Here's a hint for aspiring authors

Lititz aspiring novelist coins a term and inks a deal to edit anthology of super-short stories

Lancaster New Era

Jun 01, 2009 10:27 EST

By MARY BETH SCHWEIGERT, Staff Writer

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

As the legend goes, Ernest Hemingway wrote this six-word story to answer a bet.

He later called it his best work.

To Lititz aspiring novelist Robert Swartwood, Hemingway's ultra-short story says something powerful. But what it hints at is even more compelling.

"There are people who don't really buy that as a story," Swartwood says.

"...That always kind of irritated me."

The lack of depth, characters and scene in Hemingway's story prompts readers to use their imaginations to fill in the blanks, Swartwood says.

The story of his own whirlwind last few weeks is a little longer, and it sounds like something straight out of the fantasy genre.

Swartwood, a 27-year-old shift supervisor at Stauffers of Kissel Hill, Rohrerstown, hasn't published a novel — yet.

But in just days, he went from half-jokingly coining the term "hint fiction" on a blog to inking a book deal with a major publishing house.

Hint fiction, Swartwood wrote, is a story of 25 words or less, that — like Hemingway's — suggests something larger and more complex.

Its brevity actually makes it stronger.

"These stories pack a punch," he says. "They stay with you."

Swartwood soon found himself sponsoring a hint-fiction contest and attracting attention from publisher W.W. Norton, which signed him to edit an anthology of very short stories, due around fall 2010.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn and best-selling authors Joyce Carol Oates and James Frey have already submitted stories.

"It's certainly not how I thought I would break into publishing," Swartwood says of his stunning serendipity.

"I don't think it's really hit me yet."

***

Swartwood, who shares a townhouse with his wife Holly and their pampered rat, Ralphie, has learned that succeeding as a writer takes hard work.

But it's also about being in the right place at the right time.

And on April 20, he was there.

Swartwood's hint-fiction posting made an instant impact on www.everydayfiction.com, attracting attention from high-profile blogs, like The New Yorker.

Swartwood and online friend Gay Degani sifted through more than 200 contest entries and posted the top 20 online.

Camille Esses' "Peanut Butter" is just eight words:

He was allergic. She pretended not to know.

Jason Rice's "Philip" flirts with the 25-word limit:

The sound of breaking glass got Philip out of bed, and then he remembered he was no longer in love with his wife.

"The best part of hint fiction is that each reader experiences it differently," says Swartwood, who now owns the rights to the term.

***

Swartwood hopes the anthology will kick-start his career as a novelist.

He's harbored writing aspirations since middle school, when he read "Insomnia" by Stephen King — known, ironically, for his lack of brevity.

A graduate of Lancaster Christian School, Swartwood majored in English at Millersville University but took no writing classes.

Ambitious and unassuming — most co-workers don't even know he writes — he has completed a handful of unsold novels, mostly thrillers. (He finds nonfiction too limiting.)

Scott Miller, vice president of Trident Media Group, was struck by the passion and immediacy of Swartwood's writing.

"I am not surprised that someone who writes as well as he does would come up with such a provocative and new version of the short story," says Miller, now Swartwood's agent.

Swartwood, who has published short stories in magazines and online, has blogged for 1½ years. He recently launched his own Web site, robertswartwood.com.

Images he encounters — like an overheard conversation about a woman who is afraid of apples — stick with him and eventually show up in his stories.

"There are stories that want to be written," he says. "It's like exorcising ghosts in your mind."

***

In the days of Twitter, texting and limited attention spans, the popularity of increasingly short stories has soared.

W.W. Norton vice president/senior editor Amy Cherry says hint fiction is the next logical step in the publisher's line of anthologies featuring "flash," "micro" and "sudden" fiction.

Cherry was especially impressed by Swartwood's idea of hint fiction conveying a sense of a fully fleshed-out story in so few words.

"It wasn't just putting 25 words on a page ... they really had to tell a story; they had to evoke a response from the reader," says Cherry, who expects that college classes will read the anthology.

Swartwood, who hopes to collect at least 100 stories, is surprised by the quick responses from well-known authors he's already contacted. He will open up submissions to the public this summer.

Most of Swartwood's advance will go toward paying contributors, who will get $25 each, whether they're best sellers or first timers.

Coming up with a compelling 25-word story is harder than people might think, says Swartwood, who has written a couple of his own.

"It's kind of like a poem," he says. "Every word is important."

Swartwood won't include his own hint fiction in the anthology, but he will pen the introduction.

No word on how long — or short — that might be.

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CONTACT THE NEW ERA:

mschweigert@LNPnews.com or 291-8757