The Hong Kong Book Fair is famous for its great diversity and stunning transaction value of book-related goods and services. Although it is quite business-oriented, it manifests the intellectual and literary sides well. This year, a talk about short story writing and appreciation, “Guide to Hidden Treasure – Short Stories” was given by three renowned writers, William Waters, Hilary Heller and Richard Ryder.
The first speaker was Mr. Waters and his theme was “briefness”. “Some people describe writing a short story as composing a cantata. However, I totally disagree with them. The latter requires inspiration while the former needs calculation. The former is easier than the latter,” he said. Being awarded for Golden Pen Prize and Diamond Ink Prize, he is in a position to make fun of short stories. In his sharing, he mentioned that writers should calculate the number of words of a short story extremely carefully and delete the redundant information to keep the piece brief and pithy. Later, he cited his award-bearing short story “A Lone Wolf” as an example to show the audience how to appreciate the writer’s effort put in words, rhetorical devices, and plot, for instance. Mr. Water’s sharing was an admirable lesson on reading and writing short stories. He proposed that every word should be written with great care. His serious attitude and humorous remarks make this part educational as well as amusing.
After a 15 minute break, Ms Heller came on the stage and greeted us warmly. She is known for her romantic short stories. The theme of her sharing was “picture”. She gave us many extracts of classic short stories, focusing on the descriptions in the settings. “Excellent writers draw a whole picture with a few lines. The whole story then stays in readers’ mind.” Later, she invited some members of the audience to compose a short story with her spontaneously. It was a precious chance for me to witness down the stage the birth of a story from the hand of a professional writer. This on-the-spot demonstration helped me to understand more about the writing skills of a short story. Watching a writer writing up something itself was enough to grab my attention. It was amazing.
After the lunch break, the last speaker Richard Ryder entered. The first utterance of his was “I want to give every one of you a kiss.” This could arouse the audience‘s interest and even give them a shock. “Don’t think too much. This kiss is the tip of writing short stories. Keep it simple, stupid and sweet.” He mentioned the foremost element of a compelling story is a simple plot. He mentioned that too much detail and development would make the story boring. He is an authority in plot development for sure because his latest thriller has become the best-seller for a whole month. Later, he even showed his first short story. “It’s exemplary to show how excess elaboration kills a plot.” His courage of revealing his unsatisfactory old work to readers did remind me of a key characteristic in common among great writers: face failure. I could not help laughing all the time at his jokes about his own writing, though they were a bit mean.
The three speakers are great in different ways. Mr. Waters stressed the importance of calculation and analysis. He also showed how concise a masterpiece should be. His serious attitude to his work is worth learning. Ms Heller demonstrated other ways of writing, breezy and free. Through viewing the production of a story, I felt I know more about a story and the beauty of descriptive paragraphs. Mr. Ryder’s dry sense of humour was remarkable. Besides, his courage of facing his past failure made him admirable. It showed to me that a writer should be able to learn from his mistakes.
A short story is not only a genre. From Mr. Waters, Ms. Heller and Mr. Ryder, I realize it is an attitude, a style and a virtue. No wonder why it has been popular since many years ago and is still so.