May 27, 2024 • 49 mins
Walking the knife's edge between depth and brevity...
Today's guest is a master of the short story and professor at George Mason University. He's built a career in the trenches of the literary magazine world, where every word counts.
Our conversation digs deep into the art of the scene, with a ton of practical advice to keep readers turning pages no matter the length of your book.
Art Taylor is the Edgar Award-winning author of two collections: The Adventure of the Castle Thief and Other Expeditions and Indiscretions and The Boy Detective & The Summer of ’74 and Other Tales of Suspense. His debut book, On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. His short fiction has also won the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Macavity Awards. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel
podcast.
I'm Greta Boris, usa Todaybestselling mystery thriller
author.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author, and togetherwe are the Author Wheel.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
We have a fabulous interview today.
I know I always say that, but Ifeel like we only have fabulous
people on, so it's like I'm notlying.
Art Taylor he is anaward-winning short story author
and a writing professor, and wedefinitely went to school with
Art.
On the topic of craft, yes, yes, we did.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, and it was very educational.
I mean, he knows his stuff.
He's one I don't know like Hugoand Agatha this, that I mean
and he teaches people for aliving.
So yeah, I don't know like Hugoand Agatha this that I mean and
he teaches people for a living.
So yeah, you don't want to missthis one.
But before we get into that,what is going on in your life?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, my girls are starting to wind down at school,
down in the last couple weeks,which of course means that
parent responsibilities are onthe rise.
The kids wind down, the parentswind up.
It was between the parties andgifts and final projects and
school events and all the things.
There's been a lot of lifehappening, but it's always
(01:16):
exciting to you know, kind offeel summer getting close.
We're almost almost out ofschool for summer and in the
writing life I don't have a tonof news.
It's kind of been same old,same old.
But things are moving forwardacross all fronts.
The story's in progress, thespecial edition is in progress,
(01:37):
the anthology is in progress,it's all coming together but
it's all kind of the sameNothing new yeah.
Nothing new.
How's your week going?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, this week is my dad's 96th birthday.
Oh my gosh.
I know he's just the EnergizerBunny right, We'll be flying out
to see him in a couple of weeks, but I just wanted to
congratulate him on air.
I don't think he listens.
He does read all of our emails,but the hearing is getting a
little and plus, podcasting is alittle techie for a 96 year old
(02:12):
, but in case you're listening,dad, or in case someone who
knows you is listening, happybirthday.
As for work, I am knee deep inthe keep, which is book five in
the Almost True Crime series,and it's going well.
I know I keep saying it, but itis so interesting to revisit
your old work, and one thingthat has struck me as I've been
(02:35):
going through this series is howfast our culture is changing.
I am finding things in all ofthese books that are no longer
socially correct and like thefirst one was only published in
2017.
That's not very long ago and allof a sudden, I'm having to
change words and phrases, likeyou can't say ladies room
(02:56):
anymore.
It's like, oh my gosh, okay, Imean, it's just weird like
things that I'm having to change, and it's either because it
just now sounds outdated or someof those things have come to
mean things that could offendpeople.
You know which I definitelydon't want to do.
So that's an interesting aspectof going through your old work
(03:18):
that didn't occur to me.
Yeah, yeah, but now, if youreally want to learn something
about craft, stop listening tome and let's get on with the
show.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Today we are thrilled to have Art Taylor on the show.
He is the Edgar Award winningauthor of two collections the
Adventure of the Castle Thiefand Other Expeditions and
Indiscretions, and the BoyDetective and the Summer of 74
and Other Tales of Suspense.
And the Boy Detective and theSummer of 74 and Other Tales of
Suspense.
(03:48):
His debut book, on the Roadwith Dellen Louise, a novel in
stories, won the Agatha Awardfor Best First Novel.
His short fiction has also wonthe Agatha, anthony, derringer
and Macavity Awards.
He is an associate professor ofEnglish at George Mason
University.
So welcome Art.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I'm doing fine.
Thanks so much your mention ofGeorge Mason University.
So welcome Art.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing fine.
Thanks so much your mention ofGeorge Mason University.
I will say at the time I wasfilming this, recording this, we
are in the middle of grading,so my mind is a little bit
distracted in all directionswith grading, but I'm happy to
be here.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, that's great.
I think you're the firstprofessor we've had on the show
actually.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Uh-oh, now the stakes are high.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I don't think you're the first professor.
I know you're the firstprofessor.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, I was going to say yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, why don't you tell us alittle bit about your journey
into writing and your careerpath so far, and sort of how
you've gotten to be Art Taylor?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Thanks.
Yeah, it's been an interestingpath and I could even start in
childhood a little bit.
I won't go quite back that farexcept briefly to say that
nowadays I'm known mostly forshort stories and I've been very
fortunate to win some awardsand things, as you said.
But that traces back tochildhood, when I was a great
reader of short stories and Ithink that's part of what you
(05:08):
know may end up talking a littlebit about today.
Write what you love to read,write what you want to read and
that sort of thing.
I subscribed to Ellery Queen'sMystery Magazine back in middle
school when they did a drivesubscription drive to raise
money for the school and Ididn't sell any magazine
subscriptions but I did buy one.
It was pivotal in terms ofchanging my life because it kind
(05:30):
of brought me into the world ofmystery short fiction and I
think that was foundational insome way.
Fast forward many years I wasin the Department of First
Stories for Ellery Queen'sMystery Magazine, which is a
fairly nice place to be.
It's where they bring apublished author out for the
first time, first time in aselling market, and my story for
(05:50):
that was Murder on the OrientExpress.
I will say I recognize that'sthe title of another book very
self-consciously, I think I'veheard of that story.
I don't get royalties onanything Christie does, but
titles can't be copyrighted.
So it was nice to be in thereand it felt like it was a real
turning point.
That was back in the mid-1990sand I thought well, now I've
(06:15):
made it.
Except I hadn't really made itbecause even though I had a
really good publication there, Ithink I was still trying to
catch up with some of my craft,and it was another 10 years
before I was in Ellery Queen'sMystery Magazine again.
I did get published in a numberof literary magazines during
that time, but I did feel like Iwas kind of honing my craft and
(06:35):
finding my way, and the nexttime I got published there was
with a story that was based onChekhov's Lady with a Lapdog,
one that I did not write withthe idea of it being a mystery
publication.
It was all about a professor Iwas not a professor at that
point struggling with trying towrite about Chekhov's story and
then also wrote about his wife,who he thinks is having an
(06:58):
affair, kind of echoing thatstory, and so there was a couple
of layers to it.
Once I did publish get that onepublished in Ellery Queens, I
seemed to be in a better place,both in terms of craft and in
terms of knowing where I wantedto go.
And that followed with anotherlittle string of another little
string of stories for ElleryQueens and began the path toward
(07:19):
toward some of the awards thathave been very helpful in terms
of establishing my place in theshort story world and the
mystery world.
Another thing that's probablyimportant to add, given kind of
where I'm hoping we're going totalk today, is about how I went
from short stories to novels.
We just got back, as we'rerecording this, from the Malice
(07:40):
Domestic Conference, which is atremendously good community one
that we a conference we attendevery year and it was there that
I you know, obviously won thefirst Agatha Award they give out
the Agatha Awards and began toget some traction with my short
stories.
Small press, henry Press,approached me and said have you
(08:01):
thought about writing a novel?
And I said well, indeed I have.
And there's a couple of ways tolook at this.
Number one is the short storymarket helped to open up the
novel market for me.
But then there's also the ideaof the craft of the short story
versus the craft of the novel,and I teach at George Mason and,
as I tell my students, we cancome back to this again.
You know, writing a short storyis not an apprenticeship for
(08:24):
writing a novel.
I think the two forms are verydifferent.
We could talk more about that,but I did have the ambitions to
write a novel.
So then, once I had an openingthere, it's like what do I do
now?
I did have a story.
My first book was On the Roadwith Del and Louise.
It's a novel and stories.
The first story in the noveland stories was Rearview Mirror.
(08:48):
It was published in ElleryQueen's Mystery Magazine and the
main characters, del and Louise, were characters I wanted to
spend more time with, and so Iended up writing five more
adventures that together formeda longer narrative arc, and that
was one of the ways that Itricked myself into getting the
architecture of the noveltogether.
Five stories, a place where Ifelt comfortable, longer
narrative, something that wouldform a novel, and that was sort
of my path to publication there.
(09:10):
I still struggle we can talkmore about this, of course with
the idea of the architecture ofthe short story versus the
architecture of the novel, andalso about how to pitch yourself
as a short story writer to moveto that next level and I use
that phrase next level verycarefully, because it sounds
like there is a hierarchy thatpublishing a novel is better
(09:31):
than a short story.
I struggle with that as well,because a short story is a craft
that I love.
Now I've rambled on a littlebit, but that's kind of the
outlines of where I'm at andmaybe where I'm going next We'll
see.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, it's interesting.
So I took one of my very firstclasses that I took when I
decided I wanted to start reallycreative writing was a, like
you know, intro to creativewriting or something like that
from UCLA extension, and thatprofessor was also a short story
writer and it was veryinteresting to me the way he
(10:04):
phrased this because what, theway, the way he talked about it
was that you know, each chapteror each scene in a, in a lot of
ways, is a short story and so ifyou get good at writing short
stories, then you you can as youdid, sounds like, with the
novel and stories, like you can,sort of string them together
(10:26):
into a novel.
Now, he was talking more of a, Iguess, traditional novel
structure as far as you know,the characters going from one
scene to the next, to the next,to the next and not skipping or
jumping, or you know they're nottechnically individual short
stories.
But is that, is that a good wayto kind of think about it as
far as developing your craftover time, that if you write
(10:48):
short stories and treat them asscenes, that it makes it easier
ultimately to build out a fullnovel, or are they completely
different modalities?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
That's a big question and it's a really good question
.
I think they are differentmodalities to some degree, and
one of the things I say is thata short story is basically built
on the process of subtraction.
Each has characters, each hasplot, each has setting, each has
all the fundamentals.
