While doing research (and just bumping around on the Webbernet) for this post, I found a very compelling essay by Jason Sanford, the former editor of storySouth, a very good e-journal. I know it's not exactly what we were assigned to write about, but after reading it, it was all I could think about, and so I wrote a post about it. I'll add a link to the entire thing, but here are a few excerpts (it was written in 2004, but I don't find it to be dated):
"Here's a simple fact: no matter how excellent and mind-blowing a regular-size short story might be, it still takes an author several days to write it. In this same time an author can write any number of mediocre short shorts."
Days!!! More like weeks and months in my experience. I can count on one hand how many stories I've written in just days. But, anyway, I get the point. It is easier, at least initially, to write a story no longer than 1,000 words than one that is, say, 4,000 words.
"The popular take on short shorts is that they are a reflection of our fast-paced modern lives. This is, to put it politely, bullshit. Yes, 21st century Americans may act like none of us have any time left in life, what with our cell phones ringing while we're using our beepers to download e-mails from the web. But America's quickie culture is merely a rationalization for the booming popularity of short shorts."
Charles Baxter makes this claim in the intro to Sudden Fiction. I think there's something to it, frankly. But I take issue with Sanford's calling it a "rationalization."
And speaking of quick:
"A main reason short shorts are all the rage is that they are a quick road to publication. After all, why write a 6,000-word short story when you can write ten 600-word pieces in the same time?"
And, finally:
"When you read a book with a distinct voice (such as that of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying), it can sometimes take pages and pages to get into the author's rhythm. No one first reads As I Lay Dying without some momentary discomfort at the constant switching between different voices and points of views....The problem with most short shorts is not the genre—it is that they are being written by writers who are not committed to the true exploration of voice that's at the heart of great literature."
Is his view a bit alarmist? Perhaps. There will always be mediocre writing being celebrated for professional or political reasons. The trick is identifying quality when you come across it, and emulating that. In fact, I'd say that's one of the essential parts of writing: learning to identify quality when you see it.
Here's the link, but be warned, there's a lot of anti-MFA (and Anti-Hempel) sentiment in it:
http://www.storysouth.com/fall2004/shortshorts.html
Hey, Steve. Yep, that is some serious MFA hate going on in Sanford's post. I've got to say, it's enough to make someone who's in an MFA program and already doubting her writing chops think, "Are you talking about me, Mr. Sanford?" It's a very thought-provoking piece and you are absolutely right about learning to recognize quality. That's a tough skill to hone. Some of the required readings throughout my MFA have been tortuous (I'm looking at you, Heidegger!) and it has been difficult for me to recognize the quality in that writing, though these are famous and much-studied pieces/books. (Of course, some of it isn't fiction, so apples/oranges...)
ReplyDeleteSo the struggle is to recognize quality in others' writing, but to see it in your own writing. According to Mr. Stanford, many of us might be looking for something that isn't there. Sobering read.
Oops...typo. Last paragraph should read:
DeleteSo the struggle is not only to recognize quality in others' writing, but to see it in your own writing. According to Mr. Stanford, many of us might be looking for something that isn't there. Sobering read.
Thanks for taking the time to read it, Tia. I agree. When I first read that essay, there were a few times when I thought, "Sheesh, this is bumming me out..." But, I guess, if you believe in what you're doing, and you believe you're doing it for the right reasons, then it's not worth fretting over, right? I know you've got nothing to fret over; I've read your stories...
ReplyDeleteYou're kind, Steve - but as a sometimes self-doubting writer, I welcome your kindness! :)
DeleteWhen you wrote this:
"I'll have to side with Sanford on this one. Getting published is not the same thing as writing a successful piece of writing. If you want to get published you can get published. It's much harder writing a good story than it is publishing a bad one."
at first I felt kind of (as you said) bummed. I'm not even published. But then I dissected the situation and realized that (I think) what you are saying is that a writer can throw lots of pieces out there, submit constantly, and eventually something's going to stick somewhere. And it doesn't necessarily mean the published piece is something for the ages. It means said writer was tenacious enough to keep at it. Which is where I've failed. I've only submitted a handful of pieces because I have only felt like I have a handful of pieces worth submitting. And when each piece was rejected in turn, I didn't turn around and submit them elsewhere. Rejection felt universal. Not that I was devastated - I wasn't! I just somehow felt like if this journal had no interest, neither would the next. Even as I type this, I realize that's a bit juvenile and smacks of tunnel vision.
But writing isn't always about being published. Like you say, Steve, writing is something you have to do for the right reasons. And those "right reasons" are specific to the writer. And those reasons are why we will keep sitting at our computers, exorcising and creating, even though Sanborn has made us question our ability to do so.
