SHALLA CHATS with Charles Blackstone

"The Art of Short Fiction"

by Shalla DeGuzman

First of all, who ’s Charles?

Charles Blackstone is the author of The Week You Weren’t Here, a novel, and co-editor of The Art of Friction: Where (Non) Fictions Come Together, a forthcoming literary anthology. He has also written two plays, Corked and Rogers Party, produced by theaters in Chicago. Blackstone's short fiction has appeared, most recently, in The Journal of Experimental Fiction, Bridge, Salt River Review, and The Evergreen Review.

He has taught prose at University of Colorado, where he received an MA/MFA in fiction, Wright College in Chicago, and the University of Chicago. He and his wife, Master Sommelier Alpana Singh, reside in downtown Chicago.

Shalla: Hello Charles. Your book, The Week You Weren't Here, is being hailed “beautiful, touching, and wickedly sharp” by reviewers on Amazon, that must make you so proud. Can you tell us more about your book? Is it a collection of short stories?

Charles: Hi, Shalla. It’s actually a novel, but the idea for the book, which, in this case, was really the main character, Hunter Flanagan, and his unique perspective (lack of perspective, maybe?) came from a shorter fiction. 

Shalla: Your short stories, are they usually literary? Do you also write experimental? How about genre fiction? And how would you define literary as opposed to genre?

Charles: The novel was deemed by many of the critics as experimental, and I suppose it is, in many ways. It’s certainly less concerned with a lot of the things that conventional narrative is interested in, though it definitely doesn’t subvert those concerns, or attempt to replace those concerns with other concerns. My work is always literary, and that is probably mostly due to the fact that I’ve never written or been interested in learning genre fiction. 

Shalla: What would you say is the art of short fiction? Why is this type of fiction still popular after all these years?

Charles: Short fiction’s power is in incident. Novels are concerned with trajectories that include many incidents that contribute to the whole effect, and sometimes the more incidents, the bigger the effect, but with short fiction, kind of the opposite is true. Usually the stories that work best don’t try to solve every single problem a character’s ever had, but maybe just try to get through one important thing, which, of course, has implications for every other thing in the character’s life.

Shalla: How is the market for short fiction? What about the market for short story collections?

Charles: I think short prose is very much in demand right now, but fiction certainly seems to have taken something of a backseat to the personal essay or feature story in magazines and newspapers. A lot of the big magazines that used to showcase short fiction like Atlantic and Playboy and Esquire are either closing shop or are publishing so few stories a year that they might as well not even exist. Collections get published, but usually they have some kind of niche, a unique voice, address some kind of publicized theme, or are just so damn good that nobody cares whether or not anybody’s going to read or buy them.

Shalla: And would you say editors prefer to publish a work from someone with longer publication credentials than a newbie? Even if the work is less impressive.

Charles: I think that publishing is really like any other business. If you’re looking to hire a plumber, you want plumbers with good reputations, references, certifications, awards, and so forth. You’d rather spend a little more to hire someone that you can feel fairly certain about than take a chance on someone you’ve never heard of and that nobody’s ever heard of. In publishing, you have to consider audience. I’d rather read a John Updike story than I would a story by Joe Recent MFA grad. Why? Because it takes me maybe two hours to read a story, $20 to buy the magazine, etc., and I don’t want to be disappointed. Of course I’m speaking somewhat ironically here. I know there are good stories out there by people that haven’t sold 50,000 copies of their last novels. But I know how I read. I read books of stories by people I don’t know, but usually after I’ve read the Times Book section review of the collection. And most MFAs are writing stuff that nobody wants to read. And until they learn why that is, they’re not going to get anywhere.

Shalla: Lastly, any tips on writing short fiction?

Charles: Don’t think that just because you haven’t been to grad school means you can’t write. Most people I know from grad school couldn’t write their way out of a parking ticket. Good stories have one thing in common. They. Tell. A. Story.

So if you find yourself working on something “conceptual” or “subversive” or “experimental” or even “conventional,” you’d better be sure that you have a story to tell. Cause if you don’t, you only have words, and in the end, unless there’s something meaningful stringing them together, you, Houston, are in trouble.

Shalla: Thanks so much Charles.

For more on Charles Blackstone, please visit  http://www.charlesblackstone.com

Shalla DeGuzman's short stories have appeared in Poetic Diversity, the Mosaic Literary Journal, the Mad Hatters Review, etc.; her articles in The Scriptorium and L.A. Freepress; her skits at the Stella Adler Theatre. Her flash fiction The Fish In My Bed recently won the FISH AND PLANE Competition and is featured in Issue 6 of Mad Hatters Review. Shalla, a former writer and producer of a health and fitness cable show, is currently writing a novel. She is President of The ShallaDeGuzman Writers Group where she interviews literary agents, publishers, editors, etc. News! Shalla has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. SHALLA Magazine, which features short stories and excerpts from top, award-winning writers, is here! For more on Shalla: www.shalladeguzman.com