But with a short story you'retrying to kind of get rid of
(11:22):
anything that doesn't belong inthe short story.
I was very fortunate Lee Childand Laurie King invited me to
write the chapter on the shortmystery for the latest MWA
anthology, how to Write aMystery, and the three things I
focused on there are economy,efficiency and focus.
Focus on the narrative.
What is the story you're tryingto tell?
And get rid of the subplots,get rid of the other things that
(11:43):
don't really add to it.
How can you be as economical intelling that story?
How can you be efficient inletting everything do more than
one thing, all with your endgoal?
A lot of this goes back to whatEdgar Allan Poe said about the
short story, which is the singleeffect.
In the short story You'reangling for one single effect on
your reader, say, an emotionthat you want them to feel, or a
revelation you want them tohave, or whatever he didn't use
(12:05):
those words but a single effectand everything needs to be
geared toward that.
As he said, ideally every word,every word in the story is
going to go in that direction.
Now the novel is a looserstructure.
I'm not going to say that it'sa sloppy structure, but it
certainly allows for moresubplots, more characters, more
things that aren't exactlygeared toward that final end,
(12:32):
even if you're heading for thatfinal end.
But it's a process of additionas opposed to subtraction.
You can add additionalcharacters to do this.
You can add additional scenesthat serve this purpose.
You can add additional subplotsor thematic plots, thematic art
.
Now, what you're saying isdespite the fact that we're
moving in two differentdirections there let me clarify
this last point.
I'm in a writer's group andmost of the folks in my writer's
group are writing novels, and alot of times when we bring in
(12:54):
things to look at, I will readpart of a chapter that one of my
co-workshop folks are in there.
I'm like gosh, we could cutlike three quarters of this and
still do what we need to do, butthat's not what he's doing.
That's not his aesthetic, it'snot the aesthetic of the novel.
So, subtraction versus addition.
Now, what you're saying, Ithink, is also equally important
, because what I tell mystudents is, when we're writing
(13:15):
whether a short story or, asthey're going on to, maybe to
write a novel is to think abouteach scene and each section as
having its own sort of shape.
You know, we need to bring itopen at the beginning.
We need to bring it to a closeof some kind.
What happens, though, is thatyour close, if it's too much of
a cleanup at the end of a scene,that's not going to propel us
(13:35):
forward.
Now, dwight Swain, who wrotepulp stories, primarily wrote a
book called oh my gosh, writingand Selling.
I'm not going to remember thename of it, but it's Dwight
Swain, s-w-a-i-n.
I'll try to look up what thetitle of it is, but it's
terrific in the way he talksabout scene and sequel as the
(13:57):
way he calls it.
I think this echoes, megan,what you're talking about is
each scene needs to go through aprocess of conflicts, rising
action, some sort of climax, andthat climax is usually what he
calls a disaster, and thedisaster at the end of the scene
.
It may be big, it may be small,but that disaster is going to
lead to a next, what he calls asequel, the next section, and
(14:18):
that sequel may be a moment ofreflection, reaction and then
decision, propelling us forward.
That propels us forward intothe next scene or section, which
has its own sort of narrativearc, leading generally to some
other complications.
In a short story, we're workingtoward a resolution.
That resolution may be a happyending or it may be an unhappy
ending, but it is an ending, asense of closure at the end of a
(14:41):
short story, a section of anovel.
We don't want the closure thereentirely, because we want the
reader to keep turning the pages.
So that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Seeing that arc and that necessity for each scene to
have its own structure is huge.
Because I am actually goingback and editing and we're
revising and launching a seriesI wrote a number of years ago as
a new series and looking backon older work, I'm like why did
(15:11):
I even write this chapter?
Why did my editor let me getaway with it?
It didn't have hardly any pointand I was able to take out a
couple of sentences and put themin a chapter that had more
action and just boom that wholechapter out.
And I do think that that's, youknow, like somebody called it
throat clearing.
I think a lot of especiallynewer writers do a lot of throat
(15:34):
clearing on the page and thenbut some of it's pretty and they
don't want to cut it.
But having that goal in mind,like you're a basketball player
driving to the hoop, you knowwhat are you trying to
accomplish with this.
I just wanted to reiterate yourpoint.
I think it's a good, good point.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, I think it's a tremendous point.
It's interesting that, goingback and looking at what you've
done previously and seeingplaces where you could tighten
the pacing, fold some scenesinto summary or information in
different ways.
You know my students.
I'm constantly amazed by howstrong the ideas and the
imagination and the storytellingthat my students bring to the
classroom.
(16:11):
One of the things they strugglewith sometimes, though, is
structure and shape.
You know how to shape thenarrative in the best way.
They've got tremendously greatideas, but it is a matter of you
know.
Where does summary need to befleshed out in the scene?
Where does the scene not serveits purpose, and where might you
cut that back, pace it a littledifferently to focus the
spotlight on where the actionand the conflict and the
(16:32):
character are really coming tothe forefront, without some of
the throat clearing, as you said, or without some of the
information dump that they feellike they need, and so a lot of
it is that crafting and thatstructuring, that shaping, and I
think working on a short storyand this goes back to what you
were saying, megan working on ashort story and working on the
scenery is kind of the same way.
What's the direction you'regoing in.
(16:53):
I do not have any stake inScrivener, but I often recommend
Scrivener as a writing toolbecause it does break it down
into blocks and you can be likewhat does this block earn?
If it doesn't earn anything,get rid of that section.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
So I think that's kind of something similar.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, yeah, I write in Scrivener as well, so we're
both big Scrivener fans.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well, why don't we ask you then our question?
We ask everybody which is whathas been your biggest roadblock
that you've had to overcome inyour career, your biggest
roadblock that you've had toovercome in your career?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, you know, I think it's an interrelation and
you know, every story can betold as a comedy or a tragedy,
just depending on the point ofview, somehow, or the way it's
told.
But as I talked, about makingthat move from short stories to
novels, the opening at MaliceDomestic, the overture from a
small press asking me to comeaboard with a novel.
You know, part of the roadblockis making that move from short
(17:49):
stories to novels.
From a craft perspective, it'ssomething I still struggle with.
That first novel was so far myonly novel, not the only one
I've worked on.
But as I work on novels, Istill struggle with a mind that
thinks in terms of the shortstory, the way that should work,
that economy, efficiency, focusand the bigger landscape,
(18:10):
bigger canvas, bigger narrativearc of a novel and how to take
whatever skills I have as ashort story writer and translate
them over.
So, from a craft perspective,that's one thing that I struggle
with and the answer that I hadat that time was that
architecture of the novel andstories.
I don't think I could fall backon that always, though I think
it is maybe a good guide in someways.
(18:33):
But I think it's also aquestion that's complicated by
the idea of branding yourselfand selling yourself.
Selling yourself, I'm not surealways that popularity and
readership in the short storymarket will automatically
translate into good sales at thenovel area.
Will your short story readersfollow you there.
Is it the same market?
(18:53):
I don't know the answers tothat, but it's one thing that I
do think about and interestingly, I had an agent.
I was on a panel one time withan agent.
I won't say who the agent was,but we were talking about this
idea of using short stories, youknow, on your resume as proof
to an agent as you're pitchingto or to an editor.
Hey, I've got a readership,I've had some success and here's
(19:17):
what I'm bringing to the tablefor this table for this.
And the agent had a completelydifferent attitude.
She said I would rather seewriters who are a completely
blank slate, that I can beginwith nothing out there and begin
to kind of craft the way thatI'm going to pitch them to an
editor at a publishing house andall like that.
So she felt like short storiessort of stood in the way.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Really, I find that so surprising, because the
advice I've heard was not somuch about audience and maybe
this is the change, because, youknow, this advice that I'm
thinking of is, you know,probably at least 10 years old,
not 15.
But at the time it was like ohyeah, go you.
Basically you prove your craftchops by publishing short
(20:01):
stories, but you're it's notabout the audience at that point
, because those two audiencesdon't necessarily crossover.
Well, um, but you're provingthat you can write.
So versus like a completely newwriter who's never published
anything, who's never been outthere, and is now pitching
agents, like being able to say,oh, I've been published in, you
know, this literary magazine.
(20:22):
At least tells them that youknow craft.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Right, yes, I agree and I couldn't.
I could not agree more.
I still kind of puzzle over theagent's advice and a lot of
this, and this is certainly themix between craft and I try to
focus on craft with my students,with thinking about myself,
with some of the seminars that Igive to citizens and crime
organizations.
Often there, you know, it'slike focus on your craft first.
(20:51):
That's the thing that's goingto work, whether you're trying
to sell a short story or tryingto sell a novel.
And yet from an agent'sperspective, you know they are
looking at the package and themarketing and the pitching and
all like that, and so I can'treally speak to how that works.
But I agree with you totally.
I think that the craft seems tobe the major thing and if I can
(21:12):
get published in blank magazineor blank anthology or wherever,
it seems to be representativethat somewhere an editor out
there has said you know yourstuff, you can do something and
you can build on that.
I think you can build on thatin good directions.
So these are some things that Ithink about that I struggle
with in terms of potentialobstacles there.
(21:34):
How do you make that move fromone form the short story to a
longer form from a craftperspective, and how do you do
it in terms of pitching yourselfand building your brand?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, you know, I do think that there's a lot of
agents with a lot of differentopinions.
I mean, that's one agent'sopinions.
Another agent might feelexactly with what Megan said.
You know that this does provethat you've got some writing
chops, and I'm not going towaste my time if I ask for
(22:06):
another 10 pages or a fullmanuscript.
You know to read so, but I getwhat you're saying.
I think the market has justbecome so saturated in so many
ways that a lot of agents andpublishers are getting more and
more cautious with um, with whothey pick up and what they do,
(22:29):
and maybe that's, maybe that'snot true, but it seems like that
to me.
So, yeah, yeah.
So what kind, what kind ofadvice do you give your, your
students in this regard?
Or do you just kind of throw upyour hands and go?
