The "Trick" Short Story

[chaplin]

Sherwood Anderson once wrote, in speaking of the qualitative difference between the short stories of Dreiser (and others) and "trick" writers like O. Henry (and others),


"The tradition of trick writing began early among us in America and has flowered here like some strange fungus growth. Everyone knows there is no plot short stories in life itself and yet the tradition of American short story has been built almost entirely upon the plot idea."

He goes on to say,


"Why do our writers so determinedly spend all their time inventing people who nevery had any existence-puppets-these impossible cowboys, detectives, society adventurers? Are most of our successful short story writers too lazy to find out something about life itself, the occasional flashes of wonder and strangeness in life? It is apparent they are. Either they are too lazy or they are afraid of life, tremble before it."

I feel this concept of "trick writing" is broad enough to also comfortably shade the detective story, like those of Doyle, and the "impossible cowboy" stories, like those of Bret Harte (another writer Anderson specifies).

In my opinion, such writing is a pernicious influence on the quality of the literary environment of a nation, or even world. And the influence of such writing has only increased, exponentially, since Anderson condemned it.

Do you feel this type of "trick writing" is contemptible or harmful? Or does it hold no broader ramifications to the integrity a literary sphere?

[Whifflingpin]

I don't see O'Henry, Bret Harte, Doyle, Kipling, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Maupassant, etc as pernicious or harmful, for all that they build their short stories around plots. Nor is it surprising that short stories built round plots figure early in American literature, since such stories are one of the foundation stones of all literature. Obvious examples would be the Arabian Nights stories, some of Jesus' parables, Grimms' fairy tales and Boccaccio's Decameron all of which feed into American literature.

All such tales, to be successful, draw on and say something about life itself.

I'd guess that short stories that try to be plotless, catching "the occasional flashes of wonder and strangeness in life," are probably quite a late phenomenon in literature, maybe derived from the ideas of the Romantic poets.

[chaplin]

I don't see O'Henry, Bret Harte, Doyle, Kipling, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Maupassant, etc as pernicious or harmful, for all that they build their short stories around plots. Nor is it surprising that short stories built round plots figure early in American literature, since such stories are one of the foundation stones of all literature. Obvious examples would be the Arabian Nights stories, some of Jesus' parables, Grimms' fairy tales and Boccaccio's Decameron all of which feed into American literature.
All such tales, to be successful, draw on and say something about life itself.
I'd guess that short stories that try to be plotless, catching "the occasional flashes of wonder and strangeness in life," are probably quite a late phenomenon in literature, maybe derived from the ideas of the Romantic poets.

I don't think Anderson's complaint is that the stories have plots, really every story has a plot, but that the author of such stories makes plot and fantasy-based characterizations the fully dominant characteristic of the story, so much so that all hints of verisimilitude fade or vanish under it.

I don't think it could be said that Turgenev or Tolstoy or de Maupassant, and of course Chekhov, rely on the extravagant details of a plot which the other authors do, and in fact mark as successful.

The harm to the story, and subsequently to a literary sphere, comes when the search for an outrageous, entertaining plot overrides the search and portrayal of something or someone in the reality based realm of real life.

[Quark]

I would agree that short stories from writers like Doyle and Bret Harte are not art, and that to treat them as such would threaten the integrity of literature. But, at the same time, I don't think that bogging down the short story in the minutia and quotidian of everyday life is the best way to purge Sherlock Holmes from your Norton Anthology of British Literature. If every instance of fantasy or exaggeration immediately discredits a story, then what happens to the satires of Voltaire and Swift or the strange nightmarish tales of Kafka?

Really, though, I don't think you're objection with these short stories has anything to do with plot or unbelievable characters. You put the problem best when you said that,

The harm to the story, and subsequently to a literary sphere, comes when the search for an outrageous, entertaining plot overrides the search and portrayal of something or someone in the reality based realm of real life.
The most important word here is "entertaining". The weakness of the short story has nothing to do with its preference for the "outrageous" over the "reality based realm of real life", but more with its desire to entertain. The "trick" short story doesn't enlighten the reader; instead, it plays on the reader's immediate psychological state in a way that excites us for a moment. If we feel that our life is boring and uninteresting we might read a story where the characters have adventures in a far away imaginary world. If we feel we're trapped in a unjust society that makes demand after demand on us without any return, we might read a western where the main character is an independent vigilante. These stories don't appeal to any greater truth, and they don't reveal anything new to us. What they do is entertain by appealing to basic impulses that aren't being gratified--a sort of mental equivalent to masturbation. I agree that we shouldn't consider these short stories art, not because they deviate from reality, but because they do nothing to enlighten.

If you want to know what I mean by "enlighten", I'm going to have to write a post about three times as long as this one. Although, I think it's an important discussion, and I think it's the one chaplin is really trying to get at.

[chaplin]

The most important word here is "entertaining". The weakness of the short story has nothing to do with its preference for the "outrageous" over the "reality based realm of real life", but more with its desire to entertain. The "trick" short story doesn't enlighten the reader; instead, it plays on the reader's immediate psychological state in a way that excites us for a moment. These stories don't appeal to any greater truth, and they don't reveal anything new to us. What they do is entertain by appealing to basic impulses that aren't being gratified--a sort of mental equivalent to masturbation. I agree that we shouldn't consider these short stories art, not because they deviate from reality, but because they do nothing to enlighten.


