PeeperStorm on 6/11/2010 at 01:23
I prefer stories that are exactly as long as they should be. Somewhere between 1 and 150,000 pages.
fett on 6/11/2010 at 01:40
I'm always for more depth. I look for it in pretty much any form of entertainment. I love games like Thief and SS2 for that reason. I tend toward proggy/concept music because of the investment it requires.
With books, I seldom seek out a book that isn't part of a series, unless it's highly recommended by someone. I guess that's why I'm a sucker for stuff like Jordan, Goodkind, Martin, etc. Novels do it for me, mainly because they seem to transport me into the world a lot better than most short stories.
Tocky on 6/11/2010 at 03:14
I agree with Peeperstorm. The best stories are those that end exactly where they should. Short or long isn't the point. Sure, you can't condense an epic but neither should you extend a work because you love the sound of your own words. So many novels are about a journey and it's interesting to tag along but a good short can say more in a poignant stab to the guts than many longer works. The reason King made "The Shawshank Redemption" a novella was because that's what that story was and to have made it a novel would have been like adding water to a perfect wine. Likewise I think making "Crime and Punishment" a short story would have been like condensing that same wine.
"War" by Jack London is the most perfect short story. Everytime I'm asked whether it means you should view war this way or that I say yes.
Martin Karne on 6/11/2010 at 03:19
Short story, intense and interesting versus a long, boring and diluted one.
Kolya on 6/11/2010 at 11:31
One thing I think short stories have for them, is that their format is a better fit for the modern reader. If I look at the classic Russian authors, awesome as they are, it always seems to me, they meant their work to be read by someone, who doesn't have much else to do during a long harsh and dark winter, but to completely lose himself in an epic tale, spanning generations, and making elaborate and evocative points about human nature. That is a log cabin I'd love to be snowbound in... ;)
But I neither have the time and probably lack the inclination as well, to delve exclusively into one person's mind for the time and with the attention it would deserve. And it does deserve it, that I'm sure of.
A good short story may not be as lastingly immersive or profoundly life changing as a good novel. It will only make one point, but it'll do that very well. In this regard it's like a photograph compared to a movie, a momentary exposure that condenses one point in a person's life, one situation or aspect into a single message. Though that message may be ambiguous, a good short story will never try to do more than that. And that's all the literature experience I need and can digest when I only have one afternoon and there already are a thousand other things to do the next day.
tl;dr: Short stories fit the modern reader's attention span. No moral, just fact.
demagogue on 6/11/2010 at 14:16
Quote Posted by Kolya
tl;dr: Short stories fit the modern reader's attention span. No moral, just fact.
This reminds me I was going to tell a story through my Facebook updates, in tl;dr bullet-point form, one sentence at a time, a kind of murder mystery people could play along with. I scripted some good stuff out, and it might have gone over well. But once I got really into it, the whole thing seemed so ridiculous just to cater to people's short attention span that I didn't really have the heart to do it. People have enough excuses not to read or write quality stuff and does absolutely everything have to be some gimmick these days?
This isn't to take away from your point, just my independent point that there's a point of absurdity in either direction (too long & too short), and one shouldn't worry too much about catering to the gimmick-hungry public if they're interested in writing quality stuff.
Kolya on 6/11/2010 at 18:48
Just as a thick book doesn't guarantee quality writing, a facebook bullet point distro doesn't exclude it. The format needs to be worked with of course. But think about how many thick bad books are out there. So how did you end up despising your format and the world for its gimmickry all of a sudden? You know, it's only a gimmick if there's nothing else to it.
demagogue on 6/11/2010 at 19:06
No I don't despise it, and I still think it's a good idea and could have worth-while results. I think the realization wasn't about what I was writing, but who I was writing it for. It's not that I would purposefully write it to be a cheap gimmick, but I would be purposefully writing it for the 200 some-odd FB "friends". And I thought the kind of writing I felt I would need to do to really engage them in it isn't the kind of writing that would make me feel good about it, at least I haven't yet found a style good for them and good for me; maybe there is one. (There's a related point here somewhere about feeling this way for about the same reason I'd rather spend my time with PC games than FB games; just my personality.)
Anyway, this is a different point from thinking about what style you want to write, but worth making for Queue. What kind of audience do you want to be writing for (if you care at all)? And will the kind of writing you realistically need to do to make them care be the kind of writing you want to do and are happy doing?
Master Villain on 7/11/2010 at 10:38
I've been reading Agatha Christie lately. Some of her short stories suck as mysteries compared to her novels - they're the sort of stories where complexity is good and a short story doesn't often allow for it. But there's the problem that she sometimes ends up with a lot of pointless shite in the novels. She shoehorns a romance into so many books. I do not care! I am here for the mystery about who got offed, not whether two characters are going to get it on.
Melan on 7/11/2010 at 10:46
Brevity is the soul of wit.
And I also thought this thread would be about cock. :tsktsk:
