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How Contemporary Short Story Collections Are Shaping a New Literary Reality
Anastasia Shevchenko began her lecture by asking the main question: what exactly is a short story? This genre is often underestimated, being taken as a "torn piece" from a novel, but it has its own strict rules and formulas. You can draw an analogy with cinema: if a novel is like a long movie or a TV series, then a short story is more like a short film, capable of revealing an entire story in a very limited time.
"This is a story, perhaps an incident or an episode from the hero's life, which can begin at any point and end at any point. But it is necessarily a complete episode," Anastasia explained. She gave the example of Daniel Keyes' classic text "Flowers for Algernon," which first existed as a short story and then turned into a full-fledged novel. This example, according to Shevchenko, perfectly demonstrates that a short story can grow like a small seed, from which, under certain conditions, a large tree can grow. A short story does not require the author to make complex plot twists, as in a novel, but at the same time it forces him to concentrate all the most important things in a limited volume. This is its charm - and complexity.
The history of the short story genre is closely linked to literary magazines, which were popular for almost two centuries. Shevchenko reminded the audience of how magazines once served as book serials. The short story, as Anastasia explained, was an ideal form for publication in magazines — there was no need to wait for the next issue to find out how the story ends, as often happened with novels.
However, over time, interest in short stories began to decline. The era of the market economy arrived, when books turned into a mass-market product, and novels for every taste filled the shelves. At the same time, short stories continued to live in thick literary magazines, but collections were published extremely rarely. Interestingly, a kind of "nostalgic connection" remained from this period, that a short story is something small, quick and insignificant. But, as we see today, time has made its own adjustments, and interest in the short form began to rapidly revive. "Many authors have appeared who write exclusively short stories, and now anthologies have become popular with readers," Shevchenko emphasized.
As times and readers' demands changed, the format of the story itself changed. The modern story is no longer the same as the one published in "fat men" a century ago. Anastasia named the presence of a final twist - a plot twist that completely changes our perception of the story - as one of the main distinguishing features of modern short fiction. "When something happens at the end that makes you go back to the beginning," she explained.
Shevchenko noted that today authors often try to "deceive" the reader by offering him an "unreliable narrator" or an unexpected revelation of circumstances at the end. This technique has become an important component of modern short fiction. The reader cannot predict the ending, which means that even in a few pages it is possible to achieve an effect that will change the idea of what has been read.
Another important feature of modern short stories is their conciseness and structure. "Very few authors, recognized modern writers, and even classics, wrote short stories because there are very clear rules that are not always obvious," Shevchenko said. This is the difficulty: the smaller the volume, the more concentration the text requires. The author is forced to fit the plot into a limited framework without losing its depth.
According to Anastasia Shevchenko, there are several rules that every author should follow. The first and most important is the plot line. "As a rule, there will be one plot line, the main line in the story," she emphasized. Despite the fact that modern authors sometimes allow themselves to experiment with timelines and flashbacks, in a short form such techniques should be minimal so as not to confuse the reader and maintain dynamics.
Another important aspect is the number of characters. The story cannot be oversaturated with heroes, because their introduction into the plot requires significant time and effort to reveal their characters. "There should not be too many heroes," Shevchenko noted, adding that sometimes authors deliberately create confusing situations in order to present an unexpected turn at the end that will explain everything.
And of course, the climax or finale is the moment for which the story is written. “The last sentence should change your understanding of the story,” Shevchenko explained. It is the final point that should leave a deep impression on the reader and a desire to return to the text again. These rules, according to Shevchenko, not only help authors create strong texts, but also allow stories to find their place in the modern literary world.
Anastasia Shevchenko divides publications with stories into anthologies and author's collections. Among the bright anthologies with a main theme, one can single out "Mechanical Intervention", "Neuro Pepperstein", "Belkin's New Stories" and "The World Without the Strugatskys". Each of these collections represents a world where different authors interpret one theme in their own way, creating a multi-layered canvas of stories that, in essence, represent one view of the diversity of the modern world.
This is an experimental collection of short stories from the Alpina Proza publishing house. In it, the authors used Yandex Chat in their work. “It was a new experience for many,” says Shevchenko. — Some had already encountered artificial intelligence, and others, like Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya, tried this form of work for the first time. The writers tried to adjust the AI, giving it hints that helped them develop the plot. ” But the interaction with Alice was difficult. “It turned out that the machine uprising was postponed,” laughs Anastasia. The authors literally butted heads with the neural network. Some argued with it, others tried to be polite.
Neuro Pepperstein is one of Pavel Pepperstein’s first AI experiments. “Pavel Pepperstein is a man at the intersection of two worlds,” says Shevchenko. “On the one hand, he is an artist, and on the other, he is a postmodern prose writer who is hard to confuse with the other. His texts are always full of metaphors, allusions, ironic self-quotes, which is a real challenge for the reader.” Pepperstein’s experiments involved one text being written by the writer and the other by a machine. The readers were asked to guess which story was written by whom. “A lot of readers were able to distinguish Neuro from Pepperstein,” says Anastasia. This is because the AI took only Paul’s text from the network and combined it into a new piece. “And anyone who has read Pepperstein at least once will immediately understand that this is just an assembly kit,” she says.
