 Short Stories: April 16, 2014 Issue [#6263] |
  Short Stories
This week: Defining the Short Story Edited by: NaNoNette  
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Defining the Short Story
How do I know when my story is a short story?
Length Short stories have no set word count to differentiate between anecdote, short story, or novel. Edgar Allan Poe said a reader should be able to read a short story in one sitting. Considering the differences between his era and ours, his definition of "one sitting" is not very likely to equal that of a twenty first century contemporary. A rule of thumb is that stories with fewer than 1,000 words are flash fiction and stories with more than 20,000 words are more likely to be called novellas. The word count for a short story will often be limited by publishing houses as in the case of The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which requires short stories to have no more than 7,500 words. On Writing.Com, the length of a short story will sometimes be defined by a contest host.
Plot A short story focuses on one self-contained event that is meant to create a specific mood or effect in the reader. Where anecdotes will reflect on a scene and a novel might have several plot lines weaving together, the short story is more straight forward in its plot development. What the plot is, however, is defined by the author. There is no one incident or plot line or even genre that defines short stories.
Characters The cast in a short story should be small with named characters.
History Short stories were the logical follow up to oral story telling traditions. The Brothers Grimm wrote down all the fairy tales they were able to track down and created a body of work with 200 folk tales and 11 legends, but none of those were from their imagination. The same is true of any collection of folk tales from all over the world. In the 17th century, short stories emerged as their own narratives by authors writing from their imaginations.
Why should you write short stories?
 Use it as writing practice.
Write them to have fun with a single-plot narrative.
Create a backstory, prequel, or aftermath for one of your novels.
Explore an event in the life of one of your favorite characters.
Reveal a subplot that would have weighed down a novel, but will interesting to your fans in short story form.
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