So what would be the essential working parts of an ideal short story?
The story must be tight and well written; a novel can take a few fumbles without much damage, but a short story really suffers from them.
The opening must be catchy and quick and set a mood—the story should be rolling with the first line. No space here for the dark and stormy night.
From C. J. Box’s “Power Wagon”: “A single headlight strobed through a copse of ten-foot willows on the other side of the overgrown horse pasture. Marissa unconsciously laced her fingers over her pregnant belly and said, ‘Brandon, there’s somebody out there.’ ”
Single headlight strobed/ten-foot willows/overgrown horse pasture/laced her fingers/pregnant belly/somebody out there.
All that bound in two sentences, thirty-six words.
What, you’re going to stop reading right there?
Scene-setting should be integral to the story, part of the fabric rather than long blocks of exposition. The scene-setting ideally should contribute to the mood and texture of the story. If you set a dark, morose story on a sunny summer’s day, you’re fighting yourself. Not to say that it can’t be done.
From Charles John Harper’s “Lovers and Thieves”: “It was the kind of rain favored by lovers and thieves. A misty November rain. The kind that hangs low, veil-like, obscuring the dark, desperate world beneath it. The kind that sends lovers into their bedrooms and thieves into the night . . . I was more like the thief, waiting outside the Bon Vivant on La Brea, a tired, three-story, stucco apartment building with a name more festive than its architecture. Waiting inside my gunmetal-gray 1934 DeSoto Airflow Coupe . . . It wasn’t where I wanted to be. It wasn’t where a PI makes any real money in this town.”
Now we get to character. The physical description of the characters is critical, and what the reader sees in this physical description should tell us much about the character’s personality. There’s a reason for that: it creates an immediate image in the reader’s mind, so that laborious explication isn’t necessary. If a guy has a twice-broken nose, a fedora, a double-breasted suit, and is smoking a Lucky Strike Green, we’ve got a pretty good idea of when and where the story is coming from, without even knowing much more.
From Dan Bevacqua’s “The Human Variable”: “Standing out front near the bug light was an incredibly tall, incredibly thin man with an orange beard. He had the word SELF tattooed above his right eyebrow. MADE was above the left. Ted asked him [where he was.] . . . ‘Liberty’ . . . ‘Thanks . . .’ ‘Yut,’ SELF MADE said, as if he were offended by language, as if it had done something horrible to him as a child.”
Of course, a major factor in short story writing is that the story itself has to be good. One of the biggest problems of too many short stories is that they’re boring and occasionally stupid, and you feel that the editor who chose it for publication has some unstated motive for choosing it.
By “good,” I mean the reader has to want to continue it, the story should have something interesting to say about the characters (and about character in general), and it should have something surprising about it.
Not surprising in a jack-in-the-box way, where something weird pops up in the last paragraph, but something logical, something that develops directly from the story line, but something that the reader didn’t see coming. And preferably something that contributes to the resolution of the story. Something like the dog that didn’t bark in the night.
Almost all the stories in this collection work that way: I can’t quote them because I’d be giving too much away. I can say that one story that I didn’t like, and didn’t select, was doing fine until the last moment, when all the questions were answered by a jack-in-the-box.
And finally there has to be some resolution. You can’t just end a short story; you have to wind it up.
As Doug Allyn does in “Puncher’s Chance” (not a spoiler): “And because it’s the flat-ass truth.”
Some people might tell you that crime short stories, unlike the more precious kind, are a kind of fictional ghetto, full of cardboard characters and clichéd situations.
Not true. These stories are remarkably free of bullshit—although there’s always a little, just to grease the wheels. And as a guy who writes a lot of crime, I love the language, the kind of language you don’t generally find in The New Yorker.
I personally have used the phrase “douche-nozzle” to characterize a low-life character in an upcoming novel, and have to say that I’m nothing if not proud of myself; you’ll find more of that kind of fine stuff in this collection.
And so . . .
Here they are.
John Sandford
DOUG ALLYN
Puncher’s Chance
FROM Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
My sister finished me in the third round. It wasn’t a big punch. It stung, but didn’t do serious damage.
But it definitely got the job done.
We were sparring in the ring of our family gym, tuning each other up, getting prepped for fights only a few days away.
Jilly’s bout would open the show at Motor City Stadium, Detroit’s version of Madison Square Garden. Home of the Red Wings, Big Time Wrestling, and the Friday Night Fights. Chick boxers are mostly a diversion, eye candy tacked onto a program to pump up the crowd. No one takes them seriously. Yet.
Jilly’s trying to change that, one round at a time. Cute, blond, and blocky, she could pass for a junior-college cheerleader.
Who punches like a pile driver.
I was hoping my opponent wouldn’t be much tougher than hers. I’d be facing Kid Juba, a middleweight from Chicago. He’s been away from the game for a few years with drug problems, looking for a big comeback.
So am I. Juba will be my first bout since I ripped a rotator cuff last fall.
The docs say my shoulder’s healed now, good to go. I can curl my own weight again and spar all damn day with only an occasional ache. But boxing careers can crash and burn in a few tough years, and the six-month layoff to rehab my shoulder has been driving me bonkers.