I had the opportunity to talk a bit, over email, with Jason Sanford regarding that article a couple of years ago.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth reading his final points in the "What we learned:" section a couple of times. There's some truth in the article, I don't doubt, but he helped clarify it a bit for me.
His main point is that some people that attend MFA programs have misguided intentions, and that MFA programs can sometimes discourage individuality or genre writing, the former of which they see as an "easy" route to publication. And there is a bit of snobbery out there for genre writing, and vice versa from the genre crowd who feel that all literary writing is conflictless character portraits of sad widows (why this silly battle exists, I’ll never know).
He also says that many people that succeed after an MFA program had the drive, talent and craft necessary for success before they entered the program. There's truth to that, too, I think, but the thing to consider is that there are very few people that are born great writers. There are a few out there, but I'll bet most of the books you've read weren't written by those people. Most people have to fight and scramble, and write every day, and write lots of bad stuff, and pick up nuggets here and there as they can.
I sure as hell wasn't born a good writer. I don't even know if I'm one now. But I certainly have something going on. I've written some decent stuff, I've got drive, and I think I'm learning craft. This program helps me with that, I'm sure of it. So, in the end, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
As I said, there's a lot of disdain amongst genre writers for MFA programs and "literary" writers because they think MFA programs and "literary" writers have a problem with them. And maybe that's true - if I remember correctly, the UTEP MFA website has some nonsense about not sending genre for your writing sample because that's not what they do. But I sent a genre story in my writing sample anyway, and here I am. My point is, just keep working. MFA programs are work, with good writers to help you along. Just know it'll never be enough. It's all on us to get published - and that's not a bad thing. This is just another tool along the way. And at the end of the day, you really only get one spin on planet earth, so what’s a little more student debt?
As to my conversation with Sanford, he used a few points similar to mine in a follow up article and conceded that MFA programs aren’t, maybe, ALL bad. I’ll take that as a victory, I suppose.
Tia, nice post. I think you are on the right track. I like this Louise Erdrich quote: "The gratification has to come from the effort itself."
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteInteresting, and you're right, I think. I'm not really all that effected by what Jason Sanford has to say in the MFA / short-short critique essay. But I thought it would be fun to see what people in this class thought of it. Sort of a "cat amongst the pigeons" type situation. I used to submit to storySouth a lot, and had some dealings with Mr. Sanford, and he's always seemed like a reasonable person to me, so when I read the essay I had a pretty good sense of how to take it. He's not saying "MFA bad. Short-short stories bad." It's a bit more complicated than that, and I think it's a pretty well-balanced essay, actually. But people will always want to take sides against / for certain things. I'm for a person finding what helps them get the work done and pursuing that, MFA or no.
Absolutely! I hope I don't sound like I'm coming down on Sanford somehow - he seems like a genuinely nice guy to me. I'm more talking anti-MFA sentiments in general amidst certain genre people. And you're right, I think it's definitely more complicated. It seems like his core point is that quick-fixes and easy solutions aren't the way to go, and I completely agree.
DeleteYes, Gavin - why say something with unneeded extra words? It's like when someone tells you a story and they start to derail and you're thinking, okay, just tell me what happened, for goodness sake, I've been listening to you for twenty minutes. ZZ Packer taught me in my undergrad years and she was big on deleting unneeded words. In fact, one night, she gave a reading and while she read, she was crossing out words from her book! Sometimes extra words are necessary for an explanation, but not always.
ReplyDeleteDarlene, that's cool you got to study with ZZ Packer. I bet you learned a lot from her.
ReplyDeleteSo ... have to admit I'm sort of dreading the link, Already feeling insecure and a bit defensive, MFA-wise and am a HUGE Hempel fan. But I enjoyed your post and would comment back that perhaps a story takes the amount of words it needs to tell the story--short, or long. Forget about the genre, and tell the tale. If it manages to squeeze a lifetime (or a complete story) into less than 1000 words, we can call it "Flash Fiction," and if it meanders on to 50,000 words or more, let's say it's a novel. Short or long--if it's got a beginning, middle, and end, it's still a story. I, for one, have the utmost respect for authors who are able to say what they have to say concisely. This is something I'm working hard on--flash, or otherwise. I am also in awe of authors who manage to stretch a single, melodious sentence out for a page or more without taking a "breath." That's a spell spun, in my book. I do think people have more patience with "flash" than epic these days--particularly people who are not enrolled in MFA programs:) There are too many distractions--too many things pulling at our attentions from every direction, and let's face it--reading long works in an e-format is just less satisfying than balancing a heavy book on your lap and dog-earring the pages as you carve out chapter after chapter. As print publishing dies, short fiction is bound to become more popular, I think.
ReplyDelete