On Brevity

[scribblemyname]

I have been writing flash fiction for a long time. When I was younger, I only knew two ways to write: very, very long and very, very short. Now that I’ve spent more time in the trenches, I’ve learned how to write a decent short story or short novel in the middle ranges of word count.

Writing with brevity taught me things. Initially, it was merely a symptom of my tendency to sketch fiction instead of drawing or painting it. I never turned it into a sculpture and let it breathe. Eventually, it became my personal expression of a reality I happen to like: evoking a feeling, capturing a moment.

Aliette de Bodard, recent Nebula winner for The Jaguar House in Shadow, puts words to some of these thoughts for me in both her original post and her interview with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

That means that genre takes on the mindset, narrative structures and favoured themes of that demographic…that stories are thought of in terms of protagonist and antagonist, and problems to be fixed; that they need arc, and changes…

and

I am sick of the redefinition of narrative as violence, of how everything has to be a conflict in order to be valid–even to the point of defining conflict “against yourself”, which contributes to trivialising the use of the word “conflict”, not to mention twist it far beyond its original meaning.

True, much of what she writes is complexity and rich and I am engrossed in my own longer fiction drafts of that nature, but what I’ve also noticed is that there are those that feel a story is too skimpy or isn’t a story if it only captures one moment that makes you feel, even if all it does is give an awww or an ouch or a giggle. If it does that, then I’m happy.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[scribblemyname]

Because people aren't one moment. They're a mess of choices and environment and everything that led them to that point and then how do they handle life after that point? That is what fascinates me and drives me to longer fiction. I need to know where these people came from to tell where they are and lead up to where they're going.

This I wholeheartedly agree with. But I do also see that short and long fiction play different roles. A drabble can wrap up an entire stand-alone moment and be satisfying—or not. Depends on the writer and what-have-you.

Most moments pulled from a longer story do not make good stand-alone vignettes because they were built on the context of other things. A short that works is built on a world but not on context. It must contain its own context or it's not a standalone.

I love both. I love the long, rich novels that can't be shortened; I love a hundred million shorts (maybe slight exaggeration) I've read over the years, including two just yesterday. I don't need the whole life to enjoy the story or vignette, but I am fascinated by novels anyway.

What can I say? I'm thoroughly eclectic.

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's the problem.

I haven't read enough short ones where the mix was enough of the characters to make me care but not enough to avoid frustrating me badly when it ended.

With fanfic, I'd be reading to enjoy more with the characters, but a lot of authors were only getting into where they understood their core personalities when they ended the fic.

I think, in many cases, I feel cheated by short fics because they start to give me what I want with that moment and then end before I feel they've really delivered.

[scribblemyname]

Hmm... I highly recommend www.beneathceaselessskies.com and haikujaguar. And of course, Ursula LeGuin and Zenna Henderson. Not all of the former's. I like "Darkness Box," "The Rule of Names," "Nine Lives," and "Vaster than Empires and More Slow" in particular. They resonate and feel complete.