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1、K. L. Cook Short Story CycleShort Story Cycle: Quotes & NotesWhile there are various conventions associated with the genre of the short story cycle. . . there is only one essential characteristic of the short story cycle: the stories are both self-sufficient and interrelated. On the one hand, the st
2、ories work independently of one another: the reader is capable of understanding each of them without going beyond the limits of the individual story. On the other hand, however, the stories work together, creating something that could not be achieved by a single story. . . . The ability of the story
3、 cycle to extend discussionsto work on a larger scaleresembles what is accomplished in the novel. But the forms of the cycle and novel are significantly different: only the first is constructed from stories. Susan Garland Mann The Short Story Cycle: A Genre Companion & Reference GuideSome critics mi
4、ght trace the current rash of story cycles to rather dubious causes. (I dont necessarily share these views, but Ive heard them voiced.) (1) Some might say that the story cycle is the perfect genre for a writer who cant plot a novel; a series of stories would be more manageable, less daunting, requir
5、ing less courage. (2) Others might say that the story cycles popularity is due to the proliferation of creative writing workshops which favor the story over the novel for the simple reason that a story can be discussed and evaluated in a short time, and a series of them can be viewed both singly and
6、 as a group. (3) Still others might point a finger at cynical publishers who know that story cycles can often be published as novels, which almost always sell far better than collections of short fiction. The most obviouscase in point is Amy Tans The Joy Luck Club, which was marketed as a novel desp
7、ite the authors public disclaimers that it was nothing of the sort. And Harriet Doerrs The Stones for Ibarra was made into a novel “after the fact”; having written the stories separately, Doerr provided a thin narrative thread so that the book could be marketed as a novel.Richard Russo In structure
8、the book Winesburg, Ohio lies midway between the novel proper and the mere collection of stories. Like several famous books by more recent authors, all early readers of Andersonlike Faulkners The Unvanquished and Go Down, Moses, like Steinbecks Tortilla Flat and The Pastures of Heaven, like Caldwell
9、s Georgia Boyit is a cycle of stories with several unifying elements, including a single background, a prevailing tone, and a central character. These elements can be found in all cycles, but the best of them also have an underlying plot that is advanced or enriched by each of the stories. Malcolm C
10、owley, Introduction to Winesburg, OhioAlthough many critics identify her Alice Munros Lives of Girls and Women as a novel, the author herself considers it a set of interrelated stories rather than a single work. She claims to have experimented with novel writing, but finds the short story form more
11、suited to the narrative shape and pacing her style demands. “I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel,” she explained. “I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected moments of experience. I guess thats the way I see life. People remake themselves bit b
12、y bit and do things they dont understand. The novel has to have a coherence which I dont see anymore in the lives around me.”From Contemporary Literary Criticism, v. 50 on Alice MunroA group of linked narratives can create an effect you cant get from a novel or from one story alone. Its like a serie
13、s of snapshots taken over time. Chabon praises Updikes Too Far to Go as an example. Part of the pleasure is turning to them again and again. The interest lies in what has happened in the interstices. Michael Chabon, on John UpdikeTaking Susan Minots Monkeys, then, as a model of the short-story novel
14、not to be followed slavishly, but as an exemplar of basic requirementswe should look for at least these five elements: Fundamental unities that distinguish connected from collected stories: place, time, cast, theme, tone, style. A framework question addressed throughout successive chapters and answe
15、red by the end, indicating what the novel emerging from these individual stories is about. Provisional rather than complete closure for each chapters “story,” creating narrative progression by propelling us, through open-ended interconnections, to the next “story.” A recognizable protagonist (whethe
16、r individual, family, or group) to empathize with as we realize what is at stake. Final closure when the framework question is answered and the provisional closures ending previous chapters culminate in a satisfactory overall resolution. George R. Clay, “Structuring the Short Story Novel” Story Cycl
