short story

a prose narrative shorter than a novel

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 and novels. Because of their brevity, successful short stories rely on literary devices such as fictional charactercharacter, plot, theme, language, and insight to a greater extent than long form fiction. Famous modern English languageEnglish-language short stories include ''The Snows of Kilimanjaro'' by Ernest Hemingway, ''An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'' by Ambrose Bierce, ''The Dead'' by James Joyce, ''To Build A Fire'' by Jack London, and ''A Rose for Emily'' by William Faulkner.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 realismrealistic novel, the short story evolved as a miniature, with some of its first perfectly independent examples in the tales of E.T.A. Hoffman and Edgar Allan Poe.

History - Short stories date back to the oral story-telling traditions which produced such notable tales as Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey. Tales such as these were told in a rhyming, poetic format, with the rhymes acting as a mnemonic tool for people to remember the story. Short sections of these tales focused on individual narratives that could be told at one sitting. The overall arch of the story would only emerge through the telling of multiple sections of the tale.Two ancient forms of short stories which did not exist within a larger narrative format are the fable and the anecdote. Fables, which tend to be folk tales with an explicitly expressed moral, were said by the Greek historian Herodotus to have been invented by a Greek slave named Aesop in the 6th century BCE (although other times and nationalities are also given for Aesop). These ancient fables are known today as Aesop's Fables.The other ancient form of short story, anecdotes, were popular during the years of the Roman Empire. Anecdotes functioned as a sort of parable, a brief realistic narration that embodies a point. Many of the surviving Roman anecdotes were later collected in the Gesta Romanorum in the 13th or 14th century. Anecdotes remained popular in Europe well into the 18th century, when the fictional anecdotal letters of Sir Roger de Coverley were published. In Europe, the oral story-telling tradition began to transition into written stories in the early 14th century, most notably with Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. Both of these books are composed of individual short stories (which range from farce or humorous anecdotes to well-crafted literary fictions) set within a larger narrative story (a frame story), although the frame tale device was not adopted by all writers. At the end of the 16th century, some of the most popular short stories in Europe were the darkly tragic "novella" of Matteo Bandello (especially in their French translation). During the Renaissance, the term novella was used when refering to short stories.The mid 17th century in France saw the development of a refined short novel, the "nouvelle", by such authors as Madame de Lafayette. In the 1690s, traditional Fairy tales began to be published (one of the most famous collections was by Charles Perrault). The appearance of Antoine Galland's first modern translation of the Thousand and One Nights (or "Arabian Nights") (from 1704; another translation appeared in 1710-12) would have an enormous influence on the 18th century European short stories of Voltaire, Diderot and others.

Modern short stories - Modern short stories emerged as their own genre in the early 19th century. Early examples of short story collections include the Brothers Grimm ''Fairy Tales'' (1824-1826), Nathaniel Hawthorne's ''Twice Told Tales'' (1842), Edgar Allan Poe's ''Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' (1836), and Guy de Maupassant's ''La Maison Tellier'' (1881). In the later part of the 19th century, the growth of print magazines and journals created a strong market demand for short fiction between 3,000 and 15,000 words in length. Among the famous short stories to come out of this time period was ''Ward No. 6'' by Anton Chekhov.In the first half of the 20th Century, a number of high-profile magazines, such as ''The Atlantic Monthly, Scribner's'', and ''The Saturday Evening Post'', all published short stories in each issue. The demand for quality short stories was so great, and the money paid for them so high, that F. Scott Fitzgerald repeatedly turned to short story writing to pay off his numerous debts.The demand for short stories by print magazines hit its peak in the middle of the 20th century, when in 1952 Life Magazine published Ernest Hemingway's long short story (or novella) ''The Old Man and the Sea''. The issue containing this story sold 5,300,000 copies in only two days.Since then, the number of commercial magazines that publish short stories has declined, even though several well-known magazines like ''The New Yorker'' continue to feature them. Literary magazines also provide a showcase for short stories. In addition, short stories have recently found a new life online, where they can be found in online magazines, in collections organized by author or theme, and on blogs.

