THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

So, I've been reading short stories lately. Hundreds of them. All contemporary, mystery-thrillers. I'm judging another competition, so I'm deep in it.

I kind-of forgot about the short story format. Like many of you, the short story is where my writing career began. It started with "Sammy the Dinosaur," the four-page story I pecked out on our Selectric typewriter when I was eight years old. "Sammy the Dinosaur" was new and original to me, though I've heard that there was some other series with the same name that preceded me. My wife mentioned this recently, saying she assumed I stole the idea from the original author. This is simply not the case, however. When pressed, she softened her accusation, suggesting that my eight year-old mind was merely susceptible to ideas originated by others and that I imagined the story as my own. What she doesn't know is that "Sammy" was the name of every pet I had as a child. Every fish, whether it was a beta or catfish, was "Sammy." For a short time I had a salamander named Sammy. "Sammy" actually became something of a cursed name, since each fish never survived more than a month and the salamander disappeared after a massive, New Mexico dust storm lifted its cardboard home into the sky.

After the salamander debacle I began naming my pets with "B" names, a tradition that continued all the way to our recently deceased (seven years ago) dog Bandit and ultimately to the names of my ultimate pets, Boulevard and Beat.

It started with my first bullsnake, which was given the amazingly original name, "Bull." The snake was a gift from my father, who brought him home to face the violent protests of my mother and sister. My dad held his ground and, for this, I gave him the honor of choosing its name. My father was a doctor and this moment proved that he was a man of great skill and no imagination. "Bull," he said. "You know, for Bullsnake." As though it needed an explanation.

Ultimately I had four bullsnakes: Bull, Belle, Billie and Bess. Bull was the only male in the group, so the rest was his harem. I had other pets during this time, too. They were the mice my snakes didn't eat. It was weird, but if a mouse looked at them wrong, or if one accidentally kicked a snake in the jaw before the fatal strike, the snake turned tail and ran. The mouse went from pastry to pet.

I've been a vegetarian since I was seven years old, so feeding mice to snakes became pretty hypocritical after a while. One day I tried to get Bull to eat an egg. I dropped the egg out of the familiar "feeding container" (a Folgers Coffee can punctured with air holes) and watched as the snake crawled OVER the egg to get a better view into the empty can. I then had the bright idea of picking up the egg and dancing it around the cage so that it would appear "mouse-like." Needless to say, my hand became that night's meal.

When I got older I bought an iguana. Because iguanas eat salads.

It's time to stop this tangent. We were talking about short stories.

After "Sammy the Dinosaur" I graduated to long form. When I was fourteen I wrote my first screenplay, with my writing partner Seth Gardenswartz. Together we were Schwartz & Gardenswartz Productions. He wanted us to be Gardenswartz and Schwartz Productions, but I told him it sounded clunky. Schwartz & Gardenswartz worked because it was "two Schwartzes separated by a Garden." It took a full afternoon to convince him that my intentions were good and that I wasn't trying to steal the spotlight. Finally, he agreed. I remember snickering softly, within earshot, "My name is fi-irst, my name is fi-irst..."

So we wrote that screenplay, a sci-fi thriller called "Battle of the Gods." Written in long-hand, because neither of us typed. We gave it to my sister, who turned it into a typing class pet project. It came back as a 65-page paragraph. Really. All the dialogue, descriptions, name slugs, transitions, everything, wrapped into one gigantic paragraph. Thanks, Sis.

High school was four years without thinking about stories or writing. High school was four years of thinking about girls. I can't remember if I read a thing. Wait, there was Steinbeck's "The Pearl." I remember hating it. They could have at least assigned Nabokov's "Lolita."

College came around and I started reading, and appreciating, good writing. The first writings that caught my attention were short stories. Flannery O'Connor. Katherine Anne Porter. "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." Fantastic stuff. And then there was Hemmingway, and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber."

And Amy Hempel. My God, have you read Amy Hempel?

Stories by Bernard Malamud. Stories that lit the fire.

