Caveat: This is my opinion only, and certainly not a universal one. But as an avid reader of unsolicited journal submissions and published work both, I’m always trying to get a firm grip on what I consider "passable," "good," "great," or "undeniable." Cohesion, technical chops, readability, forward movement, character development—these are all important, of course. But sometimes I find myself unmoved in spite of all those elements being in place. Conversely, I'll forgive a story for falling short on a lot of that stuff if I'm engaging with it on a higher level. So, what is that certain je ne sais quois that sends me rushing to goodreads to give a book a five-star review, or recommend a short piece for publication? And conversely, what is it about a story that makes me want to stop reading?
Again, this is just me, but....
No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader .
Robert Frost
Sometimes as I'm reading story submissions, I get the distinct feeling that the author has always known—from the first draft to the last—everything there is to know about the story and its characters and is simply dictating it to me. There is no sense of writerly discovery; therefore there is no sense of readerly discovery.
I find myself bristling at writing that seems only interested in itself: the fifty-cent vocabulary words, the excessive verbing of nouns, the extended metaphors, the endless descriptions. What, exactly, is the purpose of the work here? If I’m interested in watching a performance, I’ll go to a concert.
When I read, I'm expecting to enter a conversation.
I've come to realize the stories I love best are born of insatiable curiosity. Writers of these stories seem not only to be spinning yarns, but asking questions—no matter how big (how was the universe created?) or small (why is branzino so popular?). It's worth noting, however, that this curiosity manifests not in literal questions but in the way a piece is written. Whether it's an unusual turn of phrase, a surprising character trait, an ending that sticks with you long after the book's back on the shelf, somehow I just know the author is taking this thing—this germ of an idea—and turning it around in her hand, examining it, wondering about it...and she's probably still doing it.
This is just one reader’s opinion. But for me, no matter how beautiful the prose, I tend to dismiss stories that are, at their heart, inherently incurious. As a mentor of mine once said:
Stories aren’t supposed to give us answers.
They’re meant to ask questions.
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