Storytellersunplugged

by John B. Rosenman

Before we begin, here are two quotes from an article that presents the whole subject of book reviews from a somber perspective.

Newspaper book reviews don’t make money.  Ever.  Anywhere.  And they are dying like polar bears in the Artic.

. . . Publishers don’t appear to believe that newspaper ads can sell books.  Well, not ads in book review sections, which studies have found to be the least-read section of the Sunday newspaper.

       – Steve Carper, “Writer’s Bloc – The Sad State of Book Reviewing.”  The SFWA Bulletin, Winter 2008.

On May 27, Richard Dansky posted an excellent article on writing reviews, titled “Upon Further Reviews.”  It inspired me to review my past and travel down Memory Lane to a time twelve or so years ago when I reviewed short fiction for Tangent Magazine.  Since Rich’s blog seems to focus more on books and novels than short stories, I thought I might share my experiences in reviewing short fiction in an effort to supplement his comments concerning the review process.  Specifically, in the words below, I hope to answer three questions.

1.  What’s the best way to review short stories?

2.  Should short stories be reviewed differently than books, especially novels?

 3.  Does the best way to review short stories tell us anything about the way to write them in order to sell them?

Two great things Rich says are that a book review should answer two questions for the reader: first, it should determine whether the book is “worth a reader’s time and money,” and second, “If so, why?  If not, why not?”

I believe that reviewers of shorter fiction (e.g., fiction up to seven or eight thousand words) should answer these same two questions.  However, for obvious, practical reasons, if you are reviewing a book of a dozen or more stories, it will probably be important for you to get to the meat of the matter immediately.  When I started reviewing short fiction for Dave Truesdale of Tangent, I felt a need to explore every nuance of a 2,500 word short story.  After all, I had been a member of a writers’ group for several years and knew how exhaustively we critiqued each other’s stories, even if it was a drabble or flash fiction.  But the more I reviewed short fiction, whether it was in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, or Little Deaths, a 24-tale collection of erotic horror fiction edited by Ellen Datlow, the more I saw the necessity to keep it short and sweet, or as Dave Truesdale said, to “get in and out” as fast as possible.

It reached a point where I tried to review a short story in under a hundred words, perhaps as few as seventy or eighty.  Think it over: If you have one or two dozen stories to review, you want to get to the heart of them ASAP.  What folks want is a quick, hard and fast rating, one they can see at a glance.  Does the movie get three stars or four?  If you want to fine-tune it, make it two and a half or three and a half.  While my reviews did not provide a visual rating symbol of this kind (though many book reviews do), I tried to make it plain in those ninety words or so if the story was worth the reader’s time and money, and to what extent it was worth it.

Some readers may disagree with my approach, and initially I resisted the need to “go short.”  I loved short fiction and wrote longer, more analytical reviews to plumb their depths.  But for practical reasons, I soon found that brevity was often the soul of good reviews.  If you reviewed a novel, you could take more time, but with short fiction, less was frequently more.  Basically, in evaluating a story, you wanted to do the following:

      *Identify the author and summarize the plot or its highlights.

      * Identify its strengths and weaknesses, or as Rich Dansky said, tell to what extent it’s worth the reader’s time and money. 

As an example, here’s a sample review, with a few details changed for discretion’s sake.

Sarah Martin’s cover story, “The Eternal Kiss,” shows the consequences of not heeding a father’s warning to stay out of a dangerous forest.  After Cassandra walks in it, she unleashes a warrior imprisoned there for 300 years, who turns her into an old crone with a kiss.  The question is, can her father, a skilled sorcerer, turn Cassandra back into a young girl? Though this is a well-constructed story, it could have used a little more tension and a more cleverly concealed ending.

After readers read this review, I hoped they would know (1) what the story was basically about, (2) what was good about it, and (3) how in the reviewer’s opinion it could have been improved.  In general, then, was the story worth reading and if so, to what extent?

In giving an overall assessment of a collection of short stories, articles, and the like, whether it be a periodical such as Asimov’s or a book of stories such as Little Deaths, the same general principles apply: i.e., get in and out quickly in no more than a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five words, and cover the really important stuff.  Below, for instance, is my introductory paragraph to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, # 31 (Spring 1996) in the Fall 1996 issue of Tangent. 

This is a good but not great issue with cover art by James Balkovek and an interview with Poul Anderson by Raul S. Reyes.  One nice feature is the inclusion of a “Cauldron” ballot so that readers can vote for their favorite stories and artists, and a report of the results for the previous issue.  However, it would be even better if they included the number of votes received so we could tell how close the three winners were.  Regarding the fiction, my personal feeling is that MZB’s avoidance of sexuality sometimes leads to blandness and limits characterization.

 By this point, I believe we’ve answered two of the three questions I asked earlier.  In general (there are exceptions, of course), individual short stories should be reviewed much more briefly than novels or books for practical reasons such as space, which require the reviewer to leave a lot out.  Assuming this is true, though, does it tell us anything about the best way to write short fiction so we can make that big sale? 

In my opinion, it does.  A short story is a complex creation requiring much artistry and thought.  There are many mistakes the writer can make, so many choices.  It follows, therefore, that very few stories will be perfect or nearly so.  However, if the editor/publisher likes the basic story itself, the plot and character and essential flavor, then they are more likely to purchase it and deal with the defects later when it comes to the editing process.  Generally, do they like it or not?   

Too simplistic?  Perhaps so.  However, here’s a suggestion.  The next time you write a story, follow it up with a 100 word personal holistic review in which you briefly summarize its plot and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.  Stand back, if you will, and try to see the forest rather than the trees.  If you give your story an “old in and out” review of your own, you may find that it pays dividends. 

One last note: I joined the Storytellers community in June 2006, so this begins my third year as a member.  I’ve enjoyed it immensely, and look forward to our future!