Murder, Murder Everywhere

As of this moment, just over 140 stories have been submitted to the Hint Fiction contest. And I’m seeing the same trend in stories that I saw for the last contest and for the open reading period: murder and killing. It got so bad that at one point on Friday afternoon I sent Ben White this text:

Am starting to get sick and tired of the same old murder/killing stories.

He responded a few minutes later:

Me too! I reject 9 out of 10 just because … they’re so “meh” at this point. Murder without cause is an event. Not a story.

And I think that sums up perfectly what’s wrong with a good number of stories that have been submitted so far: the murder just happens without reason, and the reader is supposed to, what, care about this somehow? In fact, it’s even gotten to the point that the very best stories about murder and killing don’t impress much anymore.

I’m not alone. Ask editors what one of the biggest trends in stories they see is, and they’re apt to tell you murder and killing and any other form of violent crime. (Which all would make for an interesting study into the psyche of a writer … or maybe that writing about murder/killing is the easiest thing to write about, which says something completely different about our society.)

One of the main reasons I asked James Frey to be the final judge of this contest (besides the fact he’s James effin Frey) is because he’s genre neutral. Writers won’t, in theory, immediately assume that because he writes such-and-such, that’s what they need to submit. So that’s why I didn’t ask an established horror or mystery or science fiction writer to be the final judge. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those genres — I’m a fan of them all — but oftentimes writers will manipulate their own stories to try to fit a judge’s sensibility instead of simply writing the very best stories they can.

So am I saying you shouldn’t write and submit stories that deal with murder and killing? No. But if you do, be aware that your story must be the greatest story ever written (hyperbole, yes, but you know what I mean). And keep in mind my previous post about story titles and how they’re even more important in Hint Fiction. Here’s an example of a typical murder/killing story:

Close Call

The cop pulls me over for speeding. He lets me off with a warning. Thank God he didn’t see the blood dripping from the trunk.

Okay, so what do we know here? Obviously that the narrator has something in his trunk (I'm assuming, of course, the narrator is a he) that’s dripping blood. It’s probably a body, but it could be a number of things. But let’s say it is a body. So what? Does the reader really care about a dead body in the trunk? Does the reader get any sense of the narrator’s character or motivation? Yes, it’s Hint Fiction, but is it good Hint Fiction?

Now let’s change up the title:

Because She Said No

The cop pulls me over for speeding. He lets me off with a warning. Thank God he didn’t see the blood dripping from the trunk.

The title certainly adds a new layer to the story. But is it necessarily interesting? More so than before, maybe, but still it’s a typical murder/killing story. Nothing too special here. It’s a story that many other writers would probably come up with at some point. And that’s the thing in all fiction, be it novel or story or hint: the goal is to write something that nobody but you would come up with. That’s the idea of being original.

Note the main reason I kept the submission process the same as last year — through the comments section — is a) I think it's more interesting this way and b) writers can see what's been submitted thus far. Just like in American Idol, you have the advantage of seeing your competition. So use it!

Just A Hint Of A Title

Titles are important -- be it a poem or a story or a novel -- but they are even more important in creating effective Hint Fiction. Last year I talked briefly about the importance of titles but Ben White just recently did a blog post where he says it even better:

The angle for a title (for fiction of any size) is usually a summary or some key/noteworthy words. Perhaps a rephrasing. Moby Dick is about, surprise surprise, Moby Dick (more or less). Most, perhaps even the “good” ones, don”t bring anything new to the table. Fine—but when you write a story that is only 140 characters or 25 words or less, that’s actually pretty inexcusable. You worked hard to cram as much story as you can into a sentence or two, and you’re telling me you couldn’t think of anything else to add? That title could’ve been a whole new element, supported a completely different layer of interpretation. It can do something.

With a novel, titles are often placeholders or descriptors (i.e. The Magician, or something else equally mundane and logical). With micro- and flash-fiction, the usual maxim is that every word counts. That’s actually a lie. There’s plenty of relative fluff even in really compelling stuff. Maybe it counts, but it’s not necessary. But if a title makes up 10-30% of the total word count, it’d better be necessary.

My rule of thumb for a nano title: if the story reads the same way with or without the title, then the title isn’t carrying its weight.

Ben and I actually talked about this last week, and he brought up a good point about the difference between nano fiction (or Twitter fiction) and hint fiction. For the stories Ben edits, writers are restricted to the 140 character limit. There is no room for a title. A story has to stand on its own with just the body of the story itself. Oftentimes, Ben told me, a story might be somewhat good but could be improved upon greatly by just the right title. By adding the right title a writer adds a new layer to the narrative (note, it is possible to make the story worse by adding the wrong title, which should be obvious but which I feel I should mention anyway). A reader will oftentimes glance at the title before reading the story, not really understanding the title's significance until they finish the story and look at the title again and then something clicks.

