strictly designed puzzle, a beautiful oil  painting. It is a work where you cannot ramble, explore, delve; it's wham bam thank you man. Before you even start, you have to have an itch, a burning, a trigger. And this has to convulse into words.

 5. Mindspace. To write a prize-winner your brain has to be clean,    wiped clean. You can't go to your work space with kids to collect in half an hour, a dog barking, a jack hammer in the next block; worries. What if you are on the cusp of freefall, your idea has grown wings, and your phone rings?? Nah, you can't climb back up there again. It won't come back. So turn on the red light, put out the Do Not Disturb Sign. Take yourself seriously and others will.

And Know Thyself. Find what enhances your performance at the screen or with your fancy notebook and pen. Have sex. Have coffee. Eat buns. Acquire serotonin the way only you know how. Get ready for this ride. Give this story your bestest.

6. Think of a STONKING TITLE and a SWIFT, BEAUTIFUL AND ARRESTING ENDING.

Your title while succinct, not pretentious, and soaked with the essence of your story, might do well to take into consideration the tone of the current crop of prize-winning stories. This may well sound like a cheap sell-out but you are also trying to enter a commercial market, and vying with able competitors.

And your ending must be powerful, succinct, bearing the whole purpose of the story. Don't even venture into short story territory if you can't hustle up a strong ending with a beating heart.

Super important: Edit while you go. Breathe each tick of your story, each throb of blood, each stitched word. The first draft is crucial. It must as brilliant as you can get it. If you get stuck, leave. Go running, chase the dog, buy a handbag, clean the windows. Sleep with your story at the front of your mind.

7. Read a gazillion prize-winners.

Read The New Yorker. Read Kevin Barry's story 'Fjord of Killary'. Read Granta, The White Review, Tears in the Fence. Be ashamed if you have never subscribed to a magazine and supported the people who adore this beautiful art form. Read, discern, learn and be pure about it.


Catherine McNamara has twice been long-listed in the Fish Short Story Competition, (but once had to withdraw her entry because it had been accepted somewhere else). Her collection 'Pelt' was a semi-finalist in the Hudson Prize in 2011 (she found out by chance when googling her blog!). She has been totally ignored in the EFG Private Bank Trust Short Story Award short list, and usually sees competition deadlines skate by because she is a crap secretary.

But this is going to change...

In the Running

It's been a while since I've been here. Quite some time. Now that Pelt and Other Stories is headed towards final editing it's time I started serious short story blogging again. We are working on the cover ideas, cover blurbs, and I have my wonderful cover comment from Nigerian/Belgian prize-winner Chika Unigwe, whose novel 'On Black Sister's Street' is also a New York Times Editor's Choice:

'Every story in this collection is a delightful surprise. McNamara's lucid prose shines on every page, creating stories that are both difficult to put down, and unforgettable.'

Many thanks Chika!

In the meantime I've also had more work accepted. 'Montgomery Akuofo, Father of Twins' was selected to appear in the classy litmag Short Fiction later this year. In this story, Montgomery sees a photograph at his older lover's house, and recognises his unclear sexual yearnings.

'Afterwards they came into his head, these people. The drug addict and her dog, the Brazilian man in the dress, the old embattled white men with their makeup. They touched him and he wondered what Europe would be like: the wet parks with tall trees, the never-ending buildings and shops with their scrolls and windows, the faces cowering over him, giving him food and fucking him in the mouth, and he would look down and see he was wearing women’s clothes.'

I also have pieces coming out in the distinguished Wasafiri and the very hip Kerouac's Dog this year. 'Infection' takes place in contemporary Ghana, where failed doctor Eugene returns to observe his tyrannical mother treat his dying sister with disgust. And 'Opaque' tells of one woman's moral dilemma - whether to obey her husband and harbour a kidnapped child, or act as a saviour and risk her husband's wrath.

So much excitement ahead for this little chickadee, who is currently steaming ahead with new stories, new characters, new worlds. The fields are white outside and the words are flowing. Good luck to those of you who have sure-footed projects alight!

Short Stories: A Technical Chat with Laura Maylene Walter

Laura Maylene Walter's collection Living Arrangements won the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for short fiction in 2011. Her stories are lucid and unflinching, involving characters ranging from a creepy man obsessed with a champion figure skater to an unattractive underwear model who arouses local interest. Laura touches upon grief, lust and place with a steady hand, quiet language and underlying friction.

1. I remember reading the story of your winning the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction on your blog. Would you like to recap?

Good things happen when you eat fatty bread, apparently, because I was busy tasting samples at an olive oil store in California (lauramaylenewalter.com) when I got the phone call that I’d won this contest and that my debut story collection would be published. Immediately after receiving the news, I ate some vegetarian tacos, went to a couple of wine tastings, and then hopped on a train bound for Oregon. It was a surreal day, to say the least, and it took weeks for the shock to wear off.
Many of the stories in Living Arrangements (lauramaylenewalter.com) were written at a time in my life when I wasn’t actively seeking publication. Instead, I was trying to improve and grow as a writer. I churned out story after story, workshopped them in various writing groups, and revised. It wasn’t until years later that I first considered entering a short story collection contest. I went back to all my old stories, decided they could work as a collection (and felt a bit surprised that I’d written an entire book of stories without even trying) and entered three collection contests that winter. Seven months later, I got the call that I won the Chandra Prize, and I’ve never looked at olive oil in the same way since. (Okay, that’s a lie.)

2. You've been writing short stories for years now, before Living Arrangements came out, what were your feelings about submitting work? Have you submitted a lot of work in the past? How did you deal with rejection? Do you think you are in a safer place now, having published?

When I was nineteen years old, I submitted three poems to The Paris Review and had the nerve to be both surprised and disappointed when they were rejected. (I still remember one of the poems. It was about an ice sculpture of a woman. I believe she was melting – need I say more?)
Despite a few overly optimistic moments like that, I wasn’t a stranger to the submissions process, even as a teenager. Back then, I sent my work to publications geared toward students and occasionally queried or submitted to markets advertising in writing magazines. At age 16, I received my first paying acceptance for a short story (the journal is now defunct). In my early and mid-twenties, I sent out a few rounds of short fiction submissions to journals and was soundly rejected. It was discouraging, but I knew deep down I wasn’t there yet and had a lot to learn. This is what set me on the path of just writing and revising without worrying about submitting. In the end, this paid off.
As far as feeling if I’m in a safe place now that I’m published – I don’t. I still feel like I’m starting from zero and, with a very few exceptions, am submitting to slush piles like everyone else. Rejection is just a fact of the writing life. (lauramaylenewalter.com)

3. I understand you're working on a novel now. Is that connected to Living Arrangements by way of themes or place or character? How do you feel about changing genre and where do you feel most comfortable?

I’m about halfway through the first draft of a new novel that represents a departure from most of the themes in Living Arrangements or my previous novel-in-progress, OPAL, which focused on a mother-daughter relationship. I don’t want to say much about the new project right now because I’m still in that elusive magical point (lauramaylenewalter.com) of the writing process and don’t want to spoil it. But here’s a hint: If you take some of that creepy-sexy-taboo darkness in my figure skater story (“The Ballad Solemn of Lady Malena”) and twist it with the voice of the narrator in “The Clarinet,” you’ll get something a bit similar to what I’m working on now. In other words: Like many writers, I can’t escape myself.
Honestly, I think I am still most comfortable with short stories, but there’s just something about working on a novel. It becomes a part of you for so long. But I love each form for its own reasons: for the small, contained world of a short story, which makes it so alive with possibilities, and for the more complex, long-reaching scope of a novel.

4. In the UK this year has been named Year of the Short Story by some (publishers and enthusiasts), although I've always thought there was a broader appreciation for short stories in the US. Do you think that holds true?

I can’t compare the short story’s popularity in the United States to that of the U.K., but at least from a publishing perspective here, short story collections are not money-makers and are therefore not nearly as sought after as novels. In fact, part of the reason I never envisioned my short stories being published together in a book is because I had it drilled into my head that short story collections don’t sell, agents aren’t interested in representing a collection if you don’t have a novel, and big houses don’t want your collection unless you’re already famous. (Thank goodness for small presses.) I can’t count how many times I’ve heard a writer say that an agent or editor tracked her down based on the strength of her short fiction only to immediately ask: “But do you have a novel?” It’s just how the business works.

