How to write a literary-ish short story
Oct. 24th, 2011 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flonnebonneHow to write a literary-ish short story:
1. Use present tense.
2. Make it kind of poetical.
3. Choose a symbol, make sure to mention it several times.
4. Everything should be, like, vague. Especially endings.
5. Make sure you never use unpretty words like "fart" or "kewpie doll." Artistic-sounding porn words are okay though.
6. Endeavour to develop a sense of ennui/melancholy/nostalgia/etc. in your characters, even if they are usually cheerful folk.
7. Use conjunctions a lot. (Not "butter, flour, and water" but "butter and flour and water")
8. Judiciously use comma splices. ("Choose a symbol, make sure to mention it several times.") But make sure you make it obvious that you know what a comma splice is and that they should only be used judiciously.
9. Repeat some stuff. Ellipse some words. ("I cannot walk in shadow, [and I] cannot walk in light.")
10. Include some run-on or incomplete sentences if so desired. (Incomplete sentence.)
I could go on, but ten is a nice round number.
And now for an example of a literary-ish short story:
Cake Time
Hikaru is making a cake.
The cake is airy and light and full of hopes and dreams and birthday wishes.
Hikaru usually doesn't make cakes, but. He likes cakes.
He works hard on it, works until the mixture is in the oven and it rises and fills with tiny air pockets, tiny so as not to make the texture coarse, of course, but so that the airiness reminds him of Sai who was a ghost, who never had a body of his own, who is gone now, which is sad.
His eyes fill with tears, and he wonders if Sai ever wanted cake too.
He asks his question to the air, but the air gives no reply.
All it gives him is some pretty good cake.
-End-
I suppose this is a remix of my fic One Thousand Candles?
The next actual story I post here is totally going to follow all these rules.
1. Use present tense.
2. Make it kind of poetical.
3. Choose a symbol, make sure to mention it several times.
4. Everything should be, like, vague. Especially endings.
5. Make sure you never use unpretty words like "fart" or "kewpie doll." Artistic-sounding porn words are okay though.
6. Endeavour to develop a sense of ennui/melancholy/nostalgia/etc. in your characters, even if they are usually cheerful folk.
7. Use conjunctions a lot. (Not "butter, flour, and water" but "butter and flour and water")
8. Judiciously use comma splices. ("Choose a symbol, make sure to mention it several times.") But make sure you make it obvious that you know what a comma splice is and that they should only be used judiciously.
9. Repeat some stuff. Ellipse some words. ("I cannot walk in shadow, [and I] cannot walk in light.")
10. Include some run-on or incomplete sentences if so desired. (Incomplete sentence.)
I could go on, but ten is a nice round number.
And now for an example of a literary-ish short story:
Cake Time
Hikaru is making a cake.
The cake is airy and light and full of hopes and dreams and birthday wishes.
Hikaru usually doesn't make cakes, but. He likes cakes.
He works hard on it, works until the mixture is in the oven and it rises and fills with tiny air pockets, tiny so as not to make the texture coarse, of course, but so that the airiness reminds him of Sai who was a ghost, who never had a body of his own, who is gone now, which is sad.
His eyes fill with tears, and he wonders if Sai ever wanted cake too.
He asks his question to the air, but the air gives no reply.
All it gives him is some pretty good cake.
-End-
I suppose this is a remix of my fic One Thousand Candles?
The next actual story I post here is totally going to follow all these rules.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 08:31 am (UTC)Disagree with 4, though. The content itself is never vague-- it's really the vague situation the character is written in, the selection of an seemingly unimportant scene that in real life would never get much particular thought by anyone but somehow results in a defining insight into how the character's deepest parts of his soul functions because inference and interpretation is totally freaking awesome, that does the trick for 6. You're left asking: should I feel melancholy after reading? Hopeful? Is the cake a lie?
The damn cake is always a lie!
Date: 2011-10-25 09:58 pm (UTC)I think you're right about #4. There are literary-ish fics with vague or confusing plot points, but it's not a pre-requisite to being literary-ish.
It doesn't HAVE to be an ordinary daily scene, although I think fandom really really leans that way. There's a feminist theory in there somewhere ain't there.
LOL literary insight. I love the stuff, but it leads not to RL insight. I am terrible at reading people.
Download This is my own
Date: 2011-11-11 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 03:24 pm (UTC)(I don't think I can post such things at that community, so just posted here for convenience. I do recommend having the paper one, but it's handy to have the electric version too, for easy question answering, I can skip actually scanning my own paper copy...)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 11:38 pm (UTC)What do you use to read djvu files? I am unfamiliar with the format. Do you use one of the browser plug-ins?
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Date: 2011-11-29 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-30 05:21 am (UTC)