Titling Very Short Fiction
Thinking of a Title for Your Story
So you’ve followed one word after another until you’ve finished and now you have a piece of very short fiction. What to call it? Is there an earthworm in it? You could just call it Earthworm. Et voila. Simple enough. Or maybe there isn’t an earthworm in your story, but there could be. In this case, especially, call it Earthworm. Joseph Young does this in one of his microfictions, except he calls it Spyglass, not Earthworm, and you can see how it completes the story so perfectly, even from the beginning.
Spyglass
I wanted a new way. So I asked my friends, Who do I most resemble?
Shakespeare, said one, because of the earring.
FDR, said another, because of the wheelchair.
Hitler, said a third, because of the way he touches his hair.
I took these with me and went to the ocean. The fish flipped on the silver waves. All around was the sand, ten thousand miles of the never changing sand.
Really long titles are another unique way to service your very short fictions. They can enhance a story structurally when they’re as long as or longer than the story itself; creatively, they can be used to supplement or as a counterpoint to the story’s content. Very long titles are one of my favorite things in small fictions, when used well, like here, by Nicolle Elizabeth, in elimae:
Levar Burton Was Not A Babe On Star Trek To Me Because He Was A Trusted Individual I Watched For Information On Reading Rainbow As A Child
I took notes. I was a very serious six year old. Again every part of me itches as it did then.
Thinking of a Story for Your Title
Sometimes random word combinations float across our consciousness, and similar to thinking, “Wow, that’d be a great name for a band!” we think, “Wow, that’d be a great title for a story!" Great band names and great titles are often interchangeable, which helps if you’re starting a band, or know someone who is. There can be many stories, but only one band.
Wow, that’d be a great title for a story! Many Stories, One Band. Seems too good to go to waste. So what now? There are the words, at the top of a blank page; it’s time to tease out the story. One thing that makes this an interesting title, aside from the Many/One contrast, is the multiple meanings of the words “stories” and “band”—stories can be stories you tell, stories in a building; bands can be musical, wedding bands, bands of rubber or other things. In very short fiction, multiple meanings can be used to great effect as shortcuts. I’m going to try to do that here, on the spot, with this title, and hope it kind of works.
Many Stories, One Band
Falling. Last in a series. Counting windows. Sun glances gold off pale, curled fingers. Blinding. The end.
Okay, I think you can see what I did there. Hope it helps.
The end.
Bio: Cami Park writes small things various, and is often filled with an impossible, irredeemable love. She maintains a web presence at Mungo.
Read "On Mondays, Francesca Takes the Stairs" at Smokelong Quarterly
Read "after life" at elimae
Read "The Oddest Thing Ever Found in a Pocket" at FRiGG
Showing posts with label elimae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elimae. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
from me
In very short fiction I write lazy to critique action.
Bio: I'm running this blog for the moment. I also blog here.
Read "Render, or to transmit to another" at elimae
Read "Felly Stories" at Storyglossia
Bio: I'm running this blog for the moment. I also blog here.
Read "Render, or to transmit to another" at elimae
Read "Felly Stories" at Storyglossia
Monday, September 14, 2009
from Roxane Gay
Rules Are Meant To Be Broken
Rule 1
There are no rules. And yet there are. And my rules will be different from his rules will be different from her rules will be different from your rules.
Rule 2
Cliff Notes (or Spark Notes) are awesome. They distill complex texts into something more manageable, highlighting the most relevant information for the discerning reader who has failed to adequately prepare for class (stop looking at me like that!) or would like a better understanding of, say, Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge, without having to read the entire text, not that I’m speaking from experience. As you start to think about writing in the short short form, it is useful to consider Cliff Notes.
Rule 3
Forget Rule 2.
Rule 4
Short short fiction can convey a complete story. Or it can describe a moment. Or it can capture a series of moments. Or D: None of the above. Writers will often pontificate about the project of flash fiction. In the end, you should write what you want to write until that thing no longer needs to be written. Sometimes you will reach that place in 300 words. Other times, 750 words but as a general rule of thumb flash fiction, or my preferred term, short short fiction is fewer than 1,000 words. Listen to what your writing tells you about where to go and when to end. The shortest story I’ve ever written is 61 words long.
Rule 5
Sometimes, I am a purist. I believe in a beginning, a middle, and an end. I believe a short short story can and should contain these elements until it can’t and shouldn’t. Walk before you run.
Rule 6
I edit a literary magazine. The most common critique I offer is, “I want to be surprised. I want to fall in love.” There are no new stories or so it goes but really to say that is tired, tired, tired. There is no need to beat that poor horse’s carcass. I don’t mind old stories. There is a reason they keep being told. They’re good. Your challenge is to make that often told, good story great by imbuing it with your voice. By being original. Or charming. Or different in some way but not so different that your writing is incomprehensible nonsense. The second most common critique I offer writers is, “Experiment with purpose.”