I don't really know what's bestto do.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Well, you know, teaching at the university level
, teaching in the workshop, wedo tend to focus on short
stories, in part because theyare, I don't say, easier to
workshop, but they're certainlymore self-contained.
Someone bringing in a chapter ofa novel, it's hard to workshop
it or discuss it without readingthe whole novel.
And there are novel workshopsthat we do at George Mason
(23:11):
University, where I teach, I dothe short story workshop and so
I'm mostly focused on that, andI do in the advanced fiction
workshop which I just finishedteaching, and we do spend a fair
amount of time, obviously oncraft, but also a good portion
of the time on the business ofwriting, where I ask them to use
a variety of resources to tryto track down places that would
(23:31):
be suitable for their particularwork, their style, their
aesthetic, their genre, and so Itry to get them to think
actively beyond just here's whatI'm writing for the class, to
here's who I want to be or who Icould be in the world of
publishing.
And so we do have a lot ofthose discussions.
I haven't talked to them alittle bit, I haven't talked to
them at any point about theshort story versus the novel,
(23:56):
but I have tried to keep themaware of thinking about
themselves as professionals andnot just as students.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
That's really seems unique to me in a in a college
setting, and I think that'sfabulous.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, one of the pieces of feedback we have heard
from you know, people goingback to you know get their MFA
or whatever and create goingback to school for creative
writing is that there isn't asmuch discussion about the
business side of writing.
And so is that changing, atleast you know, at George Mason,
or I mean, is that somethingthat as a department, you and
(24:37):
the other professors are sort ofworking through, or is it still
primarily just craft?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know I can't speak to how other programs are
doing it or even to how otherprofessors at Mason are doing it
, though, as a program, we haveoften had special seminars where
agents meet with our studentsto talk about what it's like to
find an agent, what they'relooking for, where we have
sessions in which we talk aboutthe business of writing.
(25:04):
As I said, and at Mason as well,we've got Stillhouse Press,
which is a small press that'sbased at Mason, which is giving
students the opportunity to signup for classes with the press
or to intern with the press tolearn about how a manuscript is
picked, how a manuscript isedited, how a manuscript is
marketed.
So that gives them insight intothe inner workings of that.
(25:26):
Now, of course, most collegesor universities of some standing
are going to have studentpublications, literary journals.
We have two of those at thegraduate school level, one of
those at the undergrad level.
That gives some experience aswell and expertise in that.
But having a small press rightthere based at the college is a
little something special that Ithink we're doing.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So that's great.
Do you ever talk about IndyLike is that a more accepted or
is that still kind of notsomething that's discussed at
the university level?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
You know, I don't think we've talked about it
formally in many ways in termsof hosting, say, a session, a
professional session like that,an event, but I do have students
that talk about it.
I have a student in my classright now who is set up to sell
their work online and is, Ithink, making a little bit of
(26:21):
money out of it.
We've had students who havecome to the MFA program, who
have independently publishedtheir work and are, you know,
trying to continue to improvetheir craft.
So, even if it's not part of aformal discussion, it's
certainly there as part ofinformal discussions and
(26:42):
certainly something that thestudents are very aware of and
are interested in pursuing.
So that may change as well atsome point.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I actually think that's so good because I know
that one of the criticisms ofthe indie market is that some of
them threw craft out the windowand just sort of you know
writing books and didn't takethe quality into consideration.
And that worked for a while.
Because you know writing booksand didn't take the quality into
consideration.
And that worked for a while.
Because you know the Kindlegold rush days people were so
(27:10):
desperate for anything to put ontheir Kindle, but it ain't
working anymore.
You know people have to focuson craft and not turn their nose
up at learning to be anactually good writer, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, you know, one of the things I think is is kind
of a problem is exactly whatyou said Some folks that think,
well, first draft to publishdraft, but I think that's that's
.
That's fallen by the wayside alittle bit.
I think most folks are savvyenough to know that that there
needs to be the attention tocraft, there needs to be the
formal editing, and also thatyou've got to package.
Well, you can't just kind of,you can't take the easy route
(27:49):
here, and the people that I knowwho have been successful in
some ways have put a lot of timeand a lot of money into making
sure that their product is thebest it can be, even if they're
not going through thetraditional channels of agent,
editor, publishing house,distributor in those ways.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Can you tell us a little bit like short stories.
I find them in some ways moredifficult to write than novels.
I really do.
And I had read, just as a funnyaside, I had written a short
story for something.
Some publication had a whateverand it was 9,000 words and I
(28:29):
sent it out.
It didn't get accepted.
Then somebody else was lookingfor a short story, but the top
it could be with 7,000 words, soI cut 2,000 words.
It still didn't get accepted.
Then a Sisters in Crimeanthology was looking for short
stories and their max was like4,000 words.
So I cut it again to 4,000words and that time it got
(28:49):
accepted.
And I had this like aha momentthat, because I tend toward
novel writing, I just, you know,I was not subtracting as you
said I was.
And then somebody told methere's some kind of little
rules like for X number ofthousand words you should have
only X number of characters or Xnumber of plot lines.
(29:11):
Or do you subscribe to any ofthat hard and fast rule kind of
thing or guidance for yourstudents?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh gosh, no, but I do hear those rules and I think
there's some truth in them.
You know, if you're going totry to do a, say, a piece of
flash fiction with a dozencharacters, you're in trouble.
It's not going to work.
Summer of 74, we've got about adozen characters that are key
(29:47):
to the plot, that are importantto the plot, but that, of course
, is about a 17,000 word story.
So there are different sizes,different requirements,
different expectations for eachof them, but I think the rules,
whatever guidelines, might begood in some way.
I don't know that they're hardand fast all around, and one of
the things that I tell studentsis to focus on what is it you're
trying to do?
(30:07):
What size story are you telling?
Number one, what size storydoes this need to be told?
And then, how do you get it astight as possible?
What you said about the 9,000,the 7,000, the 4,000, it
actually doesn't surprise me.
I had a story that I wroteabout 10,000 words one time and
I was actually writing it for areading and then was going to
(30:29):
publish it later, writing for areading, and I read it aloud to
my test group at the time mybrother and my girlfriend at the
time and and oh my gosh, theywere like falling asleep as I
read a portion of it.
I'm like something's wrong here.
That story didn't get publisheduntil it was down to 2,500
words, so I cut out threequarters of that story and then
it sold and did very well.
(30:52):
So I do think it's a part ofsubtracting.
So if you find and I'm going tocome back to what you said if
you find that a character is notneeded, then probably cut that
character out because it mightbe a distraction in a short
story.
If you find a certain paragraphdoesn't work, cut that out and
try to get you know if there's adetail that will awaken a scene
(31:15):
and paint a setting.
Focus on the detail, not on thelong paragraph describing the
setting.
So you can do just a little bitand let the reader come to you
and fill out the rest of it.
If you do that part right, theycan fill out a whole room or a
house or a park or whatever.
So it is a matter of I go backto economy, efficiency, focus.
(31:37):
Try to use just the words youneed to get it right.
So those are kind of theguidelines I give, as opposed to
like X number of characters orthis number of beats in a story
or this number of conflicts.
It's a little more flexiblethan that.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Well, that's reassuring, because I felt, like
that whole you knowmathematical approach, it was
not conducive to creativity.
You know, it was very formulaicto me.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
And.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I kind of would rather write the big thing,
leave it on the computer for acouple of weeks and then go back
and go.
Oh wow, that part's boring.
You know how can I say thesethree sentences in one short
sentence?
Or you know those kind ofthings a little bit of a more of
(32:30):
an artistic challenge.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, and generally that's my approach is to write
long and then, and then trimback by by sitting and looking
at it.
I don't like too much theformulaic approach to writing.
However, I do often useformulas in workshops for the
revision process.
So I do this, what I call asix-sentence story establish
your character, what does thatcharacter want, what's standing
(32:52):
in the way of this character,and actually outline it in six
sentences.
I don't think that's a startingpoint for a story, but I think
it can be something that can bediagnostic.
Once you have written the wholething, to step back and be like
right, what's really going onhere?
What do we need to know aboutthis character, what is this
character's main goal, and howcan I then reshape and revision
(33:14):
a story to its perfect form ornear perfect form?
And so I think, as a diagnostictool, that'll get you there.
Almost like a reverse outline,then it sounds like exactly yep,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, that's because that's kind of for for me.
I'm more of a discovery writer.
I I have a general shape of thestory in my head, but I don't
really write anything down, orat least not much.
You know, a couple sentenceshere or there, um, for specific
beats, but but so I that's kindof how I work is I actually do
the whole story first, and thenI go back and go, okay, what's
(33:48):
missing?
Where do I have the plot holes,what structural beats aren't
present in the story, and thenuse that for the editing process
as well.
So I don't know, like I sort ofan aside, I guess.
But I think that's a veryinteresting approach for those
of us who are more discoverywriters or who want to have the
(34:09):
what I'll call artisticflexibility to write the story
as it comes rather than imposingstructure from the beginning
from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I also think that that can be a great tool for
writing your description foreither a blurb, if you're trying
to sell it, or to an agent, ifyou're trying to pitch it.
You know being able to actuallycompress what is this story
about, because I have had a hardtime doing that myself.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
One of the things that I try to do is tell people
when they're drafting they don'thave to draft from beginning to
end.
They can write to the pointwhere they have the most energy,
write to the point that theyfeel like they know or where
they've got excitement, and thenbegin to fill in some things
until they get that bigger draftat some point and then start
working on the shaping.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, I love that.
That's more what I do.
I'll kind of like have ageneral outline for the first,
say, you know a section of thebook and uh, and then inevitably
I get to the end of that andI'm like what happens next?
And I can only go chunk at atime.
If I try to outline an entirenovel.
(35:22):
It's just stupid, it's so bad.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
I don't know if you know Jane Cleland's work, but
Jane Cleland does that verything.
It's like aim for the firstthird get there and then see
where you're at and then moveahead.
I'm paraphrasing and probablyparaphrasing wrong, but it's
always guided me the idea youonly got to write this far and
then see what's going to comenext.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And that's helped me, that I did too, because when I
it's like a journey of some kind, like you're standing at the
beginning of a novel, it's goingto take you a long time.
