Tag Archives: Short Stories

Writing

Short stories I read in grad school

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Having recently moved from an 1800-square-foot house to a 545-square-foot-house, I am still desperately trying to clear my clutter. The key to not going crazy in a small space is to get rid of EVERYTHING you don’t need. I once read somewhere that if you don’t use it in a certain amount of time and it doesn’t bring you joy, throw it out.

Paper clutter is a big problem for me. Right now I have a desk that I can’t use because it’s covered in papers. Many of these are copies of stories that I was assigned to read in grad school. Some of it consists of notes I’ve made over the years for starting stories of my own. I could probably blindly throw all of it in the trash and it wouldn’t make any difference.

It occurs to me that it’s been more than seven years since I read these stories. Are they so exemplary that I cannot simply record their names and look them up again—if I ever need to? I haven’t needed them in seven years. Do I really need them now? Or, should I go back through them and reanalyze them?

Go back through them and reanalyze them?

Ok, even to me that sounds insane.

No. I should just say no. I have a life. I’m going to be taking weekend classes soon. I’m learning to meditate. I’m trying to work out. I’m on a diet for crying out loud. Who has time to redo assignments from grad school?

So here is my compromise. I’m going to simply write down their names and toss them aside.

About this Life by Barry Lopez (Chapter 5 Flight).
Ah man, this is harder than I thought.  The writing is really good. And my notes in the margin, well, exceptional if I do say so myself. Hmm, I see this one going back into the sheet protector and back into the three-ring binder, where it will sit on my shelf for another seven years. Or, perhaps, I’ll buy the book. Is this what I want my writing to me like? Maybe.

Waiting for Salmon by Barry Lopez
I remember liking this piece and Barry for his ecological thought. Shoot.

Pecked by Heather Caldwell (From Salon.com)
“Dale Peck’s scathing review of Rick Moody and a dozen other writers of ‘postmodern drivel’ has the literary world buzzing about what makes for good — and bad — criticism.” Oh dear. Well, I can’t toss this one out either. I have to read about what the literary community is buzzing about. I’m not going to even bother to take this out of the sheet protector. Wonder when I’m going to read all of these?

The Moody Blues by Dale Peck
This must be the review that was so scathing. Well, this one has to be kept as well then.

Critical Condition: Reading, Writing and Reviewing: An Old-Schooler Looks Back by Sven Birkerts
Well, this looked a bit dull at first, but this is another author complaining about Dale Peck, so I guess it stays in the pile.

A Pondered Life by Lorrie Moore
I recognize the author. She wrote a collection of short stories that an old boss gave me and that I never read. My notes on the page say: Use this to think about structure. Moore plants seeds so she can open them up along the way. Keep.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace.
Well, this one I have to keep. After all, I agree with Wallace, the lobster should be considered. In fact after reading this, I can’t eat lobster any more.

Einstein and Newton: Genius Compared by Alan Lightman
I obviously have no self control. Keep.

The Messages of Nature and Nurture by Gregory Bateson
Ditto.

Religion and Science by Alfred North Whitehead
And ditto.

Climate Change is Playing Havoc With Rare Species and a Proud Way of Life by Charles W. Petit
Ditto.

Raising Hell: A Citizen’s Guide to the Fine Art of Investigation by Dan Noyes
I don’t remember much about this at all. So…keep.

Unusual Properties of Space by George Gamow
And why not. Keep.

Civilian by Tobias Wolff
Same.

Vibes by Lewis Thomas
My notes says: The Lives of a Cell. How does he hold interest: many good examples.

The Obligation to Endure by Rachel Carson
My note says: Word choices; combinations of ideas.

Weighing Science by John G. Bryan
Seems like it could be helpful. Keep.

What is Geomorphology? by Keith Tinkler
I almost tossed this. The first line was a bit dry. The world “geomorphology” is completely dry—that is, until you break it down by its roots and think about its meaning. Geo = earth; Morph = shape. So this is an article about the shape of the Earth, or more exactly, the Earth’s surface. What, the Earth’s surface is changing? Now that’s interesting. Why didn’t he just say so? Keep for translating.

Scientific Writing and Editing: Problems, Pitfalls, and Pratfalls by Elaine R Firestone
Skimming this article, this is so closely related to what I do now. I don’t edit scientific papers, although many of my associates do. I edit marketing materials which are written for the most part by electrical engineers. Now, electrical engineering is fascinating! To be sure. I do a lot of thinking about how to make very complicated material digestible by a wide and busy audience. So I’ll keep this one. It’s certainly food for thought.

