In Search of Short Fiction

by Tuirgin on Jun.02, 2009, under Literature, Sci-Fi & Fantasy

I’ve recently made a decision to make an attempt to get back into a habit of writing. Several years back I made a 6 month study of poetry. This time I’m wanting to stretch further into the realm of “I really suck a this” and work on short fiction. I’m looking for suggestions on worthy materials dealing with the mechanics of short fiction, as well as searching out the better examples of actual works.

I’m putting a limitation of sorts on my pursuit, however, because I believe it will help liberate me from some of my worst tendencies. My first steps into this will be restricted to genre fic, and specifically fantasy and sci-fi. I’ve an uneasy relationship with sff. For a long time I’ve been only a closet fan and didn’t want to mention it much, simply because there is so much dross out there that passes for fantasy. As much as I love Tolkien—LOTR is one of my all-time favorites—the world does not need another pretender to the throne of “Tolkienesque” fantasy. And xkcd preaches the gospel truth:

Fiction Rule of Thumb

My reason for limiting myself to sff is to keep my perfectionist, elitist tendencies in check. I don’t want to criticize myself into inaction before I’ve even started my first paragraph. I’m giving myself permission to write in clichés just to start writing anything at all. Potboiler, here I come. Just don’t expect me to share my embarrassing examples of fecalescent fecundity and lavender-strewn prose with the general public. I’ll reserve that questionable privilege for those whom I can blackmail into silence.

Here’s what I want from you—titles! Give me your lists of favorite books and links dealing with the mechanics of writing prose, and specifically short fiction. Also give me your lists of favorite authors of short fiction. Here you may feel free to include non-genre writers, as I’m interested in reading generally in short fiction, although for my purposes I am specifically interested in sff authors. Following is a brief listing of authors I’m already familiar with and about whom I am enthusiastic:

Lord Dunsany
Oscar Wilde—his fairy tales, for example
Jack Vance
Gene Wolfe
R.A. Lafferty
Jorge Louis Borges—a favorite!
Italo Calvino
Stanisław Lem

Lovecraft is an obvious candidate for his mythopoeic material, though as a writer he was rather weak. I’m tempted to include Gogol for some of his bizarre elements, as well as fairy tales. Herman Hesse wrote some short “fairy tales”. Pushkin, too, is a source for literary fairy tales.

Anyway, there you go. List on! Please!

:short fiction, writing

11 Comments for this entry

bigsleepj
June 3rd, 2009 on 12:04 pm
I think a fantasy author has the legitimate right to make up words, though obviously he should not overdo it or use it repeatedly, and he should, at least, make them sound like their part of the same language. You can’t have the a word meaning ‘leaf’ sound like “gargolopsicty” and ‘tree’ be ‘scom’. I’ve created a few for my current writing project, and I’ve stolen one from Tolkien. whistles

Reply
- Tuirgin
  June 3rd, 2009 on 12:11 pm
  It’s not that I think no one should ever make up words for their fiction—Tolkien did it brilliantly. But very few do it brilliantly, and who among us hasn’t been faced with an author who pulls out a slew of words made up of dingleberries and foot warts? Very few people have the linguistic background to make up a significant number of words. If you’re talking Jabberwocky, that’s a whole different matter.
  
  One of the things that I find brilliant about Gene Wolfe is that all of his made-up sounding words are legitimate words with a history.
  
  Reply
  - bigsleepj
    June 3rd, 2009 on 2:22 pm
    Wolfe gets away with it because he uses it to play with the perceptions of the reader, at times, particularly in BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. To be honest very few of the words seemed strange or out of place when I read it. I think an experienced reader would subliminally pick up that these words exist somewhere because they come from languages that, at various stages, helped build English.
    
    Off course it’s easier to focus on the nuances of languages if you’re fully bilingual (applying these observations properly in a novel is another matter entirely). Simply speaking one language, I think, many assume that for every word or phrase there is an equivalent, though that’s not always the case. I’m sometimes frustrated that there is a word or phrase in English that has no proper Afrikaans equivalent, or vice versa. I’m sure it’s even more-so with the older languages. Some of the made-up words I use in my novel have no real English (or Afrikaans) equivalent because ‘the real world’ lacks the context they move in (context being ‘magic’). Actually, translated to English the words mean the same thing, ‘inheritor’, which is something of a linguistic joke I pulled from an observation concerning the three biggest Afrikaans church denominations. Their names are impossible to translate accurately because it can only be accurately translated as “Dutch Reformed”.
    
    Reply
Chunky Rook
June 14th, 2009 on 5:14 am
I should change my link to your entire blog, not just the chess section! Only stumbled upon this after receiving an error message.

First, a caveat: Neil Gaiman once said — responding to a fan question; the video is available online, I believe — that he happened upon Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces” and after 5 minutes into it, had to put it down because it was as though someone had tapped into Gaiman’s unconscious creativity and fished out every single “original” thought Gaiman had about plot, character development, symbolism, and so on. This is just to say there’s a fine line between trying to become a better writer by learning mechanics and becoming a writing robot. Writing is a craft, no doubt, a skill that has to be learned and can be improved; but sometimes your improvement can also hamper your creativity and foster inhibitions. Charlie Kaufmann’s “Adaptation” is a wonderful movie about this topic.

That said, I’d recommend reading the following: Poe’s tales (in particular “The Cask of Amontillado”) and his short treatise “The Philosophy of Composition”. Poe’s works will teach you everything you need to know about how to write a story told by an unreliable narrator. At the other end of the spectrum, we have Hemingway, whose stories are equally great, but completely different (except for their economy); he’ll teach you how to be subtle, how to write seemingly inconspicuous prose that is yet evocative.

