L. Miller Minutes

For the longest time¹, I have been preoccupied with the idea of the short story; its form, function, lessons to be learned, perspectives of the author, how authors stretch or squeeze timelines in shortform prose, how scenes are framed and limited, and how over time, short stories still present themselves as a more than adequate means of presenting emotion, whit, debate, endeavor, intimacy, self-quandary for characters, and a story.

Short stories feel deliberate to me, a quality I enjoy. I like knowing an author is going to flex their creative muscle within certain self-imposed constraints, and I get the sense that authors who set out to write a short story walk a tightrope between artistic freedom and experimentation, and craftmanship – whether intentional or unintentional. For the Master of the Macabre, literary kingpin, and humongous critic of all, Edgar Allen Poe, short stories should be able to be read in one sitting. To go one step further and quote Poe in his review of Nathaniel Hawthorn’s Twice-Told Tales:

In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem; but undue length is yet more to be avoided.

Edgar Allen Poe, Graham’s Magazine, May, 1842.

I’m not sure I subscribe to the same strict view as Edgar, but to a certain extent the man had a point (despite his own wordiness) – undue length is yet more to be avoided. I could see how this could be a traditional (outdated) view to more freeform or stream of consciousness storytelling methods, but I suppose there exists an imaginary length threshold where once the threshold is crossed, the short story becomes a plain old story and Mr. Poe’s disapproval grows.

Of course human history has presented no shortage of short stories, some following Poe’s strictness and others likely not – WordPress itself has terabytes of self-published short stories each with less than 10 readers, and that’s only one blog platform of many. What compels humans to endlessly dig into ourselves and playfully (or painfully) craft a story? Prestige? Money? An innate desire to tell stories encoded into our DNA? This is a question outside of my own area of expertise, however, I assume anthropology, philosophy, and neuroscience are likely in pursuit of an answer to that question, if not already found.

For me, the short story is all of those things – a vague, deliberate, short form story-telling tradition that humans have miraculously decided to maintain through the proverbial all else; across civilizations that no longer exist, cultures that morph, and creeds abandoned.

My dorm room neighbor in college was really into writing haikus, and when he wasn’t recording ASMR videos from his room, he was making it a daily habit to write at least one haiku, and he’d sometimes present them at open mic night readings. I asked him why he enjoyed haikus, and he described them like eating a piece of cotton candy, a particularly buttered piece of popcorn, or a refreshing slice of cucumber – they can be momentary blips of flavor, a palate cleanser, a wash of warmth, or forgotten. To me, I think this line of reasoning of my neighbor can be extended for short stories – they are moments, a rainstorm in the plains, a power outage where only candlelight can suffice, a bee landing on a flower. Reading short stories is a practice in enjoying the little things, having a scene laid out before the reader to analyze, enjoy or forget (of course we hope for enjoyment).

As a personal project for myself to explore short stories and sample the works of their authors, I’ll be reading 100 Great American Short Stories (Dover Thrift Edition), 2020 and providing commentary for each story.

My end goal of this project is to have contributed to the ongoing tradition of short story telling particularly in the American vein, connect to my home country’s literature while abroad, develop a literary repertoire to eventually draft my own short stories, share more uncategorized photography, and to have fun. Stay tuned.

Cheers.

1. Around 5 years ago, I picked up a copy of The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, Second Edition, Edited by Joyce Carol Oates as a means of sampling different authors prior to going deep into their respective works. Turns out, I enjoyed the short stories so much, I rarely went into the various authors’ larger works. ↩︎