5. Most writers' first collections bring together work that spans several years, would you ever embark on a themed or interlinked short story collection? Or do you think each story has to spring from its own well?

I’d love to one day write a linked short story collection. Right now, my new stories are not closely connected and develop individually, but I’m also conscious of how they might work together in a book. It’s different this time around because with every new story I write, I consider it not just on its own but as a potential part of a collection.

6. First person, second person or third person? You work with the second person very capably - not easy. Do you have a preference or a way of deciding which person to use?

I recently poked fun at the second-person point of view in a blog post, (lauramaylenewalter.com) but as anyone who reads Living Arrangements knows, I haven’t shied away from writing in this point of view. The second-person stories in Living Arrangements just poured out of me. The voices came through really strongly and I felt, at the time, that there was no other way to write those stories. But since Living Arrangements, I’ve largely left this point of view behind. I’m not saying that I’ll never write another story in second person again, but I’ve moved on for now.
I don’t know how to explain my POV decision-making process. I suppose it’s dictated by the character or a larger vision for the story itself. It just seems to happen organically for me.

7. I particularly enjoyed some of the strange turns your stories take, which crystallise the character for the reader. What do you ask yourself when you are halfway through a story? Do you usually know where you're headed or do things come together unexpectedly?

Many of the story endings in Living Arrangements surprised me as I was writing them. I love that. I’m not a writer who sits down and makes outlines and knows exactly what will happen. That’s the joy in writing for me – surprising myself and watching as the work takes over in ways I never imagined. I think I’m at my best when I’m not afraid to explore, let things happen, and maybe even get a little lost.

8. Some of your endings seem like soft landings but instead pack a hard punch during their evolution. There often seems to be an undercurrent of sexual danger, violence, the starkness of death. How do you feel when you finish a story? Do you revise a lot? Immediately or long afterwards? Have these stories undergone much rewriting and how long do you think it takes to get a story shipshape?

I revise in layers over a long period time. It’s like one big onion – layer after layer covered with a messy skin and causing lots of tears, not to mention all the bad metaphors that need to be cut (see: revision is like an onion). I will revise pieces over a period of years, but the drive to revise almost never goes away, even after publication. For example, I’d probably make changes to many of the Living Arrangements stories right now if I could. Having a book published is terrifying because you can’t make any more improvements, but it’s also a relief for the same reason – you can finally move on for good.
When I finish a draft of a story, I feel satisfied. I feel most like myself.

9. I'm not sure how you feel about this but I shy away from questions such as, Where do your characters come from? Or, Did this happen to you in real life? I prefer to let the work stand on its own. How do you feel about these questions?

Sometimes I kind of love it when people ask if something in my fiction happened in real life, (lauramaylenewalter.com) because then I get to tell them “No.” I find this really satisfying for some reason. Of course, it can also be frustrating, and I have to remind myself that this question isn’t really an attack on my imagination but rather just curiosity. And am I really going to complain that there are people out there who think I was once an elite figure skater or worked as a lingerie shop model? No. It’s hilarious.

10. Have you enjoyed book promotion so far? What has been your most fruitful experience? (And your most fruitless if there have been any?)

The words “book promotion” make me feel guilty because there’s probably so much more I could have done. They also make me want to lock myself in my writing room and avoid all interaction forever and ever and just write, but then I have to get over myself.
Blogging has probably worked best for me and has introduced a fair number of readers to my collection. (My mantra for the blog is “Don’t be boring or too promotional,” which I constantly try to live up to.) I’ve also written articles for Poets & Writers and other writing markets, which led some readers to Living Arrangements. Reviews help, too, but that’s largely out of my control. I’m not a big Twitter fan – I keep trying, but I’m just not – and I use Facebook primarily for personal reasons, not to promote my book. I get social media fatigue fairly easily and have found the blog is what interests me the most and is what I can do best.

11. Briefly, for those who haven't yet read your very earnest and cool blog, how does Laura Maylene Walter the blogger differ from Laura Maylene Walter the author?

