Elevate Your Slice

Not too long ago I read an article in Harper's by Frederick Kaufman—"Debbie Does Salad: The Food Network at the Frontiers of Pornography"—where he compared the production techniques of the Food Network to porn video production techniques. He even had a porn director/producer watch the Food Network and evaluate it as if it were porn. Pretty darn funny. What brings this up is Steve Almond's short story "Pornography" in smokeLong, whose subject is a violent fist fight between two women. Just as Almond's great non-fiction book Candyfreak is porn for chocoholics, Almond, with this story's title, is making the explicit analogy that violence has the same riveting effect as porn. And indeed, there is a subtle bit of implicit social commentary here; we've all heard the arguments that the level of violence in (American) media far exceeds the sex quotient, yet our puritan heritage has us panicking over porn but not violence. So my first point on Almond's cool story is: notice how he makes the political statement without explicitly expressing it. For those of you who are activist orientated, this story and it's title are a great example of how to generate attention off topic (doubt me? just think how much traffic will be driven to this blog by the mention of "pornography" and "porn" and "sex"—I guarantee you that this post will bring in thousands of google search hits; and who knows, maybe some of them will read Almond's story and be affected in the way the author intends.)

What I really like about this story is the way that Almond makes this slice-of-life incident expand far beyond the incident itself. (Contest Alert: Later this year Storyglossia will be the locus for a slice-of-life contest—a cash paying contest, I might add—so pay heed to all my posts on the topic (search the blog to find them) because that will be the criteria for selecting the finalists.) In "Pornography" Almond accomplishes in a piece of flash fiction not only what most writers of flash fiction can't manage, but what many full-length stories can't accomplish. Part of that is technique: Almond knows that the incident itself is not enough to elevate his story above the thousands of others who crank out intense 750-word pieces. What separates, Almond (among others), however, is vision. He's intelligent, has a world view, is not afraid to express it, and above all, focuses his craft in the time-honored way to meld form and function.

Rather than point out every instance in the story where Almond reaches beyond the incident, what I'm going to do instead is challenge you would be contest-entrants to do the homework yourself. "Pornography" is short piece. Do what I do when I'm serious about learning how another writer achieves their effects: I print out the story and use a highlighter (you could do this online, but there's something about dragging ink over the words that makes things stick) to mark all the relevant passages for whatever I'm trying to learn. In this case, where is Almond not simply describing the action of the fistfight? When does he intimate that the observers—don't just focus on the narrator—are perceiving or affected in a way that transcends the brutality they are witnessing? Because that's what you want to do. In flash fiction, or short-shorts, whatever you want to call it, you have precious few words to make yourself felt. Some like to wow with language, prose poems in disguise. Others like to blow you away with images, or an arresting action sequence. Or maybe—and this is my least favorite as an editor—they will punctuate some plot with a punchline ending. But to my mind, what separates great literature from the so-so is that it bridges the gap between an individual's experience and the (somewhat) universal experience of others. How is what your narrator or focal point character experiencing relevant to anyone else? What do they feel that anyone else could identify with? And as a writer, how does your form of self-expression make contact with the rest of us, your readers? Most flash fiction I read does not bridge that gulf between writer and (many) readers. Oh, the writing might be hot, but no connection is made.

What I will be looking for is what Almond achieves in this story. No matter how strong the concrete description of the fistfight is, what sets this story apart is that the author is reaching beyond the incident; he's asking you to experience it vicariously (the powerful descriptive writing certainly takes you there), but more than that he's asking you to connect with the experience emotionally. He's asking you to imagine what you'd feel—a "damp buzz in my knuckles, the clench around my groin,"—perhaps? or something else? Just as the title engages you—antithetically—the prose itself asks you not only to participate in the spectacle, but to evaluate your emotional response to the punches and kicks. This is what literature is supposed to do. If you want to elevate your flash fiction from the ordinary, Almond's "Pornography" is an excellent example of how to get over the high bar.