After college I got lost in screenplays, writing at least ten feature scripts before ditching the film world to set my sites on the novel. I began by tackling the short story. I wrote seven or eight pieces that I kept to myself. Just getting used to the process. Then I dove into long-form with my first novel, Boulevard.

And now I'm studying the short story. Again. A good short story is a whole little novel in an itty-bitty space. I'm more intimidated now than ever. I've been asked to contribute to a short story collection for Red Hen Press, with some pretty impressive authors in the mix. I'm trying not to let it scare me. But it does. I've gotten used to the long format and, as exhausting as it is to write a novel, at least I have the comfort of knowing that I'm never really expected to finish one. Then there's that great surprise at the end, when I actually do finish. (I assume I'll experience that feeling again, someday). But these short stories...geez, there's simply no excuse to not get one done.

I guess it's fortuitous that I'm judging a short-story contest the same time I'm supposed to write a story for publication. I'm learning what works and why. And what doesn't work, and what to avoid.

Short stories open a whole new world for me - at their best they're magnificent dishes meant to be consumed in one sitting, yet remembered forever for their satisfying taste. At their best they influence our styles and give us something to emulate. And, as authors, they give us an opportunity to experiment with different styles and points-of-view and tense, without committing our careers to the kind of "risky" change that scares agents and editors. And, if a new style works as a short story it might signal a new direction for the course of our books. Or it might signal exactly what we shouldn't do in our books; the canary in the coal mine. Something to think about.

What are your favorite short stories? Which ones have influenced your style? Do you prefer writing short stories or novels? Do you prefer reading short stories or novels? Why?

Boroondara Literary Awards

by PD Martin

In my last blog I mentioned the complete chaos in my house at the moment. But I didn’t mention I had another factor compounding the chaos of a new toddler in the house…a big freelance job!

Back in February I was asked to judge the Short Story Competition of the Boroondara Literary Awards. I knew that in September I’d get a delivery of about 300 stories (1500-3000 words long) and that I’d have a month to read them and pick the winners. No problem. I estimated it would be about 40 hours work over four weeks. Piece of cake.

Then the exciting and unexpected call came…we could organise flights and pick up MinSeok (now Liam MinSeok). 

For the first week of my four-week judging allocation, we were in Korea. Then in the second week I was reading during his naps and at night, but didn’t seem like I was getting very far. That’s when I found out that this year the competition had a staggering 611 entries. Ahhh!

But that’s not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the experience of reading and judging these short stories. What makes a short story good? What separates the winners from those who don’t place?

My first pass of the 611 stories gave me a shortlist of 82 stories. Even this initial shortlist was hard to come up with, because there were many powerful stories that demonstrated the entrants’ strong grasp of the writing craft. In fact, I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but I was surprised at the quality. From there, I got it down to 36, then 26 and finally I was down to my top 12 stories, from which I chose the winners. Funnily enough, I actually culled the winning story at one point  (yes, the one that got first prize), but then brought it back in because I kept thinking about it. You know those kind of stories? It stayed with me.

So, what does make a short story good? It’s difficult to describe the magic formula that makes a short story sing; however for me there are some essential elements. For a start, an opening sentence, paragraph and first page that grabs me. A short story doesn’t have much set-up time and a good short story, like any novel, will constantly drive the reader forward and take you on a journey. Sometimes the driving force is the plot. Sometimes it’s the characters. And sometimes it’s the pure beauty of the written word, the author’s grasp of the writing craft. Of course, ideally these three things come together on the page — a strong plot, intriguing characters and beautiful writing.

There’s still more to a short story than that…there’s the ending. Whether it’s resolution or a shocking twist, the story must feel complete. It was actually the endings of the stories that helped me narrow down the 611 entries to my first shortlist of 82. I found many stories started strong and kept me reading, only to disappoint me in those last few sentences.

One of the difficulties in judging a competition like this is that you’re not always comparing apples with apples. How do you compare a story that’s funny, to a story that’s tragic? Or a story that’s more literary and atmospheric to a murder mystery?