Even if you're a quick writer,it's still a lot of hours, you
know, to craft that novel andwhen you're standing there
looking at the entirety of it,for my personality and my brain
(36:12):
it can totally overwhelm me.
But if I just think of it achunk at a time, and what are
the scenes that need to be inthat first chunk?
You know that kind of thing.
I think that is just a good tipfor listeners, if you get
overwhelmed, to think of it inpieces.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And I would advise that for the short story as well
.
I think the idea of writing todiscover can be like I've got an
idea of a character, I've gotan idea of a situation, let me
write to see where it goes.
There's always stuff that youcan cut out later once you have
a better idea about what a storyis about, and I don't always
start stories knowing whatthey're about.
I hope I finish them knowingwhat they're about.
I don't always start in thatway.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So what advice do you have for writers who are, you
know, maybe not going back foran MFA or not in school, but who
want to continue to improvetheir craft?
You know, how would youapproach that sort of I don't
know process?
I guess?
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, you know, I mean, it's the tried and true
process.
If you want to write shortfiction, read a lot of short
fiction and kind of see how itgoes and read.
You know you want to fill yourmind with good things and use
good models, so it's not readingindiscriminately.
I took a year, challengedmyself at the New Year's
resolution, to read every Edgaraward-winning short story and it
(37:33):
took a while to track some ofthem down and to find them.
You know, whether becausethey're out of print or not easy
to find in addition, easy tofind in addition.
But I learned so much about boththe flexibility of the form,
about the possibilities of theform and about some of the ways
in which some of the things thatwork well in terms of scene
(37:54):
building, summary, juxtapositionof scenes, the movement of
narrative, the fact that yourstory needs to have some sort of
resolution, a sense of closure,but doesn't need to actually
tie things up.
You know ambiguity can workreally well, letting the reader
fill in the end of the page.
So I know I kind of threw a lotof stuff out there, but I do
think by reading constructivelyas opposed to critically
(38:19):
critically as well, but with anidea about.
I'm picking this up because Iwant to learn from it, I think,
is one of the ways to do that.
Now, there's certainly greatcraft guides out there too, and
I could name some of the onesthat I've worked well with, but
I think that actually, lookingat the way a good short story is
put together, the anatomy of it, the flow of it, the movement
(38:41):
of it, will help you when yousit down to try to craft the
architecture and the anatomy andthe pacing and the structure of
your own.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Do you recommend that your students like deconstruct?
If they find a story that theyreally love and it's the kind of
thing they think they want towrite, that they sort of
deconstruct it Like what didthis writer do here, there and
so on, so they could notplagiarize but mimic the form?
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Sure, we actually talked in class the other day
about the idea of stealing andsome people were sort of like,
oh, we don't like that wordstealing.
I'm like, yeah, but what you dois like it's not stealing words
, it's not plagiarizing.
No-transcript.
(39:45):
From looking at what MadisonSmart Bell does and I think I do
it sort of unconsciouslywithout actually making all
those notes in there, to see howsomething works and try to use
that myself.
One exercise I do encourage mystudents to do and I think this
is good at the short story orthe novel level is to take a
couple of pages from a writer.
They love passages or a scenethey particularly admire and
(40:08):
look at the interplay of thingslike dialogue, narration,
description, interiority.
Where does a passage ofinteriority come versus a series
of lines of dialogue, or whereis interiority built in against
a line of dialogue?
And I do ask them todeconstruct a short passage like
that from a stylisticstandpoint so they can say
(40:28):
here's writing that I admire,here's a model that I might
aspire to and here's the waythey do it.
And I have them write I won'tsay it's a pastiche, it's much
more paint by numbers than thatbut then write a scene of their
own in which they mimic thatstyle.
My author has a line of dialogueI'm going to put in a line of
dialogue.
My writer has that charactermake an action.
Let me find an action there, amoment of interiority.
(40:51):
Let me add my own interiority,because I think that helps them
to see the way that scenes areconstructed or stories are
constructed or passages areconstructed.
I think that can be useful.
So, yes, I guess I do to somedegree ask them to take it apart
, though I'm not asking them todo an entire story that way.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
That's an interesting idea.
I took a class, an onlinewriting class, once, and part of
the exercise was to take a fewpages of your own manuscript and
then you had like four colors,you know highlighters, and you
would highlight all thedescriptions and highlight the
dialogue, and then highlight thedialogue or whatever you need
(41:29):
you, and then you would justlook at how much of everything
you had on the page.
Um, but I never thought ofcomparing that to a writer.
I love, I mean, I, just now Iwant to go do that.
That just sounds like fun.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yeah, it is kind of fun.
You can also begin to see whereyour you know stylistic
tendencies are as a writerversus the things that you
admire as a reader.
And where do those?
What can you learn from that?
There's a story about HarryCruz, a Southern novelist, who
apparently says he learned towrite by retyping the entirety
of a Graham Green novel.
(42:04):
Just sat down and typed it outword for word and he said at the
end of it he goes well, now Iknow how to write a novel.
And then he did so.
Maybe there's something to that.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I will say like, I think if youread a lot in the genre that
you want to write in, you'regoing to absorb some of that
information already, just sortof naturally, because you're
hearing it in your head asyou're reading.
For those of us that I guesshave that inner monologue side
note, I just found out noteverybody has an inner monologue
, but anyway, I digress, I don'tknow how that's possible, but
(42:36):
anyway.
But but so you do kind ofabsorb some of that, that story
structure, the flow of language,you know, as you normally do it
, but I think, doing it withintentionality, whether that's
even just cop, I kind of likethe idea of just retyping
somebody else's work as anexercise to be like well, let's
just go through this, because Ifeel like the act of typing also
(42:59):
just helps you absorb that more.
It's like when you write notesas you're listening to, you know
, a lecture or whatever.
You know you absorb thatinformation.
So whatever you can do to findthe work that you love to absorb
how they're doing it, so thatyou can then put your own spin
on it not copy it, but put yourown spin on it and make it
(43:21):
unique to you, while stillmaintaining the integrity of the
things that you like about it.
That's a really that's a reallycool idea.
So we have lots of tips here.
I think you can type it out,you can deconstruct a paragraph,
you can deconstruct a shortstory.
You can do all these differentthings to help improve your
craft.
I love that.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, and I think you're right about absorbing
versus that awareness andintentionality.
It's just one slight adjustment, but I think it can make a
difference and I had neverwritten a home invasion story.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
So I found one that I thought was excellent and I
just kind of looked at it on achapter level what did she do in
chapter one, what did she do inchapter two?
How many people were dead bychapter three?
You know, like those kinds ofthings, and it sort of helped me
to get the idea of the pacing,because sometimes different
(44:22):
sub-gen genres also havedifferent pacing.
So you know, I think thatthat's also a cozy mystery
versus an action thriller.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I mean, those are two sub genres of mystery thriller
and completely different pacing,completely different feel.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Everything about it Exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah.
So if you were going to giveour listeners one more big fat
tip, if they're thinking abouttrying to break into the short
story market, maybe they havesome stories they've written.
Um, what would you tell them?
Uh, apart from some of thethings you've already said,
which is, read a lot of them buthow about one more tip or two
(45:07):
on how to break into the shortstory market?
Speaker 3 (45:11):
From a craft perspective.
I keep coming back to thosewords economy, efficiency and
focus and making sure thatyou've got the best product you
can.
But the bit of advice I'm goingto give is to try to get it out
there, and the one good thingabout the market right now,
particularly in the mysterygenre, is the number of venues
that are available to you Onlinepublications.
We've mentioned Sisters inCrime.
(45:32):
A lot of Sisters in Crimechapters have their own
anthologies, which are dedicatedtoward giving writers sometimes
their first entree into thepublishing world.
Writers sometimes their firstentree into the publishing world
, and often alongside of veteranwriters whose name recognition
(45:52):
might get somebody to pick upthe book and then find your work
as well.
So Ellery Queen's MysteryMagazine, Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine, may be theleading contenders right now in
terms of publications, butthere's a lot of other
publication opportunities outthere and opportunities to get
your work read and to getfeedback.
Not feedback on it in terms oflike what works and what doesn't
work, but to get an audienceout there and a readership for
you, and so I would advisetrying to find those venues and
(46:14):
get out there.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Do you ever advise your students to sign up for
Duotrope?
Speaker 3 (46:19):
I do.
That's one of the things thatI've had folks look at Duotrope
and Submittable.
Both have options where you canfind calls for submission the
Short Mystery Fiction Society.
You can join there and theyoften post calls for submissions
.
I also advise people to look inthe back of the Best American
Mystery and Suspense, bestAmerican Mystery Stories, best
American Short Stories and lookat the publications that are
(46:42):
listed there, both thepublications that have provided
the stories that are in theanthology, but also in the back.
What are the honorable mentions?
Where were they published?
What's the list of magazinesthat the editors are consulting
as a way to start investigatingwhat options are out there?
It's amazing the list that youcan find looking in those ways,
(47:03):
looking in those directions.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
That's great, so why don't you tell people where they
can find out more about you andthe books that you've written?
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Sure, my website is wwwarttaylorwritercom.
I've had people, when I saythat, think I'm talking about
horseback riding because I'mSouthern and I pronounce things
wrong.
But it's arttaylorwriterW-R-I-T-E-Rcom.
And I'm also, you know, onFacebook and on Instagram as
(47:33):
well, and I was off Twitter Xfor a little while but I joined
back so, just because I feltlike I was, I needed a place
there and all those.
Those are Art Taylor Ryder.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
All right, well, this was just great, and we really
appreciate your time with ustoday.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Oh gosh, thanks for having me.
This was a blast.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And to all you listeners out there.
If you enjoyed this podcast,would you consider sponsoring
the show?
For as little as $3 a month,you can help us keep the lights
on.
And not only that, but we arevery happy to tell the world
(48:13):
about your book, your series oryour product or service that you
have for writers.
