A Short Story Argument

Must a story have an argument, some central meaning around which it revolves?  Our literature teachers would doubtless say yes, which leads them to sneer at stories they view as insufficiently “deep” or meaningful, which, naturally, includes most speculative fiction.  Not surprisingly, I’ve always disagreed.  When I start writing a story, and when I finish writing a story, I don’t think about arguments or meanings, and I usually don’t want my readers thinking about it, either.

As I’ve been writing, and more importantly revising, short stories, though, I’ve started thinking more about story arguments.  This is particularly prompted by a member of my writing group who delves deeply into story theory.  A younger me might have scoffed at such notions, but his feedback is consistently insightful, and remarkably helpful in guiding revision.  That’s prompted me to start reconsidering the role of argument when I’m writing short stories.

When I say “argument,” I don’t mean that the story should have some deliberate, temporal message for readers, like Animal Farm’s warning about communism.  Rather, think of argument as how a story bridges to reality.  It is some enduring idea that is relevant to the human condition as a whole.  It doesn’t have to be grandiose (and probably shouldn’t be), or deeply insightful; it just has to make the story touch the reader in some way.  Notably, and the reason I’m writing this post, this is most relevant to short stories.

By now, I expect that most of you are familiar with the MICE quotient (if not, we have a post on it).  MICE, and similar structures, are why I never accepted the story argument idea as central to storytelling.  If stories can be driven by milieu, ideas, characters, and events, then why should something larger and more nebulous be necessary?  To some extent I still believe that to be a legitimate critique.  Especially in longer form storytelling, the MICE pillars are sufficient to drive and support a compelling story.  There is time in a novel to immerse the reader and draw them along with character, plot, and worldbuilding.  In short form, though, I find that is less true.

Unlike in a novel, a short story doesn’t allow the author to create a world richly textured enough, to depict an idea complexly enough, to write characters who become the reader’s close friends, to craft spectacularly intricate and fulfilling plots.  Those elements should still be present, but they aren’t as likely to be strong enough to support a story alone and to hold a reader’s interest.  An overarching, or perhaps an underlying, argument can help connect the story to the reader and elicit the investment that would come from the tools enabled by a higher wordcount.

Alternatively, you could view this same idea as arguments are present, whether intentional or not, in every story, but in short stories they need to be more at the forefront for the story to function, and so that readers will have something additional to latch onto and bring them through the story.

This doesn’t need to be deep, overt, explicit, in-your-face, or turn your story into an unreadable polemic (like, for instance, Pilgrim’s Progress).  In fact, it shouldn’t.  The argument, even in a short story, should be in the background, but it will still be sufficiently noticeable.  Instead, this is more useful from a drafting perspective.  Starting your short story writing from an argument instead of from a story idea (like I usually do) will help form the story, keep it in the wordcount, guide the story elements, and make for tighter overall storytelling.  I don’t know that it needs to be, or will necessarily be, in every story, but I would argue that it is a powerful tool.