The Uniformity of Biochemistry by Francis Crick
My note says: Good article. Pay attention to how he explains things. Use of description. Voice. Tone. Use of humor.

E=mc2 by Albert Einstein
My note says: Pay attention to how he uses details to describe things. How he communicates with a popular audience. It’s striking me suddenly that I am an serious nerd. Keep.

A copy of a page from Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
I kept this because I was enthralled with the idea of telling a story with only pictures. No words. As I look at this page, I realize that I am not smart enough to understand this. I may go check out Jimmy Corrigan, but I’m not keeping this page.

The Mendelian Laws by George and Muriel Beadle
This looks like a huge snooze, but since I’m keeping practically everything else…

An excerpt from Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
My note says: Short, tight sentences, interesting, verbs are alive, no fluff; description has to matter. I may want to get this book.

An excerpt from Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia by Tom Bissell
This was a book I wanted to read but never did. My note says: Study how he handles time. Cultural and personal stakes woven together. Participant. Self deprecation builds credibility. All seeds have to be planted in first chapter.

Sister Cities: The Cooper’s Tale
This was an article in the New Yorker. Doesn’t look amazing, but like the others, maybe I should keep it.

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
I dunno. Keep.

The Science of Scientific Writing by George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan.
This is so close to what I actually do for a living that I’ll keep it and read it again.

The Man Who Shouted Teresa by Italo Calvino
Keep. Amazing short short storyteller.

Orientalism by Edward W. Said
This was given to me by a professor in the Graduate School of Social Work where I worked for about two years. I tried reading it. I swear I did, but it was so far over my head, I just didn’t get it. I think I’ll try again now and see what happens.

On Being the Right Size by J. B. S. Haldane
Keep.

Science and Ultimate Truth by H. G. Wells
Keep.

The Barbarism of “Specialization” by Jose Ortega y Gasset
Of note, the book by this author: Revolt of the Masses

On Keeping a Notebook by Joan Didion
Keep.

A Time of Gifts by Stephen Jay Gould
Keep.

She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo
Keep.

Twenty Titles for the Writer by Richard Leahy
Keep.

The Essentials of Micro-Fiction by Camille Renshaw
Keep.

Excerpts from Quick Fiction.
Keep.

Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us by Bill Joy
This is an article I picked up before grad school; it was published in Wired, April 2000. Incredible. That was 15 years ago. This article had so much buzz around it at the time that it even permeated my little bubble. I thought it was amazing at the time. Guess I should read it again.

Caught by Jonathan Franzen
Keep.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by E. J. Levy
Some of these require a little detective work. I’m still not sure what Salmagundi is, but I guess it’s related to this story in some way. Except for the grey, I like this author’s webpage.

Civilian by Tobias Wolff
I thought this author was very interesting and I wanted to read more at the time. Other books, says my note, are This Boy’s Life and In Pharoh’s Army.

Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist
My note says: Like a 12-Step program, Wonderful. Awful. Keep.

Except from Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
I was a little upset when I read this. I was writing a short story called “Running With Scissors.” It wasn’t good, but still, my title was taken by this guy.

Mama Gone by Jane Yolen
I remember it was interesting. Keep.

When God Laughs: A Piece of Steak by Jack London.
I remember thinking this was a great piece of writing. Keep.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
I have the book, but in this copy, I have circled some words in a strange fashion. Intrigued. Why did I do this? Keep.

Working with Archetypes
From my business class. I wasn’t really impressed, but I’ll have another look before tossing it.

History of Writing Class Notes.
Keep.

The Dynamics of Building and Resolving Tension. Music as a Metaphor for Organizational Change.
Again, from my business class.

In Bed by Joan Didion
Not what you might think. Keep.

The Waking (Villanelle) by Theodore Roethke
Of course keep. I love villanelles.

Type Tools.
Keep.

Not Wise by George Packer
Keep.

My Father’s Life by Raymond Carver
Keep.

Fathers, Sons, Blood by Harry Crews
Keep.

Excerpt from A Death in the Family by James Agee
My notes: Age, authority, conflict, tone; has released himself from bonds of time. Passive voice slows everything down; gives sense of the summer evenings that he’s talking about; repetitive in structure. Keep.

The Unwanted Child by Mary Clearman Blew
Keep.

Vessels by Daniel Raeburn
Keep.