At first, I also found myself drawn to the more shocking, tragic and dramatic stories and I realised that while these stories did pack a punch, I shouldn’t automatically elevate them because they addressed horrific subject matter. These stories were often difficult to read because of their emotionally charged content, namely child abuse, domestic violence, rape and child abduction. In the end, I was mindful of giving these stories equal weighting with the other entries — not elevating them, but not dismissing them either.  

Finally, to narrow down my final 12, I gave each story marks out of ten for:

• Artistry
• Voice and characterisation
• Narrative structure
• Show don’t tell
• Impact

It ended up being a tight race. Unfortunately I can’t talk about the winners yet, because the official announcement isn’t until next month. But I will mention them in November.

In the meantime, questions for the Murderati gang. What makes a short story sing for you? Do you think you’d also initially feel drawn to the more tragic and perhaps impactful stories if you were the judge (or have been in the past)?

The allure of the short story

Today I’d like to welcome Aussie author Angela Savage to Murderati. This is my second instalment, following on from my interview with Katherine Howell, to introduce some Aussie authors here at Murderati. 

I’ve met Angela a couple of times on the mystery ‘scene’ and ran into her again at Sisters in Crime Australia’s Scarlet Stiletto Awards - Angela won the top honour of the night and I was there as the official presenter. You may also recognise Angela from my 'photoshoot to kill for' blog.

Given Angela’s first novel was written after an award-winning short story introducing her main protagonist, and that she’s written extremely successfully in both the short and long form, I asked Angela to blog about the short story and the novel. What attracts her to both forms? Does she approach them with a similar mind-set?

I’ve entered the Sisters in Crime Australia Scarlet Stiletto Awards short story competition twice, once in 1998 and again in 2011.

The first time I was an unpublished writer with an abandoned manuscript burning a hole in my filing cabinet. Short story competitions provided me with focus, opportunities to practice my craft and try something new. The Scarlet Stilettos held the particular appeal of being exclusively for women writers, with stories required to have an active woman protagonist.

In what was my first foray into crime fiction, I submitted a story called ‘The Mole on the Temple’ about an Australian expatriate detective called Jayne who exposes a card scam in Bangkok.

My story won third prize. More valuable than the prize money was the confidence this gave me to persevere with both the crime genre and the main character. Jayne went on to acquire the surname Keeney and became the hero of my first novel Behind the Night Bazaar published in 2006. The second book in the Jayne Keeney PI series The Half-Child followed in 2010 and I’m currently working on the third, working title The Dying Beach.

Funnily enough, Behind the Night Bazaar started life as a short story that just kept growing. I’ve since ‘cannibalised’—to use Raymond Chandler’s word—several of my early short stories for scenes or subplots in my novels.

I’m not the only author to have kick-started my writing career with a prize at the Scarlet Stilettos. So far 15 women, including category winners like me, have gone on to publish novels. But I’m the first established novelist in the 18-year history of the Scarlet Stiletto Awards to return to the scene and take home the coveted Scarlet Stiletto trophy.

So what made me decide to enter the competition again after a 13-year break?

Part of the motivation stems from a crisis I had earlier this year about whether I could call myself an ‘Australian writer’, when everything I’d written was set in Thailand in the 1990s, albeit featuring Australian characters. I challenged myself to set a story closer to home and the result was my winning entry for the 2011 Scarlet Stilettos, ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’ set in contemporary Melbourne. The plot, involving a restricted breed dog, became inadvertently topical when a four-year-old-girl was tragically killed in an attack by a pit bull terrier only weeks after I submitted the story to the competition.

As in 1998, the short story form gave me an opportunity to try something new. But this time around I have no desire to develop the characters or plots into a full-length novel.

Pound for pound, I find short stories harder and more time consuming to write than novels. Short stories and novels have different centres of gravity. Both need to hook readers in at the start, but the narratives have different arcs. Short stories are less forgiving. There’s no room for superfluous adjectives or adverbs.

