Claire Keegan's comment was interesting. My short story, "Subtraction," was predicated on the breakup of a marriage, and I had ideas about why it broke up. But when I started writing, those ideas were left unstated. It sufficed to note that the wife dumped the husband because he wasn't much good at being married. The story that intereste…
Claire Keegan's comment was interesting. My short story, "Subtraction," was predicated on the breakup of a marriage, and I had ideas about why it broke up. But when I started writing, those ideas were left unstated. It sufficed to note that the wife dumped the husband because he wasn't much good at being married. The story that interested me was embodied in the subsequent disintegration of the husband's personality.
Gina Berriault's comment comes in here. My idea in "Subtraction" was that loss can develop an unstoppable momentum, culminating in an existential state of loneliness and loss of identity. I think she's quite right that a crackup like that is especially well portrayed in short story form, brevity intensifying the effect.
Neil Gaiman is on target when he notes that in short stories, explanations are frequently superfluous. My story "Run of Luck" was inspired by a novella by another writer that described, step by step, how a run of increasingly horrible bad luck destroyed the perfect life of a beautiful, accomplished young woman. It was an impressive performance and it got me thinking: What would be the effects of an equally relentless run of good luck? The answer turned out to be: Not so good. In neither the novella that inspired me nor the story I wrote, were explanations required. After all, everybody knows that luck, good or bad, is a bolt from the blue.
Claire Keegan's comment was interesting. My short story, "Subtraction," was predicated on the breakup of a marriage, and I had ideas about why it broke up. But when I started writing, those ideas were left unstated. It sufficed to note that the wife dumped the husband because he wasn't much good at being married. The story that interested me was embodied in the subsequent disintegration of the husband's personality.
Gina Berriault's comment comes in here. My idea in "Subtraction" was that loss can develop an unstoppable momentum, culminating in an existential state of loneliness and loss of identity. I think she's quite right that a crackup like that is especially well portrayed in short story form, brevity intensifying the effect.
Neil Gaiman is on target when he notes that in short stories, explanations are frequently superfluous. My story "Run of Luck" was inspired by a novella by another writer that described, step by step, how a run of increasingly horrible bad luck destroyed the perfect life of a beautiful, accomplished young woman. It was an impressive performance and it got me thinking: What would be the effects of an equally relentless run of good luck? The answer turned out to be: Not so good. In neither the novella that inspired me nor the story I wrote, were explanations required. After all, everybody knows that luck, good or bad, is a bolt from the blue.