Short Fiction

I’ve always had a space in my heart for short fiction.

Short story is a form that is often under appreciated, and I would chalk this up to a couple strange reasons.

First, I think it’s a value proposition. I figure it probably costs about the same amount to publish, ship, and market a twenty page book—something that will take a customer a lunch-break to read—as it does a five hundred page novel. Thus, they cost the same at the store. We get around this by publishing anthologies, but I think the whole equation often breaks down for people standing in a bookstore: buying a bunch of small stories glued together in one paperback, or a whole novel—most people, I wager, pick the novel.

Second, the mental investment. We do like strong characters and getting to know imaginary people through the course of a five hundred page-long story. Ideas are important, too, but my experience with short story is that it often leans more into exploring an idea than it does exploring a fleshed out character—that’s the realm of novels with the space to do that well. It’s not impossible in a short story, but I think you can only create so much personality out of ten thousand words. People like people, so I think we tend to gravitate towards novels about people over stories about ideas.

Just my speculation.

In the coming months I want to write more short fiction, I think, filling that gap in my heart with explorations of big ideas and crazy concepts. 

I fully expect it to be under appreciated.