How to write short stories, with Dorothy Parker

Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) is renowned for her wit and pith and sharply-focused insights into love, life, marriage, divorce, death, loss and whiskey. She was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay for A Star is Born in 1937, and is endlessly quoted by everyone because she is, quite simply, a genius. Here is her famous short poem, 'Résumé':

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Today for our lesson though, let's focus on her short stories; specifically, the opening sentences of her short stories. The lesson we can learn is this: you should begin any story by describing the gorgeous outfit your characters are wearing. It's that simple.

Now, I went to Creative Writing School™ for years, and they never told us about this trick! They taught us other stuff—to write the truest sentence that we know! To murder our darlings! To understand that a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us! But noone said: 'Well, if you want to write a story that will break people's hearts with its genius, humour and humanity, just activate Lady Gaga's credo of walk walk fashion baby work it move that bitch crazy for the opener and you'll be a certified hit!'

For a writer who takes human relationships apart, unstitching them at the seams to show us what's underneath, it makes sense that Parker opens so many of her stories with some exquisite and keenly-observed sentences about the clothes people swathe themselves in. So I've enlisted some celebrity pics to illustrate these sentences as best I can, and to acknowledge that, let's face it, we're all totally shallow and we need fashion to reel us in if we're ever going to pay any attention to anything.

Some Dorothy Parker Opening Sentences



The young man in the chocolate-brown suit sat down at the table, where the girl with the artificial camellia had been sitting for forty minutes.

'The Last Tea', The New Yorker, September 11, 1926.



The woman in the spangled black dress left the rest of the party, and made room on the sofa for the sunburned young man with the quiet eyes.

'Travelogue', The New Yorker, October 30 1926.



The young man with the scenic cravat glanced nervously down the sofa at the girl in the fringed dress.

'The Sexes', The New Republic, July 13, 1927.


The woman with the pink velvet poppies twined round the assisted gold of her hair traversed the crowded room at an interesting gait combining a skip with a sidle, and clutched the lean arm of her host.

'Arrangement in Black and White', The New Yorker, October 8, 1927.



The woman in the leopard-skin coat and the man with the gentian-blue muffler wormed along the dim, table-bordered lanes of the speakeasy.

'A Terrible Day Tomorrow', The New Yorker, February 11, 1928.


 
The hostess, all smiles and sparkles and small, abortive dance-steps, led the young man with the sideburns across the room to where sat the girl who had been twice told she looked like Clara Bow.

'The Mantle of a Whistler', The New Yorker, August 18, 1928.


 
The young man in the new blue suit finished arranging the glistening luggage in tight corners of the Pullman compartment.

'Here We Are', Cosmopolitan, March 31, 1931.


The young man in the sharply cut dinner jacket crossed the filled room and stopped in front of the young woman in green lace and possible pearls.

'A Young Woman in Green Lace', The New Yorker, September 24, 1932.



The young woman in the crepe de Chine dress printed all over with little pagodas set amid giant cornflowers flung one knee atop the other and surveyed, with an enviable contentment, the tip of her scrolled green sandal.

'Cousin Larry', The New Yorker, June 30, 1934.

And a special mention must go to the first sentence of one of Parker's third paragraphs, which is against the rules of this post I know, but it's purely so I can include this beloved Vera Wang dress:



For a time, with a sitter's obligation to resemble the portrait, Mrs Lanier wore yellow of evenings. She had gowns of velvet like poured country cream and satin with the lacquer of buttercups and chiffon that spiralled about her like golden smoke. She wore them, and listened in shy surprise to the resulting comparisons to daffodils, and butterflies in the sunshine, and such ... Picasso had his blue period, and Mrs Lanier her yellow one.

'The Custard Heart', Here Lies, April 1939.

See how easy it is! You can do it too! Here's one I've just made up now on the spot!

'The blogger in the silk dressing gown with the three-day-old cornflake stuck to its sleeve, rested her wrists that were aching from googling pictures of fashion for six straight hours and apologised to botanically-savvy readers that—because celebrities don't tend to wear things like artificial camellias anymore—she had to go with Billie Holiday's gardenias instead.'

Now let's all pour ourselves a nice whiskey and go and write some lovely little short stories, shall we?