Four More Shots by Kevin Sampsell
Keep.

Ok, that’s just about it. Now I’m just looking at piles of my own writing and some old Russian notes. I didn’t throw a whole bunch out, but I did organize it. It’s no longer cluttering up my desk keeping me from working. And doing this gave me a chance to think things though. I found a memoir I had started 7 years ago. And, I eeked out a tiny bit of inspiration to get started again.

Ponderings, Short Stories, Ursula Le Guin

The treason of the artist

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I was trying to think of something to post today, and I saw that someone had searched and found my blog using this question: What does “the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain” mean?

This quote is from the short story by Ursula Le Guin called “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.”

I thought I’d take a stab at answering this question. Alternatively, whoever asked the question might try contacting Ursula. Who knows, she might answer you. Some authors are quite friendly and happy to expound on the topics that interest them. But, sometimes I find questions in stories to be opportunities to do a little soul searching, a little probing to see what I can make of their significance.  So here is my take.

The quote that I put on my blog was this:

“They [the citizens of Omelas] were no less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.”

Le Guin is contrasting the citizens of Omelas with us—the world she has created (a utopian world where everyone is happy) and the real world (where there is much hardship and pain).

The quote goes on to say:

“If you can’t lick ’em join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy…”

To me, Ursula is saying that the treason of the artist is that artists regard evil as supremely interesting. Artists value pain and despair. These things drive creativity behind art; they are at its core. Artists don’t recognize the commonplace or ordinary nature of evil. Artists see evil as unique, worth writing about, worth centering stories around, worth painting and showing off. Evil fuels the news. We fight evil in our games. In a way, all this attention to evil elevates evil as though it were extraordinary, as though it were unique, as though it could be categorized as new and different.

But, argues Ursula, there is nothing new about evil, or pain. They are quite ordinary to our world and to our condition in the world. The treason of the artist, therefore, is to refuse to see evil this way. Artists idolize our world. Artists see the world as a place that should not have evil and pain, and therefore they continue their treason, that of regarding evil and pain as interesting above happiness, as extraordinary, as something worth examining in every creation. Evil and pain are the points of interest. Our resistance to them, how and why we resist, consumes our imagination as we obsessively and compulsively ruminate over these fundamental elements of our existence.

As for the terrible boredom of pain, I struggle with this idea. When someone is in pain, their pain fascinates them. Nothing else can absorb their interest. If someone, as in Ursula’s story, was condemned to a life of pain, I suppose there could be a terrible boredom in that. Would there come a horrible point when the pain became boring? And would that point result only from a hideous pain and psychological struggle hard for us to even imagine? I don’t know.

In the end, I think Ursula is saying that artists betray our trust. They commit “treason” against us by continuing to demonstrate that evil is unique/extraordinary and that pain is interesting.

But are artists by nature of our world and the very nature of our existence condemned to be treasonous? Writing exists (art) only when there is conflict. Art arises out of resistance to conflict. We regard our world as “creation.” Could “creation” exist without conflict? Is it even possible to have a world, “creation,” without pain?

In “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” Ursula has tried to not commit this treason; she has tried to create art, a utopian world, where pain is unique and not banal, not commonplace. This becomes a horrible world where everyone is in on inflicting the pain so that they don’t have to personally experience it. If there were such a world, asks Ursula, would you want to be part of it? Would you want to live in a world where evil is unique because wouldn’t that mean that if you yourself did not experience the pain of evil, wouldn’t you then be the one who inflicts the evil? To not rescue someone in pain makes you a party to inflicting the pain.

Ursula also tell us that the victim of this pain and evil can never be truly rescued, can never be healed, can never recover. They are permanently damaged by all this pain and degradation beyond all repair. There is nothing you can do to help them. Even if they were released from their bondage, they are forever imprisoned psychologically. You can’t fix this.

And so, some people, a limited few, upon realizing their powerlessness to affect change in Omelas refuse to be a part of that society and they walk away. They leave a world where their happiness is ensured and enter a dark world where they will know suffering and despair. They chose to take on their part of the burden of the world’s suffering.

So in the end, do artists commit treason? Are artists by the very nature of the creation we all live in compelled to commit treason? Is it possible to create an interesting story without evil or pain?

Doris Lessing, Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories

To Room Nineteen

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Cover of "To Room Nineteen"
Cover of To Room Nineteen

By Doris Lessing, @ 28 pages, (1963).

