If you’re reading this blog then you probably have some experience with the short story. You either read them, or maybe you have even written a few yourself. Heck, maybe you even love short stories and do nothing but read and write them! I am one of those people who love the short story, and there’s nothing better than sitting down with a literary magazine and losing yourself in a few good stories.

But have you ever really thought about the history of the short story? Where did it come from? When was it the most popular? These aren’t required questions to enjoy the literary form, but it does add a little depth to know what you are reading (or writing) didn’t just suddenly appear – there’s an evolutionary process that brought us this wonderful gem.

Once upon a time…

Long before computers, books, the printing press and probably even the English language, cavemen used to sit around their fires and tell their families of the long, hard hunt they just returned from. Or perhaps they told stories that were passed down to them by their elders, and these stories helped to explain the forces of nature or the movement of the moon and sun across the sky.

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Yesterday, I wrote this post about how complicated writing fiction can be.

Today, however, I’m going to "jazz" things up a little. Back when I was in high school, I played the electric guitar in my school’s jazz band. Every few months we’d put on a concert (about a handful each school year).

During each performance, several of the songs we played would require a solo section. And the band director would pick people at random to play these solos. Playing a solo involved improvising. The notes weren’t written out and you basically had to follow the chord changes, in the right key and make the solo sound somewhat good.

Being asked to perform a solo in front of an audience was something I dreaded. But those who could improvise really well gave solos that were, in many cases, better than the actual song!

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I have been concentrating more and more on writing my own fiction lately (partially explaining the tumbleweed blowing through this blog during those times I neglect to post), and needless to say, it is very time consuming. In fact, I’d venture to say writing fiction is downright complicated!

Think about it: Writing a work of fiction involves plot, characters, setting, back story, narrative structure, point of view, timeline/pacing…and the list goes on. One can easily get caught up in these small-but-important details before even writing one word of a story or novel.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t some great epiphany I just experienced regarding the writing of fiction. No, I have always known that fiction is more complex than most non-writers (and even a few writers) care to give it credit for.

Luckily there is hope.

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Our society has become very impatient with just about everything. We can now do research and collect vast amounts of information with the click of a mouse via the internet. We carry around various gadgets and devices so we can do our work when away from both the home and office. We even speed through rush hour traffic to get to work faster (I never really understood this one).

But if there is one thing we (I’m mostly talking about Americans here) don’t rush, is the novel. I recently came across this post from the Guardian Unlimited that takes a lot of jabs at us, gives us credit for one thing:

When it comes to the novel, however, Americans are still willing to take it slow, or at least reward the writers who do. Indeed, in recent years a highly visible group of "Great American Novels" have emerged from 10, 12, and even over 20-year gestation periods.

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Writing is a solitary craft. We (writers) don’t perform in front of sold-out audiences at stadium venues  and often don’t even collaborate with other writers (not always the case though), like a lot of musicians do. Even many well-known authors can probably walk down the street without getting mobbed by celebrity-hungry fans or even the paparazzi.

This semi-anonymous lifestyle that many writers lived is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, many writers are very introverted and work best while alone. On the other hand, writers still need human interaction (there’s an old saying that no man is an island).

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I have always maintained on this blog that if you want to be a writer, then you must read a lot. But not everyone agrees with that simple rule. So I wasn’t all that surprised when I came upon this article from the Guardian Unlimited where the writer describes an argument with his brother, and his brother maintains it is not good for a writer to do a lot of reading. Here’s what he says:

Reading too much, my brother explained in his English-teacherly way, is a disaster for a writer. To immerse yourself in literature – particularly those of your contemporaries – makes your work derivative at worst, and unoriginal at best.

This appears to be more of a critique of contemporary fiction than an argument for writers to shun reading. My response to such an argument would be that a budding writer should read everything from contemporary fiction to the classics and everything inbetween. Being a prolific reader of all types of works can only help and improve you as a writer.