17、es are enticing. Theyre also more difficult than most people would imagine. You dont want to repeat yourself, and you dont want to have the movement of each new story replicate too closely the movement of the last story. You dont want the stories dependent on each other when youre sending them outno
18、r do you want them to be mirror images when theyre sitting next to each other in a book. For me, writing a few connected stories seemed to be a nice bridge between writing stories and writing novels. It also works well because you can present one story in the point of view of one character in a fami
19、ly, then another from somebody elses point of view. This gives you the position, as a writer, of wandering through the house and observing everybodys relationships.Antonya Nelson, Interview, The Missouri Review Both the carver sculptor and writer of linear narratives are first concerned with the for
20、m of the work in its entirety. The carver thinks of the seamless smooth movement of the shape to be chiseled out. The writer thinks of the overall movement of the principal narrative vector from its start to its finish, all other issues being subordinated to this overarching concern. In the second c
21、ase the writer who doesnt work by linear design, the task of the artist is not to discover the essential form of the work by whittling away the dross, but to assemble the work out of small component parts. This breed of artists is not so much a sculptor as a mosaicist, assembling fragments of glass
22、and tile to form what can be understood, at a greater distance , as a coherent, shapely image. In narrative art, this mosaic method is the basis for modular design. If linear design can be understood as somehow subtractive, a process of removing the less essential material so as to reveal the moveme
23、nt of narrative vectors more cleanly and clearly, then modular design is additive. The writer adds and arranges more and more modular units which may be attractive in themselves for all sorts of different reasons, but which also must serve the purpose of clarifying the overall design of the text as
24、a whole. In linear design, the integrity of the finished work is obviously the first concern, since the writer is thinking of the work holistically to begin with. In the case of modular design, the writer will, at the outset, approach the raw material in a more fragmentary way. A sense of integrity
25、in the work as a whole must be achieved by symmetrical arrangement of the modular parts. In a modular narrative design, narrative elements are balanced in symmetry as shapes are balanced in a symmetrical geometric figure, or as weights are balanced on a scale. . . . What modular design he considers
26、the short story cycle the best example of complex modular design can do is liberate the writer from linear logic, those chains of cause and effect, strings of dominoes always falling forward. Modular design replaces the domino theory of narrative with other principles which have less to do with moti
27、on (the story as process) and more to do with overall shapeliness (the story as fixed geometric form). The geometry of a modular design. . . will be defining and confining to some degree. But the gain can be more than worth the sacrifice. The very fixity of the substructure can give the writer more
28、latitude to improvise freely around the hidden armature with plot, character, and voice. Madison Smartt Bell, Narrative Design: A Writers Guide to StructureK. L. CookShort Story CycleShort Story Cycles, Linked Stories, Novels-in-Stories: A Brief BibliographyThematically Unified Cycles John Updike. T
29、rust Me. Russell Banks. Success Stories. Joyce Carol Oates. Faithless: Tales of Transgression. Antonya Nelson. Female Trouble. Hannah Tinti. Animal Crackers. Joan Silber. Ideas of Heaven. Cycles Unified by Subgenre or Form Robert Olen Butler. Tabloid Dreams. Daniel Stern. Twice Told Tales. Joyce Car
30、ol Oates. The Assignation. Italo Calvino. Cosmicomics. Lorrie Moore. Self Help. Historical Epoch/Era-Based Cycles F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tales of the Jazz Age. Ernest Hemingway. In Our Time. Adam Braverman. Mr. Lincolns Wars. Kate Walbert. Our Kind. Place-Based Cycles James Joyce. Dubliners. John Stei
31、nbeck. The Long Valley. James Baldwin. Going to Meet the Man. John Updike. Olinger Stories. Edward P. Jones. Lost in the City. Culture- or Community-Based Cycles Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Sherwood Anderson. Winesburg, Ohio. Russell Banks. Trailerpark. Gloria Naylor. The Women of Brewst