You put it much better than myself, Quark, as expected. Nabokov said that "sentimental" art, which is just another word for bad art, is a piece that leans entirely upon "non-artistic exaggeration of familiar emotions meant to provoke automatically traditional" emotion, feeling, and, I think, thought, as well. I think the trick short story, the one who's sole end is to entertain, falls directly under Nabokov's description; and when a literary environment becomes saturated with such writing, like a Northwest rainstorm, then it makes it that much harder for a "good" piece to make its affect on you and that much harder for it to be even created in the first place.

[Stieg]

The literary definition of short story is an economy of setting and a concise narrative, elaborating on mood rather than the telling of a story.

[Quark]

I don't think we necessary need to fear the "trick" short story, or even detest it. Interesting plots and unreal characters can be exciting and enjoyable. I was just commenting on a Hard Times thread where I brought up Sleary's statement, "People must be amused", and it reminds me that idle fancy does play a certain legitimate role. My only problem with this kind of entertainment is when it gets mistaken for something grander. You say that,
when a literary environment becomes saturated with such writing, like a Northwest rainstorm, then it makes it that much harder for a "good" piece to make its affect on you and that much harder for it to be even created in the first place., but I don't believe that the "trick" short story can ever really drive away meaningful art. As long as people recognize a common humanity, powerful feeling, and profound confusion, people will continue writing "real" short stories. The only danger to this comes when society no longer accepts anything but pleasure and self-interest. When that comes, not only the "real" short story will be in danger, but also the entire idea of progress in civilization will have to be abandoned--since we will have lost any means of measuring it.

[chaplin]

I don't believe that the "trick" short story can ever really drive away meaningful art. As long as people recognize a common humanity, powerful feeling, and profound confusion, people will continue writing "real" short stories. The only danger to this comes when society no longer accepts anything but pleasure and self-interest. When that comes, not only the "real" short story will be in danger, but also the entire idea of progress in civilization will have to be abandoned--since we will have lost any means of measuring it.

Don't you think that this is what is happening today? Anderson thought it was 90 years ago, when he wrote the passages referred to above, and it has only become more of a problem, in my opinion.

[Stieg]

I don't think we necessary need to fear the "trick" short story, or even detest it. Interesting plots and unreal characters can be exciting and enjoyable. I was just commenting on a Hard Times thread where I brought up Sleary's statement, "People must be amused", and it reminds me that idle fancy does play a certain legitimate role. My only problem with this kind of entertainment is when it gets mistaken for something grander. You say that,, but I don't believe that the "trick" short story can ever really drive away meaningful art. As long as people recognize a common humanity, powerful feeling, and profound confusion, people will continue writing "real" short stories. The only danger to this comes when society no longer accepts anything but pleasure and self-interest. When that comes, not only the "real" short story will be in danger, but also the entire idea of progress in civilization will have to be abandoned--since we will have lost any means of measuring it.

Do you believe this is counterbalanced by long prose, playwrights, drama, art, non-fiction, poetry, philosophy, and other components of academia?

[Quark]

Don't you think that this is what is happening today? Anderson thought it was 90 years ago, when he wrote the passages referred to above, and it has only become more of a problem, in my opinion.



I haven't read all of Anderson's argument, but the part that you quoted seems to be less of a despairing summation of contemporary literature and more of an effort to distinguish between actually insightful short stories and banal fantasies on paper. As we've already concluded, the "trick" short story isn't defined by easily definable positive qualities. We've already accepted that plot and unreal character may in fact be part of important literature. Therefore, the "trick" short story is defined by its negative qualities. It's the lack of, as Anderson puts it, "the occasional flashes of wonder and strangeness in life" that make a short story a "strange fungus growth". While the vituperative language that Anderson uses makes it sound like the problem with literature rests with the other writers' idiocy, really Anderson is promulgating a new theory of literature which raises it to a previously unseen level of art. Literature is creative, and artists will always be at odds with society and their peers.

Anderson is hardly the first person to denounce others as a means of promoting their own idea of art. In the second half of the nineteenth-century John Ruskin harshly attacked the uninspired and mechanical architecture of industrial England in order to propose a more unique Gothic style which would be spiritually regenerative. In the first half of that century, Shelley differentiated between poetry and story: art and summary. In the middle of the century, Matthew Arnold criticized society for being too short sighted and selfish. He preferred an art that was disinterested and illuminating. Yet, for all the complaint and rancor, at none of these points in history was art totally extinct. In fact, far from it, these arguments show that artists continue to care about the medium and are fighting to protect it. This action still continues into today. I got a hold of Jonathan Franzen's Harper's magazine essay. It's one long line which separates techno-consumerism, pop-psychology, frivolity from important literature which he terms "tragic realism".

As to whether we've lost the balance between art and entertainment, I'm not entirely sure. To be completely honest: I don't know enough about the current literary culture to know. From my position as an English student it does seem that people have lost touch with what we would call meaningful art. But at the same time, I think a mathematician would say that people are numerically illiterate, and a historian would say that no one has any conception of the past. It doesn't mean the world is horribly and irredeemably benighted.

I'm not entirely sure if any of that made sense--must edit later when less tired. I'm afraid I've just said something totally tangential, and not really to the point.

[Quark]

Do you believe this is counterbalanced by long prose, playwrights, drama, art, non-fiction, poetry, philosophy, and other components of academia?

If you're asking whether I believe that artistically valuable short stories and "trick" short stories can coexist. Then, yes, certainly. I think there is a time and a place for both. A lot of literature is both art and entertainment.

If you're asking whether right now, at this moment, we have a healthy balance between the two, I simply don't know.

If you're asking what the relationship between the two is--does one cancel the other out, or something like that--then I would say that no they do not cancel each other out. The relationship is tenuous at best because I think that entertainment and art work on different parts of the mind--or have different effects on the mind which have no common denominator.