It's been a while since I decided to add something
different to my blog rotation. Today I’ll start looking at “advice” for writing
short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative
fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction
and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its
Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500
to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”
I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to
writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. The
advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and
connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time,
nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of
the professional writers above...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what
I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a
point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see! Hemingway’s quote above
will now remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As
always, your comments are welcome!
Without further ado, then: Ernest Hemingway
An acknowledged
master of the short story, Ernest Hemingway left a legacy of profound images
and prose. “Because he began as a writer of short stories, Baker believes
Hemingway learned to "get the most from the least, how to prune language,
how to multiply intensities and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that
allowed for telling more than the truth.
“Hemingway called
his style the iceberg theory: the facts float above water; the supporting
structure and symbolism operate out of sight. The concept of the iceberg theory
is sometimes referred to as the "theory of omission". Hemingway
believed the writer could describe one thing (such as Nick Adams fishing in
"The Big Two-Hearted River") though an entirely different thing
occurs below the surface (Nick Adams concentrating on fishing to the extent
that he does not have to think about anything else). Paul Smith writes that
Hemingway's first stories, collected as In Our Time, showed he was still
experimenting with his writing style. He avoided complicated syntax. About 70
percent of the sentences are simple sentences—a childlike syntax without
subordination.”
He wrote some 80
short stories, and pioneered flash fiction with this diamond: “For Sale: Baby
shoes, never worn.”
Brevity. Emotion.
It’s what he was known for. Visceral. Real life. It did what I admonish the
young writers to do in my class: “Make readers FEEL!”
Hemingway’s work was
important enough that “The Old Man and the Sea” is still often required
reading, even in this age of cancel culture. I imagine that someone still needs
to represent dead, old, white guys in literature. It would be…strange to simply
remove all such writers. They did write; they did say important things; and
Hemingway is perhaps the likeliest candidate to keep around.
What does this
mean to a speculative fiction writer? “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936) begins
like this:
“That’s how
you know when it starts.”
“Is it
really?”
“Absolutely.
I’m awfully sorry about the odor though. That must bother you.”
“Don’t! Please
don’t.”
“Look at
them,” he said. “Now is it sight or is it scent that brings them like that?” The
cot the man lay on was in the wide shade of a mimosa tree and as he looked out
past the shade onto the glare of the plain there were three of the big birds
squatted obscenely, while in the sky a dozen more sailed, making quick-moving
shadows as they passed. “They’ve been there since the day the truck broke
down,” he said. “Today’s the first time any have lit on the ground. I watched
the way they sailed very carefully at first in case I ever wanted to use them
in a story. That’s funny now.’”
While the title
gives the location, with very few changes, the story might have fit in an issue
of AMAZING STORIES, which debuted in 1926. By then ten years old, the magazine
was well-established, though it lacked anything even resembling literary heft.
What if Hemingway had written this story as it took place on the surface of
Mars?
Hemingway’s short
story prose was clean, almost to the point of being stark as opposed, say, Isaac
Asimov’s first story, “Marooned Off Vesta” (1939):
“‘Will you
please stop walking up and down like that?’ said Warren Moore from the couch. ‘It
won't do any of us any good. Think of our blessings; we're airtight, aren't we?’
Mark Brandon
whirled and ground his teeth at him. ‘I'm glad you feel happy about that,’ he
spat out viciously. ‘Of course, you don't know that our air supply will last
only three days.’ He resumed his interrupted stride with a defiant air.
Moore yawned
and stretched, assumed a more comfortable position, and replied. ‘Expending all
that energy will only use it up faster. Why don't you take a hint from Mike
here? He's taking it easy.’
“Mike” was
Michael Shea, late a member of the crew of the Silver Queen. His short, squat
body was resting on the only chair in the room and his feet were on the only
table. He looked up as his name was mentioned, his mouth widening in a twisted
grin. ‘You've got to expect things like this to happen sometimes,’ he said. ‘Bucking
the asteroids is risky business. We should've taken the hop. It takes longer,
but it's the only safe way. But no, the captain wanted to make the schedule; he
would go through,’ Mike spat disgustedly, ‘and here we are.’”
While Hemingway’s
prose is terse, it delves. It digs. It makes me wonder. Asimov, whose stories
and novels were among the first I read as a maturing science fiction reader,
are indeed terse, but there’s no…subtext? Not sure exactly what I mean there. Let
me see if I can show you:
Hemingway writes:
“Now is it sight or is it scent that brings them like that?” The cot the man
lay on was in the wide shade of a mimosa tree and as he looked out past the shade
onto the glare of the plain there were three of the big birds squatted
obscenely, while in the sky a dozen more sailed, making quick-moving shadows as
they passed. “They’ve been there since the day the truck broke down…”
Asimov writes: ‘You've
got to expect things like this to happen sometimes,’ he said. ‘Bucking the
asteroids is risky business. We should've taken the hop. It takes longer, but
it's the only safe way. But no, the captain wanted to make the schedule; he
would go through,’ Mike spat disgustedly, ‘and here we are.’”
At this point in
both stories, the protagonists are marooned. Hemingway communicates more than
the scenery, though he does include it. He’s chosen vultures gathering to convey
far more than the words themselves alone convey.
Asimov’s prose,
while spare, is science fictiony fact-laden and doesn’t dig, nor does it use
standard literary symbolism. Hemingway hints at imminent death by the arrival
of the vultures (which aren’t named); Asimov explains the situation in spare words…but
they lack emotion; they lack the depth of Hemingway’s allusions.
While you might
think that this is an unfair comparison – surely current specfic short stories
have matured to a point of, in some cases, Hemingway’s work.
Hemingway was born
in 1899 and had one short story published in 1921, obviously when he was 21.
Asimov was born in 1920 and “Marooned Off Vesta” appeared in AMAZING 1939 –
obviously he was 19. They were, in fact contemporaries.
I’ve learned MUCH
from Asimov’s novels and short stories.
Now, what can I
learn from Hemingway’s short stories (which are, according to some, his BEST writing: “The un-romanticized beauty of Hemingway’s landscapes…and the
haunting uncertainty of his characters’ internal struggles…are the real heart
of the matter in [his] short stories. The repetition and bloviating that make
his novels murky and ponderous are absent in his stories, so that…Hemingway
forged…an American idiom as tight, indelible and flexible as a slow blues song
played after everyone has left the bar.”
References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway,
https://lithub.com/on-the-art-and-influence-of-hemingways-short-stories/,
https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hemingway.pdf,
http://www.e-reading-lib.com/chapter.php/82002/20/isaac-asimov-asimovs-mysteries.html
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