When in Doubt, Time Travel

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about endings. No, not of the Roland Emmerich “Oh my God, the Mayans were right, save us, John Cusack, save us!” variety, but more in terms of our craft as writers. What can I say? Endings are tough. Especially when it comes to short fiction, a form that should, as Kurt Vonnegut once noted, start as close to the end as possible. And since simply inserting the phrase “The End” no longer provides the same amount of closure it once did in the second grade, I find myself—as a writer—all-too-often fearing, well, the end.

Of course, everyone has their theory on how to successfully construct an ending. And while I’ve been in enough fiction workshops to realize that everyone’s an expert, I recall one in particular in which our instructor—a brilliant writer herself known for her ability to slap the norms of short fiction in the face with a leather glove—informed us, on the first day of class, of the four short story endings that were hereby forbidden from use, not only for that semester, but the rest of our humble writing lives, Amen.

So. While I won’t attempt to formulate the perfect ending to that story you’ve been working on about the time you spent an entire summer carving babies out of blocks of cheese while the rest of the kids at camp actually got to second and third base, I can provide, in no particular order, four endings you can sure as hell rule out:

Forbidden Ending #4: And They Were All Cows

Fooling us readers into believing we’ve been following a group of lost souls as they wander the lonely country side in search of love, hope, hatred, pain—some form of human connection—only to reveal on the very last page that they were all, in fact, cows looking for nothing more than some grass to chew is just not cool. Unless your Donald Barthelme—then you get a pass.

Forbidden Ending #3: The Big Explosion

There’s a pretty phrase in Latin that alludes to the moment that the writer has clearly hit a wall in plot, and so he must bring in an all-too-convenient—not to mention often loud, messy, and completely random—occurrence to go BOOM!, shake things up a bit, and provide his protagonists (not to mention readers) with some kind of consolation . And while the phrase eludes me each time, there is an unofficial American translation for this phenomenon: The Stephen King. (Don’t get me wrong—I’m a fan of Mr. King, but c’mon, he says it himself when providing background to one of his earliest novels.) So unless you’re sitting on The Return of Cujo--or better yet, It 2: That--just don’t do it.

Forbidden Ending #2: Hospital Bed Death Scene

Or any variation thereof. It’s weepy, melodramatic and, well, easy. But let me clarify: some brilliant stories have been—and will continue to be—written about death (read Sherman Alexie’s short story, War Dances, now). The difference, however, between the good and the bad, is that the good will never use death as a way to neatly wrap up any and all prevalent themes; but instead, as a way to crack open the much more complex behavior of the still-living. In other words, if you must kill off grandma, do it with that big explosion. We’ll forgive you this one time.

Forbidden Ending #1: And it Was All a Dream

Maybe we’ve all used the dream sequence before in our writing—that one colorful scene where we get to throw from the window all that pesky logic that’s been holding back our story from the beginning. And while dream sequences are fun in that anything goes (not to mention it’s a sure-fire way to bring any lurking psychosis to the surface) the problem is, when the story itself can be dismissed as a mere night of tossing and turning, well, then us readers are going to want to throw something else out the window as well. And that’s completely logical.

So there you have it. But it doesn't all have to be bad. There are, of course, those techniques that certain writers have been bold enough to actually encourage. I’m thinking of another instructor—this one at Iowa—who was very clear about what to do should you find yourself at that moment when the story is calling for an ending, but you have no idea where to, uh, begin. His advice? Flashback. Go back in time. Return your character to a moment in childhood, a simpler time, a first date, a first fall, a first kiss, a first heartbreak, a first anything—just return, I say, return!

Since hearing this, I’ve actually come to notice the countless number of famous stories that utilize this method, which makes me wonder: will the flashback ever grace a forbidden endings list in a creative writing workshop far, far away? Maybe. But until then, I have yet to spot a chink in the armor (I blame Tobias Wolff for making it look so easy) and so in honor of the literary time travelers before me—and because I now sit at the very moment in question—I offer you this:

When I was five or six years old, my dad read me a bed time story and I remember complaining about the ending, to which he said it wasn’t the ending—not really—but merely the moment the writer got tired of telling the story. So if I didn’t like it, he said, I should feel free to find a better one. He turned off the light and I lay there, imagining the Berenstain Bears sitting around a table, not doing much of anything, not even talking, just staring at one another—Mama, Papa, Brother, and Sister—waiting I guess, waiting for me, and I realized then that endings were easier said than done. But if I closed my eyes, maybe I’d dream up a real good one.

Best of Our Stories in Print!

Dear all,

I'm proud to announce that we are now in print at long last.

The Best of Our Stories combines all the stories and interviews and essays from each volume bound in a classy looking paperback.