[Spoiler alert] When I see a short story over 20 pages long, I shudder. Will it be that interesting? Will I like it? Or, will it be a trudge?

To Room Nineteen did not disappoint. It held my interest all the way through, and the pages flew by. This, even though I felt myself arguing with the viewpoint of the protagonist, Susan Rawlings, pretty much the whole way through.

One of my problems, I suppose, is that I don’t have four children. I don’t fully know how draining that can be. But I can imagine. She did have help. She had a cook and later a nanny.

And granted, the personality type of the protagonist Susan Rawlings is not my personality type. I can’t imagine having no interests in life. If I had free time at my disposal, I would write, draw, paint, play music, compose, and hike. But I don’t, and I’m envious of those who do. It’s hard for me to understand those who have time on their hands and waste it.

Susan was restless. It seemed she had the dream in her grasp, and then it disappeared. Some of the uglier parts of marriage materialized and although everyone involved thought they were so intelligent, no one had the common sense to say “no.”

With four children, Susan couldn’t go to the parties any more. She had to stay home with the children. Why did her husband go? They were his children too.

There seemed to be this unspoken idea in the story that it was better to be unfaithful than to be insane. I don’t agree. Being unfaithful is a choice. Being insane is not.

I must have missed the point of this story somewhere. Was it that all marriages are farces? Was it that having four kids and a husband leads to insanity? Was it that people who think they are intelligent can make some pretty stupid decisions? Was it about a woman’s need for privacy?

But what about the man? He worked all day. When was he supposed to have any privacy? When was he supposed to have his own life?

So he cheated? So she went insane?

I’m not agreeing with all of these premises. How could Susan’s life have been so empty? Why did she not have any art in her life? Music? Something of her own? What about the children?

Maybe the story is about the traps people can fall into while trying to do everything right. Everything that society wants and expects. Then when you do those things, you’re in a trap, and society has no sympathy. And you have no life. 

But, all my complaining aside, the story kept me turning pages without agony.

Amy Tan, Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories

Rules of the Game

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Amy Tan, author
Amy Tan, author (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Amy Tan, @ 10 pages (1989).

Rules of the Game is a story about how a young Chinese girl living in San Francisco’s Chinatown discovers something she can take pride in and how to temper that pride.

This story is a breeze to read. It flows and carries you along with it. Its theme and promise are contained in the first sentence: “I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength.”

All of a sudden, I want to learn more. What is invisible strength? What is its art? The mother must be very wise. We know that this is a story about a mother-daughter relationship. What a great first line.

Later, we see the protagonist, the daughter, learning how to get what she wants, tapping into invisible strength:

A man who watched me play in the park suggested that my mother allow me to play in local chess tournaments. My mother smiled graciously, an answer that meant nothing. I desperately wanted to go, but I bit back my tongue. I knew she would not let me play among strangers. So as we walked home I said in a small voice that I didn’t want to play in the local tournament. They would have American rules. If I lost, I would bring shame on my family.

‘Is shame you fall down nobody push you,’ said my mother.

During my first tournament…”

I love Amy Tan. Must read more! 🙂

Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories

Everything That Rises Must Converge

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Everything That Rises Must Converge
Everything That Rises Must Converge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Flannery O’Connor, @ 14 pages (1965) .

Ok, quick. Flannery O’Connor: male or female? Well, I didn’t know. Female. Her first name was Mary. This short story was published after her death.

Everything That Rises Must Converge is a story that illustrates the old degrading habits of racism and the self-delusion that comes hand-in-hand with racist beliefs. Human ugliness, anger, degradation, violence, and what’s up with the ending? What is Flannery telling us? What does she want us to think? Are we to be utterly confused? We rejoice at and despise the hateful narrator son. We hate and despise his hateful mother. We get the feeling that they hate each other too. It’s all very hateful.

There is the interesting twist with hats. But I even found that annoying.

I disliked the story for purely personal reasons, not because of its merits as a story. I’m sure it meets all the criteria for success. I am caught up on the content; I have met people like these. I grew up with people like these. What callous hateful ignorance. How do people not recognize the evil that lurks behind it. I don’t understand.

Female Writers, Fiction, Margaret Atwood, Short Stories

Death by Landscape

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By Margaret Atwood, @ 15 pages (1989).

This story took a little while to get going for me. The action of the present is bookended around the actual story. An event from the protagonist’s past is at the core of the story, so it makes sense that the author started a little farther away from the action than what we typically experience in contemporary short stories.

