The Short Story Medium and the Purpose of Writers
The Short Story Medium
What I find particularly special about the short story medium, is that it’s more practical and accessible than a novel, but still fulfils the same purpose as one. I also find that sometimes short stories are much easier to understand than novels are. Perhaps it has something to do with the general lessened attention spans of our generation, so that we can only keep focus for the first 500 words or so, or the fact that we find more short stories online than novels (and our understanding of writing on a screen trumps that of our ability to flip through the pages of a book). Perhaps those two things are related.
But I digress.
As a (somewhat) aspiring writer, short stories are much easier to wrap my head around structurally than a novel. They not only take less time to write, but also less time to plan and edit. One can still make good use of all the devices within a ‘writer’s toolbox’, structure, narrative, tone, character, yet within 1000 words. This also, however, has the odd effect of adding even more meaning to each word in a capitalist sort of way, since there’s less of them. Each word counts.
And I find that I quite like that.
Short stories take less time to analyse than a novel, too. You have the time to swim through the connotations of each and every word. Unlike novels, where there are hundreds of thousands of words to analyse. (This, however, does not take away from the overall meaning and impact of a novel. I respect novelists a great deal, for their patience especially.) But short stories can be infinitely more accessible.
Should a writer be explicit with their purpose?
In my opinion, this defeats the purpose of writing and literature entirely. It’s proven impossible to tell others what or how to think. Allowing people to create meaning for themselves is proven to be the most effective way of impacting someone. It is the dialogue between a writer and reader that gives the story it’s meaning. Without a reader to interpret it, writing is meaningless.
After all, it’s shared thoughts and pure need that created language in the first place. Language’s inherent nature is in its use – if a word is no longer used, then it loses its meaning (such as the word, ‘betwixt’. Who uses that anymore? It’s meaning has evaporated from the public consciousness, and may as well be considered lost). And words must be spoken, written or communicated from one person to another, that is how they are used. There needs to be at least two people in order to properly use the word and allow it’s connotations to reach the mind, which is exactly why a writer and a reader both create meaning, together.
I have asked many writers at the book launches and forums I’ve been to, “Do you write your story with the intent of what meaning you want to create from the very beginning, or does the story just come out of you?”
And a lot of writers have said that it’s both. They have a vague idea of what they are really saying, but are also invested in telling the story. That is what is important. And all emphasized the importance of readers. Without the reader to give interpretations and to associate connotations, the purpose of the story falls flat. Associating meaning is also a personal task. Those thoughts evoked inside a reader’s mind are what writers aim to create. The reader must create meaning from within their own heads from reading, and the writer facilitates that. The power to evoke thoughts and emotions is what makes writing so powerful.
Not all writers know what exact meaning/concept they want to evoke. This is the reason why all of our theses for papers can be different, because there’s a special subtlety conveyed within each story. Not to mention, everyone would still interpret words in a different way. It would also be extremely boring if a writer just stated, “This piece is about the inevitability of people extending their judgement on everyone, even themselves,” because that only narrows the piece in its scope, but also removes the aspect of the reader figuring it out themselves, and therefore believing in the story. And even with a sentence like that, people would still find different interpretations, such as focusing on the harshness of the self on, well, the self, or as Marshall has also conveyed, blaming others based on limited evidence. People will naturally interpret things differently, so what’s the point of trying to be straight up? Allow their minds to run wild. It’s often a lot more fun that way, and people gain a lot more out of it.
And when a reader creates their own meaning, the story becomes so much more believable. The reader gains the added satisfaction of ‘figuring it out’ as well as seeing perhaps another universal truth about humanity they had not considered before. Such is the beauty of language.
And all I’m left to wonder, is how humanity can commit such atrocities (genocide, destruction, atom bombs) but manage to create something as complex and beautiful as language, and use it daily. This is the human condition. And this is why we have art in the first place.
A sincere thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day.