A boost for the short story?

This week it was announced that Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. And I, for one, was very excited that a woman who is renowned for writing short stories has been honoured in this way.

Short stories are sometimes seen as a poor relation to the novel, even though they are a complex art form in their own right, and can be very hard to do well. Munro has a fantastic style - she can fit the enormity of a novel into several thousand words. Her stories are rich and vibrant and satisfying.

I love this collection, especially.

Trying to sell my own short story collection at the moment, I know how hard it is to convince people to try short stories. Even though people say they have less time to read, they still prefer novels.

Here's my own (possibly controversial) theory: readers are lazy. Why read short stories - with the characters and situations continually changing so you have to start from the beginning again every few pages - when you can read a novel? Indeed, why read a novel - knowing you'll experience that bereft feeling of leaving behind characters you've grown to love - when you can read a series and never have to say goodbye to those characters ever again?

A good short story will draw you in, hit you hard and leave you reeling for hours, or even days. A novel, by contrast, is a slow burner - it can amble and wander, the final punch can seem to be more of a playful slap.

There is surely a huge imbalance between the number of people not reading short stories yet entering short story writing competitions. These competitions are growing and growing. The prizes are growing and growing - the Bridport Prize, one that I've been entering for far too many years, has grown from a £1000 first prize to a £5000 first prize. Well worth entering, but how can people expect to write a brilliant short story if they don't read them?

To return to Munro for a moment, I discovered this article from Open Culture which links to twelve of her short stories, so you can read for yourself.

What was the last short story you read?

Did it hit you hard? Are you still thinking about it?

Do you have a favourite short story writer?

In defence of the stand-alone novel

I think I'm the only one.

Yes, I'm pretty sure I am.

I love stand-alone novels.

(Oh dear, what have I said?? I'm probably going to need to qualify this because almost all of my blogger friends are in the middle of writing some fantastic series, which I am reading! - Kyra Lennon, Elizabeth Seckman, M Pax, Alex et al, please forgive me.)

When I finish a book, I always spend a little time imagining what happens to those characters next. I enjoy that. My imagination runs wild. I think about where the author is going with the story and where I would go. And I want people to do that with my work. I purposely leave questions. The ending of Cat and The Dreamer has been interpreted in several ways, and I am not going to tell you what I think happens. And that's the fun of it for me, knowing that people may have a different plan for my characters. If I wrote a sequel, I think it would spoil the impact.

Looking at my bookshelves, there are no novels I'd want to have a sequel. (I've been tempted by Pride and Prejudice sequels, and learnt the hard way that I should not read them!) I love each of them for being what they are, and if I find I'm missing the characters then I simply read the book again.

It's not just books either. I'm a one series woman when it comes to major US TV programmes - Fringe, The 4400, some others I can't quite remember now, were really good for the first series and were complete stories that satisfied me. I just wasn't interested in the subsequent series. I was happy with what I'd seen. I love the way some British dramas tend to be short and only maybe two or three series long, six episodes each.

From a writing/professional point of view, I can completely understand the motivation to write a series. You're building your readership, taking them on the journey along with your characters, developing these two-dimensional jottings into rounded people that readers identify with. You're allowing the characters to grow. I get all that, I really do.

But one of the greatest pleasures I have is being enveloped by a story, getting to the end of the book and sighing happily that everything is right with the world. I hold the book in my hands, think over what I've just read, then search out something new and different. I have very few books by the same author - there are five authors who have the honour of being featured on my shelves more than once. I like new voices, new ways of looking at the world, new styles of writing.

The reason this post is defending stand-alone novels is because they seem to be a dying breed. I'm not saying that series are bad or wrong, just that they seem to be on the ascendence.

What do you think? Have I written something highly controversial, or do you agree with me?