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Bridport Prize 2002Short Story Judge - Tobias Hill
2002 ReportWriters, being wordy people, are rarely short of an opinion on the nature of writing. Ask them about the short story, for example, and they will often say that it is one of the most difficult forms in which to work. Like many of the things that writers say (and write), this is both true and not exactly true. It is true that novelists, used to complex plots and the space in which to exhibit them, sometimes write shorter fiction that is over-complicated, lacking the sure, clean lines that the form demands. It is also true that poets, who may use language with great control and grace, sometimes lack the ability to navigate plot and flesh character when they turn to short stories. There are dramatists too, and screenwriters, who can produce superb dialogue, but who cannot describe the world in which their characters speak, or the things which happen when people have done with speaking. Not all good writers are good writers of short stories, in other words: or to put it another way, not all good writing makes good short fiction. The short story has its own particular demands, and it is not - if it succeeds - a short cut to a novel, or a poem unpacked from its shrinkwrap, or a play with the exits and pursuing bears all painstakingly painted in. These are the ways to make its achievement difficult. The best short story writers - the naturals -are those who deal with the form on its own terms. Who are those writers? Checkov and Carver and Woolf would be a good start, but there are less talented authors, like Roald Dahl and Raymond Chandler, whose strengths were so suited to the short story that they are worth reading just to see how they did it (Chandler with a gun, usually, and Dahl with whatever unpleasant object lay to hand). Anyone who intends to pay the entrance fee for a competition like the Bridport Prize should understand what they are trying to write, and although there were entries this year that did, there were also many that did not - entries that didn't really understand what the short story is about, or what it is capable of doing. What are those term? For those we can look at the winners of this year's prize. The commended entries were often particularly strong in one area. Rose, for example, is a finely drawn study of a single character, Lay-By has a hyper-simplicity which suits the form well; Nicking is a vivid evocation of childhood innocence and guilt, without (tantalisingly) quite developing into anything more. The top four stories do more in more ways, Brought Safely Home is beautifully written, with a precise and elegant turn of phrase and assured characterisation. The Suspicion of Bones has a sense of humour, but is not only amusing and touching but also engaging, its protagonist pitifully believable. Connections with Royalty id full of sinister, slightly surreal cameos of the way those in power impinge on normal lives, and although it opens a little weakly it blossoms as it progresses and ends very well. That just leaves the first prize winner, just as I kept leaving it, almost despite myself, on my thinning pile of contenders. With its Lucian Freud - descriptions of body, Amore is not a comfortable piece of work. It is not a nice story - Mister Dahl would have liked it - but in the end it was the most powerful entry, the heroine believable, the sense of place complete, the writing cruel and elegant. I can't say I hope you like this year's winner, but I suspect it will stay with you, as all good stories do.
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