About
When I think of short stories, I think of my favourite masters of the genre: Chekhov, Raymond Carver, Kafka, Tolstoy, Gogol, Prem Chand, Krishan Chandar, Manto, Hanif Kureishi, Nabokov, J L Borges, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But I read their stories much later in life.
In school days, I loved reading Urdu short stories. In English, there were abridged Shakespeare and Greek epics such as Odyssey and stories from Ramayana and Mahabharta, and tales from the Jataka Kathayen. But more than the classics, I admired the stories of Prem Chand and many great Urdu fiction writers such as Krishan Chandar, Rajendra Singh Bedi, and later, Manto and Ismat Chughtai. There must be many other names that I have forgotten. Patras Bukhari was another favourite but his mastery was in the field of humour.
Reading short stories used to be one of the greatest pleasures of my after-school hours. In college, I was introduced to Indian and foreign short story writers such as Khushwant Singh, K A Abbas, Keki N. Daruwalla, Guy de Maupassant, George Orwell, Somerset Maugham and O. Henry, among others. They were delightful writers. They taught me a different way to look at the world.
When the writing ambition developed in me, it was more towards novel-writing than the writing of short stories. Somehow I felt that I could not write short stories–the basic problem was that I could not think of a solid beginning and a great ending. I always thought or dreamed of stories either as novels or screenplays. I even started writing a novel which I abandoned within weeks. I either didn’t have enough experience of life or I didn’t know how to commit them to the page.
When I published my first novel, a reader told me that I should try my hand at short stories. He found my novel episodic in nature and suggested that my talent might find better expression through the medium of short stories. Still, I was not convinced that I could write short stories.
One night I had a dream (I rarely see dreams or perhaps I forget them when I wake up). It was actually a nightmare and I remembered it image by image when I woke up in the morning. It didn’t want to leave me. To rid myself of this nightmare, I wrote it down on a page. It became my first short story and it was a piece of surreal writing. After writing that first story, which was published in a webzine, I developed the courage to write more short stories. Ever since, I have not stopped writing stories.
What works in a short story?
A good work of art is self-contained; it is its own universe. “A good work of art,” Tolstoy wrote to his friend Goldenweiser, “can in its entirety be expressed only by itself.”
So, then, what works in a short story? What makes a short story great? Why are Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Gogol’s Overcoat, Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Judgment, and Marquez’s Innocent Erendira, for example, are the greatest short stories ever written? By the way, I think every human being should read The Death of Ivan Ilyich before she closes her eyes, as a final literary pilgrimage.
I don’t know of any magic formula. I am writing stories only for the last ten years and am still learning the craft. I don’t think that I have written any outstanding story so far. I hope one day I will be able to write–at least one.
I don’t have a theory of art, and of writing short stories. Even the great Tolstoy developed his theory of art much later in life. Who the hell am I? “I do not understand what it is I have to do,” Tolstoy kept repeating this line over and over again during the last moments of his life.
Why write short stories?
Every writer has his own reason for choosing the short story form to pour in his experience of life. In his fabulous essay, Principles of a Story (which every student of fiction must read), Raymond Carver says he chose the form because he was having trouble concentrating his attention on long narrative fiction. “Get in. Get out. Don’t linger. Go on.”
I like the ‘Don’t linger’ part. It applies to me as well.
What do you need to have to succeed as short story writer? Carver has good advice to offer: “Ambition and a little luck are are good things for a writer to have going for him. Too much ambition and bad luck, or no luck at all, can be killing. There has to be talent.”
However, it is not just about talent and luck. The most important thing that a short story writer needs to have is a unique and special way of looking at the world. “A unique and exact way of looking at things and finding the right context for that way of looking, that’s something else,” says Carver. This to me is the most difficult part of the deal. Most short story writers fail this test. That’s why, today, there are only a handful of short story writers that I find worth reading. Among the contemporary writers, I can think of Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li, Danial Mueenuddin, Hanif Kureishi (My Son the Fanatic) and Arvind Adiga, who have this talent. Amitava Kumar (Girgit) and Kunal Basu (The Japanese Wife) are also hugely talented story writers. I wish they wrote stories more often.
“Fundamental accuracy of statement is one sole morality of writing,” said Ezra Pound. This is huge for Carver, and I guess should be so for all writers. Nabokov said it a bit differently: “Don’t pad ignorance with eloquence.” “Don’t prettify your sentences,” was how Naipaul put it.
Other important advice includes: no tricks and gimmicks. I won’t say anything about formal innovation. Personally, I find it off-putting.
Literature is invention. When you try to write a story, submit yourself to it. Make it mysterious to yourself. You will see how fun writing becomes.
If you are worried about how to begin or end your story, read the Middle-rs: Chekhov or Joyce. You can learn from them the art of wonder and possibility (both delete the conventional beginning and ending in their stories). For Dostoevsky too, invention was the point and the privilege of the novelist.
And, finally, a word on menace. You, as a writer, must introduce a feeling of threat or a sense of menace in your stories, says Carver. “There has to be tension, a sense that something is imminent, that certain things are in relentless motion, or else, most often, there simply won’t be a story.” I can’t agree more with Carver.
But literature is not just about style and structure. You can get them right but where will the magic come from? And now I am as close to giving you a formula for writing as I can. Nabokov has said, there are three facets of the great writer: magic, story, lesson. If you can get these three elements in your story or novel right, you cannot fail.
Why this website?
This site is a venue to present my early and some new short stories (that are available elsewhere on the web). I thought I should freely make my stories available to my readers as going through a publisher would be a pain. Imagine the tedious process of finding a publisher and then putting the books in bookstores. That will take years, and cost you money, dear readers (Moreover, I didn’t write stories to make money for myself or anybody else but share something with those who would want to read me). So, I am saving you and myself all this unnecessary trouble. Read the stories here and respond directly to me. That is the beauty of the web.
I am not claiming that mine are great stories. Perhaps some of them are just fine, and since most of them have been published over the years, I believe someone thought them good enough as reading material.
I will only make a few requests to you, dear dear. These are my early stories, so be kind to them (Yes, you can laugh!). But most importantly, be a good reader. Don’t read a story, anyone’s story, with a preconceived notion. If you like a story, re-read it. And as Nabokov has said in one of his essays, bring your imagination, memory, a dictionary and some artistic sense to the reading. And do me one last favour: don’t identify yourself (or myself) with a character in a story. Your impersonal imagination will bring you artistic delight. So stay a little aloof and take pleasure in this aloofness.
For the record, stories presented here were published in a number periodicals/magazines/webzines such as Citizen 32 (UK), The Little Magazine (India), The Daily Star (Bangladesh), Six Seasons Review (Bangladesh), Crimson Feet Magazine (India), The Mag (US), and Small Spiral Notebook (US), among others. Some of my new short stories which are not included here have appeared in three anthologies, Love and Lust in Singapore, The Best of Southeast Asian Erotica and Crime Scene: Singapore (2010, Monsoon Books).
For more updates, please visit my main site www.zafaranjum.com or follow me on Twitter (my handle is www.twitter.com/zafaranjum)
Enjoy your stay here,
With love
Zafar Anjum
Singapore
6 November 2010
