When I write a short story or an essay, I hope it will strike a chord with my readers.
Earlier this week I received an e-mail from someone who had read one of my short stories and wrote to say she loved it. Her e-mail made my day, not only because of her kind words, but also because she is a wonderful writer with a strong and compelling voice of her own.
I love writing and reading short stories, but I'm mystified when a story I thought wasn't my best work is one that has success. Then I'm disappointed when another story I believe will be heaped with praise doesn't make the cut. How does that happen?
I often question if there is a "magic formula" for what makes a story work. To find the answer to my question, I decided to dig deep. After hours of research, I uncovered what some of my favorite short story writers had to say about the mystery of writing.
When Flannery O’Connor was asked about what she thought makes a story work, she wrote: “. . . it is probably some action, some gesture of a
character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the
real heart of the story lies."
According to O'Connor, the two qualities that make fiction are "a sense of mystery and a sense of manners."
Eudora Welty also wrote about the mystery of writing. “The mystery lies in the use of language to express human life.” She also wrote, "In writing we rediscover the mystery.” and "Most good stories are about the interior of our lives . . .”
Katherine Anne Porter wrote about the importance of being honest in writing about the past. "Of the three dimensions of time, only the past is ‘real’ in
the absolute sense that it has occurred . . . ." She went on to write, “One of the most disturbing habits of the human mind is its
willful and destructive forgetting of whatever in its past does not flatter or
confirm its present point of view.”
Joyce Carol Oates wrote, "The short story is a dream verbalized, arranged in space
and presented to the world, imagined as a sympathetic audience . . . . the short
story must also represent a desire . . . the most interesting thing about it is
its mystery.”
I'm hoping to digest this information and incorporate some of the thoughts and beliefs of these master fiction writers into my own short stories. I've also reread some of their short stories to experience their masterful use of language and imagery.
How about you? What do you think makes a story work?
