I can see you all genuflecting -- I have eyes you know!
Do you think it is true?
If so, what is behind the trend?
Personally: (Shameful admission from Generation Xer) I don't love them. As a writer, I read them because they are good for me, like castor oil. But I have never read one that totally satisfied me. They are a bit like pencil sketches, clever and beautiful, well balanced, useful but in the final analysis, they have limited expressive ability, even if every line is important.
I can see you all genuflecting -- I have eyes you know!
I don't debate their importance in the development of a writer. I would like to understand whether they are important in the development of a reader and ask, who -- as a group -- reads them anyway? Are they in decline and becoming the 'poems' of the future?
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited June 06, 2006).]
If there's a reason I don't read _particular instances_ of short fiction, or why I don't seek it out often, it's that much of it tends to be navel-gazing vocabulary exercises. But that's like saying why I tend to avoid heavy metal these days. I love good heavy metal, but I don't have time to wade through the garbage.
I especially like anthologies by a single author: Orson Scott Card and Stephen R. Donaldson are two that stand out for me in the SF/fantasy realm.
Regards,
Oliver
All that aside, I have been making a conscious effort to seek out more short stories and learn what makes the good ones good.
Now that I read short fiction sometimes, I've found some that I really enjoy. Even if I drop writing at some point, I may continue reading some short fiction (though it will never replace the novel for me.)
The trouble is that the bulk of short stories are published in magazines, and magazines aren't sold in excess like they used to be. I'm not sure how expensive they were in comparison to today, but I know that they could be bought at any local drugstore. It wasn't just sci-fi magazines that were sold, everything was sold.
But times changed and only the most prolific magazines are sold at regular stores. My opinion is that everything got oversaturated. There was a magazine for every subject, and then ten other magazines to expound on those subjects, and then twenty more for those. When there's too much of a good thing, there's little profit, so that market withered away, and with that went the popularity of short stories.
That's not to say that you can't make money selling short stories, it's just that it's not as widespread anymore. Short stories usually don't make it everywhere unless it's in anthologies, and those are usually bought when it's by a favorite author or published by a well-known editor.
It's how I was introduced to the short story market, and frankly, I think it's a shame that it took me so long to find how valuable that reading experience can be.
For me, the beginning part of a story (novel or short) is pure work. It isn't until I get rolling that I really start to enjoy the story -- I start to look forward to reading and can't put it down.
When I read short stories, I have to go through that part more often.
Plus, I ofen find short stories clever but very rarely fulfilling.
No, I don't like them and I don't really read them -- not even now that I proabably should because I'm a writer.
The trouble is more that after I've finished a short story, I don't feel satisfied I've read enough. Last time I bought an anthology I ended up reading it in one sitting (from 2am to 4am, to be precise). With novels, I'm usually capable of stopping in the middle (thus saving my sleep).
But I'm up to buying three or four books a week (a fifty-to-eighty-dollar-a-week habit with me now), mostly thick non-fiction tomes, that I go through in a week's time and I'm back for more.
So my overall reading volume hasn't changed---if anything I'm reading more than I ever did---but what I read has shifted in focus and interest.
It took half a book before I could enjoy the Eye Of The World and now that I'm halfway through the series I'm afraid what will happen when I reach the end. Will I be able to read anything new?
I will disagree with what somebody else said, I absolutely loved Orson Scott Card's short stories, I was riveted by some of the jewels in Maps.
But generally, I'm not into short stories either, though hypocritically I want, one day, an audience to read mine, and short stories are the gateway into longer works. And I have to wonder if those who buy that sci-fi mag or anthology are not just other aspiring writers such as myself.
[This message has been edited by ChrisOwens (edited June 07, 2006).]
I can see how some younger readers don't like shorts as much anymore. For one thing, there are fewer magazines out there now, and most of the stories are from established authors. The author's name is selling the story in too many of these instances rather than the story itself, and I think that's why some stories, even from good authors, don't seem worth reading.
I read novels, too, but short stories are an important part of my library, in both magazines and anthologies.
I have a feeling that it is a bit like poetry, it will wax and wane in popularity but never quite go away. A bit like Apple®.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited June 07, 2006).]
Googling "death of the short story" returned a lot of links, but since I didn't hear the interview, I don't know which one it is.
I am optimistic too. However, there is no doubt that there has been a serious downturn in popularity of the short story since the fifties.
What i am wondering is why? Is it simply symptomatic of a general decline in the popularity of recreational reading?
