{"id":4597,"date":"2008-09-26T17:13:39","date_gmt":"2008-09-27T00:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=4597"},"modified":"2022-03-07T09:49:22","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T17:49:22","slug":"stephen-king-on-short-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2008\/09\/26\/stephen-king-on-short-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen King on Short Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:5082,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.librarything.com\\\/work\\\/24369\\\/book\\\/30515785&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always been a big fan of short stories, will happily snap up a collection from any author I know, and have often found some wonderful gems in various &#8220;Best of&#8221; collections. In the introduction to <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.librarything.com\/work\/24369\/book\/30515785\" title=\"Library Thing: Stephen King: Skeleton Crew\">Skeleton Crew<\/a><\/em>, Stephen King has a nice little bit on just why they&#8217;re so fun&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  &#8230;most of you have forgotten the real pleasures of the short story. Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair. I can remember commuting between Maine and Pittsburgh during the making of <em>Creepshow<\/em>, and going mostly by car&#8230;. I had a reading of <em>The Thorn Birds<\/em>, by Colleen McCullough, on eight cassette tapes, and for a space of about five weeks I wasn&#8217;t even having an affair with that novel; I felt <em>married<\/em> to it&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>  A short story is a different thing altogether&#8211;a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A short story is a different thing altogether&#8211;a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2036],"tags":[16,391],"class_list":["post-4597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-quotes","tag-stephen-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}