Short Story In Review

Preliminary reviews of Leviathan’s Fishhook, my second complete short story, are in, and the critics concur: it’s better than my first. Comparisons have been made (kindly) to C.S. Lewis and T.S. Elliot (specifically Till We Have Faces and Journey of the Magi), and as far as I’m concerned, that’s success.

If you’d like to give this 1.5 page story a read, go ahead. Better yet, if you’re willing to offer some formal feedback, send me a note (see sidebar).

I found that swapping genres—outright allegory for narrative fantasy—was a sound remedy for authorial frustration. In a cathartic act, I cut loose my sulky imagination and simply wrote what I felt like writing. This was in contrast to my first ill-fated attempt, The Wrong House.

Retrospectively, I think that in House I took a fairly viable concept and “analogized” it beyond all recognition. One can add only so many deliberate parallels before they have a dehabilitating effect on the story’s flow, and end up stifling the plot and characters. The devastatingly-perfect allegory may also be devastatingly unintelligible. Note to self: Future tilts at allegory will have to be attempted upon a thoroughly suitable frame; tweaking a preexisting idea didn’t work.

I typed up Leviathan in a matter of hours one afternoon, revised it a couple times, and found a fully-developed story staring me in the face. Bewildered, I wondered how it was possible. And why the second story was easily more compelling? “Practice” must pay dividends, but after a little contemplation, I’m calling this “working to my strengths.” My writing these days is more suited to fantasy/narrative/character/action than abstract allegory. Ashamedly, I now realize this fact falls into the “Things you should know by now” category. Maybe now I do.

A few other brief notes: Writing Leviathan was a pleasurable experience in part because I gave myself room to paint my action vividly. I visualized the main sequence “cinematographically” before jotting it down. This motion capture approach was not a bad idea. Also, my protagonist is indubitably bittersweet, a sympathetic hero; this just feels right. Finally, the method of inspiration—one key concept instead of a plot device—seems an improvement. Better to let plots grow organically at this point, unless they materialize as mature adults, ready to enter the workforce. That never happens.

Hopefully setting down a few observations here will help me in future eleventh hour situations.

Filed in: Writing