Short Story Writing Project: Clear-cut versus obscure
February 12, 2008 by J.C. Hewitt
In the comments to my first post, What is a Short Story?, Rhonda voiced an opinion that I think a lot of readers share. She said:
I tend to like the classic short stories that have some sort of epiphany. It doesn’t have to be all wrapped up neat and tidy, but I am having a hard time appreciating-and even fully understanding-many of the stories published in the most current “Best American Short Stories
I agree with Rhonda that today’s literary stories tend to have less obvious conclusions and themes than in earlier days. In a story such as Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, the themes of remorse and paranoia are very clear. The ending is relatively easy to figure out and the conclusion is satisfying.
Raymond Carver was arguably the best short story writer of the twentieth century, and you can see in his writing that the themes have become less clear-cut and the conclusions less dramatic. In Cathedral, the story concludes with a blind man and a sighted man drawing a picture of a cathedral together. There has been some tension between them at first, but they have moved beyond it. The ending is not as dramatic as The Telltale Heart, but it makes some statement about vision, experience and connection. Still, there are several tensions in the story, especially between the sighted man and his wife, and those tensions are not neatly resolved by the ending. There is no telling if tomorrow will be any better or worse for this couple.
Raymond Carver was a minimalist as a writer. He wouldn’t, for example, describe a room unless he felt that the description of that room was vital to the story. He also tended to portray what he considered to be ordinary people living ordinary and not-too-happy lives. People’s problems weren’t going to be somehow fixed at the end of a story. Their victories and losses were the victories and losses of common people.
The beauty of Carver’s writing was that he didn’t need to say more. A reader could pick up on the themes and get what they needed from his stories without obvious conclusions and clear-cut explanations. Unfortunately, just because a master can pull off this feat doesn’t mean his students can do the same. I think you see many people imitating his style without achieving his effect. This leads to murky stories “that don’t seem to have much of a point.”
I’m not blaming Carver for this movement. He was influential, but the trend towards more obscure stories probably would have happened with or without him. In fact, you can see much of the same style in Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, which predates Carver’s work by fifty years. Author Michael Chabon led a sort of insurgency against this movement by uniting respected “literary” authors together in a collection of short stories called, McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories
There is no right or wrong when it comes to deciding what to reveal in your short stories. Well, there are some wrongs, and we will be discussing them, but there is no “right” way to write a short story. People’s tastes vary. There will always be literary movements and counter movements. A writer should be aware of them, but they shouldn’t let themselves be controlled by them. It is best to write the type of stories you would enjoy reading, whatever those may be.
What do you think?
Do you miss the more clearly drawn conclusions of early short stories or do you embrace the ambiguity of some modern writing? Who do you like to read and why?
The implication that the authors published in the Best American Short Stories volumes are Raymond Carver’s ’students’ and that they are less virtuosic is at best a distortion. I agree, nearly every short story writer knows Carver and thus must be influenced by him to some degree. However, it seems you belittle these subsequent writers’ specific endeavors, which, I contend, diverge in many ways from Carver’s style and content, etc. Too many readers immediately disregard stories labeled as ‘obscure’ or ‘difficult,’ when in fact, it is these writers who most challenge the reader-writer dynamic and illuminate language in the process.
Language is a shifty, amorphous system and many ‘obscure’ writers make it their task to prevent the reader from being taken up by the siren call of lyrical words, pat themes, and defined meaning/intention aka ‘a story with a point.’ Even if you do not enjoy these writers or their stories, and want your writing to be nothing like them at all, there are lessons to be learned.
I appreciate the attempt at a very brief comment on (only) two divergent short story methodologies, but this is a complex issue. I fear your post teaches writers and readers it is ‘okay’ to disregard as opposed to getting their fingers dirty and attempting to understand why an author chose to write in a particular form, style, and so on.
Just finished Deborah Eisenberg’s ‘Twilight of the Superheroes’ collection and I must say I am impressed and inspired.
Chris,
Thank you for the comment.
I did not mean to imply that all the authors in “Best American Short Stories” are disciples of Carver. There are many influences out there. Carver serves as example of someone who mastered a certain style that many other writers are less successful in. Not all literary short story writers are minimalists and not all minimalists are disciples of Carver.
I like (and attempt to write) literary short stories. I do not have the issues with them that Rhonda has, but I do understand that it can be frustrating for people, especially when the story is less than masterful.
One more note. I don’t mean to imply that all the stories in “Best American Short Stories” are bad. I haven’t even read this year’s edition yet, so I can’t judge. Rhonda had addressed that book. My comments were aimed at bad “literary” writing in general.
I still like the old Hemingway shorts.
But short stories are so versatile.
Minimalism does not equal obscure
Excellent point Matthew. Minimalism is a style with measurable techniques and goals. Obscurity is either an accidental or intentional avoidance of an obvious interpretation.
Matthew, I agree with your point, but Carver employs minimalism as well as a certain degree of ‘obscurity’ wouldn’t you agree? Minimalism tends to lend itself to what we’re calling ‘obscure’ storytelling.
John, I would say that what is really at stake here is how we define ‘obscure’ and/or ‘obscurity’ in short stories.
Your preceding definition is getting there, but I think I can make a case that ‘obscurity’ is not truly a style, whereas minimalism is, and has a defined history.
In my view, (unfortunately) readers tend to shy away from ‘difficult’ texts citing ‘obscure’ style while perhaps missing the ‘obscurity’ (read: subtlety) in texts which are easier to digest.
Let’s take Dubliners by James Joyce. Are these short stories obscure? This depends on how we define obscure. The prose is straightforward, potential themes and motifs are easy enough to identify, and yet I would contend that his stories still subvert convention, and still present quite a challenge to any reader who seeks a point or purpose within each story.
There are countless short story authors like this. Some famous names: Hemingway, as Terry mentioned, Italo Calvino comes to mind, or how about Donald Barthelme; or even more recently, kmart realists such as Ann Beattie?
The point is that any literary short story writer should pay close attention to what is happening between the lines. We should act like jazz musicians, conscious of space and silence between notes, as well as developing an aesthetic sense of when to flourish and when not to. We should be wary of our first impressions of stories and give ‘obscurity’ or ‘difficulty’ a real chance when we come across it and even when we don’t…
How many times have I been in a workshop where the class leader has unearthed volumes from a text (I recall one particular Grace Paley tale) which I initially wrote off as simple and mediocre?
How many times have we gone back to texts we read in early youth or even just two years past and chided ourselves for all that we missed?
Thank you for beginning this discussion! I know I have dropped a few names in the course of this post, but since John is starting a short story project, I thought it appropriate to put a few out there for prospective writers looking for guidance and inspiration.
A debate on Carver’s minimalism?
May I enter the following link into evidence?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17910720
I heard this on NPR about a week or two ago. It seems the widow of the late mr. carver wants to publish the unedited stories. There is some legal wranglings over rights and copyright. The point at the center of this is the amount of creative license the editor took with these stories. The widow contends that the editor did way too much, and the ‘classic carver’ story was not carver’s intent. It is an interesting discussion, which is still pending, and is related tangentially to your discussion.
Enjoy!
Hi. Here is a great New Yorker article about how Carver’s editor was in fact responsible for the minimalist style in his work.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/24/071224fa_fact