The blogger is goofier, more self-deprecating, (lauramaylenewalter.com) and a lot drunker (lauramaylenewalter.com) than the author. I also try to take my husband’s advice when blogging, which is to “keep it real” at all times. Apparently, being true to myself on my blog means attempting really bad jokes and posting photos of my cats. (lauramaylenewalter.com) So be it! The author side of me, meanwhile, is quieter, more serious, and won’t shy away from writing about sex or politics like the blogger might.
Also, the blogger is willing to say, “Please buy Living Arrangements immediately” while the author just wants some quiet time alone with her cats and the writing desk.

Thanks so much Laura for answering my questions and I invite you all to order a copy of Living Arrangements.

National Short Story Week: Late Views from Behind the Coffee Pot

As a writer whose first short story collection is being published next year it's hard to admit that National Short Story Week passed me by. I knew it was happening. I didn't attend any events in my neighbourhood (tiny village surrounded by roadworks and unfortunate Palladian villas on hills), mainly because there weren't any. I didn't even read up much, reply to anything, or even finish my own damn revisions (I did make the executive decision to remove two stories. Or maybe not. Or maybe.)

But I've been reading. This year I have read quite a few short story collections, more than I can write about here. The most recent have had me really thinking about what constitutes a great short story - as a reader - and trying (desperately!) to relate that to my own work. I finally concluded early one morning as the 5.50am alarm went off that the last line of a short story is like a gate being clicked shut, or a lock being snapped closed, or the final piece of a jigsaw being eased into place. It must be a moment of completion, of being locked within the story like a tight embrace.

Nothing new here, but it felt clarifying. I was just as thrilled when I read about Hemingway's iceberg theory - where 80% of the 'story' lies suggested beneath the surface. And now I have this warming nugget to add to my writerly thoughts.

I'll start with the short story collection I am reading now, Irish Emma Donoghue's 'Touchy Subjects'. A lot of people say they don't particularly like short stories because as soon as you are absorbed, the action is over, the climax is behind your back, or shivering in your hands. Emma's stories are swift, almost casual, and difficult to put down. Each time I can feel that last jigsaw piece falling into place and I look forward to that resolution, the end of that compact journey. And yet her characters are no more compelling than you or I. A personnel officer places his chic coat over a homeless man, while ridden with moral fastidious doubts. A lesbian couple split up over a vet's bill. A man can't decide what colour to paint his house. And one of my favourites, a young guy struggles to tell his girlfriend about the hair on her chin. So artful. So cheeky.

Before that I read 'Dark Roots' by Australian author Cate Kennedy. What a mistress of the story! Cate's story 'Cold Snap' was in The New Yorker and it's easy to see why. A 'simple' country boy is treated as such by a city woman who has bought a house nearby, whose arrogance has her eliminate the old gum trees obstructing her lake view. The 'simple' narrator deals with this in a chilling way. Another favourite is the first story 'What Thou and I Did, Till We Loved'. It's almost too beautiful to explain but the essence of this and many of Cate's pieces is that outer action follows inner contemplation or compulsion. She rides that motion with scant language, speaking of relationships that change gears and the tight weave of domesticity. Strongly recommended.

Laura Maylene Walter is an American writer whose collection 'Living Arrangements' won the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction. I 'met' Laura through a loose group of American writer/bloggers who I join when I can, and I've been reading her blog for ages (I will be interviewing Laura in the near future!). I knew from the tone of Laura's blog voice that I would enjoy her book and what a rewarding, thoughtful read, with many of her stories still making eddies in my head. Laura addresses loss and place, quirky women, beauty and survival, the dance between women and men, sometimes with a hint of danger. Her characters are often numb, pulling away from their pasts or their place in society. I liked the contrast, the stillness and the lack of fear in Laura's voice. Brilliant.

I read Sarah Hall's 'The Beautiful Indifference' while on a lounger in Corsica this summer on breezy afternoons. It finished too quickly. Having received deserved recognition last year, I knew this book was a banner-waver for short story writers and it didn't disappoint for a second. I haven't read Hall's novels - already someone with such an output at her age makes me green all over - but I wouldn't want my admiration for her stories to be turned into something else. Her stories were long and fruitful, drenching, draining, beautiful. From her EFG Booktrust short-listed 'Vuotjarvi' which takes place on the shores of a Finnish lake, to a lover's tiff gone super-bad in Maputo, involving - maybe - a leopard; Sarah delves deep into the sensual folds of coupledom, and cuts into British society. Her language is break-taking:'They had already rowed out..and gone in where the shadows were expansive, the bottom a black imagining.' If you buy this one, don't give it away.

