Nicole Tartaglia: "Dear Michael Damian and Lynne Thomas: Short Stories Last Longer"

Dear Michael Damian and Lynne Thomas: Short Stories Last Longer
By Nicole Tartaglia

Steven Moffat touched my heart at a young age with his continuation of the long-running science fiction show Doctor Who. As an impressionable youth, I found myself drawn to things containing an element of wonder, and whether that be through science or magic, in literature of film, I couldn’t get enough.

While I started reading fantasy at a young age, science fiction literature always seemed daunting to me, which would explain why for many years I wouldn’t even approach the genre with a metaphorical ten-foot pole. Though my love for reading blossomed as I grew older, by high school, I found myself spending less and less time actually picking up a book. The time I used to spend curled up in bed with books like The Magic Tree House (series) or The Lightning Thief is now more often spent huddled at a desk and glaring at a computer screen, stressing to finish some sort of obscure math worksheet.

“I don’t have time to read for pleasure!” I tell myself as I spend hours browsing Netflix and scrolling though Tumblr. “I’m just too busy!” I know that the excuses I use to try and fool myself fall short, but in all honesty, reading a full-length novel (if there even is such a thing) set in its own unique world takes a whole lot of effort!

Hence where short stories come in.

Of course I love discovering new realms as authors build up their worlds, but developing an entire world takes time, which I just don’t have. Rather than wading through the deliberate buildup that often occurs in a novel, short stories drop you right in the center of the action, forcing you to accept all that you are given. Take “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson – we are given a seemingly mundane world with a fantastical element to it that doesn’t make sense to us but that offers no explanation. Rather than wait to see how this element plays out, the reader is left to accept what’s given to them; they have no other choice.

When looking at fantasy, we often expect certain archetypes from our characters or for them to follow the Hero’s Journey. This is great and all, but it doesn’t always leave the reader excited. I want to be surprised when I read, shocked at the turn of events. Sure, longer novels vary from traditional plot-lines (For example: in A Canticle for Leibowitz, after spending the entire first book building up the life and times of Brother Frances, his death is acknowledged with a single blurb about an arrow finding its mark), but short stories can offer so much more. By throwing the reader into the thick of things without warning, the author achieves the feat of astounding us with unforeseen turn of events. The stories don’t often follow the typical Hero’s Journey as a result of their lengths, making them memorable. Just as we get invested in the characters and their adventures, the story ends and we are left yearning for more. We will always have questions, but sometimes the questions are what make the reading worth it.

Short science fiction continues this pattern of breaking the mold and shocking the reader. Why I refused to touch it for so long boggles me as now I can’t seem to stop reading it. Which, given my slight obsession with a certain time lord, is not at all surprising. It may be slightly heartless, but I love how Tom Godwin tears at our emotions with the inevitably tragic ending in “The Cold Equation.” This also consequently stems from my connection to Doctor Who as each episode is itself similar to a short story. While the main characters remain the same, they go on new adventures in various worlds. When I realized that short science fiction stories offered me the same type of thrill achieved through the television series, I became somewhat frantic to get my hands on more. I cherished when we were assigned Lovecraft’s “Colour out of Space” and Zelazny’s “The Engine at Heartspring’s Center.”

Just a taste of this genre leaves me begging for more, trying to re-immerse myself into these new universes. Yes, these stories offer a quick way to satisfy my desire to read without taking as much effort as a full-length novel, but I know that I will keep their tales with me for long to come.