(AP photo Hans Pennink)

BY SHOOTING BASKETS from farther out than any other player today is doing– farther than few have ever shot them– Caitlin Clark has changed the elements of the game she plays. In so doing, she’s raised the profile of women’s college basketball dramatically– and her own.

Seeing clips of her sharpshooting, I’m reminded of the Wild West’s Annie Oakley, who could defeat any man at target shooting. I’m reminded that women are better at threading needles. It’s possible that women are slightly better at some aspects of manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination.

“Nonsense!” you exclaim. “Plenty of men shoot the basketball as well as Caitlin Clark!”

To which I could reply, “Where are they?”

The reason we don’t see such long-range sharpshooting from men– with rare exceptions like Steph Curry– is because the elements of the mens game militate against it. Meaning, the priority given to unusual size and strength. There may indeed be 100 or more six-feet tall men who can shoot the basketball as well as Caitlin. Maybe more than 100. But few if any make it to the big time.

ELEMENTS

Change the rules or elements of any game and you change the importance of any one element, and thereby increase or decrease the game’s level of excitement. This was seen in baseball with the advent of “Moneyball,” with priority given to batters who either hit a home run or strike out, above players who hit for high average, get on base a lot, and steal bases. So what we see now when watching baseball games is not the hit-and-run drama of old, but occasional home runs punctuating an endless series of high pitch-count walks and strikeouts. A few seconds of action amid a whole lot of boredom.

Similar has happened in other sports, for good or ill. The National Football League changed its rules some years ago to favor the quarterback, which led to more passing, more scoring, more aerial excitement. They changed the elements of the game. Not a surprise that NFL football surpassed baseball as America’s most watched sport, and never looked back.

A DIFFERENT GAME

What does this have to do with literature, ostensibly the subject of this site?

At New Pop Lit we believe the short story (and then the novel) can be changed by changing its elements, and how much emphasis is put on any one element. Well-known is that in writing programs, emphasis is placed on “the well-written sentence,” as if that’s all that’s involved in writing a story. Much else is involved– which is why we believe the form can be radically changed. Improved. Made faster, deeper, and more exciting.

My co-editor Kathleen M. Crane is back writing short fiction again, after a substantial break. She’s a Hemingway acolyte, in that she writes with extreme clarity, “like seeing pebbles in a brook,” in Hemingway’s phrase. Except KMC writes with perhaps more compassion for the subjects of her tales.

As for myself, I’ve identified ten elements of short stories which I’m out to include or emphasize– or experiment with– in my own short fiction projects. I’ve mentioned two of them previously: multiple viewpoints, and non-linearity. With eight other elements to work on, I should be able to produce writing which looks wholly new– a kind of new literary work never before seen.

At least, that’s the thinking.

-Karl Wenclas