First, Zine-Scene (a blog, lit-mag, lit-mag highlighter, etc) features a profile of Nanoism and interview with me. The overview is here, with links to both. Good times were had by all.

Second, you may remember my very short story “When We Are Old” from its publication in Dogzplot. You then might remember it as a audio piece when Mel Bowsworth read it outloud at Mel Bosworth Reads Things. Now, it’s also a song:

“When We Are Old” is track 4 out of 7 on First Snow, a free, folksy Lo-Fi album by Archbishop, which you can grab right here for nothing (because it’s free).

With November comes the release of your #1 bestselling anthology on Amazon: Norton’s Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, edited by Robert Swartwood. It contains a blurb from Jodi Picoult and stories from me (“Before Perseus”), Joyce Carol Oates, and James Frey (among many others), so go read it. Everyone else obviously is!

No, but really. This is a fun book. It’s a great concept (nanofiction with punchlines!), and there’s plenty of variety littered throughout to guarantee some will resonate with every reader.

I’m super pleased to say that my story “Cryo” is Folded Word’s third issue of Heron, a minimag that you can read, listen to, download, or print out and fold your own.

What an honor! Go read it!

I have a new piece of Craigslist Fiction up today at Staccato Fiction. It’s nice and short and you can read it here.

You could, with a few bucks to spare, also buy the first issue of Thirty First Bird Review and read my story “The Presentation of the Virgin.”

1. David Backer (from FictionDaily) and I have a new fiction collaboration. It’s called whtsgngon.

It’s very short fiction based on/reflecting current news stories, and words throughout link to interesting resources and articles from around the web. It’s a quick read, but the links also provide a chance for some interesting directed reading.

2. Roxane Gay is the first writer in residence over at Necessary Fiction, and she’s just reprinted my story “The Woman on the Sidewalk,” which was originally published in SUB-LIT, which has since died. Now it’s online again forever! Go read it! There is also a bonus post that tells you how this story came about and provides an awesome musical accompaniment! After, read this story by Paula Bomer! Then read this story by Roxane Gay!

3. My story “The Unicorn” appears in Ink Monkey 3. It’s a print magazine that you can buy here. It is not about actual unicorns. Perhaps that is a failure on my part.

Here is my thesis:

Death is an event, not a story.

Here is my second thesis:

A description of one or more (unhappy) people is a character sketch, not a story.

A story implies motion. It’s not just description. Something needs to change.

With regards to the twitter-sized fiction that I read on a daily basis, this means that the reader should be able to at least infer some change taking place, either before, during, or after the actual words of the piece itself. After all, this isn’t a summary or a synopsis. We’re talking about an iceberg here: the tip is showing above the water, but we know the vast majority of all that ice is underneath the surface.

Now, what about twitter-fiction for twitter-fiction’s sake—who cares? Plenty of my Midnight Stories are not actual stories. They’re character sketches, scenarios, premises, scenes, moments, etc. You could think of it as a writing journal that I share on the internet. Some pieces are finished; many are not. Fine fine. In fact, not all good pieces (of any length) are stories. That’s fine too.

But for Nanoism (including the great contest we’re running through the end of the week), I’m looking for characters I’m interested in and a plot that’s at least mildly discernible. The problem with unhappy relationships and death (especially murder, argh!) is that I don’t care. As Hint Fiction guru Robert Swartwood says in this post (that I completely agree with), you don’t want to write “a story that many other writers would probably come up with at some point.”

And if your story involves someone thinking pithy thoughts during a plane crash, a wife getting revenge on a cheating husband, a husband going ballistic because of an annoying wife, a murderer just plain murdering someone for no particular reason—then you probably have.

Robert Swartwood is hosting a big contest to celebrate Hint Fiction’s birthday and keep us excited for Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, which comes out in November from Norton. Incidentally, Amazon has a good price right now for preorder, so you might want to jump in on that deal. But in honor of Hint Fiction—a form in which the title is the linchpin on which the success of an entire piece can rely—let’s discuss the nano title.

The angle for a title (for fiction of any size) is usually a summary or some key/noteworthy words. Perhaps a rephrasing. Moby Dick is about, surprise surprise, Moby Dick (more or less). Most, perhaps even the “good” ones, don”t bring anything new to the table. Fine—but when you write a story that is only 140 characters or 25 words or less, that’s actually pretty inexcusable. You worked hard to cram as much story as you can into a sentence or two, and you’re telling me you couldn’t think of anything else to add? That title could’ve been a whole new element, supported a completely different layer of interpretation. It can do something.

With a novel, titles are often placeholders or descriptors (i.e. The Magician, or something else equally mundane and logical). With micro- and flash-fiction, the usual maxim is that every word counts. That’s actually a lie. There’s plenty of relative fluff even in really compelling stuff. Maybe it counts, but it’s not necessary. But if a title makes up 10-30% of the total word count, it’d better be necessary.

My rule of thumb for a nano title: if the story reads the same way with or without the title, then the title isn’t carrying its weight.

In the best case scenario, the reader feels drawn to come back to the title as a means of tying the experience together. In good Hint Fiction, the twist—if there is one—isn’t at the end: It’s in the title. It’s that last puzzle piece, the one that fell under the couch that you couldn’t find for hours. If the title isn’t conveying some new information (more characterization, plot, setting, location, punchline, backstory, something), then try again. After all, you only had 25 words to tell a complete story (and it could always be a little more complete).  I’ll leave you with a playful example from PicFic’s recent anniversary series.

Except NASA
As the asteroid hits, no one says, “I wish I had spent more time at work.”

Notice that the title (whether you like the story or not) draws the reader’s attention to a completely different aspect of this story. Without the title, it’s a very macro, globalized, everyone-is-the-same story. But the title narrows our focus down to a small group with a very different experience. It asks us to go back and think on it those extra seconds. In other words, the title matters.

I received my contributor’s copy of Harvard Book Store’s Microchondria yesterday in the mail. It’s that great pocket size and a pretty neat project. And since I was fortunate enough to earn two out of the forty-two spots, my stories also make up 1/21 of the final product (one, “Consumer Reports,” is a traditional short short; the other, “Desperate Measures,” is Hint Fiction). Excerpts from the foreword:

On February 1, 2010, the call went out: Harvard Book Store would produce a book of original short short stories.

On Monday, March 1, 2010, at 5:15p.m., the first copy of Microchondria was printed in Harvard Book Store on Paige M. Gutenborg, our in-store print-on-demand book machine.

Thirty days ago, this book didn’t exist. No one knew what would be in it or what it would look like. Now you are holding a copy of Microchondria in your hands. Now you are going to read it.

We think that’s pretty awesome.

I think that’s pretty awesome too. HBS in the only independent book store I think I’ve ever spent significant time in, and, you know what, why just sell books? Why not also make books? They have a party. They have readings.  They have wine. They print out copies. They sell the copies. Everyone has fun.

It’s a singular book buying experience.

HBS is the bookstore and the book publisher. Afterward, it’s available on their shelves and online here, with more copies just a few minutes away thanks to POD technology. Welcome to independent publishing in 2010.