The Odyssey Begins!

I received some amazingly good news last week: I've been accepted into this year's Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop (http://www.sff.net/Odyssey/).

In case you're not familiar with Odyssey, I'm going to brag a little. Odyssey is a prestigious, intensive, six-week writing workshop dedicated exclusively to speculative fiction—fantasy, science fiction, and horror—that accepts only 16 students per year. This year's students come from around the U.S., plus Australia and Singapore. And they accepted little ol' me!  My heart's still pounding.

This is the first of what I expect will be many posts centered around my Odyssey, well, odyssey. I'll be sharing some of what I learn partly because I just want to share the wealth and partly because I think teaching what I'm learning will help me absorb and retain it. So don't think I'm being entirely selfless.

One of the pre-workshop "homework" assignments is to bring a copy of your favorite short story along with several typed paragraphs analyzing it and explaining why you think it's great.

Simple enough, right?

Uh, no.

When I read this assignment, I seriously panicked. A) I don't *have* a favorite short story. B) I in no way feel qualified to evaluate and analyze a great short story and present it to the workshop group. Who am I to judge what's great?!

So I freaked out for awhile, and then I hit two different Half Price Books. I bought every copy of The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror I could find (five of 'em) on the theory that if I pick a story out of one of those volumes, at least I can be confident that it doesn't suck.

I've been binge reading for two and half days now, and I'm halfway through the second book. Basically, I'm reading every story and dog-earring the ones I really, really like so I can go back, re-read, and pick a favorite. I'm a little surprised how few fall into the "love it" category.

But that's not the point. The point of this excessively long post (sorry...) is that I'm having multiple epiphanies about what I do and don't like—what is important to me—in short stories. I've never really quantified it before, and I think that's largely because I've never read story after story after story one right after the other and really paid attention to what's working for me and what isn't. I've never been able to define "what I like"; I've just used the cop-out concept that "I have eclectic taste."

Well, it turns out that that's true, but I've discovered what some of the common threads are in the stories that really speak to me, regardless of genre or storyline. Some of this I already knew in an instinctual way, but I never could have put it in words before. And I think learning this, quantifying it, is going to help my writing. Now, when a story isn't working, I can look at it and see if I'm writing what works for me as a reader—in a quantifiable way—and (hopefully) fix it if I'm not.

This is only an initial, quick list of what I've discovered (I'm still reading):

• I like stories with well-developed, interesting characters. It doesn't seem to matter to me if much happens (action, involved plot) as long as I can get into the characters.
• I like stories that feature relationships. The story doesn't have to be about the relationships, and it/they don't have to be romantic, but if there aren't people in some way relating to each other on an emotional level (or perhaps one introspective character relating to him/herself?), I tend not to be as interested.
• I tend to like stories with children and young adults as the main characters.
• I like straightforward, simply told—versus symbolic or lyrical—stories.
• I seem to like stories about ordinary people—the more ordinary the better—who find themselves in extraordinary settings and/or circumstances.
• I enjoy it when writers use point of view and changing verb tenses to create certain effects, as long as the don't sacrifice clarity.
• And finally, clarity is key for me. I don't need everything wrapped up in a bow at the end, but if I'm scratching my head and thinking, What the hell?, while reading, I lose interest quickly.

Even if you think your own reading preferences are well-defined, I strongly recommend this exercise. Try to set aside your preconceived notions and just read a large number of quality short stories one right after the other. See what appeals to you and what doesn't, and try to figure out why. Look for patterns beyond genre and storyline. You're likely to gain some insight into yourself as a reader and as a writer.

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