An Experiment in Haiku Fiction: The Trashlings

Two of the most influential works in defining my conception of haiku fiction are Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson and The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Winesburg, Ohio is one of the first examples of the "novel-in-stories" genre, a lengthy narration told through a series of interconnected short stories. The stories work as individual pieces, telling the histories of an interesting cast of characters. Yet they all interrelate to recount the main character's coming of age.

The Spoon River Anthology is a collection of poems, and it does not have the "through line" of a novel. But Masters paints the picture of a single small town by presenting us the epitaphs of its citizens. The life stories told in the poems often give different perspectives on the same event. One can only figure out what happened by reading between the lines of two or more versions of the same event -- if there is a "true version" at all.

Inspired by these two works, I'm going to try a writing experiment. I am in the process of writing a sequence of interconnected one hundred word drabbles. I hope to create a consistent world and hopefully an interconnected narrative. Why drabbles? Because I find that the limitation of the hundred word form focuses my creativity. And they're a heck of a lot of fun.

You get to be my test subjects. I hope to post one drabble a week here at my blog. Come explore the Land of Fill with me. And let me know what you think of the Trashlings:

 

 

How It Began

My wife and I recently brought a couch to the local landfill. As we lowered it off the truck, a scrap of paper blew into my face. I cursed, snatched it off, and shoved it into my pocket.

I forgot about it until I reached for my keys to drive home. The paper bore words in a black-brown ink. I didn't understand the story at first. Not until we found more scraps of paper. 

Together, they speak of a race of creatures living in the landfill. I don't know whether or not the tales are true. 

They call themselves Trashlings...

New Stories Out

I have a couple new stories out that I wanted to share with all of you.

"Crapgod" is out in the special Winter Edition of Cover of Darkness. It took a while for me to find the right home for this one, and I'm very glad that Tyree Campbell, Herika R. Raymer and the other fine people at Sam's Dot Publishing took a liking to my work. Again.

The story is set in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my youthful stomping grounds. I tried to include some details about the real-life city in the story, which I hope add to the atmosphere. Like a lot of my stories, I pulled from a number of sources for this one, including the real-life setting, my reading of H. P. Lovecraft, and the SedlecOssuary. I hope that the reader is left with a question -- is the antagonist insane, or is there a dark god emerging beneath the streets of Grand Rapids?

"Remote Control" is more down to earth, less Lovecraftian and more Mathesonian. It qualifies as a short short, under 1000 words. Graeme Hurry at the new ezine Kzine was happy to take this one, and I'm very grateful. It tells the story of a not very nice person getting his just desserts in an unusual way.

Both of these stories were written before I had a name for what I was trying to do with my writing, but some of the elements of haiku fiction are there. The focus is on a single character. There is some playing with the tenses and points of view. Both demonstrate my writing while I was still trying to figure out what haiku fiction is.

I hope you'll take a look at "Crapgod" and "Remote Control". I'm especially happy to see my horror-homage to my hometown in print. Support the small-press movement by buying Cover of Darkness and KZine.

Just in time for Christmas...

A short story of mine has just appeared in a new anthology by Post Mortem Press, entitled New Dawn Fades. A perfect gift for the horror readers on your list -- after all, what says Christmas more than a collection of twenty zombie stories?

Joe Schreiber, author of the Star Wars-zombie novels, StarWars: Death Troopers and Star Wars: Red Harvest, writes the introduction to the volume. He calls my story "Happy Birthday, Joshie" and the other stories of the collection "thrusts, stabs and downright eviscerations on a convention that just won't die."

I had a lot of fun writing "Happy Birthday, Joshie," and I hope it shows. The story does not play with the short fiction form, but it is still haiku fiction in that it looks at the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse through the eyes of a single individual.

Imagine a world where our loved ones need never die. Just infect them with the zombie virus and they stay the same forever. More or less. After many years, Rachel Harding finally knows what to give her brother unnaturally kept at age ten. She just needs to find a way to get her present to him in the zombie Viewing Center.

 
I love horror stories that make the reader wonder, who really is the monster. I hope that I pull off at least raising the question in "Happy Birthday, Joshie." The entire collection deals with the same issue, in many different ways. Again, from Joe Schreiber's introduction: "If I had to pick out a common thematic thread in these pages, it would be this: The zombies in New Dawn Fades hold a mirror up to ourselves."
 
Small stories, big impact is what haiku fiction is all about. I hope that you'll support the small press movement and give New Dawn Fades a try.

I'm My Own Kryptonite released!

I've just had the chance to listen to my story "I'm My Own Kryptonite," recently reprinted in podcast form at Wily Writers. The story was first published in the lamented A Thousand Faces magazine. I hope that the podcast will give the story more exposure.

The story is a superhero fantasy, but I hope with a twist. Here's the teaser at WW:

Kenley Williams’s alter ego is killing him. Literally. Is a painful life in the hospital worth everything he goes through as a superhero? Does he have to sacrifice love along with everything else?

I like to think that my writing is always getting better, but this is a tale I'm really proud of. It fits my ideals of haiku fiction perfectly, for the time at which I was writing it. I play with the tenses of the different sections of the story in a way that I hope creates resonances in the reader (or in this case, listener). This is one of the first stories where I feel that my "haiku fiction" voice is really coming through.

Nathan Crowder does an excellent job reading the story. He even pronounces my last name correctly! LOL Best of all, the podcast is a free download.

Please check out "I'm My Own Kryptonite," and let me know what you think!

What Is Haiku Fiction?

Small stories, big impact. That's the basic idea. But what does haiku fiction actually mean?

It may be best to begin by saying what we don't mean. Haiku fiction is not necessarily flash or micro fiction. Don't get me wrong. These are great genres. I encourage everyone to try them. They'll teach you how to tell a story where every word counts.

But haiku fiction can also be a short story of a more standard length. I've even seen novels that would qualify.

Haiku fiction has less to do with length and more to do with focus and precision.

We'll talk more about haiku (in Japanese, the same form is both singular and plural) in upcoming blogs. In brief though, haiku are short poems that use the natural world to cause an "aha" experience in the reader. In thinking about my own fiction, I realized that I was using techniques from haiku without even trying.

Haiku start from the natural world, but we have to be careful here. This is not some idealistic natural world. Japanese haiku authors are very self-conscious of the poetic history of every single word they use. Japanese haiku thus often depend not only on observation of the natural world but on a very sophisticated network of allusions and subtexts.

Haiku are brief. Every single word counts. If a Japanese poet achieves a true haiku, not one character could be added, not one character taken away or substituted.

Japanese haiku are evocative. Their meaning often depends on a kind of mental...triangulation between two phrases. The poems suggest a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. But they only suggest. The writer and the reader both have to work at the poem for it to achieve the desired effect.

Haiku fiction tries to take these features of haiku and apply them to fiction. Even in fantasy, it strives for a realistic, even naturalistic style. It focuses on the particular, on individuals, on specific events rather than painting with broad strokes. It may appear simple, but it is also richly allusive. It is brief and precise. It strives for every word to count. It is evocative. It invites the reader to dialogue.

That's haiku fiction. Or at least my first attempt to define it. As I continue to write and as I continue to talk with the readers of this blog, we'll work on refining that definition together.

Time to get back to writing!

Welcome!

I want to welcome you all to my new home on the web. There's not much here now, but I hope that that will change very shortly. Let me tell you a little bit what I hope you will see here.

First, this blog will be the best place to receive updates about my fiction. Find out about new stories, new releases and new acceptances. Find out where you can find pieces that you've missed. I'll also post some short pieces here from time to time.

Second, find out about what I'm reading. I review books for a few other websites, and I will link to those reviews as they're published. I may also review other books here from time to time.

Third, I am going to be blogging about what I mean by "haiku fiction." As I grow as a writer, this phrase has come to serve as an emblem for what I'm trying to achieve, at least in most of my stories. Some blogs will attempt to define what I mean by this phrase -- please comment!

Thank you for visiting, and again, welcome!