I like compression in fiction. I think this is useful in novels too, but it’s often best achieved in short stories. They can be more efficient than novels in creating a world.
Are there any misconceptions about the form?
There’s a sense that short stories are lighter, or easier—both to write and to read—than novels. If this is true at all, it’s purely because of the pragmatics. One can read or write a short story in less time than a novel. This doesn’t diminish its richness, however. A short story can be every bit as affecting as a novel. [break]
What role does it play in a writer’s development, and in the field of literature as a whole?
In American creative writing classes, students learn craft almost wholly by writing short stories. Stories play a very important role in helping young writers find their voice. The short form has a long and distinguished tradition, however. They occupy a distinguished place in literature.
How do a writer’s goals differ between writing short fiction vs. long? Does the short form allow more freedom to experiment?
It comes down to an issue of stamina. It’s possible to experiment just as much in the long form, but for the writer the investment of time is greater—and the risk that the experiment will fail is also greater. I don’t think that the short form is inherently more experimental than the long form. I just think it’s easier for writers to experiment in the short form because any mistakes they might make would be less costly to them.
What is the perception of writers who predominantly write short stories?
I don’t think any critic would deny that writers such as Raymond Carver, Grace Paley, Donald Barthelme, Amy Hempel and Alice Munro were, and are, some of the best American writers around. In South Asia, particularly in non-English literature, the short form remains more popular than the long form, in part because there are so many magazines that print them and popularize them.
If short stories are overlooked by book-buyers in favor of novelists, it’s because the marketing for short stories is less aggressive. There’s a sense that they don’t sell as well as novels, and though this hasn’t been true in my own experience as a writer, publishers tend not to market short story collections with quite the same gusto.
Excerpt
Fixed outside tourist shops selling prayer wheels and mountain flights was a pack of boys in shirts shredding fast. Some days you saw them sprawled on the sidewalk, limbs tracing broken trajectories, eyes following specks of dust that might open to another universe.
Other days you saw them trailing tourists for the day’s income. Their feet sputtered, their arms arced, their tongues swam through languages: German, Hebrew, Spanish, Russian, French. Their faith — collapsing now, resurging then — rested on the first world’s guilt for the third world’s abandoned.
Bonding the days together was Dendrite: a cheap adhesive you throw into a plastic bag and inhale. This they did between everything else.
Leela was watching them from a café across the street, from the privileged position of a cappuccino on a terrace. A game of marbles seemed to be under way. She’d seen them for as long as she could remember — the median age a constant, the boys ever-changing. There must’ve been mornings when they woke up a day too old and readied for departure.
One sprang to his feet now and fired a string of obscenities at another, grabbing hardly anybody’s attention under the traffic noise. He clutched the other’s collar and shook him to the sway of fast-coming accusations. Something about stealing, something about his mother, something about being reborn as a dog. Others continued to flick at a marble, crack vulgar jokes, dance abruptly to a hit sing-along about falling in love.
The boy pushed the collar out of his grip and with it the accused, who landed a few feet away and found it efficient to stay there, body relaxed, eyes fixed on potential universe portals. The aggressor darted for a couple of tourists just out of a store. Tugging the man’s backpack he yelled in a fit of high spirits, “Good afternoon, sir! Good afternoon Madame!” They turned around in a haze of non-reactions, seeing that at most the boy was 11, and at least, very poor.
“How much for a sweet song from me?” the boy asked in perfect English, mouth widened to a grin. “What kind of a song?” the man was curious. “You Italiano?” the boy slapped his palms together, dissecting the accent. Throwing his head back he leaped, “Del Pierrrrooo,” flapping his arms, “Roberto Baggioooo.”
Then a scientist making a diagnosis, now a celebrator of the world’s variety. “Si, si, Italiano,” the couple was saying but the boy was already running around them in circles, screaming “Gooooaaaaal!”; screaming, “Viva Italie!”; screaming “Boungiornoooooo!”
Oh mio Dio! They handed him a 20.
“Grazie Señor!,” still throwing his arms, “Grazie Señora!,” taking a bow. “Just enough to buy a spoon of sugar for the cup of tea I’ll be able to afford tomorrow. Ha! Ha!” Teeth still gleaming. “Oh really?” said the man, “We’ve been drinking your milky tea for only 10 bucks a cup.” “Maybe we should give you some recommendations,” said the woman. The boy had raised his arms mid-sentence, yelling over them, “Adios mes amis! Boungiorno mes cheries!,” and resorting to his native language, “May a big fat mosquito bite you on the ass. Ha! Ha! Ciao!”
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The Short Form
To celebrate the 10th issue and Kindle release of Brooklyn-based Dollar Stories, Nepali designer Sarahana Shrestha designed new book covers for all 10 issues, now available on Amazon. Featured here is an excerpt from story number 9, “Dogs of the City,” which she wrote; it’s set in a city “closely resembling” Kathmandu.
Thapa’s interview is republished from The Short Form, a new website that posts weekly recommendations of short stories. It was founded by Sarahana Shrestha with writer and fellow short story enthusiast Peter Cavanaugh. To read excerpts from stories recommended by Manjushree Thapa please visit: theshortform.com
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