After I got to the action, I was glued to the page. The suspense was incredible. The following paragraph was especially suspenseful for me:

“She has gone over and over it in her mind since, so many times that the first, real shout has been obliterated, like a footprint trampled by other footprints. But she is sure (she is almost positive, she is nearly certain) that it was not a shout of fear. Not a scream. More like a cry of surprise, cut off too soon. Short, like a dog’s bark.”

And a couple of pages back there is foreshadowing:

“Out on the lake there were two loons, calling to each other in their insane, mournful voices. At the time it did not sound like grief. It was just background.”

I don’t want to ruin the story for anyone who hasn’t read it, but this story basically gives us an important event from the protagonist’s past and invites us to think about how it may have shaped her whole life.

An interesting story that raises interesting questions.

Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories

The Salesman

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Talking Walls and CigarettesBy Kelli Beck @ 2013, from the short story collection Talking Walls and Cigarettes and Other Dark Tales.

I am still very interested in the short story form, so when I saw that fellow blogger Kelli Beck had just released a collection of short stories written by herself and Erin Beck, I had to get it.

The first story of the collection is “The Salesman.” I don’t want to give away the story, so I’ll just point out a few things that I especially appreciated. This story did a great job of setting a tone and a mood. I was transported into the scene. I had a sense that I was there.

When she was in front of the window a slight breeze slipped up her neck, caressing the small hairs that had fallen from her loose ponytail. She shivered, turned and faced the night. Fog started to wash its way across the street heavy like smoke creeping in from all directions, swallowing up first the hardware store and the small defunct movie theatre, moving in to the center until the entire parking lot was invisible behind the shroud of fog. A childish fear built up in her and she closed the window, securing it in place with the locks. She watched the haze, then, afraid of what might appear out of the mist, closed the shades, and turned her back on it.”

I thought the part where the protagonist turned her back on this scene was wonderfully creepy. It captured my attention and built suspense.

I think it’s important for stories to have a big idea. One of the big ideas of this story has to do with messes and responsibility. The protagonist ruminates over this and comes to the conclusion:

“Whatever mess you cleaned up, it always ended up somewhere else.”

I could identify with the protagonist and the guilt she felt at being put into a difficult situation and having to make some hard choices.

The pacing of the story is very effective, and I enjoyed the surprises that the author threw my way. These really added interest to the story.

“The Salesman” was a great diversion. I’m excited to read the rest of the collection.

 

 

 

Favorites, Fiction, Nikolai Gogol, Russian Literature, Short Stories

The Overcoat

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English: A frock overcoat (front and back view)
English: A frock overcoat (front and back view) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Nikolai Gogol (1842)

Silly me. Nikolai Gogol is not to be confused with Maxim Gorky. I have a collection of stories by Gorky, so when I decided to read Gogol, I went to that collection, only to find a Soviet writer! Bah. No Gogol wrote many years before the revolution; he lived from 1809 to 1852 and was of Ukrainian/Polish decent.  Wikipedia says he was a surrealist and I agree. I’m thinking I like this guy Gogol! [slight spoiler alert below]

Gogol’s Overcoat, to my great amusement and surprise, was a  zombie story? Wow!

Ok, yes, I am being a little extreme. It wasn’t a zombie story the way you and I think of zombie stories, but still. Are the roots of zombie stories here? I don’t know. Hmm.

I thought “The Overcoat” was a great read, and Gogol is definitely on my list of authors to read more of. I don’t want to be an extreme spoiler, so I won’t comment on which parts nearly tore my heart apart, but I was especially gratified and surprised by the ending.

I learned several things too. I learned what a marten was. I was thinking of martins, the birds I grew up with, which are not the same at all. Martens are cute little mammals with beautiful fur, which trappers collect and sell to be contribute to the fur on coats. In the story, an adequate marten substitute is a cat. Gasp.

Our protagonist is Akaky Akakievich. The note says that this is a play on the on the word “kaka,” which means defecator. I thought this was interesting given the translation of the Spanish word, caca. Is this a sign (pardon the pun) of a Latin influence on Russian? Or, the other way around?

Another thing I found interesting was the smell of the stairs that led up to the tailor’s apartment. They were ammonia soaked.Why would they be ammonia soaked? I am almost afraid to ask—or ponder this.

And, I learned that serfs were called only by their first names. Only when they were freed, were they called by first name and patronymic. I had always wondered about that.

