MUSINGS
Yes, folks, that's right -- it's August 1 and submissions for the Hint Fiction Anthology are now open! E-mail your wonderful stories to hint.fiction@gmail.com. An auto responder has been set up so you can get confirmation your stories were received. It should reply immediately, but if you don't get confirmation within an hour, try it again. If nothing happens still, e-mail me at my personal address and we'll figure it out.
Good luck!
In the guidelines for the anthology it says "the very best Hint Fiction stories can be read many different ways." That doesn't mean of course that your story has to be read many different ways. Look at Gary Braunbeck's story which Stewart O'Nan chose as the first place winner in the contest. It gives a hint of a more complex story, and the reader can make a pretty good educated guess what that story is.
Even the Hemingway six-word story leads toward one conclusion: that a young couple had a miscarriage and then were forced to sell what little they had already bought for the baby, such as the shoes.
Only not everyone agrees with that. During my student teaching I'd introduced the class to this story (we'd been discussing inference) and one of the students said maybe the baby was born without any feet, and that was why the parents wanted to sell the unworn baby shoes.
A bit of a stretch, yes, but there's nothing in the story to suggest otherwise.
In terms of reading a Hint Fiction story many different ways, I want to use two examples from the winners and honorable mentions.
The first is "Peanut Butter" by Camille Esses:
He was allergic. She pretended not to know.
Only eight words, but it's a story that can be read many different ways. Who's allergic exactly? Maybe a young boy, a brat, and the woman babysitting him is making a sandwich that she knows will cause trouble. Or maybe it's a wife, tired of her husband's cheating, his drinking, his whatever, and even though he's allergic she adds it to a recipe to get back at him. It could go on and on.
The second is "Progress" by Joe Schreiber:
After seventeen days she finally broke down and called him “daddy.”
This one is eleven words, and I can see this being read one of two ways: a sociopath kidnaps a woman, a la Silence of the Lambs, starves her, tortures her, whatever, until after so many days she breaks. Or on the flip side it's a man who marries a woman with a child, and maybe something happened to the previous husband, maybe he died or left them, and the girl was still attached to her real father and maybe her mother wanted her to be nice to her new stepfather, show him some respect, and so finally she broke.
As with the first, it could go on and on.
(Full disclosure: yes, Joe and I are friends, and while I originally encouraged him to submit to the contest, Gay and I did not know what story was his, nor did Stewart O'Nan, so the fact that it not only made the top twenty but then was chosen as the third place winner just goes to prove the strength of the story.)
Anyway, I hope that helps for anyone confused on the idea of Hint Fiction stories being read many different ways. If not, well, leave your questions in the comments section and I'll try to answer them the best I can.
Also, speaking of Joe Schreiber, he has two new novels coming out this fall. One is an original trade paperback called No Doors, No Windows and sports this great cover:
The other is a Star Wars novel -- a horror Star Wars novel -- coming out in hardcover and sporting this fantastic cover:
One thing about Joe besides being a great writer -- he has had major luck so far with all his covers. Check out his blog to see the rest.
This will most likely be the epigraph to the Hint Fiction anthology (major thanks to Stewart O'Nan for suggesting it in the first place):
"The king died and then the queen died," is a story. "The king died and then the queen died of grief" is a plot.
What, I ask you, is the difference between the two? Well, the common argument is this the second "story" contains plot because of causality. It was because the king died that the queen died. She had loved him very much and died of grief for his passing.
Okay, the reason I wanted to bring that up is, ultimately, I don't care whether your Hint Fiction submission has plot. Obviously, it has to have something, some kind of substance, but I worry that too many people might over think their stories. (On the flip side, I worry that a number of people might under think their stories too.)
Remember, it's possible to write a self-sustained story in 25 words or less. You can probably even come up with a great one, too.
But that's not what I'm looking for for this anthology.
Keep in mind the "hint" aspect. Ask yourself, What does your story hint at? Use the Hemingway six-worder as an example:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
What larger, more complex story is he hinting at? Imagine the characters. Imagine the grief. Now try to do the same with your own work.
Please keep in mind I won't be impressed by six-word stories that are obvious derivations of the Hemingway piece. Not that your stories can't be short. Joe Lansdale sent me a five-word story that I think is absolutely amazing. So just as with any story or novel, let the story dictate its length.
Now for a quick example:
The boy went to the corner store and stole a Snickers bar.
Okay, so what's going on in this story? The boy steals a candy bar, obviously, but what else? What is being hinted at?
Honestly, I don't think much is happening here. It's not interesting. It's not compelling at all.
Now let's change it up:
The boy went to the corner store and stole a pregnancy test for his sister.
All right, so this piece is becoming a little more interesting. There's definitely a larger, more complex story being hinted at. Why can't the sister buy her own pregnancy test? Why is the boy stealing it? Why doesn't he just pay for it in the first place?
But wait -- we need a title. So how about ...
Incest
If you're cringing a little bit, then the story definitely evoked an emotional response. Keep in mind you shouldn't go overboard, and maybe this title does that. Maybe it could be something more vague, like "The First Time" or "The Night After" or something like that.
See how the title is just as important as the story?
Still another two weeks away before submissions open. I hear people are already working on their stories. Which was the whole point announcing the guidelines at the beginning of the month -- I want writers to spend time on these stories, think about the word choice, and not just throw them together as fast as they can and submit them.
