lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley (06/20/85)
From: lah%ucbmiro@Berkeley (1st Lt. RYN Leigh Ann Hussey) Well, for once I agree. There are many books that would have made fine short stories. As an exercise, I was given to take every paragraph in The Sword of ShaNaNa and cut them to one sentance each. It was almost readable after that... There is a great deal of intensity and focus inherent in the short-story form, by its very stricture of length. Yet I have known many authors who have said that a book they wrote started out as a short-story. I wonder what significance this has. Suggestions? In the early days of Science Fiction, the major market was in magazines. There were dozens, some for each branch of the field. Today, as was reported in a recent issue of Locus, the SF magazine industry is in big trouble. Subscriptions are way down, and quality is in the basement. The real money is in books. Is it any wonder, then, that authors who could and should be writing fine short-stories are writing poor novels? There must be some way to bring honour back to the short-story form. Perhaps people should, instead of letting subscriptions lapse because of dissatisfaction with the story quality, write to the editors and tell them what people would rather see. Does this make sense? I admit to a certain amount of bias, as I have been much more successful in selling my short-stories than my novel. How many editors read this digest? Might it not be better than flaming in (more or less) private, to flame at the source of the problem? Leigh Ann