10th
On Fiction Online
If you have five minutes spare minutes today, read Finale. It’s part of a weekly series of very short stories by Curtis C. Chen, available at his blog 512 Words or Fewer. I don’t think the story would ever see professional print publication, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s a practice piece, like a musician playing scales, and I enjoy the opportunity to observe a writer, or any artist, developing their craft.
As the print market for short science fiction continues to contract (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction goes bi-monthly with the next issue), and more writers cut their teeth online, dedicated readers will be able to watch authors mature in real-time, both in skill and thematically because the editorial filter no longer exists. That’s not an absolute good, and I suspect we’ll find a lot more chaff than wheat in the process, but when a writer does break through, the record of their work will be there.
Of course, authors will also write stories that deserve to be told but don’t necessarily warrant the cost and trouble of print publication, and some works will benefit from online publication as we learn to use the internet as a distinct medium for storytelling rather than simply transferring our old methods to digital form. Right now, it seems very much like the early days of film, when directors treated the camera frame as a proscenium arch and actors walked “center stage” to deliver their performance. Online projects like 512 Words or Fewer are where the new vocabulary of storytelling will develop.
P.S. I know Curtis a little. We used to work in the same department at the same company, and I’m pretty sure we had this boss in common.
P.P.S. While writing this, I was reminded of an interview I heard with self-described “former musician” Glenn Kurtz. He wrote a book called Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music about playing the guitar again after ten years of not making music at all. I recommend checking it out at PRI: To The Best of Our Knowledge.
