Why Short Stories Are
Fun (And Not Just Because I’m Lazy)
By
Arun Arjunakani
Speculative
Fiction is unique from other genres of fiction in that it pushes the laws of
reality as we know it. No sub-genre of fiction is a true story, but there is a special
attraction of being able to completely enter a new world unlike our own, or see
beings that we will never encounter. Speculative Fiction pieces have a high
standard to meet and short stories have the added challenge that they have to
do all of this in just a few pages. Short stories don’t have hours of reading
time to develop characters or capture the attention of their readers. It is for
that reason why short science fiction or fantasy stories can be so much more
satisfying. Through concise and elegant prose, short stories can be much more
effective than longer novels. This is evident in two pieces of work we read in
this Speculative Fiction Studies: “The Cold Equation” and Stardust.
“The Cold
Equations”, written by Tom Godwin, was one of the best stories that we read in
this class. In less than twenty-four pages, this book tells the chilling story
of a young girl who secretly stows away on a spaceship. In this future, space
flights are meticulously calculated to have exactly enough fuel based on the
weight of the spacecraft and its crew with no margin for error. The captain
discovers the girl and sadly informs her that she has to be ejected off of the
ship and left to die. She tries to plead and tells how she just wanted to see
her brother, and even the captain tries to look for a way to not have to kill
her, but the cold equation tells that her weight is enough to jeopardize the
entire crew of the space flight. After a touching final conversation with her
brother, she is ejected. It is a short but effective story that is able to
capture the attention of the reader, establish characters, and have a
meaningful plot. This short story is able to do what a book can, except in a
much shorter read. There is no room for error, no room for the author to waste with
fluff words or create extensive and convoluted backstories for all of the
characters. Short stories are to the point, and they present this point quite
effectively. This is what is so special about short stories. They are able to
do so much with so little space, and “The Cold Equations” is an excellent
example of this.
Neil
Gaiman’s Stardust is another
wonderful story I read in Speculative Fiction. However, it is an embodiment of
many of the problems that longer novels can have that successful short stories
simply cannot. It takes several chapters for the story to get started, and only
one of them actually includes the main character of the book. While the reader
is waiting for the main story to pick up, they have to wait for side plots and
side characters to be introduced. And while the book ends up tying everything
together, it takes over a hundred pages to do so. Since novels are too long to
be read in one sitting (usually), the reader often will not be able to see how
things tie in until their second or third sitting. A reader has to sit through
much more of the book to finally start being captivated by the book. There much
more filler and extra fluff to be lost in when reading a novel, and it
increases the chance that a reader will simply get bored of it, even if there
is more exciting plot points in the story later. Novels are not able to get
straight to the point like short stories are, and while books like Stardust are good books, they simply are
not as elegant as some short stories are.
I have never
enjoyed mandatory readings as much as I have for Speculative Fiction Studies
and most of them have been engaging and interesting. Though the most memorable
ones, the ones that I still remember months after reading them, are the short
stories, not the longer novels. Short stories are packed with just as much
excitement and character as longer stories, but in a much more memorable
format. Speculative fiction has been a part of my life since I started reading,
and you bet I’m still going to keep reading it after this class.
Arun,
ReplyDeleteWriters often talk among themselves about whether they are naturally inclined to "write short" or "write long," with some claiming that you need to train up to writing novels by writing short stories, and others claiming that they're just two entirely separate skill sets. I tend to see them as more separate than similar, and I think from this post you might agree. After all, being able to find the right size and pace for a story is a tricky thing, and that form and function need to follow one another. The idea that the best short stories are the ones that are economical in their style -- not cheap, or boring, but TAUT and efficient -- makes perfect sense.
Best,
TT