Find more information here at http://www.ourstories.us/publishing

Thank you all for your support and help!

another workshop success story

Our Stories workshop student Townsend Walker writes that a story which we worked on this past Spring will be published by Pine Tree Mysteries in February. Keep your eyes open for this twisty little tale of double murder. Any other former students out there holding out on us? Do let us know when you publish the stories we workshopped--I, for one, get a huge rush knowing that all your hard work paid off.

On Alice Munro

Alice Munro is much revered in MFA programs, including my own at Emerson College. I think it may be law that every MFA graduate read and analyze at least one of her short stories, if not several of her collections.

This annoys many. She's not edgy. Her language isn't flashy or fun. She's not experimental. She's often melodramatic and her plot lines can feel heavily constructed. Plus, her stories mainly take place in her native rural Canada---how unsexy is that? (Sorry Canadians. But really.)

I fell in love with the stories in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage even before I began studying writing at Emerson. "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" (which was made into the film Away From Her ) is the best love story I've ever read. It gave me a new appreciation for what it means to grow old, and what it means to be devoted to another person. I think of it often. Stories that stick with you are great stories.

I like Munro. She chose the short story form because she wrote while she raised children, and it was what she could fit into her life, around nap times and later, the school day. She writes about women, families, and aging. Again, not always sexy material, but material with depth. And she mines it for all its worth.

Her new book, Too Much Happiness, was reviewed in the NYTimes yesterday. I suspect it's worth a read, even if its not her "best work" as the reviewer suggests. Were my best writing Munro's worst, I'd be a happy writer.

Best of Our Stories coming soon...

Dear all,

We have been squeezing in extra hours for the past two months to create the Best of Our Stories volumes 1 & 2. Jo Hsu, our publishing intern this summer was instrumental in getting this done. Today I ordered the final drafts of proofs and I should receive them this week. Baring no additional errors in the volumes they will both be available to order by next week.


On the cover we feature the art work of Saint Louis based Colin Michael Shaw. He was generous enough to lend us the pieces and I am proud to showcase his work. Find more about him at http://www.shawart.com

Stay tuned on ordering instructions!

A View from the World of Book Publishing

In September, Daniel Menaker wrote an illuminating essay about trade publishing from the publisher's perspective. Menaker is the fiction editor of The New Yorker and was the former Executive Editor-in-Chief of Random House so he's got some power and experience on the subject. Go check it out.

Really. Go ahead.

I'll wait.

...

...

Fine, fine. I know it's a long piece. So here are some of the bits I found most interesting:

Most trade books do not succeed, financially....Many books that do show a profit show a profit so small that it only minimally darkens a company's red ink.

Not particularly sunny news for those of us hoping to land a book deal, is it? So what books are successful?

[M]ost of the really profitable books for most publishers still come from the mid-list -- "surprise" big hits with small or medium advances, such as that memoir by a self-described racial "mutt" of a junior senator from Chicago. Somehow, by luck or word of mouth, these books navigate around the rocks and reefs upon which most of their fleet -- even sturdy vessels -- founder.

Not so helpful either, is it? How does one become the author of a surprise hit? Menaker doesn't know. No one knows. Much of success is chance. There are too many books published (Menaker guesses 75 "half-decent" ones) per week, and not enough review space to accommodate them.

Okay, now I'm depressing myself. How about something on writers?

[T]his is a business fuelled largely by writers' need for attention, and no one wants to crush any writer's dreams before a book is even published. Especially since every now and then they actually come true....

Usually, writers, like anyone else who performs in public and desires wide recognition, no matter how successful they become, have an unslakeable thirst for attention and approval -- in my opinion (and, I'm embarrassed to say, in my own case) usually left over from some early-childhood deficit or perception of deficit in the attention-and-approval department. You will frequently find yourself serving as an emotional valet to the people you work with.

Great. He thinks we're all nuts and require great coddling. Hmmm. Probably a little true for some of us. Maybe even most of us. So maybe the buried advice here is to get thee into therapy and leave your baggage at the door when you land your book deal and leave your poor editor alone.

Despite their often intense neediness, writers are often fascinating and stimulating company.

Ahhh. Much better. We are stimulating company! And producing thought-provoking literature from us is what Menaker loves most, and wants the reading public to crave, even if he does think there are only "about a million very good -- engaged, smart, enthusiastic -- generalist readers in America."

I'd like to think that the Our Stories audience factors into that million, and that our passion for excellence in the written word will keep the publishing industry from crumbling.

But if not, I guess we'll have online literary magazines to write for and read.

Welcoming our new staff

At Our Stories we seem to increasing our waist line. We started off quite small, there were four others besides myself. It's amazing watching Our Stories grow and increase its pool of talent. This most recent recruitment brings the staff size to 15 staff members.

I'd like to welcome the following staff members into the fold: Cheri Johnson, Steven Ramirez, Kseniya Melnik, MK Hall, Want Chyi and Jennifer Ruden.