So there is a link in the shownotes where you can support us,
and that would be a great help.
Also, if you enjoyed this,please send your favorite
episode to a writer friend anduntil next time, keep your
stories rolling.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel
podcast.
I'm Greta Boris, usa Todaybestselling mystery thriller
author.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author, and togetherwe are the Author Wheel.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
We have a fabulous interview today.
I know I always say that, but Ifeel like we only have fabulous
people on, so it's like I'm notlying.
Art Taylor he is anaward-winning short story author
and a writing professor, and wedefinitely went to school with
Art.
On the topic of craft, yes, yes, we did.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeah, and it was very educational.
I mean, he knows his stuff.
He's one I don't know like Hugoand Agatha this, that I mean
and he teaches people for aliving.
So yeah, I don't know like Hugoand Agatha this that I mean and
he teaches people for a living.
So yeah, you don't want to missthis one.
But before we get into that,what is going on in your life?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Well, my girls are starting to wind down at school,
down in the last couple weeks,which of course means that
parent responsibilities are onthe rise.
The kids wind down, the parentswind up.
It was between the parties andgifts and final projects and
school events and all the things.
There's been a lot of lifehappening, but it's always
(01:16):
exciting to you know, kind offeel summer getting close.
We're almost almost out ofschool for summer and in the
writing life I don't have a tonof news.
It's kind of been same old,same old.
But things are moving forwardacross all fronts.
The story's in progress, thespecial edition is in progress,
(01:37):
the anthology is in progress,it's all coming together but
it's all kind of the sameNothing new yeah.
Nothing new.
How's your week going?
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, this week is my dad's 96th birthday.
Oh my gosh.
I know he's just the EnergizerBunny right, We'll be flying out
to see him in a couple of weeks, but I just wanted to
congratulate him on air.
I don't think he listens.
He does read all of our emails,but the hearing is getting a
little and plus, podcasting is alittle techie for a 96 year old
(02:12):
, but in case you're listening,dad, or in case someone who
knows you is listening, happybirthday.
As for work, I am knee deep inthe keep, which is book five in
the Almost True Crime series,and it's going well.
I know I keep saying it, but itis so interesting to revisit
your old work, and one thingthat has struck me as I've been
(02:35):
going through this series is howfast our culture is changing.
I am finding things in all ofthese books that are no longer
socially correct and like thefirst one was only published in
2017.
That's not very long ago and allof a sudden, I'm having to
change words and phrases, likeyou can't say ladies room
(02:56):
anymore.
It's like, oh my gosh, okay, Imean, it's just weird like
things that I'm having to change, and it's either because it
just now sounds outdated or someof those things have come to
mean things that could offendpeople.
You know which I definitelydon't want to do.
So that's an interesting aspectof going through your old work
(03:18):
that didn't occur to me.
Yeah, yeah, but now, if youreally want to learn something
about craft, stop listening tome and let's get on with the
show.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Today we are thrilled to have Art Taylor on the show.
He is the Edgar Award winningauthor of two collections the
Adventure of the Castle Thiefand Other Expeditions and
Indiscretions, and the BoyDetective and the Summer of 74
and Other Tales of Suspense.
And the Boy Detective and theSummer of 74 and Other Tales of
Suspense.
(03:48):
His debut book, on the Roadwith Dellen Louise, a novel in
stories, won the Agatha Awardfor Best First Novel.
His short fiction has also wonthe Agatha, anthony, derringer
and Macavity Awards.
He is an associate professor ofEnglish at George Mason
University.
So welcome Art.
How are you doing today?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I'm doing fine.
Thanks so much your mention ofGeorge Mason University.
So welcome Art.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing fine.
Thanks so much your mention ofGeorge Mason University.
I will say at the time I wasfilming this, recording this, we
are in the middle of grading,so my mind is a little bit
distracted in all directionswith grading, but I'm happy to
be here.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Well, that's great.
I think you're the firstprofessor we've had on the show
actually.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Uh-oh, now the stakes are high.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I don't think you're the first professor.
I know you're the firstprofessor.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, I was going to say yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well, why don't you tell us alittle bit about your journey
into writing and your careerpath so far, and sort of how
you've gotten to be Art Taylor?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Thanks.
Yeah, it's been an interestingpath and I could even start in
childhood a little bit.
I won't go quite back that farexcept briefly to say that
nowadays I'm known mostly forshort stories and I've been very
fortunate to win some awardsand things, as you said.
But that traces back tochildhood, when I was a great
reader of short stories and Ithink that's part of what you
(05:08):
know may end up talking a littlebit about today.
Write what you love to read,write what you want to read and
that sort of thing.
I subscribed to Ellery Queen'sMystery Magazine back in middle
school when they did a drivesubscription drive to raise
money for the school and Ididn't sell any magazine
subscriptions but I did buy one.
It was pivotal in terms ofchanging my life because it kind
(05:30):
of brought me into the world ofmystery short fiction and I
think that was foundational insome way.
Fast forward many years I wasin the Department of First
Stories for Ellery Queen'sMystery Magazine, which is a
fairly nice place to be.
It's where they bring apublished author out for the
first time, first time in aselling market, and my story for
(05:50):
that was Murder on the OrientExpress.
I will say I recognize that'sthe title of another book very
self-consciously, I think I'veheard of that story.
I don't get royalties onanything Christie does, but
titles can't be copyrighted.
So it was nice to be in thereand it felt like it was a real
turning point.
That was back in the mid-1990sand I thought well, now I've
(06:15):
made it.
Except I hadn't really made itbecause even though I had a
really good publication there, Ithink I was still trying to
catch up with some of my craft,and it was another 10 years
before I was in Ellery Queen'sMystery Magazine again.
I did get published in a numberof literary magazines during
that time, but I did feel like Iwas kind of honing my craft and
(06:35):
finding my way, and the nexttime I got published there was
with a story that was based onChekhov's Lady with a Lapdog,
one that I did not write withthe idea of it being a mystery
publication.
It was all about a professor Iwas not a professor at that
point struggling with trying towrite about Chekhov's story and
then also wrote about his wife,who he thinks is having an
(06:58):
affair, kind of echoing thatstory, and so there was a couple
of layers to it.
Once I did publish get that onepublished in Ellery Queens, I
seemed to be in a better place,both in terms of craft and in
terms of knowing where I wantedto go.
And that followed with anotherlittle string of another little
string of stories for ElleryQueens and began the path toward
(07:19):
toward some of the awards thathave been very helpful in terms
of establishing my place in theshort story world and the
mystery world.
Another thing that's probablyimportant to add, given kind of
where I'm hoping we're going totalk today, is about how I went
from short stories to novels.
We just got back, as we'rerecording this, from the Malice
(07:40):
Domestic Conference, which is atremendously good community one
that we a conference we attendevery year and it was there that
I you know, obviously won thefirst Agatha Award they give out
the Agatha Awards and began toget some traction with my short
stories.
Small press, henry Press,approached me and said have you
(08:01):
thought about writing a novel?
And I said well, indeed I have.
And there's a couple of ways tolook at this.
Number one is the short storymarket helped to open up the
novel market for me.
But then there's also the ideaof the craft of the short story
versus the craft of the novel,and I teach at George Mason and,
as I tell my students, we cancome back to this again.
You know, writing a short storyis not an apprenticeship for
(08:24):
writing a novel.
I think the two forms are verydifferent.
We could talk more about that,but I did have the ambitions to
write a novel.
So then, once I had an openingthere, it's like what do I do
now?
I did have a story.
My first book was On the Roadwith Del and Louise.
It's a novel and stories.
The first story in the noveland stories was Rearview Mirror.
(08:48):
It was published in ElleryQueen's Mystery Magazine and the
main characters, del and Louise, were characters I wanted to
spend more time with, and so Iended up writing five more
adventures that together formeda longer narrative arc, and that
was one of the ways that Itricked myself into getting the
architecture of the noveltogether.
Five stories, a place where Ifelt comfortable, longer
narrative, something that wouldform a novel, and that was sort
of my path to publication there.
(09:10):
I still struggle we can talkmore about this, of course with
the idea of the architecture ofthe short story versus the
architecture of the novel, andalso about how to pitch yourself
as a short story writer to moveto that next level and I use
that phrase next level verycarefully, because it sounds
like there is a hierarchy thatpublishing a novel is better
(09:31):
than a short story.
I struggle with that as well,because a short story is a craft
that I love.
Now I've rambled on a littlebit, but that's kind of the
outlines of where I'm at andmaybe where I'm going next We'll
see.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, yeah, well, it's interesting.
So I took one of my very firstclasses that I took when I
decided I wanted to start reallycreative writing was a, like
you know, intro to creativewriting or something like that
from UCLA extension, and thatprofessor was also a short story
writer and it was veryinteresting to me the way he
(10:04):
phrased this because what, theway, the way he talked about it
was that you know, each chapteror each scene in a, in a lot of
ways, is a short story and so ifyou get good at writing short
stories, then you you can as youdid, sounds like, with the
novel and stories, like you can,sort of string them together
(10:26):
into a novel.
Now, he was talking more of a, Iguess, traditional novel
structure as far as you know,the characters going from one
scene to the next, to the next,to the next and not skipping or
jumping, or you know they're nottechnically individual short
stories.
But is that, is that a good wayto kind of think about it as
far as developing your craftover time, that if you write
(10:48):
short stories and treat them asscenes, that it makes it easier
ultimately to build out a fullnovel, or are they completely
different modalities?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
That's a big question and it's a really good question
.
I think they are differentmodalities to some degree, and
one of the things I say is thata short story is basically built
on the process of subtraction.
Each has characters, each hasplot, each has setting, each has
all the fundamentals.
But with a short story you'retrying to kind of get rid of
(11:22):
anything that doesn't belong inthe short story.
I was very fortunate Lee Childand Laurie King invited me to
write the chapter on the shortmystery for the latest MWA
anthology, how to Write aMystery, and the three things I
focused on there are economy,efficiency and focus.
Focus on the narrative.
