Reading to Write: Spare Writing in Foster by Claire Keegan

Today was Politics & Prose’s member sale, so I swung by to buy another stack of books, ignoring the pile I already have waiting to be read. I picked up Claire Keegan’s Foster from the remainder table— I’m not sure why it was there, as there were full price copies on one of the main tables. (Someday, I’ll berate myself for underpaying authors I like, once I understand better how sales and discounts impact the author’s royalties.)

I came home, not yet ready to face the other doorstopper books I’d picked up, so I decided to read Foster. It was as delightful as all the book jacket blurbs had led me to expect it to be! In maybe an hour or two, I had read the whole thing. Despite the short length, it was not lacking in nuance, in emotion, in deep characterization.

From a writing perspective, one thing that jumped out to me is how much could be said between the lines of what the narrator is sharing, versus what the people around her are saying about or to her. For example, after her father drops her off, the narrator is wondering why he hadn’t said goodbye. But her aunt and uncle talk at/to her and each other, and decide that she’s probably upset because her father forgot to leave her bag of things behind.

I wonder whether these shorter, novella length books will be more of a trend as attention spans have weakened and we’ve all grown accustomed to tweet-length comments. It’s certainly possible to have a complete story arc, character growth and development, and deep emotional impact without writing 100,000 words. So should we aim for this? Cheaper to publish, more accessible to folks with limited time to read. There will always be market for big books too, but these shorter books could be a growing niche.