32、er Place. Garrison Keillor. Lake Wobegon Days. Robert Olen Butler. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Crystal Wilkinson. Water Street. Tim OBrien. The Things They Carried. Family-Centered Cycles William Faulkner. Go Down, Moses. Louise Erdrich. Love Medicine. Anne Tyler. Dinner at the Homesick Re
33、staurant Susan Minot. Monkeys. Cristina Garcia. Dreaming in Cuban. T. M. McNally. Low Flying Aircraft. K. L. Cook. Last Call. Central Protagonist/Couple-Centered Cycles F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Basil & Josephine Stories. Ernest Hemingway. The Nick Adams Stories. John Updike. Too Far to Go. The Compl
34、ete Henry Bech. David Huddle. Only the Little Bone. Alice Munro. The Beggar Maid: Stories of Rose and Flo. Isabel Huggan. The Elizabeth Stories. Melissa Pritchard. Disappearing Ingenue: The Misadventures of Eleanor Stoddard. . Justin Cronin. Mary and ONeil. Critical Studies about Story Cycles (Selec
35、t) George R. Clay. “Structuring the Short Story Novel.” The Writers Chronicle (December 1998). Vol. 31.3. 23-31. Maggie Dunn and Ann Morris. The Composite Novel: The Short Story Cycle in Transition. Twaynes Studies in Literary Themes and Genres. New York: Twayne, 1995. Laura Morgan Green. “The Novel
36、 in Stories.” Poets & Writers. July/Aug. 2001: 16-19. J. Gerald Kennedy, ed. Modern American Short Story Sequences. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Susan Garland Mann. The Short Story Cycle: A Genre Companion & Reference Guide.Greenwood Press. Westport, Conn. 1988.K. L. CookShort Story CycleShort
37、Story CycleQuestions for Inquiry Throughout the term, as you study examples of the form and start designing, writing, and revising your own cycle, refer to these questions. Write provisional and then revised answers to the questions. By the end of the term, you should be able to answer them all.Stor
38、ies, Novels, Cycles1. What are the distinguishing characteristics of a collection of stories, a novel, and a short story cycle? What are external/extrinsic indicators? What are the internal/intrinsic characteristics? 2. How are the three forms similar? 3. How are they different? In what ways are the
39、 differences important? “So What?” 1. What is the value of studying the short story cycle form?2. What are the limitations, or criticisms, of the form? 3. What are the advantages of this form, especially for the young writer? What are the reasons one might want to write in this form, regardless of e
40、xperience? 4. Is there a built-in metaphysic for the short story cycle? Are story cycle writers philosophically different from story or novel writers? 5. Who are the practitioners of this form? Are there any great story cycles? Spectrum of Story Cycles1. What is the spectrum of story cycles? 2. What
41、 are the distinguishing characteristics of each kind of cycle? 3. What are some published examples of each kind? Writing the Story Cycle1. How do you go about consciously designing and writing a short story cycle? 2. What kind of cycle do you want to write? 3. How do you evaluate the “success” of yo
42、ur story cycle? What criteria do you use? Story Cycle Questions: For Study and Design1. Are the stories self-contained? Can each be read and enjoyed without having read the others? 2. What is the level of connectedness (or interdependence) among the stories? 3. Does the order or arrangement of the s
43、tories matterin terms of plot, character, theme? 4. Is there an overarching dramatic questiona plot or character issuethat is raised at the beginning of the cycle, carried throughout the book, and resolved at the end? 5. Does the shape of either the individual stories or the cycle as a whole depend
44、on, to use Madison Smartt Bells language, linear or mosaic design? Or both?6. Does each story have, to use George Clays terms, provisional closure or complete closure? What are the advantages and/or limitations of each kind of closure? 7. Does the protagonist or repeating characters (if they are pre
45、sent) seem to grow or have a developmental arc? Do they remain static, revealed to the reader in snapshot form? 8. Is the “voice” of the book (point of view, form, genre, tone) more monochromatic or polychromatic? What is the effect of either kind of voice on the unity of the book? 9. Is there a sen
46、se of rhythmic patterning that provides a sense of unity? (This patterning may appear in terms of images/symbols, rotation of point of view, sequenced stories, dramatic or thematic counterpoint, or similarity or contrast in form.) 10. Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? The Metaphysic of
47、 the Novel“A novel is like a symphony in that its closing movement echoes and resounds with all that has gone before. This is rare in the novella; the effect requires too much mass. Toward the close of a novel, the writer brings backdirectly or in the form of his characters recollectionsimages, characters, events, and intellectual motifs encountere