With novels you can loiter a little, while the nuances of the story and characters play out. Short stories have to maintain the pace or they’re dead in the water.

Secretly, like an actor who longs to direct, I’d really like to write songs—to tell a whole story in three or four verses and a haunting refrain.

I’ll just have to keep practising.

Angela’s first book, Behind the Night Bazaar, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award as an unpublished manuscript in 2004 and was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Book in 2007. Her second novel, The Half-Child was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly in 2011 for Best Fiction. The Half-Child is available in Kindle version on Amazon or in hard copy through Text Publishing.

We’re interested in hearing your thoughts about short stories and novels. Do you read both? Write both?

Angela will be around to answer questions too!

The Sickness Within

by Alafair Burke

I'm dark.  My guess is we're all a little dark at Murderati.  I teach, study, and write about crime.  All crime, all the time.  So, yeah, I'm a little dark.

But every once in a while, I read words that I placed on a page and think to myself, "Damn, that's sort of sick."

I remember sitting in my office a few years ago, knowing that I needed to finish the chapter I was working on before I could join my husband and his Army friend for Friday night festivities.  I don't know whether it was the momentum of the scene or the promise of a cocktail, but I hammered out the words as quickly as I could type them.  Suddenly the bad guy was doing something I had no idea he was going to do.  And I was describing it.  (No spoilers here, but I'm referring to the big, explosive confrontation near the end of my fifth novel, Angel's Tip.)

I walked into the living room and threw my hands in the air.  "Finished!  Let Friday night begin!"  As the husband shook my martini, his friend asked, "What were you writing?"

I summed up the scene in a single, bluntly worded sentence. 

My husband's friend -- did I mention they knew each other from the Army? -- looked at my husband, then looked at me, and then said, "That's the sickest thing I've ever heard."  That's right, y'all, I managed to freak out a West Point graduate who has spent the last twenty-one years in the military.  Hollah!

 I have no idea why this puppy doesn't know the difference between "your" and "you're," but his obliviousness makes him all the more awesome.

Our friend asked where the idea had come from.  I truly had no clue.

That kind of "Wow, I'm sort of sick" moment has happened to me only once in writing seven and a half novels.  Interestingly, though, I'm two for two on short stories.

In 2008, I wrote a short story called Winning (available here), about a husband's reaction to the rape of his police officer wife.  My own editor said, "I had no idea you were so dark."

[An aside: The title "Winning" alludes to gendered responses to violence, where men think "winning" means beating down an opponent, and women think "winning" is survival.  Please note that I wrote and titled the aforementioned story prior to this man's conversion of the word to mean its exact opposite:

End of aside.]

Earlier this month, I turned in a short story for an upcoming Mystery Writers of America anthology edited by Lee Child.  The book is called "Dark Justice" and features tales of vigilantism.  The story took me only a few days to write, but I find myself still thinking about it, wondering how in the world I came up with some of the story's images. 

I wonder not only where the sickness comes from, but also why I seem more able to explore it in short fiction.  Maybe living a full year with those kinds of thoughts would simply be too much to handle.  Or maybe at a subconscious level I worry about my audience, realizing that very few readers want an entire novel filled with that kind of darkness.  A short story is a low-risk, short-term way to purge some of the crazier voices that are pulling at the corners of my mind.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject.  What's the sickest thing you've ever read?  How sick is too sick?  Are you ever surprised, as either a reader or a writer, by the darkness of the books that you enjoy or write? And what is it about a short story that seems to draw out the sickness within?

P.S. A little bit of BSP this morning.  One of my favorite writers, Michael Connelly, was kind enough to write a substantive review of my upcoming book, LONG GONE, for Amazon.  Because he's cool, the review's cool, with Frank Sinatra references and comparisons to watchmaking.  You can read the review (and learn more about LONG GONE) here.

The Long And Short Of It

(Or - Killing Allison Brennan)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

This month, because I have nothing else to do, I wrote a short story. 