Rule 7
My father is a frugal man. Waste not, want not. The same holds true for writing short short fiction. It is not that less is more. Some words matter more than others. Write with words that matter.
Rule 8
There is wisdom in clichés. The best writers are the best readers. Your prescription: Read, and not just the stuff you like. Read poetry, plays, prose, prose poetry, experimental work, cross-genre writing, nonfiction, whatever. A well-rounded literary diet can only improve your writing and help you find the discipline necessary to tell a story economically.
Rule 9
Short short fiction is not the easy way out. It is not a panacea for the modern age conveyed 140 characters at a time. Lazy writers think they can write short short fiction because it is easier and it doesn’t take as long. No one remembers lazy writers.
Rule 10
Think about cadence, about the natural rhythm of your words. Read your short short fiction aloud. It should flow effortlessly. It should sound pretty. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why.
Rule 11
Break rules 1-10.
Bio: Roxane Gay’s writing appears or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Annalemma, Gargoyle, Keyhole, Monkeybicycle, Storyglossia and others. She is the associate editor of Pank and can be found online at I Have Become Accustomed to Rejection.
Read "What You Say, What Is Done to You" at LITnIMAGEe
Read "Tender Mercies" at elimae
Read "What Long Legs Mean" at dogzplot
Read "Motherfuckers" at decomP
Rule 1
There are no rules. And yet there are. And my rules will be different from his rules will be different from her rules will be different from your rules.
Rule 2
Cliff Notes (or Spark Notes) are awesome. They distill complex texts into something more manageable, highlighting the most relevant information for the discerning reader who has failed to adequately prepare for class (stop looking at me like that!) or would like a better understanding of, say, Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge, without having to read the entire text, not that I’m speaking from experience. As you start to think about writing in the short short form, it is useful to consider Cliff Notes.
Rule 3
Forget Rule 2.
Rule 4
Short short fiction can convey a complete story. Or it can describe a moment. Or it can capture a series of moments. Or D: None of the above. Writers will often pontificate about the project of flash fiction. In the end, you should write what you want to write until that thing no longer needs to be written. Sometimes you will reach that place in 300 words. Other times, 750 words but as a general rule of thumb flash fiction, or my preferred term, short short fiction is fewer than 1,000 words. Listen to what your writing tells you about where to go and when to end. The shortest story I’ve ever written is 61 words long.
Rule 5
Sometimes, I am a purist. I believe in a beginning, a middle, and an end. I believe a short short story can and should contain these elements until it can’t and shouldn’t. Walk before you run.
Rule 6
I edit a literary magazine. The most common critique I offer is, “I want to be surprised. I want to fall in love.” There are no new stories or so it goes but really to say that is tired, tired, tired. There is no need to beat that poor horse’s carcass. I don’t mind old stories. There is a reason they keep being told. They’re good. Your challenge is to make that often told, good story great by imbuing it with your voice. By being original. Or charming. Or different in some way but not so different that your writing is incomprehensible nonsense. The second most common critique I offer writers is, “Experiment with purpose.”
Rule 7
My father is a frugal man. Waste not, want not. The same holds true for writing short short fiction. It is not that less is more. Some words matter more than others. Write with words that matter.
Rule 8
There is wisdom in clichés. The best writers are the best readers. Your prescription: Read, and not just the stuff you like. Read poetry, plays, prose, prose poetry, experimental work, cross-genre writing, nonfiction, whatever. A well-rounded literary diet can only improve your writing and help you find the discipline necessary to tell a story economically.
Rule 9
Short short fiction is not the easy way out. It is not a panacea for the modern age conveyed 140 characters at a time. Lazy writers think they can write short short fiction because it is easier and it doesn’t take as long. No one remembers lazy writers.
Rule 10
Think about cadence, about the natural rhythm of your words. Read your short short fiction aloud. It should flow effortlessly. It should sound pretty. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why.
Rule 11
Break rules 1-10.
Bio: Roxane Gay’s writing appears or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Annalemma, Gargoyle, Keyhole, Monkeybicycle, Storyglossia and others. She is the associate editor of Pank and can be found online at I Have Become Accustomed to Rejection.
Read "What You Say, What Is Done to You" at LITnIMAGEe
Read "Tender Mercies" at elimae
Read "What Long Legs Mean" at dogzplot
Read "Motherfuckers" at decomP
Sunday, September 13, 2009
from Gabriel Orgrease
From This World to That Which Is To Come
I live on Long Island halfway to Montauk on the south shore near to the Atlantic. On occasion for business in Manhattan I take the train. It used to be that I drove to an office in Brooklyn, alone on average 5 hours a day for twelve years. If you spend two hours driving without the radio playing it gets to a point that you are stuck with yourself, and it also gets to a point that it is worthwhile for a writer to make up very short stories... ones that we can remember long enough to get to the end of the drive and then write them down.
But this particular story was composed while I was riding on the train and had recently acquired a smart phone that seamlessly works with my word processor. The entire story was composed on my phone. There was something about the tool of the composition that lent itself to the brevity and compactness of the piece, in particular that my fingers and thumbs are too large for the keyboard. Read "Tree Reader" at elimae.