I was desperate to get back in the ring, desperate to get my life back on track.
I come from a Detroit family of fighters, the Irish Maguires. Boxing isn’t a sport to us, it’s been the family business for three generations. We own our own gym, train ourselves. My grandfather Daryl was a welterweight contender back in the eighties. Fought Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns in their primes. My Pops, Gus Maguire, won silver in the Olympics and coached U.S. boxing teams three times.
I’m next in line, with little brothers Sean and Liam only a few years behind me.
Jilly is the first female Maguire to step through the ropes. And if the game doesn’t take women seriously, nobody told Jilly. She fights every round like a freakin’ headhunter. No mercy, no quarter asked or given.
Pops didn’t want her in the ring, said it was no fit place for a woman. When she pushed it, he matched her with Liam, who’s only fifteen but a strapping lad with fifty-plus Golden Gloves bouts under his belt. He promptly put her on the deck.
No big surprise. Every green fighter gets clocked, especially if she’s fighting a Maguire. But Jilly shook it off, and the next round she threw an elbow in a clinch and busted Liam’s lower lip open. The dirty foul ended the bout. It took sixteen stitches to close the wound. But it got my Pops’s attention.
After she sent Liam to the emergency room, Pops quit blowing Jilly off. Noted that she could take a punch, refused a hand up when she got dropped, and came back fiercer than before.
And most of all, noted how hungry she was. It takes more than guts and skill to prevail in the ring. It takes smarts and tenacity and, above all, the will to win. Jilly’s got the whole package. She can take a punch and she’s even better at dishing them out.
Usually.
But not today.
As we boxed, I realized Jilly was holding herself in check, pulling her punches. My freakin’ baby sister was actually taking it easy on me in the
ring.
Screw this! I slipped her next hook, then clinched, pinning her arms tight against her sides.
“C’mon, little twit! Put some steam on it, if you got any!” I gave her a rabbit punch as we broke, and she swung an elbow, barely missing my nose.
“Time!” Pops yelled, before we could do each other serious harm.
I didn’t bother with the stool, stayed on my feet, dancing in my corner, steaming.
“Keep your guard up, Mick,” Pops chortled. “Your sister’s gettin’ miffed.”
“Good! Hey, Jilly! I won’t be fighting a girl come Friday night,” I yelled across the ring. “This Kid Juba will be lookin’ to drop a Maguire, make a name for himself. Crank it up, goddamn it! Show me something!”
And she did. She showed me I was finished.
At the bell, Jilly came out of her corner like Smokin’ Joe Frazier, punching like a machine, a steady drumbeat of serious blows, every one dead-eye accurate.
Which was exactly what I needed. It woke me up. On full defensive alert now, I was picking off her punches with my gloves and forearms, fighting on autopilot, more interested in her skills than my own.
I threw a right-hand lead to slow her roll; she countered it with a stiff left hook to the base of my rib cage. I dropped my elbow to block the punch . . .
But I missed it.
Her hook grazed my arm, then struck home, digging under my ribs. It wasn’t full strength, but it definitely stung. And I winced. And read the shock in her eyes.
As we both realized I’d just missed a basic block.
Because I couldn’t make it.
My surgically repaired shoulder had a glitch. My range of motion had been reduced by an inch. One critical inch. The healing was done, and so was I.
I couldn’t drop my elbow far enough to defend my gut. It was a fatal flaw. One that any schooled fighter would spot in a round or two. And when he did, he’d start firing body shots that would snap me in half.
The same way my little sister had nearly dropped me by sheer accident.
“Time!” Pops called, though we were only forty seconds into the round. “Time, goddamn it!”
Jilly followed me to my corner.
“What the hell was that?” they demanded together.
“I missed a block,” I growled, though I was as shaken as they were. “No big deal.”
“It looked big to me,” Pops growled. “Lower your elbow.”
I did.
“All the way down!”
“That is all the way,” I said, swallowing bile. “That’s as far as it freakin’ goes.”
“Ah, sweet Jaysus,” he said, turning away. Pops looked like he wanted to throw up, and Jilly was nearly as green.
I knew exactly how they felt. Because we all knew what it meant.
As long as I could throw leather I’d have a puncher’s chance. The hope of landing one big punch that’ll turn a fight around. Or end it.
But the permanent gap in my guard meant I’d never have the prime-time career I’d trained and sweated for all my life. In a single round, with a single punch, I’d gone from being a contender to a burnout.
I could still earn for a while. Guys could pad their records by beating hell out of me, and even losers’ purses add up. But every bout would send me further down the road to Palookaville.
Stick a fork in me. I was done.
I dropped down on the stool in my corner, staring down at my shoelaces, seeing the wreckage of my life swirling in the spit bucket. Don’t know how long I sat there. Eventually I came out of the fog. Realized Jilly had hit the showers. Probably to hide her tears.
But Pops hadn’t gone. He was parked on a wooden bench against the gym wall, looking even worse than I felt. Which was saying something.
I climbed through the ropes and eased down beside him.