As far as Sci-Fi is concerned… it depends on how “philosophical” you want to get. If you want to write a sort of sci-fi allegory, I’d recommend Asimov’s “Last Question”. It’s a great story, and also has a lot to say about how to frame and structure a story. I haven’t really read that many “non-philosophical” sci-fi stories. I think the genre is better suited to longer works, because you need the space to build your universe.

Reply
- Tuirgin
  June 15th, 2009 on 9:20 am
  I spent a year or so reading Joseph Campbell. I got enough exposure to Jung and Freud to be able to half-way understand Dali’s surrealist period—though I prefer his later works, by far. In the end I became a bit disillusioned with Campbell—he seemed to put popularity and sales above intellectual integrity. Whenever he touched on something I know something about his representation seemed to squeeze his material in such a way to make it work within his synthetic construct.
  
  Anyway, that’s really neither here nor there in regards to the subject of your comment.
  
  Poe is an early favorite, and “The Cask of Amontillado”, in particular was always one of my favorites. The Fall of the House of Usher was also very vivid to me, but years later Amontillado sticks with me more. Maybe more successful for being less grotesque, and less chained to symbol? Anyway, I seem to have misplaced my copy of him—or maybe I abandoned it because it reeked of mildew. Thankfully most all of his works are available online.
  
  His Philosophy of Composition I remember from grade-school. I have planned on tracking it down and just haven’t gotten around to it. At some point I came across some criticisms that he was just kind of making his theories up and they seem to have relatively little to do with how he worked as a writer. I didn’t look far enough into it to see if it was a valid criticism or just gnashing of teeth. In general I don’t look at criticism or theory to take sides, but in pursuit of ideas, which, like the main character in Foucault’s Pendulum, I find are often pleasing for being incongruous and syncopated against each other.
  
  What I’m after right now is really just an understanding of structure, however rudimentary. I’ve spent my life as a reader, focused on the stories, the ideas, the emotional impact, and the atmosphere, and not paying much attention to the writing itself. I have an appreciation for a beautiful line of prose, but am much less aware of the general dynamics of a work. I’m not too worried about being a robot at this point… just need a bit of a push. I’m also perfectly content not to ever be published—my only goal is to rescue my imagination which is seems to be less and less used the older I get. It feels like a kind of death, frankly.
  
  As for Sci-Fi—I’m not well read in it. “Hardware” sci-fi leaves me cold. I seem to prefer Eastern European writers to Western ones—Stanisław Lem and the Strugatsky Brothers stand out, but I discovered both of them by way of Tarkovsky’s film adaptations of their works—Solaris from Lem and Stalker by way of Roadside Picnic by the Strugatskys. Lem, in particular is strong. Solaris was very good. Pirx the Pilot is fun. I’m afraid The Cyberiad was just way beyond my level of comprehension, though.
  
  I just picked up a copy of Vance’s Dying Earth novels. And I’ve been a fan of Gene Wolfe for some time, though I have yet to completely finish Book of the New Sun. I’ve read through the first 2 books twice now, and the 3rd I’ve read once. I really want to read through them in entirety, and then back through it again. More than any other author I know Wolfe pays for repeated readings.
  
  Asimov I haven’t read since high school. I want to say that I’ve read “Last Question” but I can’t recall the details at the moment. I’ll be sure to look it up and read it.
  
  Do you have an account on LibraryThing?
  
  Reply
Michael
June 24th, 2009 on 12:50 am
Good luck in this endeavour! Some of my favourite collections of short fiction:

-Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio -James Joyce’s Dubliners -Margaret Laurence’s A Bird in the House -Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women

Michael Ondaatje is probably still my all-’round favourite poet & prose-writer, but he’s not long on short fiction, I’m afraid.

Reply
- Tuirgin
  June 24th, 2009 on 9:59 am
  Thanks for commenting. Out of those the only one I’m familiar with is James Joyce. I’ve got Dubliners, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. I’ve read (most of) the first two and return to them from time to time. Finnegans Wake is more work than it’s worth, genius or no. Or maybe the rose just hasn’t blossomed for me. Who knows…
  
  Reply
  - Michael
    June 25th, 2009 on 1:15 pm
    John Huston’s adaptation of ‘The Dead’ (from Dubliners) is at the top of the pile among my all-time favourite “best literary adaptation” films.
    
    Reply
    - Tuirgin
      June 25th, 2009 on 1:30 pm
      I’ll have to check it out.
      
      Hrm… curiously hard to find in the USA. Might have to track down a copy from the UK.
      
      Reply
Benjamin Rosenbaum
November 17th, 2009 on 4:00 am
authors: Samuel R. Delany Ursula K. Le Guin Hal Duncan Kelly Link Aimee Bender Theodora Goss

mechanics: Steering the Craft, Ursula K. Le Guin

Reply
- Tuirgin
  November 17th, 2009 on 10:56 am
  Thanks for the comment. I appreciate it. Other than Ursula K. Le Guin those are all new names for me, and of her work I’ve only read the Earthsea books. Thanks for the suggestions.
  
  I haven’t made it through the list to read “True Names,” yet. I did, however, enjoy reading an excerpt from the Locus interview you did in 2005. I look forward to reading your work.
  
  Also — on your website bio I saw your response to the old “If you do not absolutely have to write, spare yourself this misery” advice and really appreciate it. I’m not an obsessive writer, but I want to develop skill as a writer for the effect it has on me — similar to my experiences playing music or composing in-camera or drawing, writing changes the way I think and experience the world around me. That, in itself, is pleasurable and reason enough to fight against a blank screen.
  
  Thanks again.
  
  Reply