What is the story you're tryingto tell?
And get rid of the subplots,get rid of the other things that
(11:43):
don't really add to it.
How can you be as economical intelling that story?
How can you be efficient inletting everything do more than
one thing, all with your endgoal?
A lot of this goes back to whatEdgar Allan Poe said about the
short story, which is the singleeffect.
In the short story You'reangling for one single effect on
your reader, say, an emotionthat you want them to feel, or a
revelation you want them tohave, or whatever he didn't use
(12:05):
those words but a single effectand everything needs to be
geared toward that.
As he said, ideally every word,every word in the story is
going to go in that direction.
Now the novel is a looserstructure.
I'm not going to say that it'sa sloppy structure, but it
certainly allows for moresubplots, more characters, more
things that aren't exactlygeared toward that final end,
(12:32):
even if you're heading for thatfinal end.
But it's a process of additionas opposed to subtraction.
You can add additionalcharacters to do this.
You can add additional scenesthat serve this purpose.
You can add additional subplotsor thematic plots, thematic art
.
Now, what you're saying isdespite the fact that we're
moving in two differentdirections there let me clarify
this last point.
I'm in a writer's group andmost of the folks in my writer's
group are writing novels, and alot of times when we bring in
(12:54):
things to look at, I will readpart of a chapter that one of my
co-workshop folks are in there.
I'm like gosh, we could cutlike three quarters of this and
still do what we need to do, butthat's not what he's doing.
That's not his aesthetic, it'snot the aesthetic of the novel.
So, subtraction versus addition.
Now, what you're saying, Ithink, is also equally important
, because what I tell mystudents is, when we're writing
(13:15):
whether a short story or, asthey're going on to, maybe to
write a novel is to think abouteach scene and each section as
having its own sort of shape.
You know, we need to bring itopen at the beginning.
We need to bring it to a closeof some kind.
What happens, though, is thatyour close, if it's too much of
a cleanup at the end of a scene,that's not going to propel us
(13:35):
forward.
Now, dwight Swain, who wrotepulp stories, primarily wrote a
book called oh my gosh, writingand Selling.
I'm not going to remember thename of it, but it's Dwight
Swain, s-w-a-i-n.
I'll try to look up what thetitle of it is, but it's
terrific in the way he talksabout scene and sequel as the
(13:57):
way he calls it.
I think this echoes, megan,what you're talking about is
each scene needs to go through aprocess of conflicts, rising
action, some sort of climax, andthat climax is usually what he
calls a disaster, and thedisaster at the end of the scene
.
It may be big, it may be small,but that disaster is going to
lead to a next, what he calls asequel, the next section, and
(14:18):
that sequel may be a moment ofreflection, reaction and then
decision, propelling us forward.
That propels us forward intothe next scene or section, which
has its own sort of narrativearc, leading generally to some
other complications.
In a short story, we're workingtoward a resolution.
That resolution may be a happyending or it may be an unhappy
ending, but it is an ending, asense of closure at the end of a
(14:41):
short story, a section of anovel.
We don't want the closure thereentirely, because we want the
reader to keep turning the pages.
So that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Seeing that arc and that necessity for each scene to
have its own structure is huge.
Because I am actually goingback and editing and we're
revising and launching a seriesI wrote a number of years ago as
a new series and looking backon older work, I'm like why did
(15:11):
I even write this chapter?
Why did my editor let me getaway with it?
It didn't have hardly any pointand I was able to take out a
couple of sentences and put themin a chapter that had more
action and just boom that wholechapter out.
And I do think that that's, youknow, like somebody called it
throat clearing.
I think a lot of especiallynewer writers do a lot of throat
(15:34):
clearing on the page and thenbut some of it's pretty and they
don't want to cut it.
But having that goal in mind,like you're a basketball player
driving to the hoop, you knowwhat are you trying to
accomplish with this.
I just wanted to reiterate yourpoint.
I think it's a good, good point.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, I think it's a tremendous point.
It's interesting that, goingback and looking at what you've
done previously and seeingplaces where you could tighten
the pacing, fold some scenesinto summary or information in
different ways.
You know my students.
I'm constantly amazed by howstrong the ideas and the
imagination and the storytellingthat my students bring to the
classroom.
(16:11):
One of the things they strugglewith sometimes, though, is
structure and shape.
You know how to shape thenarrative in the best way.
They've got tremendously greatideas, but it is a matter of you
know.
Where does summary need to befleshed out in the scene?
Where does the scene not serveits purpose, and where might you
cut that back, pace it a littledifferently to focus the
spotlight on where the actionand the conflict and the
(16:32):
character are really coming tothe forefront, without some of
the throat clearing, as you said, or without some of the
information dump that they feellike they need, and so a lot of
it is that crafting and thatstructuring, that shaping, and I
think working on a short storyand this goes back to what you
were saying, megan working on ashort story and working on the
scenery is kind of the same way.
What's the direction you'regoing in.
(16:53):
I do not have any stake inScrivener, but I often recommend
Scrivener as a writing toolbecause it does break it down
into blocks and you can be likewhat does this block earn?
If it doesn't earn anything,get rid of that section.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
So I think that's kind of something similar.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, yeah, I write in Scrivener as well, so we're
both big Scrivener fans.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well, why don't we ask you then our question?
We ask everybody which is whathas been your biggest roadblock
that you've had to overcome inyour career, your biggest
roadblock that you've had toovercome in your career?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, you know, I think it's an interrelation and
you know, every story can betold as a comedy or a tragedy,
just depending on the point ofview, somehow, or the way it's
told.
But as I talked, about makingthat move from short stories to
novels, the opening at MaliceDomestic, the overture from a
small press asking me to comeaboard with a novel.
You know, part of the roadblockis making that move from short
(17:49):
stories to novels.
From a craft perspective, it'ssomething I still struggle with.
That first novel was so far myonly novel, not the only one
I've worked on.
But as I work on novels, Istill struggle with a mind that
thinks in terms of the shortstory, the way that should work,
that economy, efficiency, focusand the bigger landscape,
(18:10):
bigger canvas, bigger narrativearc of a novel and how to take
whatever skills I have as ashort story writer and translate
them over.
So, from a craft perspective,that's one thing that I struggle
with and the answer that I hadat that time was that
architecture of the novel andstories.
I don't think I could fall backon that always, though I think
it is maybe a good guide in someways.
(18:33):
But I think it's also aquestion that's complicated by
the idea of branding yourselfand selling yourself.
Selling yourself, I'm not surealways that popularity and
readership in the short storymarket will automatically
translate into good sales at thenovel area.
Will your short story readersfollow you there.
Is it the same market?
(18:53):
I don't know the answers tothat, but it's one thing that I
do think about and interestingly, I had an agent.
I was on a panel one time withan agent.
I won't say who the agent was,but we were talking about this
idea of using short stories, youknow, on your resume as proof
to an agent as you're pitchingto or to an editor.
Hey, I've got a readership,I've had some success and here's
(19:17):
what I'm bringing to the tablefor this table for this.
And the agent had a completelydifferent attitude.
She said I would rather seewriters who are a completely
blank slate, that I can beginwith nothing out there and begin
to kind of craft the way thatI'm going to pitch them to an
editor at a publishing house andall like that.
So she felt like short storiessort of stood in the way.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Really, I find that so surprising, because the
advice I've heard was not somuch about audience and maybe
this is the change, because, youknow, this advice that I'm
thinking of is, you know,probably at least 10 years old,
not 15.
But at the time it was like ohyeah, go you.
Basically you prove your craftchops by publishing short
(20:01):
stories, but you're it's notabout the audience at that point
, because those two audiencesdon't necessarily crossover.
Well, um, but you're provingthat you can write.
So versus like a completely newwriter who's never published
anything, who's never been outthere, and is now pitching
agents, like being able to say,oh, I've been published in, you
know, this literary magazine.
(20:22):
At least tells them that youknow craft.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Right, yes, I agree and I couldn't.
I could not agree more.
I still kind of puzzle over theagent's advice and a lot of
this, and this is certainly themix between craft and I try to
focus on craft with my students,with thinking about myself,
with some of the seminars that Igive to citizens and crime
organizations.
Often there, you know, it'slike focus on your craft first.
(20:51):
That's the thing that's goingto work, whether you're trying
to sell a short story or tryingto sell a novel.
And yet from an agent'sperspective, you know they are
looking at the package and themarketing and the pitching and
all like that, and so I can'treally speak to how that works.
But I agree with you totally.
I think that the craft seems tobe the major thing and if I can
(21:12):
get published in blank magazineor blank anthology or wherever,
it seems to be representativethat somewhere an editor out
there has said you know yourstuff, you can do something and
you can build on that.
I think you can build on thatin good directions.
So these are some things that Ithink about that I struggle
with in terms of potentialobstacles there.
(21:34):
How do you make that move fromone form the short story to a
longer form from a craftperspective, and how do you do
it in terms of pitching yourselfand building your brand?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, you know, I do think that there's a lot of
agents with a lot of differentopinions.
I mean, that's one agent'sopinions.
Another agent might feelexactly with what Megan said.
You know that this does provethat you've got some writing
chops, and I'm not going towaste my time if I ask for
(22:06):
another 10 pages or a fullmanuscript.
You know to read so, but I getwhat you're saying.
I think the market has justbecome so saturated in so many
ways that a lot of agents andpublishers are getting more and
more cautious with um, with whothey pick up and what they do,
(22:29):
and maybe that's, maybe that'snot true, but it seems like that
to me.
So, yeah, yeah.
So what kind, what kind ofadvice do you give your, your
students in this regard?
Or do you just kind of throw upyour hands and go?
I don't really know what's bestto do.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Well, you know, teaching at the university level
, teaching in the workshop, wedo tend to focus on short
stories, in part because theyare, I don't say, easier to
workshop, but they're certainlymore self-contained.
Someone bringing in a chapter ofa novel, it's hard to workshop
it or discuss it without readingthe whole novel.
