The art of the Short Story.

I've been trying to figure short stories out for a long time. I've got a few volumes of short fantasy and horror stories knocking around my flat, and I've spent enough time reading them to have tried my hand at writing them.

But I also have my fair share of issues with short stories. The problem I've always had with a lot of short stories I've read is that they seem to forget they're actually a story. My issues with Booker Prize winners nonewithstanding, that style of writing doesn't fit the short story for. At the end of the day, a booker prize winner has a whole novel to tell their touching tale of a young Asian man scarping a living working as a prostitute on the back streets of Tamworth whilst simultaneously trying to act as the surrogate mother to a Panda cub they stole from the zoo.

Feel free to steal that one, by the way. It's as good as most of the pompous crap that booker prize winners come up with.

But when people try to fit those Oh-So-Clever ideas into a short story, then they end up being dull and disinteresting. Maybe thats the goal. Maybe they like subverting the genre. Maybe they lie pissing me, personally, off. A lot of short stories are like that, 'touching' tales of hardship, usually about people who have been touched. Either way, I read enough of that in University to know I don't like it.

So, horror and fantasy. They're the two Genres I primarily read short stories in, but the problem is that a lot of the time, especially in the horror genre, you seem to get writers who are more interested in showing how cleverly they can write than in telling their - usually quite interesting - tale.

So I've been thinking of some of the key points that I feel are useful in the construction of a short story. To come up with these, I revisited some old friends in the form of The Two Steves: Stephen King and Stephen Donaldson. This is just personal opinion, but I believe these two writers to be masters of the short story form in Horror and Fantasy respectively. I'll be making some references to their work in this little rant, and if you're interested, I suggest you seek them out, they're all good stories.

So, without further ado, here's Bendanarama's guide to the short story:

1) Length.

This may seem like a blindingly obvious point to make, but short stories need to be, well, short. AS far as I'm concerned (and this is something I disagree with Donaldson on) 50,000 words is way too much for a short story. 50,000 is well into Novella territory and, given the existence of "Tuesdays with Morrie" a borderline novel in itself. In my opinion, a short story is potentially anywhere from 1000 words to 25-30,000. That looks like a lot, but is actually quite a small amount of space, which leads me onto:

2) The Premise.

Again, it seems obvious, but it's very difficult to tell an epic tale of the wars of men in a short story. Pick a relatively simple premise, something that allows you to tell a story, but forces you to wrap it up in a short timeframe. In Stephen King's "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" collection, almost all the premises are simple: A couple comes to stay in an out of the way town, a finger begins to poke out of a drain, a vampire with a pilots license. All simple premises that give room to stretch the imagination.

3) The Characters.

You're characters will need to be clearly defined from the start. You don't have a hell of a lot of space to play with their backgrounds and motivations, so give us someone we can associate and recognise clearly. Don't be afraid to use the odd cliche here and there. Cliche's are what they are for a reason, and can be used just as effectively to your advantage as to your detriment: think cowboy movie: The Town Sheriff, The Unnamed Drifter, The Local Businessman. All recognisable archetypes of the Genre, all of which allow you to stretch them as characters in a short amount of space. Give your reader something to latch onto, and they'll repay you by paying attention to what you're writing. In Donaldson's story "Penance" the Main character is a remorseful vampire. You're damn right it's a cliche, but it's one played to brilliant effect in a fantasy environment.

4) Keep it Simple, Stupid.

Stop trying to impress people with your flowerly language. Seriously, this is one of my big bugbears - you've got a limited amount of space - use it to tell your story in a  manner that won't have your reader going "eh?" rather than trying to make the English language perform somersaults for your own self-gratification.

So yeah, I hope this little rant helps some poor person who chooses to stumble upon this blog after a random google search. It happens. In the meantime, I'll be writing my "Cowboys vs Werewolves" short story. Lets see how that works out.

Dark Corners of the Internet #1

So, as I randomly do when I'm bore beyond conceivable belief, I had a look around Youtube today, and - as it came on my play list - I decided to look up the video for the Johnny Cash Version of Hurt.



