The Lives Our Stories Lead
I’ve been following a fascinating discussion of my story “Night Bird Soaring” over at the Escape Pod forums, which has gotten me thinking a lot about some of the editorial choices I made with this story and about how stories take on a life of their own after publication.
The ending is a point of argument among the commenters who think it brings the story around into the realm of fantasy, and early in this discussion, I was really kind of kicking myself for a decision I made during the final edit with my editor at GUD; it had been suggested that I cut two lines at the end because she thought what I meant was clear enough without it (I’m not going to say what these two lines were, for reasons I’ll go into a little later.). I hedged on it a bit before finally deciding “Well, if she thinks it’s clear, then it must be,” and so chopped the lines and didn’t think about it anymore.
Until Rich Horton’s review came out in Locus a couple months later, and I realized he’d read the ending in a way I completely didn’t intend it to read. I was kind of grinding my teeth about it, but not many others mentioned the same issue with the ending, and then the award nominations/recommendations started rolling in. Obviously the ending as it was reading wasn’t killing the story, so why worry?
Fast forward to earlier this week and immediately commenters started expressing dissatisfaction with the “fantasy-feel” of the ending. Not at all surprising to me when I saw it, but still I was a bit angry at myself for that editorial decision I made 4 years ago. I had considered reinserting the original cut lines when I submitted to Escape Pod, so the ending would read the way I’d intended, but I couldn’t get past the whole idea that I would be altering it significantly. I’ve never been fond of alternate endings on movies or reissues of books with all the material that was cut in the original edition put back in. It’s kind of like insisting on determining your kid’s life path after they’ve reached adulthood. I thought about posting to the thread to tell everyone “well, this is what I’d originally intended, but such and such got cut, blah, blah.”
But then the conversation started getting really interesting as folks started picking apart what the whole fantasy angle at the end might mean in the largest context of the story’s universe, and I suddenly realized: Who gives a shit what I’d intended? I was told long ago when I first started writing that no one cares what I intended, only what the story tells them, and I’m not going to be there to hold the reader’s hand while they read and explain everything to them. This was in context to clear writing and plotline, but I think it applies in a broader sense too. Once you publish a story, it aught to stand on its own, and whatever you intended doesn’t matter anymore; all that matters is the story as the reader will understand it. It’s no longer your baby to mold and direct and it now has it’s own life and will make its own way.
And quite honestly, I don’t feel so angry at myself anymore about that choice I made 4 years ago (and yes, it was my choice to cut the lines. There was no pressure from my editor). My story is living a fascinating life thanks to that choice, undoubtedly more fascinating than the one I’d intended for it, and I think it’s rather cool. Whatever I’d intended, it just doesn’t matter anymore.
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October 5, 2011 1 Comment
Year’s Best Science Fiction – Honorable Mention
The esteemed Doug Cohen at Realms of Fantasy just informed me that my short story “The Hearts of Men” garnered a honorable mention in the latest Year’s Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois. Very exciting!
Good friend Aliette de Bodard also wracked up quite a few honorable mentions and had a story included in the anthology, but I was thrilled to see my favorite of her stories last year, “Desaparecidos”, was among the honorable mentions. Congrats to her on another stellar year!
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June 30, 2011 2 Comments
Another Review of Shock Totem 1
Found another new review of the premier issue of Shock Totem, featuring my short story “The Music Box”. Nathaniel Katz had this to say about my piece:
T.L. Morganfield’s The Music Box, seems on first glance to be as odd a horror opener as imaginable. The story is told from the point of view of Snowflake, a sentient stuffed elephant who does his best to get his nemesis, the stuffed Boo Bear, to be eaten by the family’s dog instead of him. The first pages are more cute and amusing than scary – and then comes the part where Snowflake and the other animals display sickening cruelty in their competitions with one another.
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January 14, 2011 1 Comment
New Review of Shock Totem 1
My fantastic editor over at Shock Totem found this review at Casual Debris yesterday (my Google alerts appear not to be working, as usual. It only ever finds my blog posts anymore, even after redoing the alerts….). Here’s the part about my story:
“A good lead-in story about a pair of stuffed animals competing for a boy’s attention. Snowflake the elephant was father’s childhood favourite while Boo Bear was mother’s. What works here is that it’s not just the animals that are in competition, but the parents’ own unhealthy relationship is highlighted in their efforts to thrust upon their only child a part of their individual pasts. Troubled and unable to face their problems, it is the tensions in their relationship that manifests itself in this competition. The father has an advantage for, long ago, Snowflake had revealed to him the secret of stuffed animals: they are sentient, have acute feelings and are able to enact horrible acts of vengeance. Of course, it’s all for love. 7/10″
There’s a lot more written up about the other stories and magazine itself, so go check it out.
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November 19, 2010 No Comments
New Review of Eight Against Reality
Found another review of the Anthology Eight Against Reality. Luke Forney of The OLD Luke Reviews had this to say about my story “Love, Blood and Octli”:
A tale that worked myth into narrative in a brilliant way (too bad the Mythopoeic Award is only for novels), this story was great in almost every way.
Visit the OLR website to read the rest of the review.
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August 27, 2010 No Comments
