Thoughts and personal opinions from the friends of Taconite Runes
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The Art and Rebirth of the Short Novel
By S.AGorden
Stories come in many lengths and each has its own joy in reading. The large multivolume sagas can bring you completely into a new world for weeks at a time. The novel is an escape for a weekend. The short story can entertain for a few minutes to a handful of hours. Each length has its own strength. The two hundred word short story has to surprise the reader in its sheer economy of words and power of its plot. The saga has the time to build a full world, rich with details and saturated with hidden depths. The novel with the delicate balance between the two extremes…
During the first half of the last century, a different story length thrived. The novella or novelette had the length to deliver a rich plot with complex characters but still could be read in an evening. The pulp magazine was the key to the rise of the short novel. Once a month you could escape with a series of short stories, a novella and possibly a serialized novel.
After finishing the first reading of the monthly pulp magazine, I would read the stories again slowly over the weeks until the next issue came. An anxious walk to the mailbox at the end of month would be followed with a breathless anticipation of finding out if the new magazine was waiting within. I would open the magazine on the walk back down the driveway and check the table of contents. A plan for the immediate reading of the short stories would be formed and the novella saved for the relaxing hours before bedtime. But the multitude of pulp magazines is no more. The costs of printing a monthly magazine have not kept up with the desires of the readership. The short novel is now a scarcity. The technique of pulling a reader into a new world for just a few hours of escape is being forgotten.
E-publishing has brought back the economy and flexibility of the pulp world. It is again possible to find the stories that balanced the excitement of the short story with the rich detail of the novel. You can again lose yourself for just an evening. The task now for the marketplace is to get out the word that the one evening story is back. To escape into another place for just one night, no longer means a nine dollar ticket to the movie theater or a trip to the video rental store. You can escape into worlds bounded only by a writer's mind and your own imagination and the next night you can find a whole new place to go to. Electronic print has brought back the economics of the short novel and has opened new possibilities for both the author and reader.