Elements and characteristics - 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 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.

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. Other definitions place the maximum word length (or number of words in the story) 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 (at one extreme) 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.

Genres - Short stories are most often a form of fiction writing, with the most widely published form of short stories being genre fiction such as science fiction, horror fiction, detective fiction, and so on. The short story has also come to embrace forms of non-fiction such as travel writing, prose poetry and postmodern variants of fiction and non-fiction such as ficto-criticism or new journalism.

See also -

List of short story authors

Literature

Fiction

Examples of classic short stories -

''xroads.virginia.edu - A Rose for Emily'' by William Faulkner

''xroads.virginia.edu - The Snows of Kilimanjaro'' by Ernest Hemingway, the classic stream-of-consciousness short story

''underthesun.cc - The Lottery'' by Shirley Jackson

''xroads.virginia.edu - A Good Man Is Hard to Find'' by Flannery O'Connor

'' auburn.edu - The Gift of the Magi'' by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)

''literature.org - The Tell-Tale Heart'' by Edgar Allan Poe

''art-bin.com - Why I live at the P.O.'' by Eudora Welty

Other resources -

storysouth.com - Million Writers Award for best online short story of the year

titan.iwu.edu - Chronology of American short stories

short-stories.co.uk - Large online library of contemporary and classic short stories

the-short-story.com - Also an online library of contemporary and classic short stories

gutenberg.org - Short Story eTexts at Project Gutenberg

gutenberg.org - More Short Story eTexts at Project Gutenberg

chabad.org - Jewish Chassidic StoriesCategory:Short stories !bg:Разказde:Kurzgeschich tees:Cuentoeo:Novelofr:Nouvell ehe:סיפור? קצרnl:Kort !verhaalno:Novellept:Conto

artrats
kosmosblues and astronautenstreß-nettext klaus-peter m. lohse & casper rauhblau
http://www.artrats.de/

Dennis Trudell - Poet / Fiction Writer / Editor
Dennis has recently retired from being an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin. His poems have been published in seven chapbooks and more than a dozen anthologies. He also writes fiction and has a story in a recent O. Henry Prize volume.
http://www.dennistrudell.com

Rebecca York (aka Ruth Glick)
Ruth Glick, writing as Rebecca York, has written over 100 books, primarily novels. She specializes in romantic suspense, including paranormal romantic suspense.
http://www.rebeccayork.com/

Elastic Press
Independent publisher of short story collections and anthologies.
http://www.elasticpress.com/

David B. Silva, Editor, Writer, Publisher
David B. Silva has written eight novels and over 100 published short stories, as well editing a magazine and newsletter. Receive a free award-winning short story when you joing his list.
http://www.davidbsilva.com/

Silentmuse.com
Romantic and spiritual verse and children's verse by by Lisa G. Leming, animal advocacy, holistic health.
http://www.silentmuse.com/

FandiX
The greatest german encycopedia of Fantasy and Science Fiction
http://www.fandix.de/

The Mystery of Miss Tree and Mr E
Directory of stories, poetry, and other odd bits by BarTalk, from There.com
http://co-inc-e-dink.com/Bedtime.html

Jamie Thompson dot net
The personal and music website of guitarist Jamie Thompson
http://www.jamiethompson.net/

Xcalak, Costa Maya Mexico Caribbean travel adventures weather information shop, portillas.com
Xcalak, Costa Maya, Quintana Roo, Yucatan Caribbean beach Mexico travel and vacation adventures stories, blogs, free fiction ebook, jokes, pictures and photos, local weather information, fishing, scuba shop Portillas.com
http://www.portillas.com/

Learner Online
Explore educational resources and activities for teaching and learning on the Annenberg/CPB Project's Learner Online.
http://www.learner.org

Yale University
A leading private, independent research institution. Founded in 1701 in New Haven, Connecticut.
http://www.yale.edu/

Bartleby.com
Etexts, focusing on classics and general reference works.
http://www.bartleby.com/