Interesting discussion over at Sarah’s place about the current state of short stories. Now, I love short stories. I suspect I caught it from my mother, a former teacher. She had an old copy of TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL – lifted from the library in her hometown! – and I remember reading it and her Alfred Hitchcock anthologies and Roald Dahl and KISS ME AGAIN, STRANGER when I was a kid. My mother was heavily into horror.

I discovered Rex Stout as a teen, and I have almost all the Nero Wolfe ‘triple’ books, each with three long stories. As someone else once noted, this was his best length. Many of his novels had a stretched-out feel.

Then I got into science fiction. I probably have 50 sci-fi anthologies stashed in my attic. But it seemed to get stale after a while, and I switched to crime fiction about 10 years ago. I have another 50 or so collections of that. That’s about 2,000 short stories, and I’ve read almost every one.

I suppose I even have a formula for when I write one. I like to jump right into the action with a line like “Babjak pulled to the curb and cut the engine,” or “It’s tough to follow someone who doesn’t know where he’s going.” Then a brief but (hopefully) strong setup, and a complication or two to change direction, followed by a strong close.

And that close has to be strong. Most short stories exist only as a vehicle for their ending. A novel can be enjoyed as a destination, but in a short story, there has to be a “there” there. The end must pay off the rest of the story.

These days I tend to prefer stories about character rather than plot, but a good plot twist is nothing to sneeze at. It’s tough to put together all the elements and make them all work, but it’s very satisfying. I love it… when a plan comes together.