The art of economy

Balancing act: The art of arranging short stories

Ahead of the publication of her first short story collection, Dreams They Forgot, local author Emma Ashmere navigates the advice – and counter-advice – surrounding putting together such a volume.

Much has been said about short stories – as a form. They’re the literary equivalent of practising your scales, limbering up for the novel symphony. Publishers avoid them. Yet continue to publish them. Nobody reads them. Except they do. They’re back in fashion. They never went away. As Jane Rawson puts it, ‘The short story is both on hiatus and in the prime of its life.’ There’s also plenty of ‘how to write’ advice, but less about crafting a compelling whole from various scraps. Maybe because it’s as simple as plonking them into one long document. Not quite. Reading like a reader Herding all my stories into one file was revelatory. I tried to sit on the other side of the desk and read them as a reader – rather than the author. One thing leapt out: repetition of ideas, issues, images – even phrases. Nobody noticed these little obsessions when I’d farmed them out individually to different places over years. I cut several stories. But how to tend to the keepers? Mixtapes, zoos, share houses Nathan Scott McNamara compares organising a collection to ‘sequencing an album’ or mixed cassette tape, striking ‘a balance between familiarity and change’ and ‘fulfilling the reader’s desires, while also challenging them.’ Randall Jarrell thinks it’s like ‘starting a zoo in your closet.’ The giraffe takes up all the space. Or perhaps it’s more of a share house, peopled by a mix of timid, loud, pedantic, erratic, long-termers and fly-by-nighters.

To theme or not Some writers bind their collections to a theme. Continuity of characters/time/events may promise

fewer gear-changes, an almost-novel. Set in a seaside village, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Sea Road is bound by place and divided by intergenerational feuds. Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, also in a seaside town, showcases an ensemble of protagonists. But Olive is the star, so too in the sequel Olive, Again. Ellen Van Neerven’s Heat and Light is hived into four parts, a hybrid, blurring multiple realities. Toni Jordan’s Nine Days interlocks one-day-in-a-life through time. Order in the house of short fiction For more eclectic collections, the question becomes which stories where? Surely put the published or prizewinners first. But the frame and context have changed. There are many voices, differently-decorated rooms, porous walls. McNamara says the first story must do two things: ‘establish the writer’s authority’ and ‘prepare the reader’ for what’s to follow. In Paddy O’Reilly’s ‘Speak to Me’ a quasi-alien whooshes into a fantasy writer’s backyard. The reader is warned. Uncertainty abounds. Amanda O’Callaghan’s ‘The Widow’s Snow’ invites us into a middle-aged woman’s thoughts during a protracted date. Ambiguity, trust, and death course through the book. Flannery O’Connor’s ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ sets up the skittles with the first sentence: ‘The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.’ She does. And motors towards a murderer. However, Daniyal Mueenuddin believes the ‘brightest’ story will entice. Others plump for those with the ‘widest’ appeal.

“What to say when people claim they never read short stories? Never? All short stories? Isn’t that like saying you don’t like music?”

Find the shape Matthew Fox offers ‘shapes’ for building collections, for example mosaic and hourglass. There’s also the ‘tent pole’ – planting stronger pieces a few pages apart. As for longer stories (aka ‘the giraffes’), opinion is divided. Weight at the end, like Nam Le’s novella in The Boat, or satisfy with a hearty appetizer. Flash fictions flit about the equatorial centre. Recurring characters inhabit adjoining rooms. If there’s a title story, it may settle wherever it likes. The last word For McNamara, the last story should ‘make emotional sense of everything that’s come before’ and ‘wrap things up.’ Fox says they’re an opportunity to ‘open up to the world.’ The final page should be like the final page of all your stories. Equally resolved – or nebulous.

Pitching to a publisher Any decent proposal takes effort. Tease out themes. Highlight unusual angles. As for the synopsis, I didn’t find much online and asked other writers. Put your characters up front, one suggested. X does Y in Z. Read a range of collections, blurbs, and reviews. Note which stories are singled out. I rewrote all my stories, old, new, published, unpublished, long, short, and moved them about in the hope they’d pique – and maintain – the interest of a publisher, who’ll have their own opinions. I spackled together a log-line, wrote a long synopsis (one sentence per story), a short (a phrase) – and submitted both. Rejection Rejection is part of a writer’s job. There are more writing competitions now – and more writers. Fewer journals – and fewer publishers. Kim Liao famously aimed for 100 rejections a year. Useful? Or expensive, time-wasting, soul-crumbling? I prefer to send out my polished pieces to the ‘right place’ – one interested in my kind of work. If it’s a ‘no’, I polish again. The best story on rejection closes out Maxine Beneba Clarke’s award-winning collection Foreign Soil. A writer amasses her rejections as ‘literary armour’ against a world apparently not ready for her. They were wrong.

Success So if your collection gets the nod – what to say when people claim they never read short stories? Never? All short stories? Isn’t that like saying you don’t like music? Perhaps you’ll try to persuade them, and say they’re perfect for commuting, the waiting room and so on. Or perhaps you’ll smile at your new book clutched in their hands, hoping its contents will surprise, illuminate, entertain, provoke, amuse, engage – and they’ll be intrigued by glimpses of your strange and familiar tenants’ worlds – rather than the actual house they share.

Emma Ashmere’s short fictions have appeared in The Age, Overland, Review of Australian Fiction and Griffith Review, and been shortlisted for the 2018 NUW/Overland Fair Australia Prize, 2019 Newcastle Short Story Award, and 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Award. Her debut novel The Floating Garden was shortlisted for the 2016 MUBA prize. Dreams They Forgot will be published by Wakefield Press in May.