Normally I would call this style postmodern. You're constantly breaking the fourth wall: interrupting the story to talk about it as a story, placing it in a literary tradition, (correctly) positing that the reader hasn't read a little O. Henry but not much (you know us too well, lol).
But it doesn't feel postmodern. I'm reminded of the moment in Money Matters where you just drop the narrative and talk about why you're writing the way you're writing. If anything, it feels like an older way of storytelling rather than a weird new experimental way of storytelling. Again, you mention Henry Fielding in Money Matters.
I don't think anyone but you is writing this way. I've read enough of your stuff to know a bit about your journey, and I think it took exactly that journey to lead you to this style. And it is so good! Just compulsively readable and absurdly entertaining. I would read a thousand of these stories.
I came to the comments to say exactly this. I couldn’t stop thinking about this short story and the others written in this style.
The irony of the title that sounds almost click-baity, like many of the substack “how tos”, while the piece itself is written in a much more traditional way with layers of satire. And it being an O. Henry tale retold!!
I am so pleasantly surprised to not only learn how to write a good short story but absolutely enjoy the short story “example” itself.
I loved this story but I also love the perspective that allows you to see the dynamics you depict with such clarity. That part is probably not teachable, you have to have ideas about how the world works!
This also reminded me a lot of how a friend (who's a successful writer) talks about story construction, though he says "begin with a conflict" rather than a desire. But it's equally formulaic and IMO equally persuasive.
Yes that's the tough part--you need to know something. But most people know something. I think that's why there can be such an endless variety of these very simple stories--because everyone knows things that are slightly different.
"It’s about clear, recognizable conflicts—it’s firmly anchored in a time and place—and it tries to say something true, but in an entertaining way."
This is my biggest struggle when writing short fiction. I become so interested in making a story complex and nuanced, that I end up muddying the conflict and making it too complicated to solve within a few thousand words.
This story is great on its own merits (even without the Penn & Teller "let's explain the techniques we're using as we use them" meta bit), but I also love the further evidence for my theory that the next Great American Novel will come from trawling r/Vindicta.
I love the way you often combine literary criticism or theory about fiction with actual fiction itself... readers come for the essay and stay for the story and learn something about fiction-writing in the best possible way!
You write: "hopefully there is embedded in your story a theme: some kind of truth about the human condition."
Totally agree, but then I read this: "Really [these moneyed guys] were attracted to girls like Ellie: traditional, hot, feminine girls. But they felt punished by society for that attraction, so they denied it and wouldn’t look at girls like Ellie. What you needed, if you were Ellie, was to give a guy something called ‘A Permission Slip.’ Basically you needed to use various techniques to give the man mental permission to be attracted to a real woman."
I have never met a guy who felt he needed a permission slip to be attracted to a girl, unless she didn't meet some physical standard. But because she was from a lower social class? I'm sure guys exist who work like that, but I'd consider them rare birds.
Or this: "the truth is that marriage in the United States is defined by class endogamy: men almost never date women from a lower social class." Again, that's a theme in American lit for sure, in MY ANTONIA, for instance. But it seems almost dated. That changed, I thought. Certainly in my era (and part of the U.S.) Maybe it has changed back? And is it men who tend to do this, or women?
I loved this post, because it's skillful and even provocative. But, in the story, I couldn't suspend disbelief.
I read both of those points as being descriptions of *what some characters in the story believed about the world* not descriptions of the world as such
Certainly that, too. But I felt the story turned on the idea of both of those claims being considered generally true, or at least credible. Perhaps they are, and I'm just out of the loop.
This was so excellent. I will refer to this structure in either the next story I write. I will probably post a couple more old, reedited ones first, but this is so clean.
Normally I would call this style postmodern. You're constantly breaking the fourth wall: interrupting the story to talk about it as a story, placing it in a literary tradition, (correctly) positing that the reader hasn't read a little O. Henry but not much (you know us too well, lol).
But it doesn't feel postmodern. I'm reminded of the moment in Money Matters where you just drop the narrative and talk about why you're writing the way you're writing. If anything, it feels like an older way of storytelling rather than a weird new experimental way of storytelling. Again, you mention Henry Fielding in Money Matters.
I don't think anyone but you is writing this way. I've read enough of your stuff to know a bit about your journey, and I think it took exactly that journey to lead you to this style. And it is so good! Just compulsively readable and absurdly entertaining. I would read a thousand of these stories.
I came to the comments to say exactly this. I couldn’t stop thinking about this short story and the others written in this style.
The irony of the title that sounds almost click-baity, like many of the substack “how tos”, while the piece itself is written in a much more traditional way with layers of satire. And it being an O. Henry tale retold!!
I am so pleasantly surprised to not only learn how to write a good short story but absolutely enjoy the short story “example” itself.
BIG BIG fan of this.
Damn robots taking all our jobs...
I loved this story but I also love the perspective that allows you to see the dynamics you depict with such clarity. That part is probably not teachable, you have to have ideas about how the world works!
This also reminded me a lot of how a friend (who's a successful writer) talks about story construction, though he says "begin with a conflict" rather than a desire. But it's equally formulaic and IMO equally persuasive.
Yes that's the tough part--you need to know something. But most people know something. I think that's why there can be such an endless variety of these very simple stories--because everyone knows things that are slightly different.
That last line!
"It’s about clear, recognizable conflicts—it’s firmly anchored in a time and place—and it tries to say something true, but in an entertaining way."
This is my biggest struggle when writing short fiction. I become so interested in making a story complex and nuanced, that I end up muddying the conflict and making it too complicated to solve within a few thousand words.
This story is great on its own merits (even without the Penn & Teller "let's explain the techniques we're using as we use them" meta bit), but I also love the further evidence for my theory that the next Great American Novel will come from trawling r/Vindicta.
I love how you walked us through your short story with this! Brilliantly helpful!
Loved the story and the way you walked us through it.
I love the way you often combine literary criticism or theory about fiction with actual fiction itself... readers come for the essay and stay for the story and learn something about fiction-writing in the best possible way!
The fake discord account coup is ingenius
"job taken by AI" is the icing on the cake
You write: "hopefully there is embedded in your story a theme: some kind of truth about the human condition."
Totally agree, but then I read this: "Really [these moneyed guys] were attracted to girls like Ellie: traditional, hot, feminine girls. But they felt punished by society for that attraction, so they denied it and wouldn’t look at girls like Ellie. What you needed, if you were Ellie, was to give a guy something called ‘A Permission Slip.’ Basically you needed to use various techniques to give the man mental permission to be attracted to a real woman."
I have never met a guy who felt he needed a permission slip to be attracted to a girl, unless she didn't meet some physical standard. But because she was from a lower social class? I'm sure guys exist who work like that, but I'd consider them rare birds.
Or this: "the truth is that marriage in the United States is defined by class endogamy: men almost never date women from a lower social class." Again, that's a theme in American lit for sure, in MY ANTONIA, for instance. But it seems almost dated. That changed, I thought. Certainly in my era (and part of the U.S.) Maybe it has changed back? And is it men who tend to do this, or women?
I loved this post, because it's skillful and even provocative. But, in the story, I couldn't suspend disbelief.
I read both of those points as being descriptions of *what some characters in the story believed about the world* not descriptions of the world as such
Certainly that, too. But I felt the story turned on the idea of both of those claims being considered generally true, or at least credible. Perhaps they are, and I'm just out of the loop.
This was so excellent. I will refer to this structure in either the next story I write. I will probably post a couple more old, reedited ones first, but this is so clean.
wisdom
I enjoyed your story.
does writing a tragic short story have the same framework?