Author/Instructor Jonathan Blum: Is a famous example of you can't get
much more compressed than this and it's a very lovely example so Hemingway's six word novel…
Film Courage: Jonathan, can you provide insights into the structure of a short
story and how it differs from other forms of storytelling such as novels or novellas?
Jonathan: Sure, well one thing that I think is somewhat different about a short story versus
longer forms is I think that the writer has to start making choices a little bit
earlier on in terms of what the story is going to be about I think I think with a longer work
you have a little more time to sort of set things out at the beginning
to to handle the setting to do some history of a town like these kinds of things you have
a little more flexibility since you have a little bit more space you can
you can you can you can do those kinds of things whereas with a short story as we
saw when I showed you the the Mona Simpson the Lorrie Moore and the Ernest Hemingway stories
each of those stories gets to be what it is like and what it's going to become very quickly like
dramatic action significant internal thought dialogue moving right into what is important
what is significant right because there's there's almost like a relationship between the reader and
the writer and the reader is saying okay read writer I will pay close attention to your story
and in return I expect you to only tell me what is important and what is essential and what is
meaningful and if you start straying too far from that and showing me stuff that's not that
important I'm going to lose faith in you and I may quit reading your story so with
a short story there's just no time to waste I mean first paragraphs are enormously important
and that's when you're beginning to create the arena of where the
action is going to take place and how it's going to take place
for example is this during covet times like that's a very important part of the Lorrie Moore story
so she establishes right away these are the times that the characters are living in and all of this
kind of information gets transmitted to us like within 50 words a small number of words sure with
the Mona Simpson character forgive me I don't remember was it was the gender reveal because
I was no but it is a female okay I'm picturing someone that's maybe a middle class upper middle
class who doesn't need these items but there is a thrill that they get and and we've all heard
of people that have done this in the past and and there's just something about the fact that
they're able to get away with that that just it's like a drug to them yeah exactly yeah and you got
that without her telling you that she she showed you based on how the character uses language that
she may be from a certain class background she may have us be of a certain age she may have a certain
race ethnicity National background I mean this is another thing that stories need to accomplish
very quickly is this kind of information because you're now starting to create all of these mental
images of who this character is based on the way she uses words the way she perceives the world the
way she thinks about herself the way she thinks about the past I mean so much gets transmitted
though in those ways yeah she doesn't sit down and say reader I'm an upper middle class girl
from X place or so on it just gets transmitted through her use of language sure yeah Jonathan
how should writers approach character development in a short story considering the limited time
they have to explore backgrounds and motivations yeah this is an important
question and I think every short story writer asks him or herself that question throughout
the time throughout the years really because it's always important one thing that writers do and
that I I sometimes do as well is keep character journals and character journals are they can
just be lists of qualities that the character has things that the character has done and it
can also just sort of be a timeline of important events so what year was the character born what
year did they marry what were the significant events when did the character leave home whatever
it is that's important in the story to sort of keep track of when it happened and when it
happened in relationship to other things is really important in sort of in terms of of keeping things
really tight compressed because you're trying to choose the the timeline of events that are
important events another way of thinking about this question is sometimes if I want a very sort
of brief thumbnail kind of description of what a story is or even almost a definition of what it is
I sometimes talk about stories as mapping a process of meaningful change so I think if there's
no change in a story readers might say well this didn't go anywhere this didn't sort of pay off but
I don't think you want to Telegraph the changes in the character either so I think one thing that
you have to decide when writing a short story is like whatever event a is like whatever sort
of the most important earliest event is how does that event or line of dialogue or whatever it is
how does it begin the process of change that will ultimately be what the story is about and
how do you how do you do that and the answer is you may need an entire draft to figure that out
you may not know that when you first sit down to write the story but if you're thinking in terms
of the things I've talked about already is this believable is this motivated and is this complex
then I think eventually you'll arrive at the process of meaningful change that the story
ends up mapping how does the opening of a short story differ from a longer form story
I personally really tend to respond to stories that have urgency at the beginning
like you don't know how urgent first of all if you call a story The Killers it already creates
urgency because we're starting to wonder who the killers are who they're going to kill have they
already killed people the kinds of high-stakes questions that we're asking happen just from the
title and then from the first two sentences here they come into the Lunch Counter here
they're sitting down now they're not taking off their overcoats and their gloves like
this is creating a sense of urgency and the reader a sense of I have to know what's going to happen
next it's it's firing those firing our imagination and setting up the stakes like is someone gonna
get his heart hurt or I mean whatever the stakes of the story are life and death in
the case of that one you begin to set that up at the beginning of a short story but you can also
do that with a longer form story too I just think you the the sense of urgency is important but you
can take perhaps a little longer to articulate what that urgency is okay maybe you can help me
Workshop something just real quick so if if I was going to come up with let's say a CEO and
this guy's almost superhuman and maybe kind of just open it up with he always got what he wanted
what I I don't know I don't have this fleshed out but just I'm I'm painting a picture of someone
who's who's he's 10 steps ahead of everybody else yeah and it's true he never nothing he
never touches failure and I think that that he seems like this sort of Superman right
hearing the word no was like a chess game to him I don't know right or something yeah so I'm I'm
using little short bursts right to describe this man yeah who's charismatic but also Underneath It
All a shark they're used to they're very strategic in how they play their cards right well what I
mean one way to approach this story like that is to just put him into action being a shark like
instead of explaining to the reader reader this is what kind of person he is like show him doing
shark-like things like show him taking advantage of people show him feeling invulnerable like
I mean I think fiction and short fiction in particular convinces through the senses like
if you want a reader to remember and be able to sensorily experience a story you have to provide
sensory detail things that the character sees smells touches tastes and hears and
once you're sort of engaging the senses then the story can take up ideas a little bit more but I
think ultimately it's dramatic action dialogue some thought are are best to use when possible
and if explanation or summary is helpful in certain parts of the story then yeah use use that
but I I jump into action with especially someone who's behaving the way he is I mean
that's a fascinating character and also there's a part of me that thinks well if
he doesn't really contemplate failure it would be interesting to put him in a situation where
he might actually fail and if he fails there may be consequences that are going to be difficult
for him to deal with we were just talking about sort of short all fiction has to be
compressed I mean the all details have to be significant artist selective and you have to
select details that are going to add up to meaning in their in their in the readers experience but
thinking of Hemingway and how good he was at that particularly in his stories from his 20s
he it's it's a it's a famous example of you can't get much more compressed than this
and it's a very lovely example so Hemingway's six word novel for sale baby shoes never worn
no comment beyond that okay it's like that that kind of speaks for itself yeah because you think
oh and then it takes you down then you just wow yeah yeah I mean you could write a novel.