They all were thoroughly tested to ensure they would meet the challenge of reading and critiquing your stories.

For now that's all. I've asked them all to chime in and maybe post their bios, otherwise you can find more information here on the staff page.

Makes it all worthwhile

Not often I jump in on the blog, but I have to give a shout-out to writer Dani Raschel Jiménez who completed a workshop with me in May.

Here I sat in my desk chair, still adrenaline-high from my own reading at KGB (it went great, thanks audience, I was even surprised by my current Deluxe workshop student showing up, delightful!) and into my inbox pops the notification that the new issue of Fickle Muses is up, featuring "Reasonably Unforseeable"--a story by none other than our own Dani Raschel Jiménez! "Reasonably Unforseeable" was a really twisty, very magic-realism, practically slipstream story that Dani worked hard. And hard work, as they say, pays off: she made it happen. Read "Reasonably Unforseeable" at www.ficklemuses.com! Congratulations Dani--it's fantastic, and all of us at Our Stories are proud of you.

Inspiration, Courtesy of WC Vasquez

A few weeks ago, I shamelessly solicited inspiration from Our Stories readers in exchange for a free copy of Musical Chairs. You know, I did this because I feel a sort of separation anxiety, after six years of my life going into one project, it can be an intimidating prospect to begin again.

Our Stories readers came through. In fact, I might try to work this in to our blog more often because personally, I needed a quick shot of inspiration. I think all writers do at some point. There is a certain cathartic experience we all share as storytellers.

I'd say the following quote pretty much sums it up, and better, it makes me want to write. Writing is a tough profession, but, as Vasquez states, we do it for a reason. After countless hours of our time: typing away or poring over notebooks, exchanging critiques, revising and reworking, cutting an pasting and worrying over word choice, structure, and voice all comes together just right, there's nothing like it.

So... Why Do You Write?


The right words at the right time with the right audience: bliss.

-WC Vasquez

This quote struck me because it's short, sweet, to the point.

About the Writer:

WC Vasquez first noticed that her words had an affect on people when she was seven years old: after listening to her confession, her priest paused for a few seconds before saying: "Wow. You express yourself really well. You should think about a career in public speaking." Several thousand Hail Marys later, she has begun speaking to a wider audience. Her work has appeared in Writer Advice.com, Writer's Digest, and The Sun. She lives in Berkeley, California where she is writing a collection of short fiction.

Fall 2009 Issue has arrived

Fall 2009 has gone live. We're proud to publish these outstanding short stories along with an amazing interview with Dorothy Allison:
"Saving Instructions" by Maragret McMullan
"Finding Perfect" by Adam Smith
"Catcher's Say" by Adam Smith
"Leaving" by Greg Girvan
"Forecast" by Ira Sukrungruang
and "Winter's Coming" by Mark Wolsky

I share the story of how I got into Mason's MFA program as well in my essay "Labor of Love"


Enjoy ya'll.

The Art of Defying Death

Everyone should damn well go out and read Elizabeth's piece in the New York Times. The Art of Defying Death. Her writing is something of a treasure and her frank openness leaves you emotionally raw. We are lucky to have her as part of our staff.

Thank you Elizabeth.

Our Stories ~ Book Giveaway

The moment every author dreams of, works toward and gives up on time and time again only to return to, dream of once again and work toward all the harder has arrived for me. Musical Chairs is now available. No take-backs. And, now that my five long years of work is contained, with its own cover and ISBN, I am thrilled. In the spirit of Our Stories, the journal that gives back, I'd like to give a copy away.

So, I'm soliciting inspiration. I want to know why you write. For those readers who are interested, please email me at Jen@ourstories.us with a single sentence that illustrates why you stick with it, why you feel compelled to put pen to paper, to share your words with the world.

That's one sentence, expressing your love for writing. It seems easy, right? Well, it's not. Go ahead and try it.

I will be collecting submissions until October 20th, 2009.

Vooks

Sure, now I am a proud member of the Our Stories staff, working for an online literary journal that offers everyone who submits a personal response in the largely impersonal publishing world that greets beginning writers. Before I was introduced to Our Stories, however, I wasn't so sure about the merit of an online journal. To my mind, print journals reigned supreme, and those that were easy-access were not as discriminating.

That said, after being introduced to the world of e-literature, which has burgeoned over the last five years, allowed those from a wider demographic to have access to the same work, and likewise, allowed those from a wider demographic to submit work, I have changed my mind. Moreover, I now have become a dedicated reader of many online literary journals, from which I find inspiration and entertainment. That said, I am still only a fan of the online literary journal, not the online book.

I have read a few e-books, and though I was able to get through them, I have to admit, I felt the experience lacking. I craved the actual feel of a book in my hand--the ability to underline and dog ear pages, the very act of flipping a page. For novels and memoirs I have read this way, I found that a good book is able to transcend experience. I still enjoyed disappearing into the vast worlds suggested by a good writer; but there's something about having a physical book...