“C’mon, Pops, it ain’t the end of the world. Liam’s almost of age, and his punch is bigger than mine—”
“Liam will never train here,” Pops said flatly. “We’re going to lose the gym, Mick.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your last fight,” he said. “Against Clubber Daniels? He was made for you, Mick. Looked scary as hell, had all them iron-pumper muscles. He’d won eight straight, but most of ’em were tomato cans. Watchin’ the film on him, he was just a brawler, with no real skills. I figured he’d punch himself out in the first couple rounds. By the third, you’d own his ass. Put him away in the fifth or sixth.”
“But I tore my shoulder in the third,” I said, shaking my head at the memory.
“And then tried to fight him one-handed.” He nodded grimly. “Got decked twice before the ref stopped it.”
“That was stupid, Pops, I know, but—”
“No. That was Irish heart, Mick. Not smart, maybe, but amazin’ brave. The stupid part is, I bet on you. Bet heavy.”
“What?”
“You heard me, Mick. I bet the freakin’ farm.”
“But . . . managers can’t bet. It’s illegal—”
“The gym’s been bleeding red for months, son. We needed a payday to tide us over. I knew you’d be earning big soon, and with Jilly coming up, and Liam only a few years behind, we’d be back in clover in no time. But instead of a fat payday . . .” He shook his head.
“That’s why they call it gambling, Pops,” I said. “How much are we down?”
“Almost ten.”
“Thousand? Sweet Jesus, Pops!”
“I got greedy,” he admitted. “It was my first time crossin’ over to the dark side, and since I knew it was a sure thing—”
“You went big.” I groaned. “Where’d you get the money?”
“I borrowed half from the bank against the gym. The rest I spread around on IOUs. Still owe most of that. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“Seriously? It gets worse?”
“I doubled down, Mick.”
“You . . . doubled?”
“I bet big on you again, for Friday against Kid Juba. After losing your last fight, then the long layoff? You’re the underdog, Mick, with odds against you three and four to one. We ain’t had a payday since you got hurt, and I knew you could take him—”
“Only I can’t, Pops. Christ, I probably can’t take Jilly.”
He didn’t argue the point. We both knew I was right. He walked away, silver-haired, pudgy, looking every damn minute of his fifty-plus. I stayed on the bench. Where I belonged. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Mr. Maguire?”
A woman was standing in front of me. Hadn’t seen her come in. Tall, slim. Black slacks, black turtleneck. Boots. Raven-black hair cropped short as a boy’s.
“I’m Bobbie Barlow,” she said, tapping my glove with her small fist. “Ring Scene Fanzine ? Our interview was set for eleven, but I came early. And I’m glad I did.”
Sweet Jesus!
“How long have you been here?” I managed.
“Long enough to catch the drama. What was all that about?”
“Just a sparring session, lady. Boxing practice.”
“I know what sparring is, Mr. Maguire. I also know what a liver shot is. And it looked like your little sister hooked you with one.”
“I wasn’t hurt.”
“That’s because she didn’t have much on it. But it’s a deadly punch. Joe Louis won half his fights with it.”
I stared at her.
“Joe Louis Barrow?” she prompted. “The Brown Bomber? His fist is on display over at Hart Plaza. Twenty-four feet long, eight thousand pounds, cast in bronze? Maybe you’ve seen it.”
I still didn’t say anything. Still trying to shake off the darkness of Jilly’s punch. And the end of my world.
She eyed me a moment, then shrugged. “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Maguire. We probably won’t talk again, since you won’t like my story. Irish Mick Maguire almost clocked by his little sister. Would you care to comment?”
I couldn’t think of one. She turned to walk away.
“Wait,” I said. “If you write that, you’ll get me killed.”
She faced me. “I beg your pardon?”
“If you write that my sister caught me with a liver shot and Juba’s people see it? You might as well tattoo a target on me, lady. He’ll break me in half.”
“He’ll probably kill you whether I write it or not. He’s a seasoned fighter, Mick. He’ll pick up on it.”
“He’s been out of the game. Drug problems.”
“Is that what the promoter told you? Juba’s been serving a three-year drug sentence in Joliet, fighting for the prison team. He’s been training hard every damn day, desperate for a comeback. Dropping an Irish Maguire will get him ink and face time on TV. Especially if he’s standing over your dead body.”
I didn’t say anything. This day kept getting better and better.
Barlow was watching me, reading my reaction. Our eyes met and held. She had a strong gaze. Honest. And attractive. I couldn’t help smiling and shaking my head. At her. At the whole damned crazy business.
“You didn’t know about Juba’s prison time, did you?” she said. “You were expecting a tune-up fight?”
“It won’t matter when the bell goes off. Maybe Juba will be in top shape. Maybe he’ll be rusty from fighting second-raters.”
“Second-raters?”
“If they’re in prison, how smart can they be? Either way, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tip him off about . . . what you think you saw.”
“I know what I saw, Mick. And if there’s a weak point in your defense, Juba will pick up on it.”
“Maybe. If he has enough time.”
“A puncher’s chance? That’s what you’re counting on? You’re hoping to clock him before he can spot the problem?”
“A puncher’s always got a chance, lady. If you stand in there and keep throwing leather, one punch can change the fight, change your luck. Change everything.”