The ten-year story
By Celeste Ng
How long would you work on a piece of fiction? We’ve talked before about the ten-year novel, and FWR contributor Margaret Dean shared her story of the “long hard slog” from MA thesis to published book.
But okay, those are novels. How long would you work on a single story? The Grub Daily, which was our Thursday Morning Candy a couple weeks ago, recently featured this essay by Amin Ahmad in which he describes working on a story for a full decade:
Had it really taken me eight years to write it? Thinking back, I realized that it had actually taken longer. Maybe ten years.
The story—which New England Review had just published as “A Taste of Revolution”—had predated the birth of my now ten year-old son. It had survived my divorce, my years in the wilderness, my re-marriage, and what I now think of as my rehabilitation as a writer.
What’s the longest you’ve ever worked on a story?
I wrote the first drafts of a few of the stories in my forthcoming collection in 2005. I’ve worked on them on and off during that time, sometimes leaving them alone for years. Oddly enough, it doesn’t feel like that long to me. I could easily see 10 years for one story. Thanks for the links!
Agreed! I have stories from 2001 that somewhere in my mind I still contemplate revising. Different from continuous change over a decade, but as long as something remains unpublished, I say it’s open season for revision …
Thanks so much for posting this! Seems like there are so many more anecdotes out there about brilliant artists producing genius work at breathtaking speed. Just this morning read an article in the New Yorker about how, for some years, Bach composed a cantata a week. A cantata a week!? I’m into year 7 of a short story collection. Kinda nice to know I’m not the only slow and plodding writer out there.
Yes, it seems like slow(er) is the norm, and fast is really the exception!