I attended the Shaping a Short Story Collection seminar at AWP and apparently there’s a format, which is:
1.) Start with a Great Story
2.) End with a Strong Story
3.) Put all the other stories in the middle
Hmmm…This kind of depresses me.
I don’t usually read short story collections consecutively, so all the thought that goes into how to order stories goes to waste on me. Most of the time I decide to read the shortest story in a collection first and then I jump around.
(This is the “tutti-frutti” approach, endorsed by Steve Almond.)
One thing someone said that made sense is that there usually is a personal and emotional order to an author’s short stories that mean something to the writer, but doesn’t resonate with a reader. Ultimately, does it matter what order short stories appear in a book collection?
Popularity: 60% [?]
I printed up the gajillion-page AWP Conference Schedule (and had a mini-fight with the printer to do it) and here are some seminars dedicated to the short story. Of course, this is for the lucky 7,000 people who actually registered on time for their passes. All of you procrastinators can come meet the One Story staff at the Bookfair on Saturday, February 2 at the New York Hilton, which is open to the public.
Thursday - Jan 31
9:00am - 10:15am — Shaping a Short Story Collection
3:00pm - 4:15pm — 25 Years of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction
Friday - February 1
9:00am - 10:15am — Severed Heads, Intercourse, and the Double Epiphany: An Aesthetic Theory of the Short-Short Story
3:00pm - 4:15pm — 100 Issues: A Celebration of One Story Magazine (yay!)
4:30pm - 6:15pm — The State of American Short Fiction
Popularity: 55% [?]
We are introducing a new format for the Save the Short Story website in order to more effectively promote the cause. I’d like this site to become a place where short story writers can huddle around the campfire and share their experiences with each other.
And we are not going to rest until the short story is saved.
Popularity: 33% [?]
