Who Reads Short-Shorts?

 

“Omissions are not accidents.”    –Marianne Moore

For a class on modern professional communications, I have been assigned the topic “the future of the book.” So, through research and my own personal opinions, I haveLightningBoltonblack5188 to determine where the book is going. And while I have noticed a lull in the print book vs. e-book debate (I, myself, am sick of it), I think it’s safe to say that we need not assume that “digital” and “future” are synonymous. At least not when it comes to reading. The future of the book comes down to two words: flash fiction.

Next semester at Washington and Lee, the standard Creative Writing: Fiction class will receive an exciting facelift. Instead of surveying some of the various genres of fiction, this course will study exclusively the short-short story through reading and writing the like. This course is anticipating a major shift in the literary trend toward shorter stories, backed by a not-so-recent but still relevant study that sites students’ diminishing attention spans. As a result of the digital age—where our access to information no longer requires combing library shelves across multiple floors but instead means a quick Google search—the average American’s attention span has decreased from 12 minutes to 5 minutes in the past 10 years. Wow. I’ll try to make this brief…

This is, of course, not a new genre—its roots go back to Aesop’s fables in 600 BCE. But it appears to be emerging in new ways. There are dozens of flash fiction anthologies on the market right now that feature stories by writers such as Lydia Davis, Tobias Wolff, and Robert Olen Butler, and I’m sure plenty of older authors of the genre come to mind—Hemingway, Kafka, Chekhov to name a few. Brevity, an online magazine focused solely on extremely short stories—750 words or fewer—has been around for over a decade. But should we expect even more anthologies, collections, or genre-specific journals in the near future?

Because of the digital shift in publishing, writers, more than ever, must anticipate and write what the public wants (see “Highbrow Horror and American Literature” among the posts below). And if the general public is experiencing a decrease in attention span, then it seems that the short-short is what we ne…

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Elise is a senior at Washington and Lee University. She is from Manhasset, NY and is studying English and Creative Writing.

Why We Write

While perusing my late uncle’s poetry collection Anniversary Songs, I read the words that comforted him during his final years, words that he wrote, no less. While many of James Wronoski’s poems are written for his wife in an attempt to eternalize his love for her, the poet directly addresses his cancer in others. Sometimes, he even addresses them both.

I’ve recognized this in other works, that the words I’m reading are a way of coping with some sort of ailment, be it physical or emotional. I’ve found it in poetry, memoir, and even fiction. The writers’ words heal. There’s an intimacy in allowing others—strangers—to read these emotionally charged words, and it moves me every time.

Catharsis: “The purification of emotions by vicarious experience, esp. through drama.” Aristotle originally used this word in his work on dramatic theory titled Poetics. He used catharsis as a metaphor for how tragedy affects the spectator. Works by various authors, poets, and playwrights succeed in evoking sympathy in the reader or viewer. Perhaps this explains why books—be it fiction or non—poems, plays, and arguably most often movies, can bring tears to audience members’ eyes. By experiencing fear, sorrow, and pain, the readers or viewers can purge these excessive emotionsand are cleansed.

Aristotle_Altemps_Inv8575 4.42.58 PMBut what about the writer? What readers possess is the work in its finished stage. They don’t see it from proposal to publication like the writer does. They don’t have access to the drafts, rewrites, edits, and scraps. But that process is as important to the writer as the final product.

Mimesis: “Imitation; spec. the representation or imitation of the real world in (a work of) art, literature, etc.” Writers often recreate their past experiences through words. They don’t simply purge their emotions, but rather, they acknowledge them. Bringing these events back to life allows some writers to cope.

In the late 1800s, psychoanalyst Josef Breuer developed a psychological treatment for individuals who suffer from hysteria. Breuer’s patients, while under hypnosis, recalled traumatic experiences to evoke emotions that may have been suppressed or forgotten after the trauma. By doing so, the patients noticed their hysteric symptoms dissipated. And I’m under the impression that authors accomplish this completely consciously, intentionally, successfully, and throughout each and every stage of the writing process.

While Aristotle considers how tragedy affects the spectator, he does not address how, or if, tragedy affects the performer. I have found, while reading memoirs, poetry collections, and even novels, that writers often write for both themselves and their reader, and it is worth considering this relationship, especially when the writer invites the reader into a private and personal experience.

Reading Autobiography, a guide written by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, references “scriptotherapy,” a term coined by Suzette Henke in her book Shattered Subjects. Smith and Watson define this word as a response “to signify the process of speaking or writing about trauma in order to find words to give voice to previously repressed memories.” They identify it as an important method to consider when interpreting autobiographical texts, explicitly or not.