Recently I read that the best stories are those that you might forget, but you remember. You remember the tones, the lilt of the language, the current of thought. These are all collections that I will be remembering.

Up Close and Personal

I have spent the past few weeks wrestling with my short story collection, due out next year. I've yet to decide on story order, although story precedence seems to be falling into place. I've also had feedback from some very generous readers - some of whom have thrown my thinking on its head. As the stories voyage from Africa to Europe and back, vastly different environments are drawn up, sketching characters who deal with their appearance or physical foibles or fixations, in shifting contexts coloured by history and landscape.

I've also been reading up on what other writers have said about trying to stitch up a collection. It's rarely comfortable reading, because there are so many elements, so many different opinions. What to aim for - a vast and diverse collection, or a thematic voyage through interlinked characters? A parade of stand-alone stories (I can think of Nam Le's 'The Boat') or a tessellated piece like Gretchen Shirm's 'Having Cried Wolf'. And, is the story collection a prelude to the more imposing authorial task of the novel, or is it art unto itself?

So many tussles going on. And this poor writer's pieces go from gay druggies in Berlin to a story of incest in Sekondi, Ghana. How to map these out without losing/baffling the reader?

And yet, as one of my readers said and some of the discussions I read confirmed, short stories are meant to be reread, fished through, digested and thought about. They sit on the stomach. They smoulder in the mind. They are not a comfy flow from one snatch of free time to the next, the connected world of the chunky novel that gives the reader relief. Rather they are demanding, feisty, often unresolved and can leave you sorely wanting. Cliff-hangers, in their most effective form, with the crux of the story's reality just beyond reach, the story around the story, leading the reader up a garden path that buzzes with suggestion.

If you are a short story writer or interested in how these collections come about, do read this discussion, one of the most pertinent series of points I've come across lately www.twentyone.org.uk/issue1/cox.html.

Some of the most interesting points include:

..Publishers favour the linked collection, especially if they can disguise it as a novel. If that isn't possible, they may still suggest a unitary title. This is how Mothers and Sons was given its title, homogenising Tòibin's wide-ranging collection, and privileging one theme among many.

..However tenuous the links may be, story cycles and thematic collections are highly visible, and they are popular with both publishers and literary critics.

..How do you go about assembling all those bits and pieces into a book-length manuscript? Do you just put your best stories together and hope for the best? Or is there some inner logic?

And, for me, one of the most resonant point of all:

..A short story doesn't really resolve anything. It sustains tension, which is probably another reason why people don't take it to the beach. It's not a relaxed form. It can mirror a confusion which doesn't have to go away.

..The word story, the word plot, means a crisis, a conflict, an escalation and then a resolution. Resolution can be a positive, reassuring, warm resolution, but it can also be a kind of Shakespearean, apocalyptic resolution. The short story does have a lot more of the latter - confusing resolution, resolution that turns everything on its head - but it's still a type of closure, a truth slamming down on the reader.


This entire piece is worth reading and is called Oceans of Stories: Collections, Sequences and the Short Story. The discussion is chaired by Ailsa Cox, of the Edge Hill Prize, and the speakers included Anthony Delgrado (bluechrome), Ra Page (Comma Press), Duncan Minshull (BBC Radio 4). Very glad I discovered this.

And this is the bit where most short stories writers photograph their post-its on the floor or the bed, showing you how maddeningly off their rockers they are. Check this out. Can betrayed Laila rub shoulders with broken Sebastien in Brussels? Will Nathalie lead on to Veronique and her contemplation of scarred Heinrik? Will Celeste stand back and allow her brother and his lover to take their own lives?

I read a beautiful comment by Scott Prize winner Carys Bray. She said that unconsciously, she had bookended her collection with two similar pieces. I was thrilled to discover a while back that I had done the same thing too - 'Pelt' starts with a feisty pregnant woman determined to win her man back, 'Volta' ends with another, completely flawed pregnant woman about to lose hers.