Customer Reviews

A Short Story Writer's Companion

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Addendum: (28 July 2010)

The second edition of the just published On Writing Short Stories is a single volume 432-page version that combines and upgrades the first editions of "A Short-Story Writer's Companion" and "On Writing Short Stories." The new book comprises two parts: expository essays on craft; and an anthology of short stories.

Tom Bailey contributes an excellent 55-page exposition of short-story writing basics: Character, Plot, Setting, Metaphor, and Voice. Other essays on craft include Francine Prose's " What Makes a Short Story" (9 pages) ; Joyce Carol Oates's "Reading as a Writer: The Artist as Craftsman" (13 pages); and C. Michael Curtis's "Publishers and Publishing" (13 pages). The expository essays constitute a third of the book.

The anthology comprises thirty stories, nearly twice the number in the first edition. They range from classics such as Guy de Maupassant's "The String"; Anton Chekov's "The Lady with the Pet Dog"; William Faulkner's " A Rose for Emily"; to contemporary stories such as Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings"; Joyce Carol Oates's "Heat"; and Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain." Bailey has added a multicultural dimension by including outstanding contemporary stories like Jhumpa Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter"; Z Z Packer's "Brownies"; and Junot Diaz's "Nilda."

Each story is introduced with a quote by its writer "to place the writer and his or her shiort story and style in the context of the history of the genre." A brief biographical note follows the quote. For example, Jhumpa Lahiri's quote: "It interests me to imagine characters shifting from one situation and one location to another.... When you grow up the child of an immigrant you are always -- or at least I was -- very conscious of what it means or might mean to be uprooted or to uproot yourself...." "Indian American authoress Jhumpa Lahiri, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her short story collection 'The Interpreter of Maladies,'...." I was astonished by the usage "authoress" in a literary book published in 2010. (Lahiri does not include "The" in her book's title. ) On rereading the preface, I learned that the biographical notes are not Tom Bailey's work; he assigned them to one of his students.

The exercises at the end of each of Bailey's essays on craft elements -- totalling fifty exercises -- make the new edition a five-star book for self-teaching or as a source for writing workshops.

-- C. J. Singh
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The following is a copy of my review of the first editions of Bailey's "On Writing Short Stories" and "A Short-Story Writer's Companion"

Whenever asked to recommend one basic book on the craft of short-story writing, I choose Tom Bailey's "A Short-Story Writer's Companion" and the companion anthology edited by him, "On Writing Short Stories." Okay, that makes two books; however, with the duplicate material excised, the two could easily be republished as one 350-page book.

In this brief book (184 pages), Tom Bailey helps the beginning writer learn more about the craft of short-story writing than the long-standing textbook "Writing Fiction" by Janet Burroway (434 pages) and the recent textbook "The Making of a Story" by Alice LaPlante (672 pages). These three craft-writers include several of the same short stories -- such as Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge," Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain," Tim O' Brien's "The Things They Carried." However, Tom Bailey comments on the craft elements of each story in much greater detail, making it an excellent self-teaching book. He introduces the quotes from the stories so lucidly that his book is easily accessible even without the anthology. Bailey instructs more in fewer pages by his superior strategy of providing more detailed craft analyses of carefully chosen stories.

Unlike Burroway and LaPlante, Bailey presents one of his own published stories, "Snow Dreams," to illustrate the writing, copyediting, and publishing processes. And a very well-written story it is, indicating that Bailey is master of not only the craft but also the art of short-story writing.

-- C J Singh

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More details?

The anthology edited by Bailey, On Writing Short Stories (see my review on amazon)
comprises all of the stories he analyzes in detail in his
"A Short-Story Writer's Companion."

Eighteen stories:
Among them are nineteenth-century classics (Maupassant's "The Strings,"
Chekov's "The Lady with the Pet Dog");
twentieth-century classics (Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants,"
Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily,"
Carver's "Cathedral");
contemporary stories (Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl,"
John Updike's "A & P,"
Joyce Carol Oates's "Heat,"
Susan Minot's "Lust,"
Louise Erdrich's "Saint Marie").

The anthology also presents illuminating essays by:
Francine Prose, "What Makes a Short Story?";
Joyce Carol Oates, "Reading as a Writer--The Artist as Craftsman";
Andre Dubus, "The Habit of Writing";
Frank Conroy "The Writer's Workshop";
and C. Michael Curtis, "Publishers and Publishing."

Conroy's essay demystifies the Iowa Writer's Workshop model that continues to prevail in MFA programs in Creative Writing.

Tom Bailey's "A Short Story Writer's Companion" is one of the most helpful writing books that I've read (the others being Bailey's own "On Writing Short Stories" and John Gardner's "The Art of Fiction" and "On Becoming a Novelist"). Bailey's book is steeped in the words of other writers but never showboats his extensive knowledge-each writer's words are cited and Bailey quickly pulls them into the points that he hammers home: whether it be drawing from a Eudora Welty quote to illustrate the many functions of setting or citing David Foster Wallace and William Gass on point of view. Reading Bailey not only informs you on how to write but about writers as well. It serves as a great launching board for these authors.

But Bailey never drowns in outside sources. His own prose is often just as well crafted as those authors he cites and to prove that he's not simply blowing smoke, Bailey includes his Pushcart-winning story "Snow Dreams." It's a dark, character-driven tragedy set in a fully realized world that make not only a gut-wrenching story but promises to be a knockout novel in 2004.

Also included are exercises for young writers to hone their craft. I found these to be very helpful in the few workshops that I've had the opportunity to lead. Ultimately, that proves the value of this book: it's useful not only students and writers but to teachers as well.

The first thing to know about this book is that the author has his heart in the right place. The tone of the book feels just as the title says, like you have a friendly companion helping you out on your journey through the process of writing short stories. Unfortunately, this companion seems to little more than a compilation of several other books, so instead of that friend offering any direct help, it's like he's saying, "Well, let's get that John Gardner book down from the shelf, and see what he says." You'd be better off cutting out the middle man and going directly to the source material.

It didn't knock my socks off, but I suppose reference books aren't really written for that!

I liked this book overall and would give it more stars except for the feeling of disjointedness it had. It didn't flow from one part to the next very well. Bumpy. Needs a warm iron.

However, the ideas and points he makes are very good and I will keep this on my bookshelf and refer to it since the information inside is valuable. Besides his own advice, he includes tidbits of wisdom from authors like Flannery O'Conner, R. Carver and John Gardner,etc. Mr. Bailey references scenes from many stories by a variety of classic authors and dissects their writings, which to me is the most useful.

The author comes across as a compassionate teacher, one who enjoys teaching and wishes to help us become better writers. From reading his own included short story, Snow Dreams, you'll discover he is a very talented writer. Therefore, I'd say buy it.

This review is for the first ediion. Mr Bailey covers pretty standard ground in this little book, and in doing so he does do a better job than many other How-To-Write guides. Of course, once you've read a few of these kinds of books, you realise the competition isn't too tough.

Unfortunately, Bailey has made his book by endlessly quoting others. Almost all of this book is made up of what other people have said about writing. Flannery O'Connor is quoted again, and again... the same quotes... over and over. Sure, he drives the point home, but Bailey's part is mostly glue and fluff. He seems to have little to say about writing himself.

To his credit Bailey has included a pretty good story of his own, and it's the reason he gets two stars from me instead of one. I wanted the author to explain the writing of a short story in his own words, but it seems he didn't feel up to it.

As a student of Dr. Bailey's, this book greatly helped me explore the short story genre and opened my eyes to how amazing the form can be.