Short Story
Month 2017—part 9: Short Story Writers
on Unity of Impression
Ambrose Bierce:
The only way to get unity of impression from a novel is to shut it up and look
at the covers.
Chekhov: "The
short story, like the stage, has its conventions. My instinct tells me that at the end of a
story I must artfully concentrate for the reader an impression of the entire
work, and therefore must casually mention something about those whom I have
already presented. Perhaps I am in
error."
Edgar Allan
Poe: A skillful literary artist has
constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate
his incidents; but having conceived with deliberate care, a certain unique or
single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents--he then
combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived
effect... In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which
the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established
design."
Edith
Wharton: The least touch of irrelevance,
the least chill of inattention, will instantly undo the spell, and it will take
as long to weave again as to get Humpty Dumpty back on his wall.
Wells Tower:
It's very easy to write a terrible short story: you just write something and
then stop.
John Wain: There are perfectly successful short stories,
and there are totally unsuccessful ones, and there’s nothing in between.
Richard
Ford: If stories fail, then they don’t
make a short story. It’s like
bread. Either it’s a loaf of bread or
it’s doughy goo.
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