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What is a Short Story?
Marion Zimmer Bradle
THE ELEMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY
Most short stories work on some variation of the following
(so do most novels, but the novel works at a different speed):
A LIKABLE CHARACTER overcomes ALMOST INSUPERABLE ODDS and BY HIS OR HER OWN
EFFORTS achieves a WORTHWHILE GOAL.
Amateur stories, in general, are unsalable because:
1. The main character is NOT LIKABLE ENOUGH. Your reader wants to be able to
identity with the way in which your main character, your protagonist, solves his
or her problem. (There is a variation of this plot, in which an Absolute Bastard
Gets What is Coming to Him, and the reader enjoys watching him come to grief;
but this isn't for beginners.)
2. The odds are NOT INSUPERABLE ENOUGH, or the reader does not believe they are
sufficiently insuperable. If your hero/ine goes out to fight a bear, it must not
turn out to be a teeny-tiny bear cub he could put in his pocket and take home
for a pet. The reader must have a REAL PROBLEM. A FAKE PROBLEM is also
known as a "paper tiger."
3. The main character DOES NOT SOLVE HIS PROBLEM BY HIS OWN EFFORTS. The problem
is solved FOR the character by his Fairy Godmother, the God in the Machine, or
the US Cavalry coming over the hill at the last moment. This deprives
the reader of a chance to sweat, struggle, cry over,
empathize, suffer with, and otherwise feel the strength of the character as he
fights to win out over heavy odds.
4. The RESOLUTION is too predictable, too pat; the reader knows all along that
Our Hero will win the ball game, the girl, the war. A subset of this is what is
called the "idiot plot" -- the plot can keep going only because everybody is
acting like an idiot. This is the story where all the problems could be solved
by asking a simple question. "Why were you kissing that man?" "Because he is my
favorite uncle." End of romantic agonies. This is also the story where the girl
does not tell the police what she knows because she jumps to the conclusion that
her lover is the murderer.
5. The GOAL is not worthwhile enough, or this particular audience does not see
it as worthwhile. Cosmopolitan readers, for instance, would probably not be
willing to
weep and suffer over a housewife who would steal, lie, and cheat to get new
cushions for the sofa. It is getting harder and harder (in these days of feminism) for romance writers to convince their mostly-female audience that a woman would suffer all kinds of humiliations for a man because he happens to be rich, handsome, and "romantic". On the other hand, your goal can be just too cosmic: John Wayne winning World War II all by himself, or Captain Kirk saving the Galaxy single-handed.
STARTING YOUR STORY
In the first couple of paragraphs -- certainly on the
first page, unless your story is approaching novel length -- the reader will
want to know the following things:
WHO is your main character? Male? Female? A rabbit or a robot, a king or a
slave, a macho hero or a wimp, a sensuous siren or a tough Amazon?
WHERE is this happening? We must know whether we are in the dungeons of the
Inquisition, near the canals of Mars, cruising the jungles of the Upper Amazon
or the deserts of the lower Nile, in the Frozen North or the Golden West or the
locker room of the local high school, backstage at the Metropolitan Opera, or in
a dugout with the Yankees.
WHEN does this take place? This is especially important in the science fiction
or fantasy novel, but it is also relevant to historicals, Gothics, westerns...
everything, perhaps, but ordinary boy-meets-girl romance. In order to create the
scenery of the story in his or her head, the reader must know almost at once
whether this is today, the day after tomorrow, pre-history, the days of King
Arthur or the French Revolution, fifty years ago, or "long, long ago in a Galaxy
far far away...."
WHAT kind of story is this? The first page, or paragraph, of a Gothic differs
enormously from the beginning of a Western, and neither could be mistaken for
the first page of a romance, a fantasy, or a
sword-and-sorcery adventure, all of which differ greatly
from a story of hard science and technology or from a children's book. You
should also establish the feel, or mood, of your story, so that the reader knows
at once whether this is a funny, flip satire or a serious romance, whether it is
farcical, melancholy, or tragic.
SELF CRITICISM:
HOW TO ANALYZE YOUR STORY
Most of the elements of
the short story (as well as the novelette or novel) come down to these simple
elements. They seem so obvious it is hard to understand why many amateur writers
never bother to think about them, far less to check them. Yet I get several
manuscripts every day in which the writer pays no attention to these simple
things.
So as you analyze your story, remember your likable character up against almost
insuperable odds, solving his/her problem by personal effort, winning a
worthwhile goal and being changed, preferably for the better, by the experience.
Remember that the editor needs good stories. If she can't find them and print
them and deliver them to her public, she is back pounding pavements looking for
another job. Ask yourself:
WHAT KIND OF PERSON is your main character? Can the reader identify, will the
reader WANT to identify, with that particular character and his/her problems?
HOW can you best tell this person's story? First person? Third person?
Omnipotent
observer? Is the story
funny, tragic, thoughtful, slapstick?
Where do you START your story? It is seldom right to start when the main
character is born. At what
point in his or her life is the protagonist facing this critical experience
about whichyou have chosen to write, and why is it important? In general, you
should get right into the action. Stories which begin with three pages of
description of the weather usually lose the editor after about a page. SHOW,
don't TELL, is a good motto.
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY? Nobody, these days, wants a story which concludes
"Now, the moral of this story is..."; but in general, what was your story ABOUT?
What was the POINT of the story? Analyze to yourself three or four stories that
you liked, and ask yourself why you liked them; what made you finish them
instead of putting them down half finished and wandering away? What was the
author saying? Was the story worth reading? Why or why not?