So I watched the video, got a little choked up, then made a big mistake - looked at the comments.

Check it out for moronic idiocy!

Aw Crap. why the hell did I do that to myself. See, Hurt is a cover of a Nine Inch Nails song. Johnny Cash Covered it as his swan song, before he died.

But of course, not one jot of this matters to the moronic portion of the internet. you know the portion that doesn't pay attention to such things as grammar and spelling. to them, all that matters a big ol' argument about which version is better. My idea for this type of rant was to go through individual comments, but I simply dont have the energy to deal with the sheer shitstorm of mental incapacity on that comments page.

What has the human race done to deserve this? Oh, right.

For my part?

I mean, to be honest, I prefer the Cash version. its speaks more to me as a person, and while both versions are powerful, this one means more on my level, because I didnt got threw the things that Trent Reznor went through. but Cash's version is one that can be related to by anyone who has ever reflected on their life.

I mean, clearly it affected Reznor as well. he refers to it as being Johnny Cash's song now, not his.

However It doesn't matter which version of the song is "Better" or "Original". both versions are being sung by men who have gone through hell and back to fight for their lives. At the end of the day, whether its a song about depression like Reznor's version, or a reflection on a life soon to end, Like Cash's, the fact remains that not one single damn person posting on youtube has the right to attack either version.

Nipponphiles and Me

Okay, I imagine that this rant is gonna make me a little unpopular, but frankly, I couldn't care less. its my goddamn Journal - doing unpopular rants is one of the benefits of having one.

Anyways, this is a rant I've been meaning to have for a long time. it's one that affects me personally, and its one that affects the people around me.

here's the opening sentence:

Just Because Something Is From Japan, Does Not Make It Cool.

Ah. that feels better.

the above sentence may be a little funny coming from me, but to be honest, who else is it better to come from. much as I'm loathe to admit it, I have a fairly decent perspective on popular Japanese culture. I'm head of an Anime society, for chrissakes.

But even though I like Anime, this doesn't mean that I have to start acting like everything coming out of Japan is the equivalent of Jesus popping into the corner shop for a pint of milk and a chat with the owner.

What has brought this on? well, to be honest, a big part of it is J-Music. I'd like to think I'm fairly diverse in my tastes in music, but to be frank when someone tries to convince me that some pop princess is better just because she's singing in fucking Japanese, I start to have serious doubts about their sanity.

Same goes for J-Rock. To those who know me well, my dislike of generic Metal/Rock/Indie is well known. to be honest, because my music tastes are relatively diverse, it takes a lot for a song to catch my ear these days, and since I'm not that big a radio listener anymore, airplay isn't a factor.

GENERIC ROCK IN JAPANESE IS JUST AS BAD AS GENERIC ROCK IN ENGLISH.

I've listened to J-Rock. It doesn't impress me more than most other rock. it's the same principle as my Previous rant on Independent film - Half the time, it's people trying to go "Look at Me, I'm cultured! I listen to foreign music!"

You want to convince me you're cultured? Go Listen to some Mozart, then we'll talk.

This isn't to say that everyone who is into Japanese pop culture is like this. I know plenty of people in the JMU anime society who aren't, but I've also encountered plenty of people who are. people who are convinced that because it comes from the far off distant land that gave us Pokemon and Playstations, it must be cool.

These are the same kind of people who buy this:



And No, for the record, buying a Hello Kitty Vibrator does not make you cool. It makes you, quite literally, a Wanker.

So, to wrap up. It's okay to like Japanese stuff. hell, I like Japanese stuff - I even watch Godzilla movies for chrissakes, but speaking randomly at me in Japanese and telling me that a band is cool essentially because they're Japanese doesn't impress me. There's plenty of cool Japanese stuff, but lets be honest, theres an ungodly amount of Japanese Shite as well. Seriously:



That Thing doesn't even look comfortable.

-Ben