Ben gives an example of one of his own stories in his post (which you should read, of course), so I might as well give an example of one of my stories published recently. Except I'm going to show you the story first without its title.

She saw his picture in the paper and remembered waiting on him two days before: the lighter fluid, her quip about barbequing, his vacuous gaze.

If you're not familiar with this story, you're probably thinking Hmm, okaaaay ... Truthfully, the story doesn't work on its own. In fact, I'm positive Ben would reject it for Nanoism (for reason other than the fact it's actually 143 characters). There's an element that's missing. That element, of course, is a title. Now here's the story with the title included:

10 Items or Less

She saw his picture in the paper and remembered waiting on him two days before: the lighter fluid, her quip about barbequing, his vacuous gaze.

Now that that extra element has been add, the story becomes much more effective (at least I like to think so, though I am sort of biased). That's why a title is very important in Hint Fiction -- it gives the writer a chance to add another layer to the story, sort of cheating the 25 word limit.

Does your Hint Fiction story need to have a title? Not always -- the Hemingway piece certainly didn't -- but it definitely won't hurt.

"I'm Not Looking For More Money/Readership"

If the title of this post makes you go "huh?" then you're not alone. A couple weeks back I saw this posted in response to some question online that basically talked about making money for your writing. And considering who the writer was that posted the comment, I wasn't surprised at all, as this writer in question usually comes off as a douche.

Let's be honest here -- nobody creates art only for themselves. And I absolutely hate using the term art to begin with, but I guess that's the best way to describe novels and short stories and poems and whatever else. (Why do I hate using the term art? Because for some reason when I think of art I think of snooty assholes who want to talk about their amazing creations which usually aren't so amazing and treat everybody else like shit, and for the most part, writers aren't like that.)

You can't tell me that you're going to slave over your novel or story, spending hours and days and weeks and months, for no reason at all except the fact you feel it's your job as an artist to create something, and then when it's done you'll hide it away so nobody else will ever see it?

If that's the case, more power to you, but I'd say you fall into the .00001% of artists out there.

I know when I write something, I write it with the hopeful intent of eventually selling it. When I submit stories, I try to submit them to publications where, if accepted, they will be read by as many readers as possible.

Does that mean I'm not an arteest?

Now I'm no psychiatrist (I'm pretty sure the diploma I got in that cereal box wasn't real), but what I take away from that idiot writer's comment is simply a kind of defense mechanism. By saying "I'm not looking for more money/readership," the writer is basically ensuring that he will never fail. Because if he admits that yes, he would like more money/readership and more money or readers never comes, then there is cause for disappointment.

But you know what? Disappointment is just a part of being a writer. As writers we're disappointed all the time. That's just name of the game. Because we're writers, damn it, and that's what we do.

If that means I'll never be an arteest, then good. I'll take all the money/readership I can get.

P.S. A lot of great entries so far in the Penultimate Paragraph contest. Keep ’em coming in, folks! You have until Friday midnight to enter.

The Cost Of (Literary) Art

First, my sincere thanks to everyone who helped spread the word and became a fan of Hint Fiction on Facebook. We're already up to 190 fans, and that number grows every hour (or at least I hope that's the case; it's difficult to say as the thing just launched Saturday). Anyway, to call back to this post where I talked about literary journals and who really reads them, I was reminded about that back section of each Best American Short Stories. After the stories, after the contributors' notes, after the 100 other distinguished stories of that year (notice how that number is just 100, and not 500 or more like some other year best anthologies -- a marketing scam that I won't get into at the moment), you'll find the editorial addresses of American and Canadian magazines publishing short stories.

Now if you're familiar with this section, there are hundreds and hundreds of magazines listed, ranging from The New Yorker to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine to journals like Kalliope (the journal of Florida Community College). Listed with almost all of the addresses and editor names is a dollar amount, some going as high as $40, some going as low as $9.95. These are the costs of a yearly subscription. Keep in mind that some magazines publish more frequently than others. Some put out twelve issues a year, while some put out two issues a year, or even just one issue.

Curious, I went through the most recent edition I have (2008, the one edited by Salman Rushdie) and tallied up all those subscription costs. Here's the grand total:

$3,572.55

Pretty costly, huh? And that's just the magazines that are listed. That doesn't include publications many of us are familiar with -- PANK and The Los Angeles Review and Space and Time and Monkeybicycle -- and magazines from other countries (not to mention anthologies). And that was just from two years ago; there may even be more listed in the 2009 edition, or maybe there's less.

