Differences Between a Short Story and a Novel #1

My first in a series of differences between a short story and a novel.

A teacher once told her class that a novel is just a short story, only longer. Length is true, but there is so much more.

I found this out the hard way. I began a short story 24 years ago and gradually developed it into a novel by sheer perseverance.  Here's what I discovered:

Overall difference:

• A novel is a journey, not only for the characters, but for the writer and the reader.

• A short story is an intense experience--something to linger over and savor.

Difference One: Length

A novel is a larger scale project that takes a lot more stamina than a short story. I takes so long to write that you must have a complex and sustainable idea. You have to be ready for the long haul and to commit yourself to a large amount of writing time.

It's easy to lose track of your writing,  I am not an outline keeper. For me, it would kill the muse. I discovered the story by writing it. At least I had completed the short story. Novel development is complicated. Some novelists keep chapter summaries in a spreadsheet or use software to organize chapters and scenes. I  plodded forward by the seat of my pants. Wrote chapters out of sequence and fitted them in as I went along. Difficult to manage, perhaps, but my right brain insists on chaos. I envy writers who can outline, develop a synopsis, create characters and scenes before even beginning the novel. Would I write another novel in the same fashion?  Absolutely!

There are as many different novel methods as there are writers. I had only a vague idea of what would happen in the story until I finished it. But I had a Marine with PTSD, his dog, and the dialogue between them. The plot developed from there.

Best of the Net

My story, "Ronald's Sister," has been nominated for Best of the Net by Cold Creek Review.

New fiction in the 4-10-17 issue of The New Yorker by Emma Cline

Emma Cline (author of The Girls, The New York Times Best Seller and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post) has written a fine short story, "Northeast Regional," appearing in the April 10, 2017 edition of The New Yorker.

The piece grips the reader with the clipped first sentence, "Close to five hours on the train."

A remote father is called to his son's college where there is reported ''trouble." All moves along seamlessly, with tension, until the explosive dialogue near the end. I did not see it coming. Super!

The writing rolls along at a smooth pace, not a word out of order. The kid's bad doings are left off stage, we are sparred the torrid details.

The insolent kid is contrasted by his fragile, sniveling girl friend, bullied by the boy's father. A non-participating father for the most part, who is both weak and critical. Not to mention a pill-popper.

There is a one-paragraph sex scene that works.

No one in this piece is likable, yet sympathetic.

I don't want to spoil the plot, so I am intentionally leaving you wanting to read "Northeast Regional."

My Latest Published Story

Cold Creek Review has published my story, "Ronald's Sister, in its first issue. You can read it here:

http://www.coldcreekreview.amberdtran.com/fiction/

4321 by Paul Auster

Has anyone read Paul Auster's 4321? I am struggling through it.

I'm a big fan of Auster's works, having read New York Trilogy, Hand to Mouth, Sunset Park, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and Invisible. 

In 4321, (866  pages) there are four Archie Fergusons, all sharing the same paternal grandfather. Each Archie has his own story. Yet, they are the same boy in separate circumstances and plots.

The novel is heavy on the inner world of  Archie, written in narrative, short on dialogue. Manhattan and New Jersey provide backgrounds. Themes of identity, fate and ambition play throughout, along with gender, race, and class.

I found myself forgetting which Archie I was following. They are alike but in different, complicated and detailed circumstances. And that's what I found frustrating at times, trying to keep each Archie separate. But it kept me thinking, way into the night. And I'm still reading on.

Thoughts?

Literary Fiction Book Club

Hello!

I'm back to my blogger page after a hiatus of almost two years. This time I'd like to concentrate on literary fiction, which I mentioned briefly in my previous post dated November 24, 2013. In fact, I'd like to turn my blog into a literary fiction book club.

When I think of literary fiction, I envision language that does not rely on convention, but on the process of discovery. Generally, literary work offers the reader a deeper look into the human experience through elements such as style, character development, metaphors, phrasing, and the use of sensory detail. In its broadest sense, literary fiction attempts to communicate concepts or feelings that transcend the basic structural elements of story. A primary difference between mainstream and literary fiction is that mainstream tends to have a stronger emphasis on plot rather than on character. That doesn't mean literary fiction lacks plot or narrative movement. Beautiful writing needs glue to hold it together.