After this story was published in elimae I was contacted by an editor of school textbooks and asked if I would mind to have it published in an anthology of American short stories for HS students. They sent me a check. I am very happy that it goes from phone on train to online to print and that it will appear at the back of a book that starts with Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne and moves forward. It being likely one of the shortest stories in the anthology I anticipate that it will be read, and thus, leave a bit to the world of writers that is to come.
My other story here has to do with transportation as well. It dates back to when I had my office in Brooklyn and was weary of so much lonely commuting, but also a bit mystified at how long stretches of time seem to vanish from our memory and that in our lives our times of travel in retrospect seem very fleeting, almost instant. Read "The celestial teletransportation conduit" at insolent rudder.
In an authorial tradition it is a contemporary recasting of Hawthorne’s "The Celestial Rail-road" which in itself was an antebellum recasting of Bunyan’s "Pilgrims Progress". I very much enjoy allegory as writerly phenomena and the problems of comprehension and understanding that it introduces into a modern text. I enjoy the tradition of recasting, and I enjoy a whole lot reading Hawthorne, and not solely The Scarlet Letter. I feel an element that is missing in a great deal of contemporary short fiction, much of it written in a very hurried and untutored manner then nearly instantly cast onto the Internet, is a measured sense of the past of a well ploughed literary tradition. You may notice that Hawthorne's story is shorter than Bunyan's, and that my story is shorter still. A lean toward miniaturization and tight brevity of expression I consider a traditional literary movement.
My occasional musings can be found at my blog, Orgrease Crankbait. You will also find a list of a whole lot of blogs of authors and online zines. Not only is it of value as a writer to read old work of long dead authors, but to read and support the work of our immediate contemporaries as well.
Best,
GO
I live on Long Island halfway to Montauk on the south shore near to the Atlantic. On occasion for business in Manhattan I take the train. It used to be that I drove to an office in Brooklyn, alone on average 5 hours a day for twelve years. If you spend two hours driving without the radio playing it gets to a point that you are stuck with yourself, and it also gets to a point that it is worthwhile for a writer to make up very short stories... ones that we can remember long enough to get to the end of the drive and then write them down.
But this particular story was composed while I was riding on the train and had recently acquired a smart phone that seamlessly works with my word processor. The entire story was composed on my phone. There was something about the tool of the composition that lent itself to the brevity and compactness of the piece, in particular that my fingers and thumbs are too large for the keyboard. Read "Tree Reader" at elimae.
After this story was published in elimae I was contacted by an editor of school textbooks and asked if I would mind to have it published in an anthology of American short stories for HS students. They sent me a check. I am very happy that it goes from phone on train to online to print and that it will appear at the back of a book that starts with Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne and moves forward. It being likely one of the shortest stories in the anthology I anticipate that it will be read, and thus, leave a bit to the world of writers that is to come.
My other story here has to do with transportation as well. It dates back to when I had my office in Brooklyn and was weary of so much lonely commuting, but also a bit mystified at how long stretches of time seem to vanish from our memory and that in our lives our times of travel in retrospect seem very fleeting, almost instant. Read "The celestial teletransportation conduit" at insolent rudder.
In an authorial tradition it is a contemporary recasting of Hawthorne’s "The Celestial Rail-road" which in itself was an antebellum recasting of Bunyan’s "Pilgrims Progress". I very much enjoy allegory as writerly phenomena and the problems of comprehension and understanding that it introduces into a modern text. I enjoy the tradition of recasting, and I enjoy a whole lot reading Hawthorne, and not solely The Scarlet Letter. I feel an element that is missing in a great deal of contemporary short fiction, much of it written in a very hurried and untutored manner then nearly instantly cast onto the Internet, is a measured sense of the past of a well ploughed literary tradition. You may notice that Hawthorne's story is shorter than Bunyan's, and that my story is shorter still. A lean toward miniaturization and tight brevity of expression I consider a traditional literary movement.
My occasional musings can be found at my blog, Orgrease Crankbait. You will also find a list of a whole lot of blogs of authors and online zines. Not only is it of value as a writer to read old work of long dead authors, but to read and support the work of our immediate contemporaries as well.
Best,
GO
from Robert Swartwood
Hint Fiction: An Exercise In Brevity
A story 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story.
Complete but not self-sustained (beginning, middle, end). Be
imaginative and have fun.
Bio: Robert Swartwood is the editor of Hint Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2010).
Read "Corrections & Clarifications" in elimae
Read "Lea & Perrins"in Lamination Colony
A story 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story.
Complete but not self-sustained (beginning, middle, end). Be
imaginative and have fun.
Bio: Robert Swartwood is the editor of Hint Fiction (W.W. Norton, 2010).
Read "Corrections & Clarifications" in elimae
Read "Lea & Perrins"in Lamination Colony
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