And there are novel workshopsthat we do at George Mason
(23:11):
University, where I teach, I dothe short story workshop and so
I'm mostly focused on that, andI do in the advanced fiction
workshop which I just finishedteaching, and we do spend a fair
amount of time, obviously oncraft, but also a good portion
of the time on the business ofwriting, where I ask them to use
a variety of resources to tryto track down places that would
(23:31):
be suitable for their particularwork, their style, their
aesthetic, their genre, and so Itry to get them to think
actively beyond just here's whatI'm writing for the class, to
here's who I want to be or who Icould be in the world of
publishing.
And so we do have a lot ofthose discussions.
I haven't talked to them alittle bit, I haven't talked to
them at any point about theshort story versus the novel,
(23:56):
but I have tried to keep themaware of thinking about
themselves as professionals andnot just as students.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
That's really seems unique to me in a in a college
setting, and I think that'sfabulous.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, one of the pieces of feedback we have heard
from you know, people goingback to you know get their MFA
or whatever and create goingback to school for creative
writing is that there isn't asmuch discussion about the
business side of writing.
And so is that changing, atleast you know, at George Mason,
or I mean, is that somethingthat as a department, you and
(24:37):
the other professors are sort ofworking through, or is it still
primarily just craft?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
You know I can't speak to how other programs are
doing it or even to how otherprofessors at Mason are doing it
, though, as a program, we haveoften had special seminars where
agents meet with our studentsto talk about what it's like to
find an agent, what they'relooking for, where we have
sessions in which we talk aboutthe business of writing.
(25:04):
As I said, and at Mason as well,we've got Stillhouse Press,
which is a small press that'sbased at Mason, which is giving
students the opportunity to signup for classes with the press
or to intern with the press tolearn about how a manuscript is
picked, how a manuscript isedited, how a manuscript is
marketed.
So that gives them insight intothe inner workings of that.
(25:26):
Now, of course, most collegesor universities of some standing
are going to have studentpublications, literary journals.
We have two of those at thegraduate school level, one of
those at the undergrad level.
That gives some experience aswell and expertise in that.
But having a small press rightthere based at the college is a
little something special that Ithink we're doing.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So that's great.
Do you ever talk about IndyLike is that a more accepted or
is that still kind of notsomething that's discussed at
the university level?
Speaker 3 (26:00):
You know, I don't think we've talked about it
formally in many ways in termsof hosting, say, a session, a
professional session like that,an event, but I do have students
that talk about it.
I have a student in my classright now who is set up to sell
their work online and is, Ithink, making a little bit of
(26:21):
money out of it.
We've had students who havecome to the MFA program, who
have independently publishedtheir work and are, you know,
trying to continue to improvetheir craft.
So, even if it's not part of aformal discussion, it's
certainly there as part ofinformal discussions and
(26:42):
certainly something that thestudents are very aware of and
are interested in pursuing.
So that may change as well atsome point.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I actually think that's so good because I know
that one of the criticisms ofthe indie market is that some of
them threw craft out the windowand just sort of you know
writing books and didn't takethe quality into consideration.
And that worked for a while.
Because you know writing booksand didn't take the quality into
consideration.
And that worked for a while.
Because you know the Kindlegold rush days people were so
(27:10):
desperate for anything to put ontheir Kindle, but it ain't
working anymore.
You know people have to focuson craft and not turn their nose
up at learning to be anactually good writer, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, you know, one of the things I think is is kind
of a problem is exactly whatyou said Some folks that think,
well, first draft to publishdraft, but I think that's that's
.
That's fallen by the wayside alittle bit.
I think most folks are savvyenough to know that that there
needs to be the attention tocraft, there needs to be the
formal editing, and also thatyou've got to package.
Well, you can't just kind of,you can't take the easy route
(27:49):
here, and the people that I knowwho have been successful in
some ways have put a lot of timeand a lot of money into making
sure that their product is thebest it can be, even if they're
not going through thetraditional channels of agent,
editor, publishing house,distributor in those ways.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Can you tell us a little bit like short stories.
I find them in some ways moredifficult to write than novels.
I really do.
And I had read, just as a funnyaside, I had written a short
story for something.
Some publication had a whateverand it was 9,000 words and I
(28:29):
sent it out.
It didn't get accepted.
Then somebody else was lookingfor a short story, but the top
it could be with 7,000 words, soI cut 2,000 words.
It still didn't get accepted.
Then a Sisters in Crimeanthology was looking for short
stories and their max was like4,000 words.
So I cut it again to 4,000words and that time it got
(28:49):
accepted.
And I had this like aha momentthat, because I tend toward
novel writing, I just, you know,I was not subtracting as you
said I was.
And then somebody told methere's some kind of little
rules like for X number ofthousand words you should have
only X number of characters or Xnumber of plot lines.
(29:11):
Or do you subscribe to any ofthat hard and fast rule kind of
thing or guidance for yourstudents?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh gosh, no, but I do hear those rules and I think
there's some truth in them.
You know, if you're going totry to do a, say, a piece of
flash fiction with a dozencharacters, you're in trouble.
It's not going to work.
Summer of 74, we've got about adozen characters that are key
(29:47):
to the plot, that are importantto the plot, but that, of course
, is about a 17,000 word story.
So there are different sizes,different requirements,
different expectations for eachof them, but I think the rules,
whatever guidelines, might begood in some way.
I don't know that they're hardand fast all around, and one of
the things that I tell studentsis to focus on what is it you're
trying to do?
(30:07):
What size story are you telling?
Number one, what size storydoes this need to be told?
And then, how do you get it astight as possible?
What you said about the 9,000,the 7,000, the 4,000, it
actually doesn't surprise me.
I had a story that I wroteabout 10,000 words one time and
I was actually writing it for areading and then was going to
(30:29):
publish it later, writing for areading, and I read it aloud to
my test group at the time mybrother and my girlfriend at the
time and and oh my gosh, theywere like falling asleep as I
read a portion of it.
I'm like something's wrong here.
That story didn't get publisheduntil it was down to 2,500
words, so I cut out threequarters of that story and then
it sold and did very well.
(30:52):
So I do think it's a part ofsubtracting.
So if you find and I'm going tocome back to what you said if
you find that a character is notneeded, then probably cut that
character out because it mightbe a distraction in a short
story.
If you find a certain paragraphdoesn't work, cut that out and
try to get you know if there's adetail that will awaken a scene
(31:15):
and paint a setting.
Focus on the detail, not on thelong paragraph describing the
setting.
So you can do just a little bitand let the reader come to you
and fill out the rest of it.
If you do that part right, theycan fill out a whole room or a
house or a park or whatever.
So it is a matter of I go backto economy, efficiency, focus.
(31:37):
Try to use just the words youneed to get it right.
So those are kind of theguidelines I give, as opposed to
like X number of characters orthis number of beats in a story
or this number of conflicts.
It's a little more flexiblethan that.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Well, that's reassuring, because I felt, like
that whole you knowmathematical approach, it was
not conducive to creativity.
You know, it was very formulaicto me.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
And.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I kind of would rather write the big thing,
leave it on the computer for acouple of weeks and then go back
and go.
Oh wow, that part's boring.
You know how can I say thesethree sentences in one short
sentence?
Or you know those kind ofthings a little bit of a more of
(32:30):
an artistic challenge.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, and generally that's my approach is to write
long and then, and then trimback by by sitting and looking
at it.
I don't like too much theformulaic approach to writing.
However, I do often useformulas in workshops for the
revision process.
So I do this, what I call asix-sentence story establish
your character, what does thatcharacter want, what's standing
(32:52):
in the way of this character,and actually outline it in six
sentences.
I don't think that's a startingpoint for a story, but I think
it can be something that can bediagnostic.
Once you have written the wholething, to step back and be like
right, what's really going onhere?
What do we need to know aboutthis character, what is this
character's main goal, and howcan I then reshape and revision
(33:14):
a story to its perfect form ornear perfect form?
And so I think, as a diagnostictool, that'll get you there.
Almost like a reverse outline,then it sounds like exactly yep,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, that's because that's kind of for for me.
I'm more of a discovery writer.
I I have a general shape of thestory in my head, but I don't
really write anything down, orat least not much.
You know, a couple sentenceshere or there, um, for specific
beats, but but so I that's kindof how I work is I actually do
the whole story first, and thenI go back and go, okay, what's
(33:48):
missing?
Where do I have the plot holes,what structural beats aren't
present in the story, and thenuse that for the editing process
as well.
So I don't know, like I sort ofan aside, I guess.
But I think that's a veryinteresting approach for those
of us who are more discoverywriters or who want to have the
(34:09):
what I'll call artisticflexibility to write the story
as it comes rather than imposingstructure from the beginning
from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I also think that that can be a great tool for
writing your description foreither a blurb, if you're trying
to sell it, or to an agent, ifyou're trying to pitch it.
You know being able to actuallycompress what is this story
about, because I have had a hardtime doing that myself.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
One of the things that I try to do is tell people
when they're drafting they don'thave to draft from beginning to
end.
They can write to the pointwhere they have the most energy,
write to the point that theyfeel like they know or where
they've got excitement, and thenbegin to fill in some things
until they get that bigger draftat some point and then start
working on the shaping.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, I love that.
That's more what I do.
I'll kind of like have ageneral outline for the first,
say, you know a section of thebook and uh, and then inevitably
I get to the end of that andI'm like what happens next?
And I can only go chunk at atime.
If I try to outline an entirenovel.
(35:22):
It's just stupid, it's so bad.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
I don't know if you know Jane Cleland's work, but
Jane Cleland does that verything.
It's like aim for the firstthird get there and then see
where you're at and then moveahead.
I'm paraphrasing and probablyparaphrasing wrong, but it's
always guided me the idea youonly got to write this far and
then see what's going to comenext.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And that's helped me, that I did too, because when I
it's like a journey of some kind, like you're standing at the
beginning of a novel, it's goingto take you a long time.
Even if you're a quick writer,it's still a lot of hours, you
know, to craft that novel andwhen you're standing there
looking at the entirety of it,for my personality and my brain
(36:12):
it can totally overwhelm me.
