The Shrinking Short Story
All things are the result of their precursors. Modern literature isn’t any different. It’s easy to take a lot for granted in an artistic medium – and often, what we think are timeless truths about something that is ultimately formless are really just the result of a history of trial and error leading to accepted wisdom and assumptions whose results are not always interrogated with rigor.
As I’ve been putting my work on Substack, my original intention of using it as an alternative to traditional publishing (which I still believe in) has diminished in importance to me compared to the awesome possibilities of prose storytelling freed from “the tyranny of paper.” My mind is ablaze with twisting, winding narrative and short, brief, serialized short stories. Branching baths, interlacing stories, plot free from Aristotle’s dramatic arc… These are the things that excite me, things that you can’t do on paper.
Because for a long time I struggled with the medium of the short story. And I finally realized, the accepted form of the story – between 9 and 15 pages (at most) and consisting of the realistic depiction of a single experience of one sort or another, is not handed down by God. It is the result of the needs of literary journals, the last magazines that really publish short stories, and the accepted page limit of the short story has dwindled with magazines and journals declining willingness to spend space on the “most difficult of arts.”
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with the current form of the short story, just that we are expected to stick to its rigid, limited format, as though that’s the only form the short story ever has had or ever will have. Why can’t I write a short story that’s thirty, forty pages? Well – there aren’t any journals that will publish it. As they said on the Simpsons, you’re “throwing your vote away,” if you write a thirty or forty page story. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW GOOD IT IS, IF IT MAKES EVEN THE EVIL ANCIENT GODS TREMBLE IN SHAMEFUL HEARTBREAK, IF YOUR STORY IS THIRTY OR FORTY PAGES, YOU ARE DOOMED…..
So, due to the economic needs and space requirements of literary journals, which, unfortunately are the only places that publish ANY short stories, we have deified and continue to worship a VERSION of a medium we refuse to allow any innovation to; and not only that… every year, those page maximums get smaller…
The KalachthonI decided to retitle this story under its original name. Since I made up that word (came to me in a dream), sometimes I worry people are gonna be daunted by the gibberish of it. Anyway, here are two new chapters of Sherlock Holmes.
https://www.mattsnee.com/p/the-case-of-me
The Mortal Feelings of Somerset MaughamReally want to post two chapters of this today. It’s funny as these stories get posted on here, I feel momentum as I am pulled into Aristotle’s arc, increasing the rate of my posting.
https://www.mattsnee.com/p/the-mortal-feelings-of-w-somerset-8bc
Your Dream of Dark AngelsLuke makes a promise to Margo. Where will this promise lead?
https://www.mattsnee.com/p/your-dream-of-dark-angels-67e
Anyway, it’s about 4AM here, and I have some work to do and some tea to drink.
Matt
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