A Short Story Writer's Companion

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: As a student of Dr. Bailey's, this book greatly helped me explore the short story genre and opened my eyes to how amazing the form can be.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but needs proofreading
Review: As can be seen, I have rated this a three-star book. The main reasons for this are the repetitious use of source material (a dialogue by Hemingway used twice in its entirety, plus the same quote from Flannery O'Connor rehashed only two pages apart), as well as the inexcusable number of typographical errors that mar a good many pages. One especially glaring example includes the two missed-out words ironically from the page on "Polishing", where we read:

A good essay to read on "Publishers and Publishing" is by C. Michael Curtis, Senior Editor of The Atlantic Monthly, where for the past twenty years or so he been [sic] largely responsible for almost of [sic] the fiction the magazine has published.

Others include, but are not limited to:
p. 39 cush instead of such
p. 65 hallowing instead of hollowing
p. 68 intellecutally [sic];afterall [sic]
p. 83 packets instead of pockets

Apart from these errors, the book has much for the beginning writer, which I still am after 12 years of writing short stories. The first few sections on Significant Detail, Character, Point of View and Power of the Plot were all very strong, even if not entirely new to me. However, despite Tom Bailey's many admirable touches (you can tell he is a gifted writing teacher from his unstinting generosity and profusion of examples), the glut of the material seems to have come from other sources, notably Gardner's 'Art of Fiction', Raymond Carver's 'Fires', and Flannery O'Connor's 'Writing Short Stories'.

The book's main strength is that it has introduced me to a much wider variety of writers, and given me enough ideas for the mother of all wish lists. Lastly, Tom Bailey's story at the end, 'Snow Dreams', went a long way in making me forget the score of pesky but debilitating errors on many of the other pages.

Rating:
Summary: useful for writers and teachers
Review: Tom Bailey's "A Short Story Writer's Companion" is one of the most helpful writing books that I've read (the others being Bailey's own "On Writing Short Stories" and John Gardner's "The Art of Fiction" and "On Becoming a Novelist"). Bailey's book is steeped in the words of other writers but never showboats his extensive knowledge-each writer's words are cited and Bailey quickly pulls them into the points that he hammers home: whether it be drawing from a Eudora Welty quote to illustrate the many functions of setting or citing David Foster Wallace and William Gass on point of view. Reading Bailey not only informs you on how to write but about writers as well. It serves as a great launching board for these authors.

But Bailey never drowns in outside sources. His own prose is often just as well crafted as those authors he cites and to prove that he's not simply blowing smoke, Bailey includes his Pushcart-winning story "Snow Dreams." It's a dark, character-driven tragedy set in a fully realized world that make not only a gut-wrenching story but promises to be a knockout novel in 2004.

Also included are exercises for young writers to hone their craft. I found these to be very helpful in the few workshops that I've had the opportunity to lead. Ultimately, that proves the value of this book: it's useful not only students and writers but to teachers as well.