Another literary experiment was “Belkin’s New Stories.” The idea was that modern writers would write in the spirit of Pushkin, preserving the atmosphere and style of the 19th century while bringing their own unique voice to the text. “Not every writer is ready to write in someone else’s style, but Pavel Pepperstein, Alexey Salnikov and Roman Senchin took it up. They created new versions of Belkin’s Tales in their own way, but respected Pushkin’s traditions,” Shevchenko said.
Each author approached the work in his own way, but managed to maintain a balance between style and personal style. “Lesha Salnikov’s text turned out to be a bit cynical, but still humanistic,” says Anastasia. — Pepperstein, as always, added his signature flamboyant approach just before 21+, but at the same time remained within the framework of the 19th century. And Roman Sentin wrote about Siberia, military families, and the 90s, where you could also feel Pushkin’s style.”
Anastasia Shevchenko participated in this collection as a literary editor. The project itself, according to her, was dedicated to the creation of an alternative reality in which the Strugatsky brothers would not have become writers, and in their absence there would have been a void - a gap that would have been filled by other authors. "The idea was to imagine that one of the brothers could have died in the siege of Leningrad, and the second would not have returned from the war. Who would have taken their place then?" Shevchenko explained. "Vasily Vladimirsky, a science fiction scholar and compiler of the collection, proposed this interesting concept: Russian writers, many of whom are science fiction writers, had to take the style of another Soviet author, for example, Shalamov or Bitov, and write a text with obligatory references to the Strugatskys. Can you imagine what task they faced?" Shevchenko noted that the result exceeded expectations.
Pavel Selukov and his collections "Getting Tarkovsky" and "Ragnarok"
Anastasia Shevchenko drew attention to the work of Pavel Selukov, singling him out as one of the few contemporary authors capable of writing in both short and long form. Shevchenko described his works as caustic, sarcastic, sometimes even unpleasant from a physiological point of view, but always witty and paradoxical. “He can write about marginal topics, about things that not everyone wants to read,” she continued, “but suddenly these characters amaze us, for example, gopniks start quoting Sartre.”
Igor Beloded, according to Anastasia, works wonderfully with the small form. And his collection "Morning Was an Eye" is a vivid confirmation of this. "Even from the title you can understand a lot. This is the first line of one of his stories, which immediately immerses you in the space of multi-layered metaphors. In his texts, the style and directions can change, sometimes they seem to twist into a spiral, and the metaphors lead the reader deeper and deeper into the meaning," Shevchenko explained.
She noted that some of Bilodid's works may seem overloaded with symbols and images, such as the pupil of the eye, which was the morning - a kind of accumulation of metaphors. "Sometimes, on the contrary, he writes ringingly, clearly, without unnecessary details, and then the plot comes to the fore, often creepy." Shevchenko emphasized that the author creates a new urban myth, relying on everyday life and avoiding mysticism. In this space, his heroes may seem crazy or in a state of delirium, but everything that happens feels like reality. "And this is what scares me the most," Shevchenko concluded.
Anna Shipilova and the collection "Moscow Soon" and Anna Luzhbina and the collection "Nimble People"
Anastasia Shevchenko compared the works of two writers, Anna Shipilova and Anna Luzhbina. According to Shevchenko, Shipilova creates stories using simple but powerful phrases that, like film frames, paint vivid images: “The collection “Moscow Soon” is dedicated to women living in cities and towns in Russia. These are stories about how they cope with everyday life and inner experiences. The heroines are of different ages and social statuses. These are the same little people we once wrote about in school. These “little people” may seem insignificant, but each of them has a huge universe inside them, and they are able to move this clumsy world a little, at least for those who read their stories.”
Luzhbina's work is distinguished by an amazing melodious language. "If Shipilova sometimes writes harshly and even mercilessly, then Luzhbina creates worlds full of musicality and poetry. If we lived in the world described by Alexey Salnikov in the novel "Indirectly", where the word had an almost narcotic effect, Luzhbina would be the most powerful sorceress. Her metaphors and epithets are so masterfully intertwined that they take the reader along with them, like the flute of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, creating a feeling of immersion in a unique reality," said Shevchenko.
In the collection "Nimble People" Luzhbina also shows the life of those "little people" - couriers, service workers, refugees and orphans, who often go unnoticed in everyday life. "She draws attention to those whom we sometimes do not look at, look away from or simply do not notice," Shevchenko noted. In her interpretation, the work of both writers opens up worlds full of humanity and subtle observations about life to the reader.
“She is not only a Lyceum student (nominated for the Lyceum Prize, — editor’s note), but also a film and television director, which makes her texts less figurative and more cinematic,” Shevchenko noted. Grit actively uses visual techniques in organizing her stories, experimenting with the layout of the text. “Sometimes her works resemble online correspondence or take unexpected graphic forms. This creates a unique reading experience.” Shevchenko emphasized that such experiments are nothing new. “We could see similar approaches in the works of writers of the 1920s and 1930s. However, the way modern authors implement these ideas is of genuine interest.”
Ekaterina Petrova is a literary columnist for the online newspaper Realnoe Vremya, the author of the Telegram channel Buns with Poppy Seeds, and the founder of the first online book club by subscription, Makulatura.