But if I just think of it achunk at a time, and what are
the scenes that need to be inthat first chunk?
You know that kind of thing.
I think that is just a good tipfor listeners, if you get
overwhelmed, to think of it inpieces.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
And I would advise that for the short story as well
.
I think the idea of writing todiscover can be like I've got an
idea of a character, I've gotan idea of a situation, let me
write to see where it goes.
There's always stuff that youcan cut out later once you have
a better idea about what a storyis about, and I don't always
start stories knowing whatthey're about.
I hope I finish them knowingwhat they're about.
I don't always start in thatway.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
So what advice do you have for writers who are, you
know, maybe not going back foran MFA or not in school, but who
want to continue to improvetheir craft?
You know, how would youapproach that sort of I don't
know process?
I guess?
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, you know, I mean, it's the tried and true
process.
If you want to write shortfiction, read a lot of short
fiction and kind of see how itgoes and read.
You know you want to fill yourmind with good things and use
good models, so it's not readingindiscriminately.
I took a year, challengedmyself at the New Year's
resolution, to read every Edgaraward-winning short story and it
(37:33):
took a while to track some ofthem down and to find them.
You know, whether becausethey're out of print or not easy
to find in addition, easy tofind in addition.
But I learned so much about boththe flexibility of the form,
about the possibilities of theform and about some of the ways
in which some of the things thatwork well in terms of scene
(37:54):
building, summary, juxtapositionof scenes, the movement of
narrative, the fact that yourstory needs to have some sort of
resolution, a sense of closure,but doesn't need to actually
tie things up.
You know ambiguity can workreally well, letting the reader
fill in the end of the page.
So I know I kind of threw a lotof stuff out there, but I do
think by reading constructivelyas opposed to critically
(38:19):
critically as well, but with anidea about.
I'm picking this up because Iwant to learn from it, I think,
is one of the ways to do that.
Now, there's certainly greatcraft guides out there too, and
I could name some of the onesthat I've worked well with, but
I think that actually, lookingat the way a good short story is
put together, the anatomy of it, the flow of it, the movement
(38:41):
of it, will help you when yousit down to try to craft the
architecture and the anatomy andthe pacing and the structure of
your own.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Do you recommend that your students like deconstruct?
If they find a story that theyreally love and it's the kind of
thing they think they want towrite, that they sort of
deconstruct it Like what didthis writer do here, there and
so on, so they could notplagiarize but mimic the form?
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Sure, we actually talked in class the other day
about the idea of stealing andsome people were sort of like,
oh, we don't like that wordstealing.
I'm like, yeah, but what you dois like it's not stealing words
, it's not plagiarizing.
No-transcript.
(39:45):
From looking at what MadisonSmart Bell does and I think I do
it sort of unconsciouslywithout actually making all
those notes in there, to see howsomething works and try to use
that myself.
One exercise I do encourage mystudents to do and I think this
is good at the short story orthe novel level is to take a
couple of pages from a writer.
They love passages or a scenethey particularly admire and
(40:08):
look at the interplay of thingslike dialogue, narration,
description, interiority.
Where does a passage ofinteriority come versus a series
of lines of dialogue, or whereis interiority built in against
a line of dialogue?
And I do ask them todeconstruct a short passage like
that from a stylisticstandpoint so they can say
(40:28):
here's writing that I admire,here's a model that I might
aspire to and here's the waythey do it.
And I have them write I won'tsay it's a pastiche, it's much
more paint by numbers than thatbut then write a scene of their
own in which they mimic thatstyle.
My author has a line of dialogueI'm going to put in a line of
dialogue.
My writer has that charactermake an action.
Let me find an action there, amoment of interiority.
(40:51):
Let me add my own interiority,because I think that helps them
to see the way that scenes areconstructed or stories are
constructed or passages areconstructed.
I think that can be useful.
So, yes, I guess I do to somedegree ask them to take it apart
, though I'm not asking them todo an entire story that way.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
That's an interesting idea.
I took a class, an onlinewriting class, once, and part of
the exercise was to take a fewpages of your own manuscript and
then you had like four colors,you know highlighters, and you
would highlight all thedescriptions and highlight the
dialogue, and then highlight thedialogue or whatever you need
(41:29):
you, and then you would justlook at how much of everything
you had on the page.
Um, but I never thought ofcomparing that to a writer.
I love, I mean, I, just now Iwant to go do that.
That just sounds like fun.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yeah, it is kind of fun.
You can also begin to see whereyour you know stylistic
tendencies are as a writerversus the things that you
admire as a reader.
And where do those?
What can you learn from that?
There's a story about HarryCruz, a Southern novelist, who
apparently says he learned towrite by retyping the entirety
of a Graham Green novel.
(42:04):
Just sat down and typed it outword for word and he said at the
end of it he goes well, now Iknow how to write a novel.
And then he did so.
Maybe there's something to that.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yeah, that's interesting.
I will say like, I think if youread a lot in the genre that
you want to write in, you'regoing to absorb some of that
information already, just sortof naturally, because you're
hearing it in your head asyou're reading.
For those of us that I guesshave that inner monologue side
note, I just found out noteverybody has an inner monologue
, but anyway, I digress, I don'tknow how that's possible, but
(42:36):
anyway.
But but so you do kind ofabsorb some of that, that story
structure, the flow of language,you know, as you normally do it
, but I think, doing it withintentionality, whether that's
even just cop, I kind of likethe idea of just retyping
somebody else's work as anexercise to be like well, let's
just go through this, because Ifeel like the act of typing also
(42:59):
just helps you absorb that more.
It's like when you write notesas you're listening to, you know
, a lecture or whatever.
You know you absorb thatinformation.
So whatever you can do to findthe work that you love to absorb
how they're doing it, so thatyou can then put your own spin
on it not copy it, but put yourown spin on it and make it
(43:21):
unique to you, while stillmaintaining the integrity of the
things that you like about it.
That's a really that's a reallycool idea.
So we have lots of tips here.
I think you can type it out,you can deconstruct a paragraph,
you can deconstruct a shortstory.
You can do all these differentthings to help improve your
craft.
I love that.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, and I think you're right about absorbing
versus that awareness andintentionality.
It's just one slight adjustment, but I think it can make a
difference and I had neverwritten a home invasion story.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
So I found one that I thought was excellent and I
just kind of looked at it on achapter level what did she do in
chapter one, what did she do inchapter two?
How many people were dead bychapter three?
You know, like those kinds ofthings, and it sort of helped me
to get the idea of the pacing,because sometimes different
(44:22):
sub-gen genres also havedifferent pacing.
So you know, I think thatthat's also a cozy mystery
versus an action thriller.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
I mean, those are two sub genres of mystery thriller
and completely different pacing,completely different feel.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Everything about it Exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah.
So if you were going to giveour listeners one more big fat
tip, if they're thinking abouttrying to break into the short
story market, maybe they havesome stories they've written.
Um, what would you tell them?
Uh, apart from some of thethings you've already said,
which is, read a lot of them buthow about one more tip or two
(45:07):
on how to break into the shortstory market?
Speaker 3 (45:11):
From a craft perspective.
I keep coming back to thosewords economy, efficiency and
focus and making sure thatyou've got the best product you
can.
But the bit of advice I'm goingto give is to try to get it out
there, and the one good thingabout the market right now,
particularly in the mysterygenre, is the number of venues
that are available to you Onlinepublications.
We've mentioned Sisters inCrime.
(45:32):
A lot of Sisters in Crimechapters have their own
anthologies, which are dedicatedtoward giving writers sometimes
their first entree into thepublishing world.
Writers sometimes their firstentree into the publishing world
, and often alongside of veteranwriters whose name recognition
(45:52):
might get somebody to pick upthe book and then find your work
as well.
So Ellery Queen's MysteryMagazine, Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine, may be theleading contenders right now in
terms of publications, butthere's a lot of other
publication opportunities outthere and opportunities to get
your work read and to getfeedback.
Not feedback on it in terms oflike what works and what doesn't
work, but to get an audienceout there and a readership for
you, and so I would advisetrying to find those venues and
(46:14):
get out there.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Do you ever advise your students to sign up for
Duotrope?
Speaker 3 (46:19):
I do.
That's one of the things thatI've had folks look at Duotrope
and Submittable.
Both have options where you canfind calls for submission the
Short Mystery Fiction Society.
You can join there and theyoften post calls for submissions
.
I also advise people to look inthe back of the Best American
Mystery and Suspense, bestAmerican Mystery Stories, best
American Short Stories and lookat the publications that are
(46:42):
listed there, both thepublications that have provided
the stories that are in theanthology, but also in the back.
What are the honorable mentions?
Where were they published?
What's the list of magazinesthat the editors are consulting
as a way to start investigatingwhat options are out there?
It's amazing the list that youcan find looking in those ways,
(47:03):
looking in those directions.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
That's great, so why don't you tell people where they
can find out more about you andthe books that you've written?
Speaker 3 (47:12):
Sure, my website is wwwarttaylorwritercom.
I've had people, when I saythat, think I'm talking about
horseback riding because I'mSouthern and I pronounce things
wrong.
But it's arttaylorwriterW-R-I-T-E-Rcom.
And I'm also, you know, onFacebook and on Instagram as
(47:33):
well, and I was off Twitter Xfor a little while but I joined
back so, just because I feltlike I was, I needed a place
there and all those.
Those are Art Taylor Ryder.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
All right, well, this was just great, and we really
appreciate your time with ustoday.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Oh gosh, thanks for having me.
This was a blast.
Speaker 1 (47:52):
And to all you listeners out there.
If you enjoyed this podcast,would you consider sponsoring
the show?
For as little as $3 a month,you can help us keep the lights
on.
And not only that, but we arevery happy to tell the world
(48:13):
about your book, your series oryour product or service that you
have for writers.
So there is a link in the shownotes where you can support us,
and that would be a great help.
Also, if you enjoyed this,please send your favorite
episode to a writer friend anduntil next time, keep your
stories rolling.
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