Launch of new short story collection

Sherryl and I have just been to the launch of Scribe's New Australian stories (ed. Aviva Tuffield), mainly because one of our past students, Demet Divaroven has a story in it. And isn't that a fantastic thing for a teacher: going to see your student successes!

Aviva spoke about the health of the short story, which is always a concern for short story writers. I have to admit that before I started writing seriously, I hardly ever read short stories. I've learnt, over time, to appreciate them -- and perhaps part of the problem for me, originally, was that most times when I'd encountered them it was in buying science fiction books that I thought were novels. I'd be all set, engrossed in a story, and then it would end. (Truth be told, many of these were probably novellas rather than short stories.) I'd always be so disappointed when they finished, and felt ripped off. I'd become emotionally engaged with these characters and was ready for the long haul, only there was none, and I do love the long haul! I thought I hated short stories. Really, I don't think I did -- what I hated was not having my expectations met. This is a concern for all writers, or should be. But that's for another post.

These days when I read short stories, my expectations are for a different type of experience. I love the short story form. Many believe they're easier to write than novels, but I don't think so. Shorter, yes. Don't take as long. But not easier. 

They're often talked about as the training ground for a novel, and they really can be this. This is not to say that all novelists write short stories. They don't. Nor do they need to. Nor is it any kind of slight against the short story or implying that the short story is, in any way, inferior. It's not. It's just that the short story form, because it is shorter, can teach you a lot about structuring fiction. In the time that you write one 80,000 word novel, you can write many short stories, learning how to get in and get out of the story, how to show rising tension, a whole host of factors. This gives you time to improve, experience. To get that same amount of experience in structure, you'd need to write several novels. Many novels. That's going to take longer. So the short story is like a short cut to gaining useful writing experience.

One thing Aviva spoke about, which I'd never really thought about, was how the publishing of short stories has changed. In the past, new writers often began with a short story collection and then graduated to novels, whereas these days most short story writers need a successful novel or, better, a few successful novels published before they can get a short story collection published. I knew both of these things, but somehow I'd never quite juxtaposed the ideas and thought about that change. (And of course there are exceptions to this, particularly with small press publishers, but there are also publishing houses that never seem to touch the short story.)

These days, we're more likely to read our short stories in literary (or genre) magazines. The mass market magazines do publish a few, but some will only take these through agents. But if we all do want to see more short stories published then we have to let the publishers know this in the one way they really care about: book sales.

Slumdog Millionnaire

My mother dragged me along to see this film yesterday -- she asked me the other day if I were interested, and I said no. So she read me the spiel. Nope. Not really. But it had excellent reviews, so I thought, why not?. (It's either a feast or famine with me with films, and at the moment I'm feasting!)

Slumdog Millionnaire is the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who does extraordinarily well on "Who wants to be a millionnaire" and is then accused of cheating, and so the story is structured using a series of flashbacks as he is interrogated and taken through the questions, then thinks about how he knows each answer.

Slumdog is a culturally rich film: gorgeous, uncomfortable, colourful, pungent to the eyes (and, yes, invoking other senses for me). There were times I sat in my seat squirming -- part of the torture scene at the beginning (be warned), but also sometimes with the TV show host's snipey comments, and the audience's consequent laughter. (I hate seeing people humiliated.)

I was totally caught up in the story. My mother and son both found it a bit slow in the middle, but I was too intrigued. I had no problems with pacing, but it is a slower film in the way that many arthouse movies are. Still, the setting is so fascinating that there was always lots to look at, and there's plenty of action in parts too.

Unless you're a purely action-adventure film lover, put this one on your must-see list!

Spooks

As we were watching "Spooks" yesterday (the BBC series), we discovered a doco on the US version of the show, which is called "MI5". What I found most interesting was that the BBC DVDs are 59 minutes in length, the international versions (presumably what we get here in Australia) are 50 minutes, and the US versions 44 minutes. Of course this means that sometimes whole subplots have to go, which we just couldn't imagine. The shows seem masterfully plotted, with plenty of twists and turns. Also, someone was talking about how in the BBC version often the characters will talk about doing something and then go out and do it, whereas in the American version they cut the talking and just show them doing the action, and as a consequence the audience has to work harder.

Of course this is what we do in writing too -- the old "show, don't tell" -- or sometimes even more relevant to this is when writers repeat something in the narrative that they've put in the dialogue, or vice-versa. In writing, this drives me crackers. Just get on with it, I think. I must say that in the TV show, I hadn't noticed the characters doing this, and wondered whether the show would be harder to follow -- whether sometimes, because I'm not British, I needed more information to "get it". That can't be so or neither the Australian nor American versions would be successful, and I've followed this show just fine on TV.

When I think about it, whenever I've watched it on television, I've had to concentrate. It's rather like watching "The West Wing", where you can't afford to miss a minute. I'm not sure I require the same level of concentration with the DVDs, so that, I guess, answers my question.

After watching the doco, my kids and I discussed the episode we'd just watched, which had a couple of subplots. One seemed to me much more essential to the main plot, but my son reasoned that the episode wouldn't have been the same without both. No, perhaps not, but I could see that the second subplot didn't really add to the main plot or to my interest, particularly. It did give the characters a bit more stress, but an audience wouldn't have noticed this if it were missing. In actual fact, both could have been cut without too much detriment as far as understanding goes, but the first made the show a lot more enjoyable for me.

It's interesting to discover these facts and contemplate them (particularly as I'm facing some major cuts to the middle of my novel). I think each episode now we'll be talking about how different the other versions might be, which is me thinking as a writer, and my kids starting thinking about how stories are structured, as well. They learn, and we all get more from the shows -- if that's at all possible.