Also, I'm happy to say it seems the Google hits for "hint fiction" have increased by almost 2,000 in the last two weeks, which is pretty amazing. Thanks to everyone who's helped get the word out, no matter if it was positive or negative :-)
This is like déjà vu all over again. When something becomes successful or popular, the haters slink out from under their rocks to start their dissing.
It happened months back when this whole thing started, and it's happening again.
And to be honest, I think it's hilarious.
You can't please all the people all the time, and when the haters make their appearance, I always feel like I'm doing something right.
Anyway, I've realized I'm taking for granted the fact that many new visitors to this site don't already know about Hint Fiction and the contest we had a few months back. This is all new to them, and while I don't really expect everyone to go back and read the very first essay (or this post, or this essay, or this interview, all which give insight into Hint Fiction), I figured it would be nice of me to lay out a brief history of the form and the idea behind the anthology.
So here goes:
Ernest Hemingway once wrote a six-word story that went "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." A complete story in just six words.
Only there's a school of thought that doesn't see it as a story. Why? I don't know. People are weird that way. But I was curious at just what point a story stops becoming a story, how short it has to be, and so I wrote an essay about it for Gay Degani at the Flash Fiction Chronicles. I said that these stories only give a hint of a much larger story, and that because of that they should be called Hint Fiction.
Please understand that I said all of this facetiously. I never intended for any of it to catch on. I certainly never intended to get a book deal out of the thing. But hey, I ain't complaining.
Why 25 words? Well, why not? I've always found the classification of stories baffling. From novel to novella to novellete to short story to flash fiction to sudden fiction to micro fiction to nano fiction to drabbles to dribbles to now Hint Fiction. Who came up with the set word counts? Why does being within 1,000 words (or even 100 words) declassify one form from being another form?
Sadly, in this writing world in which we all live, classification and labels are key. People can't just be writers. Oh no. They have to be literary writers or science fiction writers or mystery writers. They must be labeled, oh yes they must, and like the authors, the stories must be labeled too.
Really, it's all very silly when you think about it. Like I've said before, as a rose is a rose is a rose, a story is a story is a story. Only, unfortunately, it's not.
Wait, you say, but isn't this art? Why should we limit art to anything, especially 25 words?
To which I respond: Take a freaking chill pill, okay?
Seriously, some people get uptight about the smallest things. Overthinking and overanalyzing way too much, and this is coming from a guy who overthinks and overanalyzes way more than he should.
Why 25 words? Why not 20? Why not 30? Can't a story of 30 words be considered Hint Fiction? Sure, I don't see why not (this story is 29 words and it definitely suggests a larger, more complex story), but you've gotta put your foot down somewhere, and besides, 25 words seemed like the perfect number (especially since a drabble is 100 words and a dribble is 50 words, making hint fiction 25 words just made sense).
And I'm hesitant to call Hint Fiction art, too, because once you call something art it becomes pretentious. But again, that goes into the whole labeling and categorizing foolishness ...
Then what about this thesis? you say. Why does this anthology have to prove anything?
To which I respond again: Take a freaking chill pill, okay?
Listen, this all goes back to the very start, to the idea that there are people who don't buy these tiny stories as stories. To them they're punchlines or jokes or aphorisms. And that's their opinion, and it's very difficult to change people's opinions. But with this anthology, I didn't want to include a slew of stories 25 words or less for the sake of being 25 words or less. My editor was in agreement. The top 20 finalists of the Hint Fiction contest were not authors just putting 25 words or less on a page. Each of them had to tell a story.
But again, that stubborn school of thought that refuses for whatever reason to see these stories as actual stories.
So I thought -- okay, then let's try to prove that these ARE stories. How? Well, quite simply I came up with four basic principles of what, for me at least, a story should do:
So I ask you -- if a story of 2,500 words or more can do all that, why can't a story 25 words or less?
Admittedly not everybody is going to see it that way. There are those who get the idea of this book and like it, others who don't and think it's stupid. That's to be expected.
(One major author I'd contacted about possibly submitting to the anthology said she didn't agree with the book's premise; her agent, however, thought it was a terrific idea and even suggested some of his other clients who he thought might be interested in submitting.)
Ultimately though, the idea here to just to have fun. My goal is for the writers to have fun working on their stories, and the eventual readers to have fun reading them. Granted, not every reader is going to love every story. I've found that a reader will love Story A and hate story B, while another reader will love Story B and hate Story A. Just like everything else in life, certain things appeal to us, other things don't.
Hint Fiction, above all else, is an exercise in brevity. It shows writers just how important word choice is, and hopefully this will reflect in their other writing.
So now I leave it up to you -- questions, comments, concerns, leave them in the comments section and I'll try to answer the best I can. After all, I don't have to defend myself like this, but I want everyone to see where I'm coming from, where I hope to go with the book, so that each person planning to submit can get a fair shake.
Today I have a new essay up at the Flash Fiction Chronicles called "Flash As A Whole: The Other Side Of The Story," which talks about traditionalists vs. non-traditionalists and my thesis for the Hint Fiction anthology. Speaking of which, I've just posted the guidelines, so please do check them out.
Oh, and for those flash fiction junkies out there, K.C. Ball just released the first issue of her magazine 10Flash. Contributors include Gay Degani, Aaron Polson, and Jordan Lapp. Enjoy.
