On The Death of the Short Story
So, after coming home from a long ten hour shift at work, I decided it was most certainly time for me to cruise on over to Speculative.ca and check out David McGillveray's story "Twice A God". Clearly, I've gotten sidetracked (I'll get to it though, really, I will). The reason is that Speculative keeps a count of how many times each story is being read. Now, David's story has been up for about two weeks now. How many reads does it have? Thirty-three. That's right, thirty-three.
Now, I realize that Speculative is a brand new market, so obviously they might not have a lot of traffic. Still, thirty-three reads over two weeks is a paltry number. For a new market, they also pay a pretty decent amount - $60 CDN. However, with the apparently low level of interest coming from the reading public, you have to wonder if it's even worth it for them to buy these stories in the first place.
That brings me around to the recent closing of SciFiction. Now, SciFiction (along with Strange Horizons) was THE place online to turn for great SF short stories. It had won numerous awards, had a great reputation, and had one of science fiction's best editors in Ellen Datlow. The decision to shut it down, then, must have come from a profit/loss kind of scenario.
I wonder, what is it, exactly, that has forced people away from short fiction? Nothing against the novel, but the short story has become marginalized to an extreme point. In an age when the latest hardcovers are wading into the $30 US range, this surprises me - you'd think the more voracious readers would branch out and search out short stories that are free of charge. Of course, I know there the whole argument about having something to hold in one's hands, but what about lit magazines?
In the SF realm, the two magazine giants, Analog and Asimov's only have circulations of approximately 50,000, and I have a suspicion that these circulations share a pretty significant overlap.
Is it just me, or is the form dying out? Furthermore, do any of you actually know anyone who subscribes to a lit magazine (and a lot of you are writers, so I'm assuming you travel in literary circles) who isn't a writer themself?
Now, I realize that Speculative is a brand new market, so obviously they might not have a lot of traffic. Still, thirty-three reads over two weeks is a paltry number. For a new market, they also pay a pretty decent amount - $60 CDN. However, with the apparently low level of interest coming from the reading public, you have to wonder if it's even worth it for them to buy these stories in the first place.
That brings me around to the recent closing of SciFiction. Now, SciFiction (along with Strange Horizons) was THE place online to turn for great SF short stories. It had won numerous awards, had a great reputation, and had one of science fiction's best editors in Ellen Datlow. The decision to shut it down, then, must have come from a profit/loss kind of scenario.
I wonder, what is it, exactly, that has forced people away from short fiction? Nothing against the novel, but the short story has become marginalized to an extreme point. In an age when the latest hardcovers are wading into the $30 US range, this surprises me - you'd think the more voracious readers would branch out and search out short stories that are free of charge. Of course, I know there the whole argument about having something to hold in one's hands, but what about lit magazines?
In the SF realm, the two magazine giants, Analog and Asimov's only have circulations of approximately 50,000, and I have a suspicion that these circulations share a pretty significant overlap.
Is it just me, or is the form dying out? Furthermore, do any of you actually know anyone who subscribes to a lit magazine (and a lot of you are writers, so I'm assuming you travel in literary circles) who isn't a writer themself?
6 Comments:
cavan, this was a very intriguing post, in fact so intriguing that i eventually ended up writing my own post on the subject in reply!
But to answer your question, no, personally, I am not subscribed to a journal/lit mag.
Well, to be honest, I've always enjoyed reading novels as opposed to short stories. Only 50,000, though? That's pretty pitiful, considering they're the biggest ...
I think there is a problem of who lit mags attract, and it is usually writers, and not readers (even though writers are readers too.)
I hadn't heard of a lit mag until I ventured into the world of other writers on the web. They are not in newsagents (in Australia at least) and I'm not currently subscribed to any, because you usually have to do it over the net, and I don't have a credit card.
I don't think that short stories are dead at all; they've just evolved.
The short story in good old dead tree format has lost it's popularity, it's true. Personally, I blame TV and instant gratification culture. Folks either want a "big" read (JK Rowling is mostly to blame for this in new readers, methinks), or an instant just-add-water fix. The short story falls into an uncomfortable middle ground.
Instead though, people are writing more than ever before; each day, thousands of people are writing about their lives, observations, snippets of conversation and records of daily ephemera. These are all the stuff of the short story. Just now, it's all in blog form. Blogs are an evolution from both the personal diary/short stories of old. Exactly where the roots lie for each blog depends on how much truth there is in the blog entries :)
After all, is a 40 year old guy from Huddersfield pretends to be a 23 year old New York waitress on a blog, isn't he just writing a short story in another form?
And I agree with Benjamin Solah - the problem with lit mags is that they appeal to the wrong audience. It's like having an art gallery above an art store. Wrong place, wrong people. If I want to read a story about primitive man, I write one.
Shameless plug: http://www.greyscri.be is dedicated to horror short stories and twisted tales. Contributors welcome!
So I guess I'm an involved party in this debate :)
"dejxazi" - extreme right wing secretive Jewish organization dedicated to overthrowing governments by selling stale bagels.
Benjamin - I think you're right, and this is a problem that stretches over to online fiction markets. Most people who read them are doing so with an eye to whether it's a good place to submit to, since they also happen to be writers.
Greywulf - A good point, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the blog is replacing short story writers. Generally, those who have a modicum of talent would like to be published, so I think, despite the effect of blogs, most writers are still looking towards publishing their short works. Granted, there are a LOT of fiction blogs out there now, some of them great (ie. Aggressive Fiction), most of them horrible.
Personally, I don't think blogs are necessarily having a huge impact on fiction writers. They do, however, make writing for an audience a possiblity for everyone, and I think that's the attraction.
Exactly :)
Blogging is vanity publishing without the publishing. I certainly do it to make me look good.
"inoluek" - the 211th Inuit word for snow, from the words "Ino-" meanins "crisp underfoot" and "-luek" meaning "wet in boots".
Post a Comment
<< Home