Now even if someone had the extra cash to subscribe to all those magazines, there is absolutely no way he or she could read every story in every publication. It's just not possible. And even if they could read every single story in every publication, what about the online journals? What about the magazines published in other countries?

(But wait, you say. Obviously someone is reading all those stories in all those publications if they're listed. To which I say, Yes, Heidi Pitlor as series editor probably does go through every publication listed there, but I highly doubt she's reading every single story from beginning to end. Just like an editor will only read the first page or paragraph of a story in the slush pile, I'm fairly certain Ms. Pitlor only reads the first couple paragraphs of each story, and if they don't grab her immediately, she skips to the next one.)

Sometimes I feel I'm way too pessimistic with my posts, and I apologize for that. In case you haven't noticed, I can be rather cynical at times. Most importantly, I try to be realistic about the business of writing. Because it's a tough business, and oftentimes it's not fair, no matter how hard you try and how talented you are. And then when you look at that grand total, and think about all those hundreds and hundreds of magazines that you probably have never read or seen or even heard of, well, you might start to wonder just what is the point.

In The Valley Of Lost Literary Journals

Last Friday my wife and I went up to New York City for the day. We visited the Norton offices, had lunch with my editor, and then met up with a friend of ours at the Museum of Modern Art which was hosting the Tim Burton exhibit. Then later we wandered down to Union Square, where we breezed through a couple bookstores. One of those was the big Barnes & Noble overlooking Union Square. It's a nice, four-level bookstore that has pretty much everything you've come to expect from Barnes & Noble, just more of it. They had an excessive magazine section, so of course I went looking for the literary journals.

"Wow," I said to my wife, "they have a pretty big selection here."

"Yeah," she said, "but who besides other writers actually reads them?"

And that's the question, isn't it? Literary journals are created and published to celebrate the short story (and poem), but all they really succeed in doing is creating just another outlet for writers to submit their work. These writers most likely don't buy or subscribe or even read said journal. Even if they have a work accepted and receive a contributor's copy, how many read every story or poem in the magazine? Granted, there are some writers who religiously subscribe and read journals, and God bless each and every one of them. But the majority (and I'll be the first to admit I may be way off in my estimation) simply see those journals as just another place to submit their stuff.

I'm sure I've spouted the same thing here before, but it's worth mentioning again. Yes, writers are readers too, but they make up a small percentage of the regular every day reader. Or do they? The people that go out every other month to buy James Patterson's latest potboiler probably aren't the same readers who also pick up the most recent copy of Tin House or Granta or The Paris Review or any of the magazines you see listed in that picture.

Publisher Hildy Silverman recently announced that Space and Time Magazine is almost up to 100 subscribers. I don't know about anyone else, but I find this very surprising, if not unsettling. A magazine as old and well-established as S&T, I would have thought they already had a solid subscription base up in the high hundreds, if not close to a thousand.

Perception is the key, I guess. We writers like submitting to the pretty literary journals hoping to get published in them thinking that when we do a lot of people will read our stories and poems. But with so much out there, so many different literary journals to choose from, how does one find the time to read every story and poem?

When I think of questions like this, I'm reminded of Stephen King's introduction to the Best American Short Stories he edited in 2007 (the one with William Gay's kick ass story "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?"). He talks about going into a major chain bookstore and transversing his way back to the magazines, and once he's there he needs to find the tiny section where they hide the literary journals.

So think of me crawling on the floor of this big chain store and ask yourself, What’s wrong with this picture?

We could argue all day about the reasons for fiction’s out-migration from the eye-level shelves — people have. We could marvel over the fact that Britney Spears is available at every checkout, while an American talent like William Gay or Randy DeVita or Eileen Pollack or Aryn Kyle (all of whom were among my final picks) labors in relative obscurity. We could, but let’s not. It’s almost beside the point, and besides — it hurts.

Instead, let us consider what the bottom shelf does to writers who still care, sometimes passionately, about the short story. What happens when he or she realizes that his or her audience is shrinking almost daily? Well, if the writer is worth his or her salt, he or she continues on nevertheless, because it’s what God or genetics (possibly they are the same) has decreed, or out of sheer stubbornness, or maybe because it’s such a kick to spin tales. Possibly a combination. And all that’s good.

What’s not so good is that writers write for whatever audience is left. In too many cases, that audience happens to consist of other writers and would-be writers who are reading the various literary magazines (and The New Yorker, of course, the holy grail of the young fiction writer) not to be entertained but to get an idea of what sells there. And this kind of reading isn’t real reading, the kind where you just can’t wait to find out what happens next (think “Youth,” by Joseph Conrad, or “Big Blonde,” by Dorothy Parker). It’s more like copping-a-feel reading. There’s something yucky about it.

Yes, Mr. King, there is something yucky about it. Something yucky indeed.