Last spring for Shenandoah I recommended Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec. In the post, I discuss how Diaz’s poetry is admittedly autobiographical, and the reader can infer from her jarring, if not graphic, entries that writing this coll3809675ection provided a means of coping for Diaz. This is not to say her writing cured her of her post-colonial traumatic stress, but it at least remedied some wounds.

Likewise, I believe my uncle’s poetry accomplished a similar goal. He wrote in the late stages of cancer and his poems allowed him to confront his disease head-on. One of his poems in particular addresses his cancer directly.

By acknowledging their respective ailments—one physical, one emotional—both poets are able to use the power of writing for good.

But this mechanism is not exclusive to poets. Memoirists also find comfort in exploiting their troubled pasts. Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club retells her dysfunctional childhood with an alcoholic, and sometimes pyromaniac, mother and an occasionally absent father.

It even applies to fiction. Marilynne Robinson’s epistolary novel Gilead features a dying narrator, Reverend John Ames, who writes letters to his young son. Rev. Ames laments that his son will grow up fatherless, and he attempts to quell this regret through these letters. He writes with the intention of creating a legacy for his son—an all-inclusive genealogy and stories about his own father—but ends up providing himself with closure.

Wronoski, Diaz, Karr, and Robinson’s works were each part of a long and intensive process that no doubt featured countless edits, rewrites, and scraps that each offered another kind of satisfaction. Discovering the perfect details, no matter the form, can itself be cathartic, perhaps even more then the purgative nature of spilling emotions onto a first draft.

christinas-world1These examples demonstrate why writers write, and even why readers read, why painters paint or musicians compose. The list is unexhausted on both accounts; the medium does not change or dictate the cathartic or mimetic nature of art. Artists can find—via an accumulation of words, of paint, or notes—the perfect confines for their unique experiences.

*Catharsis and Mimesis as defined by OED.


Elise is a senior at Washington and Lee University. She is from Manhasset, NY and is studying English and Creative Writing.

An Answer a Day

Q&A

I have an annou ncement to make: three months into 2014 I am still going strong with my New Year’s resolution.  I commend those of you who don’t share this problem, but for whatever reason I rarely follow through.  I resolved to write a journal entry every day of 2014.  And 2015, and 2016, and 2017, and 2018.  A five-year resolution, you ask?  Well, while doing some last minute Christmas shopping with my friend, we came across the “Q&A a day: 5-Year Journal.”  Each page lists the month and day, and below that offers five sections of three lines each.  The sections of lines provide a spot to fill in the current year followed by your answer.  It’s like a time capsule to keep track of how your opinions, concerns, and feelings change over the course of five years.  A little daunting, but intriguing enough for me to decide that I should buy myself a stocking stuffer.

            I’ll be the first to admit that every now and then there’s a piddling question that I don’t care to answer.  For instance, “Are you wearing socks?” (July 16).  Does that really matter?  No, but there are enough questions to make the trivial ones worth my time.  Some even apply to literature and creative writing.  For example, every October 26 I have to answer: “How are you?  Write it in a rhyming couplet.”  On July 11 I’ll be asked, “If you were a literary character, who would you be?”  Others are more personal, some less serious.  I’m especially looking forward to tracking how many stamps are in my passport on August 11 of each year.

            While these entries differ from a traditional journal’s, a sentence a day is still a great way to chronicle your year.  When I studied in Florence the summer before my sophomore year in high school, my grandparents gave me a travel journal.  My Nana told me, “You don’t have to write a lot each day, but you should write something each day.  Even just one sentence will trigger enough memories when you revisit your journal.”  I completed her task for the few weeks I was abroad, and after flipping through the journal years later I realized she was right.  So although this form of journaling is unusual, it will hopefully result in a similar outcome.

            The objective of this, or any journal, is to find some continuity in an ever-changing life.  I am guaranteed to have at least one constant for the next five years, and that is something I find comforting.  It is too early to tell how my answers are changing, but in the next five years I hope to learn more about myself, to see how my opinions have shifted, and to track how my writing has evolved.  It is worth exploring a new form of writing, and it is important to write every day.

            Do you journal?  Is it a daily activity, or reserved for days when something significant happens?  Would this 5-year journal appeal to you?


Elise is a senior at Washington and Lee University. She is from Manhasset, NY and is studying English and Creative Writing.