Thursday, February 08, 2007

But I don't see what this has to do with not being able to tell whether the story is a male story or a female story

Maud Newton points to this great post about one author's fight against her MFA workshop's consensus about the endings of short stories, and how they shouldn't be so "pat."

Setting aside the fact that, by the time you finish reading the post, you'll no longer have any idea what the word "pat" means due to the repetition of the word "pat," and also setting aside my usual choice to not talk about my own fiction writing on this blog, because really what the fuck does anyone care what an unpublished nobody has to say about the process and procedure of writing fiction (even though I could use the cover of SotShoStoWriMo to talk about my current efforts), I will neither agree nor disagree with the author's point (oh yes, and I'm also setting aside the fact that the author is my age and, well, for fuck's sake, girl, save a little success for the rest of the Womb-Graduated Class of '78, eh), and shall only add the following (unarguable and unassailable, I posit) fact: ending a short story is an absolute bastard of a task. An absolute bastard. Like, to the point where, given the choice between writing an ending of a short story, and spending an entire day waiting in line at the Free "Punch Me in the Face" Clinic, well. God gave us two eyes so we could go back for seconds, is all I'm saying.

No comments: