Carver's career emphasized short stories and poetry. He described himself as "inclined toward brevity and intensity" and "hooked on writing short stories" (in the foreword of Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories, a collection published in 1988 and a recipient of an honorable mention in the 2006 New York Times article citing the best works of fiction of the previous 25 years). Another stated reason for his brevity was "that the story [or poem] can be written and read in one sitting." This was not simply a preference but, particularly at the beginning of his career, a practical consideration as he juggled writing with work. His subject matter was often focused on blue-collar experience, and was clearly reflective of his own life.
Characteristics of minimalism are generally seen as one of the hallmarks of Carver's work, although, as reviewer David Wiegand notes:[22]
Carver never thought of himself as a minimalist or in any category, for that matter.
"He rejected categories generally," Sklenicka says. "I don't think he had an abstract mind at all. He just wasn't built that way, which is why he's so good at picking the right details that will stand for many things."
Carver's editor at Esquire, Gordon Lish, was instrumental in shaping his prose in this direction – where his earlier tutor John Gardner had advised Carver to use fifteen words instead of twenty-five, Lish instructed Carver to use five in place of fifteen. Objecting to the "surgical amputation and transplantation" of Lish's heavy editing, Carver eventually broke with him.[29] During this time, Carver also submitted poetry to James Dickey, then poetry editor of Esquire.
Carver's style has also been described as dirty realism, which connected him with a group of writers in the 1970s and 1980s that included Richard Ford and Tobias Wolff with both of whom Carver was closely acquainted, as well as others such as Ann Beattie, Frederick Barthelme, and Jayne Anne Phillips. With the exception of Beattie, who wrote about upper-middle-class people, these were writers who focused on sadness and loss in the everyday lives of ordinary people—often lower-middle class or isolated and marginalized people.
In his essay "On Influence", Carver states that, while he was an admirer of Ernest Hemingway's fiction, he never saw him as an influence, citing instead the work of Lawrence Durrell.