Today, I was forwarded an article on Vooks. I won't burden readers with my largely biased thoughts about the eminent Vook. Have you heard of these things yet? Well, according to a recent New York Times article, Simon & Schuster will soon release four Vooks. They hybrids, in a sense, part book, part movie, "which intersperse videos throughout electronic text that can be read — and viewed — online."1

I would love to invite any feedback on this new wave of publishing. To me, it seems to suggest that the literary industry is slowly dying, leaving a larger market for film. Oh, but I said I wouldn't burden you with my thoughts, so forget that last comment. Will anyone miss the act of imagining characters? The unique feel of inventing the imagined worlds a novelist creates or the vivid scenes of a powerful peice of nonfiction?

Or, do you think it's fantastic? The visual and literary worlds were bound to merge and we only benefit from the hybrid entertainment?

I'd love some perspective. I'm feeling a bit obstinate (perhaps old fashioned?) here...




1. BOOKS | October 01, 2009
Curling Up With Hybrid Books, Videos Included
By MOTOKO RICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/books/01book.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Into the Morloch Hole

Always intrigued about that place where pop culture and literature intersect, some of us at OS took time out from our onerous and heady reading load (we were deep into HG Wells’s The Time Machine) to tune in to the premier episode of the new sitcom set in Brooklyn piloted by lit-world fixture Jonathan Ames, Bored to Death. We ourselves were in fact bored by the proliferation of trite one-liners and bizarre scatological humor, which didn’t quite resonate with us for some reason, and decided to retire to our electronic armchair. Here Ames’s oevre in text could be found. Being the old fashioned sort, we were much more illuminated by the material in his new book, The Double Life is Twice as Good. Perhaps it’s even thrice as good.

Something that caught our eye

We thought this was a pretty cool article in The Believer, partly because it follows a kind of journalistic impetus while at the same time breaking most every rule we ever learned in grad school about form, function and flow. How one (aka Rich Cohen) might get from a cultural history of the Model T to a day on the used car lot with his hard-sell dad in the mid 70s, well all we could say was Snoopy couldn't have done it better flying through the sky his Red Baron uniform. Vroom.

Summer 2009 Issue has arrived!

So, it usually takes me a few days to shake the cobwebs out of my head after I've finished an issue. We have though, as you can tell, published another round of great fiction and an amazing interview with Stuart Dybek. Bravo. Bravo.

The winners of the Emerging Writer Award are as follows:


First Place:
Shane Kraus for the story "Negotiating the Truth"

Second Place:
Caroline Bailey Lewis for the story, "Gutter"

Runners up:
Erik Hoel for the story "Big Cats"
Cynthia Hawkins for the story "Hope before 3:15"

This year we had a number of exceptional stories that deserved honorable mention and I'm proud to list those stories here.

Donna Walker-Nixon "Other Toys"
Jennifer Lee "Cobra"
Jim Miller "Frequency of Failure"
Taylor Brown "Manatee"
David Breitkopf "No Problem"
Daryl Morazzini"When They Come"

It is my hope that these authors will think of us (as will all the rest of you who submitted during this contest) when they work on their stories through another draft and decide to send them out again.

Thanks to everyone who submitted to the contest and we look forward to another great round of fiction in a couple of months.

anthology seeking submissions

The Main Street Rag (an indie publisher) is actively seeking good stories about "Coming Home"--so if anyone has a really great story they sent to us and have edited that suits that theme, even loosely, do send it on. Be aware that this is an anthology, so the submision guidelines are very strict: read the fine print and follow the instructions. Nothing gets you rejected faster than ignoring an editor's request on font size.

Please be advised that Our Stories is not connected to Main Street Rag, nor do I personally know more than what's posted on their site: http://tiny.cc/anthology580

This is just an informational post to those of you who are ready to see your names in a book. Good luck! And drop an email if you get placed.

just something interesting

A good friend of mine asked me over coffee recently what I look for in a "good" story.

"Something interesting," I said, "right from the beginning."

Without question, every story's different, since every story's meaning and purpose differ from others. Still, revising stories to ensure something of interest awaits readers in those earliest passages can sometimes guide writers to pinpoint a story's meaning and purpose and even more fluidly unfurl a story with those goals in mind.

A story we published in our recent issue, Erik Koel's Big Cats caught my interest from those opening passages. Something strange happens, and that strangeness conveys to me some emotional weight Daniel, the story's main character who walks with invisible tigers his entire life, seems to feel.

Reflecting on other stories that move me, I'd say other ways to make interesting opening passages involve tones with cunning metaphor, sardonic intellect, or vivid imagery pregnant with implicit meaning.

In the end, the best advice anyone can give is probably what Stuart Dybek just gave in the interview we did with him, which is read a lot and write every day.