Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular, revised ed.
by Rust Hills
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Houghton Mifflin (Boston): June 1987. Trade paperback: 208 pages. ISBN-10: 0618082344 ISBN-13: 978-0618082346 Suggested retail price: $13.00 (US) Tactical strength: [9/10] |
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Hills organized his personal ponderings and observations about the short story from his years of experience as an editor into this concise reference about the short story as a literary form. Although he uses a conversational tone, Hills gives an in-depth analysis of short story elements, continually comparing and contrasting the short story with other literary forms like the play and the novel.
He makes an amazingly thorough analysis of the form and maintains his conversational tone through masterful transitions between each section. While reading, you feel that Hills conducts a single, long discussion on the short story, but in retrospect you see that he has covered many varied topics in detail. The smooth transitions between topics also demonstrate the interdependency of the elements in the short story form -- that each element of the successful short story (character, plot, setting, tone, style) all rely so heavily on each other that to change one changes them all. Thus, one can argue that any of the points of a short story plays the most important role, because all of the elements work together in a synergistic fashion toward the whole story.
Hills repeatedly emphasizes that characters in a short story experiences change as a result of the story's action. If the character does not change, then the author has created a sketch -- a description of a person or situation frozen in time.
In the afterword, Hills presents an example of his own writing process -- a chaotic, meandering method that would seem usable to produce its coherent and organized result. This self-analysis also fills writers with comfort that not everyone moves from outline to rough draft to final draft as smoothly as many college professors and writing magazines would have us believe.