I don’t usually do that.   Practically ever.    I only said yes because it was for ITW’s great Thriller – Stories To Keep You Up At Night series and Our Allison  is co-editing (with Sandra Brown) and she asked me.   The thing is, we were all recruited for this book so long ago, and so much has happened since then, that I sort of misplaced the idea of a deadline, if I ever knew it to begin with.

So it came up – suddenly.    Which is good, in a way, because the reason I don’t do shorts is that they’re only short in length – the process is excruciating and feels as long as any other writing I ever do except for Twitter updates, and I rarely even do that.  I didn’t have any room to stall, I just had to do it.

On the other hand, two weeks ago I was having serious thoughts about killing Allison, which just seemed easier and less emotionally draining than doing the story.   Plus I knew she would understand, as long as I was creative about it.

But it really is amazing to me, every single time, how obliging our subconscious is  (or – “those guys in the basement”, as Stephen King says.).  When we need an idea, when we have a scary deadline, the subconscious, the guys, the Muse, the Universe - whoever it is out there always comes through.

First, since this anthology focuses on the romantic suspense subgenre, I picked a dream location in the Bahamas - sexy, glamorous, escapist, that I happened to have made a whole lot of notes about on a not-too-long-ago vacation .    Since setting is HUGE to me, always a key element in anything I write, that was a big jumpstart – I knew I could deliver a sensual experience, which is half the battle in those more romantic thrillers. 

Then, I blatantly used my own feelings at the exact moment – which happened to be deep grief over the loss of a loved one.   It instantly brought up a central emotional question: Will the protagonist ever feel like living again?   And that question led to another:  Well, what in that fantastical environment would MAKE her want to live again?   And that’s the kind of question that leads to a story.

And from there, the Universe did most of the work.  As it always does if we pay attention.  A Tarot card came up as my card of the day that gave me most of the central images and objects of the piece.   I could steal from my sister’s work history to get the heroine’s job (always one of the biggest pains for me to figure out unless I’m writing a cop story or something equally obvious).   My jazz dance teacher was playing a lot of Jamaican music that I had heard on this trip.   Because of the Oscars, Colin Firth was all over the media, and if there’s a better inspiration for sex scenes, I don’t know of one.  And having spent a week in the place I was writing about, I knew the layout of the hotel and the sounds and colors and smells, so I didn’t really have to stop and think all that much.  

And somehow it all just happened and was done in a couple of weeks and I am mad at Allison again because now I have to be grateful to her for the rest of my life that she made me do this.  

I don’t usually get this kind of instant gratification from writing.   Writing a novel is such a long process that even FINISHING doesn’t have much of a rush for me beyond profound relief leading pretty instantly to coma.   I don’t really get to enjoy writing until I start hearing back from readers and realize that the story I wrote actually EXISTS – not just for me but for anyone who wants to pick it up and step into that weird alternate universe that a book is.  Which is a huge gratification, mindblowing, really, but so delayed that it doesn’t seem to have much connection to the writing process.

But a short – somehow is a little miraculous.    One day there is nothing but a black hole of panic and three weeks later or so there is a mini standalone alternate universe.   It makes you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something.   In fact, you have physical proof that you have actually accomplished something.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine putting myself through this on a regular basis.   I know some people can churn out short stories without blinking, but that's not me.  Realistically, my novel would be a month further ahead if I hadn’t taken the time, and a month is a lot.   Since all writers really have is our time.... as much as I love the story, and as fulfilling as it is to have it, now, and as much as I admire the Thriller series (and, yes, okay, Allison) and am honored to be part of it – was writing the story actually a smart thing to do? 

So, those of you who write short stories – I’d really love to know why you do it.   What do you think is the benefit of writing short stories - in a career sense (if any)?   Or is it a more personal pleasure?    Alternately, here’s a good question:  What if anything do you enjoy about writing?   Honestly?

And readers - has a short story ever inspired you to check out an author you haven't read?

Finally, all good thoughts out to all those affected by that devastating Tokyo quake and tsunami... it's just been surreal to see.

- Alex