I think this is right about contemporary short stories: they “tend to lack an awareness of the reader as a living presence. That's because these stories insist quite strongly on the reader's complete and immediate commitment.”
This is why I really like this new format of yours, where the reader doesn’t quite know at first if we’re in story or newsletter. You don’t label them separately, so you get our commitment sideways, in a way. (Kind of a better version of how The New Yorker refuses to label novel excerpts vs story? Which always infuriated me.)
“The reader needs to enter fully into a traditional story, giving over their consciousness to this living dream. And that's something the reader will only do if: a) they already trust the writer; or b) they trust the magazine or journal's judgement enough that they're willing to consider the possibility that a story might be worthwhile.”
I’d just also add c), if the voice is immediately gripping and permeable. This is why I’m so on about my laminated/permeable dichotomy. And my distrust of (b) these days is why I basically only go by the first sentence/paragraph in a used bookstore or Little Free Library. Does the voice/prose draw me in? That’s about it as far as my early discernment.
(I know you’d tell me I also am responding to excellent plotting, maybe I am :).)
On the topic of "screw description, just set your story on Mars" -- you ever read "Feed," the 2000s YA novel? An all-timer opening line in that vein, lol
It reads like an oral history, just one set a few centuries from now. Oral histories are a traditional format, but you’re doing something really interesting with that mode.
I think this put a finger on why it is so hard to "get into" a lot of contemporary short stories.
You've written about Brandon Taylor before: I find his actual literary writing quite tortured, but his substack really engaging. This post helped me understand why.
Reminds me of the Expanse without all the cliches and action/horror tropes. Does more with less, respects my time, still delivers on science fiction with a mundane realism. Maybe I just prefer the short story to a ten volume series.
I think this is right about contemporary short stories: they “tend to lack an awareness of the reader as a living presence. That's because these stories insist quite strongly on the reader's complete and immediate commitment.”
This is why I really like this new format of yours, where the reader doesn’t quite know at first if we’re in story or newsletter. You don’t label them separately, so you get our commitment sideways, in a way. (Kind of a better version of how The New Yorker refuses to label novel excerpts vs story? Which always infuriated me.)
“The reader needs to enter fully into a traditional story, giving over their consciousness to this living dream. And that's something the reader will only do if: a) they already trust the writer; or b) they trust the magazine or journal's judgement enough that they're willing to consider the possibility that a story might be worthwhile.”
I’d just also add c), if the voice is immediately gripping and permeable. This is why I’m so on about my laminated/permeable dichotomy. And my distrust of (b) these days is why I basically only go by the first sentence/paragraph in a used bookstore or Little Free Library. Does the voice/prose draw me in? That’s about it as far as my early discernment.
(I know you’d tell me I also am responding to excellent plotting, maybe I am :).)
On the topic of "screw description, just set your story on Mars" -- you ever read "Feed," the 2000s YA novel? An all-timer opening line in that vein, lol
I did, in a past life! Can't remember anything besides that I liked it
It reads like an oral history, just one set a few centuries from now. Oral histories are a traditional format, but you’re doing something really interesting with that mode.
Or there is always the option of both, like Borges in A Universal History of Iniquity.
I think this put a finger on why it is so hard to "get into" a lot of contemporary short stories.
You've written about Brandon Taylor before: I find his actual literary writing quite tortured, but his substack really engaging. This post helped me understand why.
Reminds me of the Expanse without all the cliches and action/horror tropes. Does more with less, respects my time, still delivers on science fiction with a mundane realism. Maybe I just prefer the short story to a ten volume series.