Short Stories

Sometimes, well often really, Phil's work influences mine and this week he's been reading Ann Beattie's book on Pat Nixon, MRS.NIXON. It's not just about Pat but also various influences on her life, reflections on the times. It refers to a lot of short stories because Ann Beattie is primarily a short story writer. And I was able to read three of them online-all enjoyable.

Delmore Schwartz. "In Dreams Begin Responsibility", which imagines the narrator seeing a movie of his parents' courtship and of his desire to stop it and the reel before they went on to make each other so miserable.

Peter Taylor's, "The Forest" which I will look at in more depth on Friday.

Russell Banks, "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story" which turns the princess and the frog tale upside down.

I am still working out how these fit together, but they did. I think it has something to do with the chasm between the sexes in what they expect to get from a relationship.

What great short story have you read recently?

My Best Of--but only the more obscure films and books

As I look over the books and movies I saw in 2012, I have to say it was a pretty good year in this regard.  
These are a few of the older books I read in 2012 or the more obscure 2012 movies.

Books

1)      MEMORY, Donald Westlake. This was a recent publication of Hard Case Crime, but it certainly would top my list any year. The protagonist, an actor, is beaten senseless by the husband of a woman he beds for one night. The rest of the book follows him as he tries to remember who is, what he is, how to solve this dilemma. If you want to learn how to plot, how to climb inside someone’s head, this is the book for you. Not a boring page in the book.

2)      MONTANA, 1948, Larry Watson. A small book, full of pain, full of graceful writing. A dying Sioux woman will not allow her employers, the town sheriff, to call for the town’s doctor, his brother. Powerful stuff as we watch events unfold through the eyes of a boy.

3)      RED BAKER, Robert Ward. I can’t say enough good things about this story of man who loses his job and everything else when he can’t come to terms with the loss. Just terrific. Newly available as an ebook.

4)      THE SILENT LAND, Graham Joyce. What if you woke up at a ski lodge and everyone else had disappeared. This book explores that notion through a young couple. Haunting and it shows that white can be as dark as black.

5)      WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN A CASTLE, Shirley Jackson, Probably you read this a long time ago. Reading it again makes you notice so much more.

Five of the Best Short Stories I read this year

1)      The Babysitter, Robert Coover

2)      Things I Learned in Fairy Tales, Roxanne Gay, PROTECTORS

3)      Tetanus, Joyce Carol Oates, GIVE ME YOUR HEART

4)      Girls in Their Summer Dresses, Irwin Shaw

5)      A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O’Connor, THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF THE 20^th CENTURY

Movies

1)      LE HAVRE, A great little movie that shows that community is everything for an African boy who turns up portside in a small French town.

2)      THE DEEP BLUE SEA-The wife of a judge falls in love with an air force pilot during the Second World War. He is not worthy of her love, which makes it all the more interesting. Rachel Weisz is brilliant in this moody little piece.

3)      A SEPARATION. When an Iranian couple wishes to separate, it turns out to be almost impossible. Insightful, sad, complex.

4)      AUGUST 31, OSLO. A day in the life of a recovering drug addict as he leaves his treatment facility to interview for a job.

5)      STARLET, A young woman meets an older one at a garage sale and they both impact the other’s life in surprising ways.Dree Hemingway is Ernest's great granddaughter and she is wonderful as is her co-star, Besedka Johnson, who has never acted before now.

6)      FOOTNOTES-A father and son, both Talmudic scholars, cannot move beyond earlier grievances.

Television-This will be the least unexpected choices, I am afraid

1)  MAD MEN-The best year yet was the 2012 season

2) BREAKING BAD-Since it was divided into two parts, it is hard to evaluate but I have faith in this one to have the nerve to take it to the mat,

3). The 2012 Presidential Election-horrible, sad, sickening, surprising yet the outcome made it worth it.When people mention 2016, I want to cry. Can't do it again.

4. VEEP/GIRLS-And these shows confirmed every impulse we had about politics in Washington or spoiled girls in New York

5. PARENTHOOD, When I needed a cry, this one was standing by and Peter Krause is the actor I would most like to have as my Dad. In effect, his family has two Moms.

6.  BIG BANG THEORY-Always there when I needed a laugh.

Not the greatest seasons for THE GOOD WIFE, JUSTIFIED, WALKING DEAD, MODERN FAMILY. And no new TV shows this fall showed much promise.

Thinking About Short Stories

I just read a short story that I think was sabotaged by too many characters, too many separate scenes, too much complexity. The writing was good though so I waded through. But the ending didn't turn it around. The story was more like a blueprint for an eventual novel than a short story to me.

When I studied writing, the professor said that he felt three or four characters was the most there should be in a short story. He also felt it should play out in as few scenes as possible. I seem to have taken that to heart because most of my stories are sparsely populated. "Scrapping", for instance, in an issue of PANK, has three characters and basically three scenes. "Mermaids" in OFF THE RECORD: AT THE MOVIES has five characters but only two scenes. "How to Launder a Shirt" is basically a monologue about three people.. "Undetectable" in PULP INK 2 has four characters but only three really figure in. In other words, in a short story, I don't think you have time to develop many characters and it confuses the reader to try and keep track of too many.

What do you think? I know in the right hands a short story could work with a dozen characters but in average hands, how many is too many characters, settings, scenes?

Perhaps I am under-populating my stories and I shouldn't have listened to that guy.

And here is another question. In a short story, how specific do you like a locale to be? Would you rather have a writer say. 'he's moving up north." Or pinpoint it in a state, "he's moving up to Ipswich."