When To Stop Reading, Part 3: Short Stories

A multi-part series where I address the question, When to stop reading?

• When To Stop Reading, Part 1: The Rules
• When To Stop Reading, Part 2: The Page 99 Test Put into Practice
• When To Stop Reading, Part 3: Short Stories
• When To Stop Listening, Part 4: Audiobooks

This is part 3 in what's become an ongoing series on when to stop reading a book. Each post stands alone, but feel free to read part 1 and part 2 before jumping into this one.

We often think of only novels when someone poses the question,

"At one point do you give up on a book?"

Maybe the question is better phrased as:

"At one point do you give up on a story?"

Short stories, whether standalone or as part of a compilation, fall into the 'when to stop reading' conundrum just like novels. Especially those which infringe into the length territory of novelettes. The further we get, and the more our frustration grows, the more likely we're going to put (or throw) that book down.

For purposes of this discussion, I'm going to use an example: The Solaris Book of New Fantasy. TSBONF is a compilation of shorts by such notable authors as Mark Chadbourn, Janny Wurts, Jeff VanderMeer, Chris Roberson, Lucius Shepherd, Steven Erikson, and others. I just finished the book, so I'm at a good point to discuss it's highs and lows. In particular, there were stories I stopped reading simply because they were going nowhere or just weren't holding my attention.

Some people say you have thirteen lines in which to hook the reader of a short story. I found this to be more or less true as more often than not I knew just by looking at that first page whether or not the story was going to hold my attention. It's not a hard and fast rule, of course, but it's often easy to get a good feel for what the story is about and if it's your cup of tea.

In the following list I'm going to use some clever graphics to indicate whether or not I finished the story. "Thumbs up" means I finished. "Thumbs down" means I flipped through the remainder of that story and went on to the next one.

1. "Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast", by Mark Chadbourne
2. "Reins of Destiny", by Janny Wurts
3. Tornado of Sparks, by James Maxey
4. Grander the the Sea, by T.A. Pratt
5. The Prince of End Times, by Hal Duncan
6. King Tales, by Jeff VanderMeer
7. In Between Dreams, by Christopher Barzak
8. And Such Small Deer, by Chris Roberson
9. The Wizard's Coming, by Juliet E. McKenna
10. Shell Game, by Mike Resnick
11. The Song Her Heart Sang, by Steven Savile
12. A Man Falls, by Jay Lake
13. O Caritas, by Conrad Williams
14. Lt. Privet's Love Song, by Scott Thomas
15. Chinandega, Lucius Shepherd
16. Quashie Trapp Blacklight, by Steven Erikson

A quick tally shows that I finished ten out of the sixteen stories in TSBONF, or 62.5%. Six stories remained unfinished, or 37.5%.

I don't know what ratio indicates I didn't waste my money. I read ten stories, most of which I enjoyed. I remember a couple leaving me a little dissatisfied, but nothing like the sheer "WTF is this about?" I thought as I skipped through the six stories I did not finish.

For me, this is a lesson. Not only in what I like to read, but also what elements keep someone from putting a book down. I can only attempt to instill such elements into my own writing.

As always, I'll end with a question: What makes you put a book down?

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