Last Plane to Heaven

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Though I could be completely wrong in your case, I have a deep and troubling feeling that you almost never read short stories. As I say, I could be wrong—but the odds are in my favor. There was a time, now long past, when everyone who read, read short stories. What happened? I think I know and I am about to tell you.

Two things. The first is simply that more and more people read reviews. (To explain why that happened would take us too far afield.) Reviews of fiction are almost entirely of novels. Reviews of novels are much easier to write. There is the jacket copy, smiling its idiot smile and offering a helping hand to the reviewer. One may generally write the whole thing after reading the first chapter, one or two chapters from the middle, and the last chapter. This though the novel has twenty or thirty chapters. Furthermore (I bet you didn’t know this), publishers often send along a sample review with the review copy of the book. Should you see exactly the same review in two publications, you will know what happened. To feign originality, change a word here and there. “Exciting” becomes “thrilling,” “very” becomes “exceedingly,” and so forth (or on). This at least looks (appears) more honest. The people who read reviews nearly always buy novels as a result, so the thing feeds upon itself.

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