story significance

Thoughts on Fiction and Story: Response to a Workshop Question

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Question submitted to workshop. In a short story, is it NECESSARY to have the character on a mission trying to accomplish something? William Trevor and Alice Munro have so often been cited as masters of the short story form, and often I can’t figure out what their characters are “up to.” What are they trying “to do.” It just feels like they show characters living their lives. Let me know what you think? (Submission anonymous) Answer I admit I come with a very narrow aesthetic sense at this. It’s story that makes me warm and fuzzy, stories where something happens … Read More…

Literary Stories Must Be Significant

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Great literary stories have a purpose for being written. They say something and they say it well. Fiction is the best way to achieve this. It allows story development unhindered by descriptions of a set reality and provides unlimited choices in character motivations and actions that support the purpose and momentum of the story. Significance is not achieved when the fiction is loosely conceived. The author’s conscious will has to be in control of the story creation, and not simply left to ideas that might bubble up from the unconscious or are discovered in the description of a life experience … Read More…