Take Moby Dick, for example. More than an entertaining story about ships at sea, it explores layers upon layers of symbolic, psychological and metaphysical themes. Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and her other works run deep into the theater-of-the-mind. Often there is a moral dilemma played out through all the senses.

A literary story can be quite simple, but it will impact the reader with a feeling, maybe joy, maybe surprise, maybe anguish or loss. Still, something has to happen plot-wise to make these feelings palpable.

Hardly predictable, literary stories unfold the human drama in a probing, authentic voice. The focus is in the characters' psychology, and revelations on the human experience.

Besides the hundred stories listed on my new, updated website, it might be fun to discuss All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and discuss whether we consider this literary fiction, mainstream or a combination of both.  I have just started it.

Talk later!

Point of View - Illusion

Toni Morrison is so much in the news these days, especially with her new book coming out. Here's a quote of hers that's worth noting:

There should be the illusion that it's the character's point of view, when in fact it isn't; it's really the narrator who is there but who doesn't make herself known in that role. What I really want is the intimacy in which the reader is under the impression that he isn't reading this; that he is participating as he goes along.

Fun and Productive Writing Workshop on February 21, 2015

You are invited to come and join my workshop at Edmonds Community College on Saturday, February 21, 2015:

Teasing the Muse

ArtsNow

Edmonds Community College

Saturday, February 21, 2015

10:00 am - 5:00 pm

Can't get started writing your fiction or non-fiction? Are you stuck on a page? Sign up for this workshop to incite your muse and end writers' block. Interactive exercises will put you at ease and let the words flow. Simply put, this class works. Bring a brown bag lunch.

For more information: www.edcc.edu/ulearn

Phone: 425-640-1243

Email:  ulearn.artsnow@edcc.edu or catalexander@yahoo.com

Happy New Year: Read and Write!

Happy New Writing and Reading Year!

I had little trouble spending a gift card yesterday.  Nothing like finding writers I have never read.  Here are my purchases:

Suspended Sentences (Three novellas), Patrick Modiano, 2014 Nobel Prize winner  

Honeymoon, Patrick Modiano

Hopscotch, Blow-up and Other Stories, We Love Glenda So Much and Other Tales, Julio Cortazar

Vanessa and her Sister, Priya Parmar

How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman

What an eclectic selection, not related in any way that I know so far, except perhaps that Vanessa and her Sister is about the Bloomsbury group, rebels of  the Victorian era.

Reading and writing are so intertwined. When I'm reading, I'm thinking about writing and the reverse holds true as well.

Hopefully, I'll finish the first draft of my novel in 2015.  Then put it aside for a while and concentrate on short stories I might include in a new collection.

My new short story class at Edmonds Community College is scheduled to start Tuesday night, Jan. 6. 

Starting a busy literary New Year!  

I hope the same for all my fellow writers.

Post Thanksgiving Thoughts

Day after Thanksgiving and I'm finally into gratitude.  

Grateful for the satisfaction of wrestling a paragraph onto the page, never mind the two hours I struggled to get it right.

Grateful for rendering a character's emotion believable and honest. Capturing just the right moment to get him on stage, raw and vulnerable.  

Grateful for the joy of having written.  

Sometimes it feels like a great effort just to sit down and turn on the computer.  I look at all the piles on my desk and give myself permission to ignore them.  Just get to the novel. Mornings work for me.  Face the page, reach into the center of myself and don't look back.

Ignore email,  Facebook, Twitter and all the rest. Ignore the cat and the two dogs who have already been fed.

And today I surprise myself.  A breakthrough.  What I believe is the crux of the novel, the emotional truth, the hard story, turns comic at the scene's end.  Not trivial, but funny.

So thankful for not taking myself too seriously.  

Post Election Pessimism

Taking a break from writing to wallow in my role as a curmudgeon.

Don't overestimate the decency of the human race.
 --H.L. Mencken
A pessimist is  person who has to listen to too many optimists. 
--Don Marquis
My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.
--Jean Rostand
Democracy: The worship of jackals by jackasses.
--H.L. Mencken
If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.
--Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Early to rise and early to bed
Makes a male healthy, wealthy and dead.
--James Thurber
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
--Oscar Wilde
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginable.
--Oscar Wilde
Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
--Woody Allen
My heart is pure as the driven slush.
--Tallulah Bankhead