Short story

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This article is about the narrative form. For the Garfield and Friends episode, see Short Story (Garfield and Friends).

A short story is a form of short fictional narrative prose. Short stories tend to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction, such as novellas (in the modern sense of this term) and novels. Because of their brevity, successful short stories rely on literary devices such as character, plot, theme, language, and insight to a greater extent than long form fiction.

Short stories have their origins in the prose anecdote, a swiftly-sketched situation that comes rapidly to its point, with parallels in oral story-telling traditions. With the rise of the comparatively realistic novel, the short story evolved as a miniature, with some of its first perfectly independent examples in the tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Anton Chekov.

1 History
2 Length
3 Famous short stories
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

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Origins of the short story came from early civilization. It began with the tradition of telling oral folktales in the home. Records of short stories can be traced back to the Bible and other religious works. Others were put into collections such as Aesop's Fables.

People have been telling each other short stories for as long as recorded. Stories by the fire, stories on a rainy day, and even true stories people recount. Stories have changed peoples lives, like survival stories and miracle stories. There are the stories that stay with people forever and then there are also some stories that are forgotten. Short stories tend to be less complex than novels because they are not as long and can’t hold as much content, but what makes a short story effective? Usually, a short story will focus on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a limited number of characters, and covers a short period of time. Because of their short length, short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the section. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by author. To write an effective story it is very important to keep things clear and for everything to have depth and meaning.

[edit] Length

Determining what exactly separates a short story from longer fictional formats is problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that it must be able to be read in one sitting (a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poe's essay "The Philosophy of Composition" of 1846). Other definitions place the maximum word length at 7,500 words. In contemporary usage, the term short story most often refers to a work of fiction no longer than 20,000 words and no shorter than 1,000.

Stories shorter than 1,000 words fall into the flash fiction genre. Fiction surpassing the maximum word length parameters of the short story falls into the areas of novelettes, novellas, or novels.

Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually, a short story will focus on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a limited number of characters, and covers a short period of time. In longer forms of fiction, stories tend to contain certain core elements of dramatic structure: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation and main characters); complication (the event of the story that introduces the conflict); rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and their commitment to a course of action); climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point of the story with the most action); resolution (the point of the story when the conflict is resolved); and moral.

Because of their short length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action. As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning-point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may or may not have a moral or practical lesson. Of course, as with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by author.