Short Stories Are My Fanfic To Your Professional Literature

[rodo]

Okay, so I posted a story a few days ago that probably only a few of you noticed. I got reviews, and they're generally positive. The review that spawned this post was positive too, but since it was the first of its kind that I received, I felt the need to talk about it. See, the story was 1200 words long. And the reviewer critized the following:

1. You're only writing short stories to avoid criticism. Translation: You're afraid of playing with the grown-ups (but you don't have to be, I swear!)
2. Your short stories are so great, but they're just short stories. Translation: You're wasting your talent on X when you could do Y.
3. You'd get more reviews if you only just wrote longer stories, simply stretch the material. Translation: Why are you doing this? It's totally pointless because nobody appreciates you!

Okay, so my translations probably aren't that accurate, and I didn't exactly quote her review either. But it's what I got out of it, and it reminded me of something I've heard before: Why are you writing fanfic when you could write a real book? The answer, of course, is because I want to. And I thought most of fandom got that by now. Then why do short stories get the same treatment fanfics get? Is it really so hard to understand that:

1. I'm not running away from the world when I write a short story. I just like writing short stories.
2. I really don't care about wasting my not-so-great talent on something. I want to have fun.
3. If I want to become a BNF, I'll write that novel-length id-fic (I'm working on it, actually - the fic, not the BNF thing). Until then, I'm happy in my obscurity.

I don't write for feedback. I love it and I crave it, but I don't write for it. I've made up stories for as long as I remember. I couldn't stop writing in my head no matter how much I wanted to (well, I would if I took my meds, but that's a different story). I write because I like it. Sometimes I write long stories (even though most never see the net, thank God), sometimes I write short stories, sometimes I write poems, and sometimes I write stuff that doesn't even have a label (like that Velvet Goldmine songfic/lyric/poem hybrid - no, I won't show it to anyone). And I like it that way.

I get that many people prefer to read long stories. I prefer to read long stories myself. But when someone writes an excellent oneshot, I'm happily going to put it in my favourites and rec it. I can enjoy short stories too, and when it comes to fanfic, the little errors often accumulate over the course of a story, so at the moment, most of the fics on my delicious account are actually medium length (5 - 15k). Longer does not equal better, especially if you stretch the content of 2000 words on 10k. It doesn't work like that. Not to mention that longer and chaptered stories have an entirely different pacing that is incredibly difficult to master.

Also: There's no natural progression from short fanfic -> long fanfic -> genre pro-fic -> high literature. Literature doesn't work like that. My favourite poet got a Nobel Prize for writing pieces that fit on a page (and so did others). Neil Gaiman still writes short stories (he even wrote a drabble!). Naomi Novik is still active in fandom. If it's good, it's good; if it's bad, it's bad. But no type of story is inherently not worth writing or a waste of talent.

Comments

[anotherslashfan]

I totally agree. Every form of literature (in the broadest sense) has its own rules and its own pitfalls. Short stories are, by the way, one of the hardest forms! Everything can rock if done well - like you I usually prefer long stories but I've come to treasure short oneshots as well, because they do things a novel simply can't. It's an amazing art.
So don't let yourself be pulled down by a review like that.

[rodo]

I don't let myself be pulled down, because overall, the review was positive. It even said that the oneshot was among the better ones on the archive. But then the reviewer started to give tipps on how I could stretch the story until it became several chapters long, which ... yeah.

[khana]

yeah, no, what?
people don't write short stories because they are afraid of critical feedback. (i even went and looked for the review to see what you had paraphrased, and, what?) that's just stupid. I mostly write oneshots, 500-2000 words, sometimes longer, too. I've never had anyone think I'm afraid of long stories. (I've only had the usual 'looking forward o the next chapter' after every other oneshot.)

I prefer to read novel- or novella-length, as well, but I'll go for stories of any length that i find recced.

[rodo]

(I've only had the usual 'looking forward o the next chapter' after every other oneshot.)

I've had those before as well, and people asked me if I would write more for a fandom before too, but I never got something like this before. I really didn't know how to deal with it because I even felt bad ranting about a review that was telling me how good my story was.

[seanlily]

I think it's reading fan fiction that led me to appreciate short stories. I never used to read short stories because I didn't "get" them, but now I do and I've been reading a lot more of them and really enjoying them. It's the story that counts not how long it is.

[rodo]

I think fanfictions showed me that short stories could be about stuff that I actually like. We had a lot of them in school, but that was mostly old men lamenting stuff only they were interested in. And Kafka.

I also think that my reading habits were formed by the fact that I prefer long and thick books, simply because I got more for my money when I bought those.