It is interesting, and heartening to see that I am not the only one who finds short stories generally disatisfying. But it is also disheartening, I put a lot of effort into mine, and find them satisfying to write. Often, however, reading them can be like getting threes peas and a spoonful of rice drizzled in olive oil at a gourmet restaurant and told to not appreciate it is to not understand food.
You end up not going to fancy restaurants anymore.
PS: This thread is not intended to be offensive.
While we are looking try this article.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited June 07, 2006).]
Nietge (aka VeeJayEss)
It doesn't bother me much since I really don't like short stories. I know when I was a kid I read every ANALOG, IF, F&SF, AMAZING, etc. that I could get my hands on. Yet even then I really preferred a good novel. Novels let you enter a different world and roam around a bit. Short stories offer little more than a peek.
And novels let you hang out with neat characters. More so than short stories. And series...oh my gosh! Darkover and Harry Potter and the Dragonriders of Pern, Tarzan -- one book, one SHORT STORY!!! Would never be enough!
I'm sure between Poe and Flannery O'Connor there must have been times that it seemed the short story was dying. O. Henry sticks in the mind the way the candybar sticks to the teeth, but I'm not actually familiar with any of his works.
quote:
View and print short stories. Maybe you should suggest that to OSC.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/index.shtml
I prefer novels because I like getting attached to the characters and exploring their lives and their world in a way that I cannot do with short stories. I get a small glimpse into the characters' lives and that's it. With novels, I get to learn a lot more about them and thus grow to love them more and to love reading about them.
I'm the same way with video games. Ones that take me only a few hours to finish are never as fulfilling to me as the ones that take me weeks to do. I typically enjoy playing role playing games because they tell a long story where I get to know and love the characters and get emotionally involved in their stories. There have been a few that were so well-done that I was sad that it was over.
For me, it's always been: the longer the story, the better. When I go to the library, I find the thickest books they have and I read them. Some of them are good, some bad, but in the end I still find I enjoy them far more than I do short stories.
Where have all the magazines gone, long time passing?
I suspect that the short story of today is read and enjoyed mainly by other writers or would-be writers, or even people who daydream about writing that really cool sci-fi they've got stuck in the back of their head. Maybe anthologies should have a 'how to' section at the back with analysis of the stories presented and a tips for new writers column...
Doesn't it cheese you off to find so many writing magazines filled with articles about writing but no stories? What does that mean?
Of course there is always the literary magazine where, as often as not, it's a bunch of academics writing for the benefit of other academics and who have some means of support other than the popularity of their stories. 
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited June 08, 2006).]
quote:
Doesn't it cheese you off to find so many writing magazines filled with articles about writing but no stories?
Not really. It's actually comforting to know that the real writers are doing what they're supposed to be doing: writing stories.
And the blowhards who give advice about writing ... well, they must not blow hard enough, because I always forget their names two seconds after I close the magazine. Assuming I bothered to pick it up in the first place.
[This message has been edited by Kickle (edited June 08, 2006).]
I find that my response to short stories varies. For instance, if I'm reading The Best of Fantasy and Horror edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Grant and Gavin Link, then I'm likely to like almost all of the stories. If I'm reading a genre magazine, even one of the top three, I'm likely to like about half of them.
quote:
I don't understand why you'd read a writing magazine hoping to read fiction
Why do you think a writers' magazine shouldn't have stories in it?
Aside from that, I am more or less commenting on the expanding array of writing magazines and the comparative diminishing selection of magazines containing good, solid short stories.
MaryRobinette, as mentioned earlier by someone else, I also have more faith in reading stories in an anthology that has hitched its wagon to the name of a successful novelist, whether that is as an editor or contributor; someone or some company that has enjoyed success in publishing. So I read mainly from anthologies.
The last one was Consider her ways. I must say that there was one story in Maps in the Mirror that got to me and it was the breathing in synch one. Was that Maps?
Webzines, emags etc -- for me -- represent too much work. Reading them is like sifting through tailings looking for specks of gold.. I'd rather dig for a vein where I know the effort will be rewarded with a pay off.
Most zines etc don't make enough money to make their efforts financially worthwhile, so they do it for other more noble reasons. In my opinion, if people are doing it for fun or love, or for its own sake, then they lack an important imperative, the need to put beans on the table. That imperative is what made Poe and Dickens, Bierce and Twain as sharp as they were. If you want to be that kind of sharp, forget ezines, you will have to compete somewhere tougher.
In the end, I have to say that I LIKE plenty of short stories, but rarely, if ever, have I ever really be K.O.ed by one, maybe only An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge. — pow —
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited June 08, 2006).]