Lastly, I found an insight into the “name day.” But I’m still not sure how this works. It seems that the name day is the day on which the mother (or family) decides on the name of their newborn child and the child is Christened. In this story, a calendar was taken out and several dates were examined to see what names were associated with them. When Akaky’s mother didn’t like any of the proposed names (from the calendar), she decided to simply name Akaky after his father, and hence he was Akaky Akakievich.

This was an interesting story. I enjoyed it. And I especially liked the weirdness at the end.

Favorites, Raymond Carver, Short Stories

Cathedral

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Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Raymond Carver, 13 pages.

In the short story, Cathedral, the narrator is not too happy about his wife’s friend, who is blind, coming to visit. It seems to bother him quite a bit that the man is blind. The narrator doesn’t seem jealous, I don’t think, except perhaps at the sharing of thoughts that his wife has been doing with this other man over the years. That might have him upset. But instead of mentioning anything about that, he focuses on the man’s blindness. As he does this, all of his stereotypical and weird biases emerge, making him less sympathetic to us.

This story is wonderfully crafted. The opposing ideas of blindness and sight are woven throughout.

I really liked this part. It gave us information not only about the narrator’s wife and her past, but also about the narrator himself:

“…where one night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around life. She got to feeling she couldn’t go it another step. She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot bath and passed out. But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her officer—why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?—came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance.”

This made me chuckle. You really get the narrator’s voice here. And yeah, any guy who holds the title of first love, doesn’t deserve a name. He’s already gotten enough.

By the end of the story, the protagonist undergoes a change, as he should. The way that Carver shows this change is beautiful and subtle.

This is definitely a story to come back to.

Favorites, Female Writers, Fiction, Short Stories

The Story of an Hour

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Kate Chopin in 1894
Kate Chopin in 1894 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Kate Chopin (1851–1904), @ 3 pages (1891).

Long before there was flash fiction, Kate Chopin seems to have mastered the form. The Story of an Hour gets a lot done in three pages.

A wife (Mrs. Mallard) learns some terrible news. It turns out she has a heart condition (relevant back story), so her sister is very careful about how she delivers the news. As it turns out, (a little twist) what we might think was horrible news is received as fantastic news by Mrs. Mallard. While everyone is terribly worried about her, she is secretly rejoicing.

But it turns out that there was an error in the news. What we thought happened actually did not (another twist). Mrs. Mallard receives a terrible shock when she finds out, and dies on the spot (twist).

The Story of an Hour is a story worth studying. It’s a great example of a short story in that it takes one situation and gives just enough information about the protagonist and supporting characters, so that we understand what’s going on. And personally, I love a good twist.

Kate Chopin is most known for her novel The Awakening (1899), which my anthology says ended her writing career because of its scandalous nature. The book is now praised as a portrait of a woman in search of her individuality.  Potato/ Potahto.

Female Writers, Short Stories

The Lottery

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By Shirley Jackson (1919–1965); @ 8 pages.

It’s hard to discuss a short story without becoming a spoiler and giving the plot away, but here goes. The pacing and element of surprise are very good in this story. The story’s central theme seems to revolve around the importance and value of social rituals to societies.

The action begins on a clear, sunny morning on Jun 27. Villagers are gathering in the square about 10 a.m. for a lottery that will take about two hours to complete. Everything seems very ordinary.

Jackson goes right into showing. We see the children show up in the square first and learn some of their names. We watch what they’re doing—the boys, the girls, the small children. The men arrive. We learn some of their names. Then the women enter the scene. Jackson gives just enough details to give the impression of a crowded city square.

In the village, there are about 300 people, similar in size to the town where I live.

The drawings occur once a year and much ink is spilt in telling about the black box that holds the individual pieces of paper.

The views in this story are cinematic. As readers, we are watching the crowd. The first sinister hint comes when we find out that there is some importance placed on the men drawing for the lottery. Women draw only when the men in their family are too sick or too young.

As the names are being called, we overhear a conversation in the crowd. We learn that some towns have given up the lottery and some are considering it. Some people in the crowd are against this and strongly believe in continuing the lottery. The pacing of the conversation against the calling of the names works very well to build interest and suspense. Over time, the reader can tell that winning the lottery isn’t the greatest thing in the world; in fact, it’s quite the contrary.

I was disappointed in this story because at the end, it doesn’t explain why it’s so important to the townspeople to have the lottery. Still this story is very popular among creative writing teachers and students—I think mainly for its craft and shock value.