THE RUBBISH THAT THERE IS

(Am on mid-term break just now and without my computer and time a little heavy on my hands so have been browsing the web (on my son's machine) and I am posting stuff here just to get things out of my head... like a Mr Angry or a Mr Disappointed, at least... you don't have to agree!)

There’s a lot of rubbish said out there. ( and maybe I am just adding to it!)

There’s a debate I see often aired in the ether, a debate about which is better, butter or marge, tea or coffee, white wine or red. Science may tell you today that there are things in new red wine that are actually good for you if you consume only a glass a day, but I don’t think that is what is meant in this sort of debate.

So which is better, the short story or the novel? That’s what I am really talking about. That’s the question that is so often aired. Usually the question is raised by an ardent short story writer in defence of what they do and usually it extols the virtues of the short story in such a nonsensical way. It sometimes involves a person saying what the novel is not and what a story does that the novel cannot. They make up a definition of what the novel’s limits must be and slip the short story into the space they have created. I have read one defence that says a whole world is conjured in a short story, that it is the germ of something that passes from the writer to the reader and takes root in the reader’s imagination and lives with the reader long after the page has been turned.

I am sorry, but there are great novels that do that for me, that do as much and more than a short story does. Don’t get me wrong; I love short stories and love writing them. I think they are a better animal than flash fiction. I think they have great power. I think they can be rich and moving and complete - even when they are not complete. I also think there are great short stories that I would prize as some of the best things I have read. But equally there is a whole library of novels that I would say do for me.

So, when it comes down to it, let’s be honest: marge or butter, tea or coffee, red wine or white - it’s surely a matter of taste, really it is, personal taste, and as writers we have to accept that the market seems to prefer the flavour of the novel over the short story… hence, perhaps, the need for these airy defences of the short story in order to cudgel people into seeing sense and ‘you really ought to drink red wine‘ and short stories have feelings, too.

I wish there was more of a market for them, but if we are to shout out their virtues, lets not shout out nonsense. So, Why Short Stories? Because they give us a different flavour... seems sensible enough.