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Editing gets a bad name on the mean streets of the literary community. A lot of this negative reputation stems from younger writers who are eager to get their work out into the world and think the first draft is perfectly fine after a few minor tweaks. I have known many writers out there who think exactly this, and wonder why their work never gets published.

But editing is a lot more than just looking for typos, grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, run-on sentences, etc. When I think of editing, I think of taking a short story (for example) and re-working it until the story presents a unified experience for the reader. In other words, the story achieves its desired effect.

The re-working of a manuscript means everything from totally cutting out sections of the story (probably the hardest part for me), adding in new sections when needed (this might be the hardest to do well), tweaking various sentences and paragraphs to avoid vagueness and making sure all the elements of fiction do their job.

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Everyone is a writer. This is a phrase I hear a lot these days. Usually the phrase refers to the idea, in the world of freelance writing, that because one can write words onto paper, he/she is a writer. Perhaps this is the reason that many freelancers are being taken advantage of by low wages (or none at all), and people who snub their noses at writers because the layman thinks that no one should have to pay for writing because it’s so easy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

But what about the world of fiction? There are many, many more wannabe writers than authors (those who have actually published a novel). Even those who do publish rarely make a lot of money from their fiction, and even fewer see the kind of success we associate with authors like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling.

Saturated Marketplace for Writers

Yet people are flocking to the "writing life" in droves. The result is editors and agents are being buried under manuscripts that will never see publication and are condemned to the slush pile. There is an entire cottage industry of helping would-be writers get published. Classes and seminars are held by agents/editors. Published authors can make a steady income selling books filled with tips about writing novels, finding an agent, publishing and everything else. The list goes on.

All of this begs the question: If the field of fiction writing is so crowded, and the chances of getting a book published so slim, are most of us just chasing an elusive dream? The question itself has a very negative implication; that we are wasting our time. But asking the question is important because it forces us to look at ourselves and ask "Is it really worth it?"

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I don’t know what it is about writers and drinking, but if you gaze out over literary history you can find many writers who just can’t seem to get anything down onto paper unless they are seriously smashed. Back during my freshman year of college, I asked on of my literature professors about this strange phenomenon and he told me that the answer everyone likes to hear is that a writer with a drinking problem is seen as romantic (as seen by others and themselves). But the professor’s theory about the true reason why many writers drink so much, aside from having very addictive personalities, is that the have an uncontrollable desire to escape the reality of the everyday world. And when you strip drinking alcohol down to the skin, that’s all it is, the attempt to escape reality.

No matter what your theory is for why many writers drink, there are many famous authors who have taken up the bottle. One of my personal favorites is F. Scott Fitzgerald. He drank a lot, but unfortunately for him, didn’t hold his liquor very well. While intoxicated Fitzgerald would become unruly and sometimes even violent. He always made a fool out of himself and lost many good friends because of his drinking. Yet alcohol and cigarettes fueled his writing and he turned out some amazing work (I’m still a huge fan of The Great Gatsby (aff link)). I’m not about to say that his writing was great because of the alcohol, but it certainly didn’t appear to hurt.

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Many writers, especially those of us who dabble in fiction and poetry, aren’t lucky enough to make a living off our writing. Thus we are forced to endure all sorts of day jobs to support our writing habit. The downside to this is obvious; you’re spending your precious time working for someone else, making someone else rich, and that someone else probably doesn’t understand your literary ambitions. The upside, which is much less obvious, is that you can put a roof over your head and food on the table while you pound out the great American novel in your spare time.

Even famous writers endured miserable day jobs

If you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to work a miserable day job to support your writing, you’re not alone! Many famous writers had to put up with the day-to-day drudgery of a nine-to-five job, and work on their masterpiece during off-hours. This is nothing new and seems to be part of the "paying your dues" that many great authors endure.

Thus I have compiled a short list of authors and the day jobs they endured in order to soothe your creative soul. While the literary merits of many of these authors can be questioned, their success as a writer is undeniable:

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