Strategy or Tutti-Frutti?
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: 50% [?]
Well, I’d say that depends on whether the stories are linked or are serials (as in Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes”), or if they are stand-alones.
All the best,
H.
Comment by Heather S. Ingemar — January 31, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
It’s kind of like the question of whether you like albums better, or single tracks; whether you listen to an album start to finish, or just pick around. I like to think the order matters, even if on a subconscious level -
Comment by Matthew Tiffany — February 1, 2008 @ 6:17 pm